Gotham Knights is scrappy

Batty power!

Due to the recent delayal of literally every videogame on the market except for Sonic Frontiers, we've all had a lot of quality time to really take a look and analyse each and every video game that is going to be landing on our docket for play. With the hope being that the extra time in the oven that elevate each and every one of them to being somewhat more worthy of the price of admission; something we're all looking for in an age where actually buying games is becoming more and more of a luxury. (Thank you so much, Days Gone director, for your thoughts in that regard.) Do I think this time is going to be transformative for any games and turn them from straight losers into the AAA masterpieces they were destined to be in the heads of the creators? Nah, it takes more than a little extra development time to push an 8 to a 10. But a 5-8 is absolutely made or broken in the polishing job. And I wonder if such a fate could be what befalls the Gotham Knights video game?

Because lets be honest here, that there is a game that is standing on the shoulders of giants and still barely clearing the top of the fences. And I don't exactly feel bad for Gotham Knights and the predicaments it's put itself in because... you know... it put itself there! What, am I supposed to sing it's praises and argue that all the Arkham comparisons are cruel and unwarranted? They fought for those comparisons to begin with! And they should live with the unfavourable match-up. This is a game in which they specifically chose a 'Batman is missing' storyline and a name that sounded like a derivative of 'Arkham Knight', simply because Arkham Knight ended with a missing Batman. And after talking about that scrapped sequel game to Arkham which I think sounded like pure gold, ragging on Gotham Knights is sort of like my therapy.

But, if I'm going to be fair to the game it is pretty much undeniable that if we strip them of the unfair comparison, those two games shouldn't really be squaring up. The Arkham games were high budget and developed by masters who had years to develop their craft, Gotham Knights is developed by an entire different team and on an obvious budget. They're still charging the same price for a full release, however, so again my clemency is extremely limited. And this is a game that was specifically unlisted from last gen consoles because the team wanted to boast the power of the current gen, only to end up with a game that looks worse than a last gen Batman game. (Maybe it's scope... nah, it looks pretty basic there too, honestly.) Quite frankly I think what we've got here is a game with an overambitious marketing team that are overselling the team's abilities. And that's not really fair on the team.

I mean, you just have to look at the character models to see that this project doesn't really shape up to past Batman outings. The increadibly high-poly version of Barbara from Knight? Replaced with an npc-looking generic doll that should be running into a wall in the background of someone's Saints Row Reboot clip. The combat doesn't feel as weighty or dynamic, or sound as good, or is choreographed as well. But lets put aside all the comparisons to what the game isn't and start taking a look at all the things that Gotham Knights is, because I'd be lying if I said I wasn't morbidly curious what sort of game it could turn out to be. I don't think more and different types of Batman games is a bad thing at all, so long as they are, you know, good. Even if that is in their 'own way'.

The recent show-in of Gotham Knights gave as a new look at the sort of encounters we can expect out of the game and honestly, I'm not if this is the months of extra development talking or perhaps a softened spirit from seeing a project now in a state of limbo, it looks pretty decent! I mean it ain't exactly a contender, but it's not an all out waste of everybody's time like we were getting the impression it might have been earlier. Well, that might be because we have Nightwing bringing up this gameplay instead of Red Hood, and his general athleticism makes the combat look a lot more exciting than Red Hood's flatfooted gunkata knock-off routine. But even then I have to wonder if maybe there was some updates done to the effect after hits, because I'm almost feeling the impact here. (Hell they're 1/10 of the way towards where Arkham Asylum started!)

Of course, it also gave us a chance to look at their new Harley Quinn who is just... a shame. I don't particularly think of Harley Quinn as a visually iconic character. She doesn't have a uniform who's fundamentals must be adhered to, like say, Spiderman. We've seen her dress as a Court Jester, a Halloween nurse, a grieving widow and... whatever the heck she was wearing in Knight and City; and everytime it's still been Quinn. But as for Gotham Knight's rendition? Is this supposed to be a copycat Quinn? For some reason she makes me think more of Punchline than Harley; and maybe that was intentional. Not casting Tara Strong as her VA on the otherhand... that just feels like a crime. Much worse of one then I can ever expect Harley Quinn to pull off. (Seriously; how intimidating even is Harley Quinn as a crime boss?)

In fact, we recently got a villain trailer which dumped if not all than a vast majority of this game's rogue's gallery atop us, and I have to say that the line-up is looking a little... warped. It's funny to think that after so many reiterations and reimaging's you just sort of get used to the idea of these famous characters getting their new designs. You start to get lulled into the sense that reworking their fundamentals into a new look is easy. Joel Shumacher must have been the exception. And then you see the Gotham Knights cast. Why does Mr Freeze look like a MEC unit from XCOM? The skinny robotic limbs sort of draw attention to the skinny scientist piloting the thing rather than reinforce the idea that this suit, this persona, is the identity of Victor Fries now; which is one of his defining characteristics. The only villain who isn't done... wrong is Clayface. And he's literally just a bigger version of morph; the team would have to try to screw him up.

So Gotham Knights has had plenty of time to try, and ultimately fail at proving, that they worthy of their big full game price. But call me a hopeless Batman addict for still worming my way around to caring about the game, in a twisted sort of way. Maybe it's because I like all of these characters so much and want to see them take the centre stage more; as much as I think a Damian Wayne led Batman game would have been the end-all be-all; but we can't get what we want because Warner Bros. are hypocrites. Still, this game is maybe a bargin discounted price buy rather than a full day one purchase. The kind of thing you'll go "Oh yeah, I heard that was alright" a year from now during the Steam Summer sale. And you know what; maybe that's what games like this were made for. The discount-only list.