Recent reviews by ArucarD . [ R ] .

Straight to the point, the game in its current state has moments. It is for these moments and these moments alone that I will continue to play and have found my own enjoyment if you will. I personally do enjoy the story, but the dialogue sometimes takes a turn to the basic and cheesy. I play as Red Hood and even though I will eventually give other characters a shot, I currently have no interest as Red Hood has pew pews and that is the wheelhouse. Do I like the game? Yes. Do I think it is great? No. Do I agree with the negative reviews? If they have truth to them, which the majority do, then yes. If baseless and nonsensical, no. If you are playing this in co-op, you will absolutely have a different experience when it comes down to the fun. If you and whomever you play with do not have any of the major issues plaguing the title as of now. Bottom line, heed the warnings and keep an eye out. If you want to enjoy it and can, I hope you do. If you own it and encounter issues, these are the breaks. GG to all.

Cons :
1. Performance. This is a major issue and cannot be denied. I have a 9900K / EVGA 2080Ti on 522.25 / 32 GB / W11 22H2. Sometimes it runs plus 120, sometimes it runs itself to the ground and drops to 49. Options given for us to change seem to not even work and if you do make a change and the game does not agree to get some more FPS, you can end up with it looking like a cell shaded version of itself and it still runs like ***. I have not encountered the crashes or the very very insane FPS targets, but there is a major issue, period.

2. Movement. This game is clunkier than a car with all triangle wheels. This is absolutely frustrating at the least and at best wants you to punch your monitor or squeeze the **** out of your controller or mouse. From the jankiness of turning around, to the game not wanting you to go in a specific direction, to the traversal picking and choosing where the grapple will go based on whatever the hell it wants vs what you are literally staring at. Want to grapple around? Prepare to not even want to do so. You have to wait til you press the grapple, press the Shift key on PC or w/e button on console to jump, your character then grabs the ledge and jumps and you have to repeat this over and over to grapple around. Want to use the bike? Prepare to be astonished by an incredibly slow but fast looking bike that allows you to go the speed of a small Vespa, but looks like you are traveling at the speed of light due to way the screen hones in. Only reason I ever touch the bike? Wheelie around the city. O yes, you can wheelie. All the way til your bikes **** touches the ground and you can keep it that way without any other input other than holding the button down and making the turns... A+.

3. This game seemingly does not like KB/M. I mean it works, but it is as if it is not meant to work. Using the Red Hood, there is this absolutely gorgeous slow down while aiming, also when you move your mouse around while in ADS, there is seemingly input lag. [This sometimes applies to movement as well.] There are moments when it works and you are finally able to jump using Red Hoods movement skill Mystical leap accordingly and sometimes where the game laughs at your attempts. From input delay to keys just not registering at times, it could definitely be tied to performance + whatever issues at hand. [This will always be the way I play though.]

4. Camera. I have no idea what the hell is going on with the camera, but sometimes it randomly spins or you feel as if you are trapped because you cannot get out of it being stuck in a corner or against a wall. It is as if you are being watched and that broadcast camera is what gets stuck. Very weird experience when in the middle of running at an enemy and my camera decides to spin around do a 180 and put me running away or spins me 360 only to be facing but not running. Camera angles sometimes just bug out and cause unnecessary problems. I have had these issues and a friend of mine has had these issues on the PS5, so it is not just PC specific.

5. UI. This games UI just does not fit a PC title. It is extremely busy and you have a million tabs for **** you could easily have fit with a less convoluted approach. We have to click 40 things to get to one, instead of just having the basics accessible to us and when we get back to our base do everything else we wish to do. The mods menu? Yeah, I rest my case.

6. Combat. No fluidity as done in Arkham titles. I know this is not the same game, not the same studio, not the same etc. All of that not the same does not excuse for the piss poor approach to it. Even though I do enjoy the fact that I am still able to kick some ***, you can obviously tell that it is slower paced, less impactful and that it just does not meld together. Does not feel cohesive, but you can find some moves that bridge the gap if you will.

[There are more cons. These were off the top of my head.]

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Pros :
1. Story. I am genuinely enjoying the story. I will obviously not spoil anything, but I have been enjoying everything about this aspect of the game so far. A lot to discover, a lot to experience and a lot to enjoy if this is the expectation and view. It is not perfect and it could definitely have used a bit more polish, but I want to see it through.

2. Co-Op. This is just a big thing across the board. Have not played using it once, but I can imagine it is a game changer being able to do things without a tether.

3. Atmosphere. See this could either be a pro or a con. If you visually recall other Arkham titles, this just does not hold that weight. With that set aside, I do like the look, even if the "feel" is not there for me.

4. Collectibles / Achievements? This is for the completionists : batarangs, hidden messages, graffiti, etc. Enjoy the search.

5. Crafting. I do not like the UI, but I do like the fact that we can craft, even if it is not as in depth as one would want for it. Different crafted suits have different looks, same with the weapons. Also elemental properties can be used and we can make all of them more powerful with mods and then fuse those mods to make more powerful revisions of them.

6. Fun. I have been enjoying the title even with my frustration. Maybe it is Stockholm Syndrome and it just has me. Maybe I am just truly enjoying it for the experience, forgiving the unforgivable. Maybe its Maybelline. I do not know, but 12+ hours in and I am continuing.

Just started playing this game again after beating Diablo III twice then going to Nightmare. I must say I love how smooth this game runs and the quests, items and balance to everything seems well done. Only issue I have is with the inability to access the in game friends unless you are on the internet tab, but I guess it makes sense. Purchase it if you are into games such as Diablo. You will not regret it.

This game is incredible.. Stylish, beautiful and that voice that speaks to you is downright awesome. My own personal Morgan Freeman. :D