SPOILER WARNING:  I will be discussing my time with “Batman:  Arkham Knight” in this post and cannot do so without getting into some spoilers.  PLEASE do not read if you have not finished the game.  And now…onward!

“Batman:  Arkham Knight” is an exceptional game with a handful of unexceptional elements.  It will no doubt be on many “Game of the Year” lists by the end of 2015 and it should be.  It’s visually stunning and sounds amazing, the story and voice acting are top-notch, and the action continues to put other games in its genre to shame.  If you want to be Batman, this is as close as you can get.  It may be my favorite game in the series (though all three games are excellent and it’s very close) and it produced some of my favorite gaming moments so far this year.  But it also produced some of the most frustrating and head-scratchingly confounding ones too.

Don’t get me wrong:  I love this game.  It’s probably because I love the game as much as I do that its flaws seem so glaring by comparison.  And it’s those elements that place it just shy of a legitimate Game of the Year contender for me.

“Arkham Knight” certainly comes rumbling out of the gate.  With the Joker dead, Gotham has been enjoying a rare sliver of tranquility until Scarecrow releases a fear toxin and all hell breaks loose as the populace begins tearing each other to shreds in their panic.  Promising that this was only a small taste, Scarecrow plans to weaponize the gas and blanket all of Gotham. The fate of the city has rarely seemed so dire as it does here and soon Gotham is a ghost town left only to the criminals and the skeleton crew of decent people trying to stand against them.  And, of course, there’s one man who stands taller than all the others.

As is typical with the series, the early going is a combination of story introduction and game tutorial, and even veterans may find their fingers in need of a refresher to all of Batman’s tools, attacks and counters.  Just when I began to feel that the game was meandering and starting to tread on too much familiar ground, Batman tracks Scarecrow down and the story takes two sharp and very, very important turns – one of which is easily one of my favorite plot twists in recent memory.

The first is the introduction of the Arkham Knight.  As soon as the Knight is introduced, two things become clear:  he has quite the military arsenal at his disposal and he is hellbent on using it to kill Batman for some past transgression.  Much of the game is spent trying to uncover the Knight’s identity and insisting that he is a major threat.  Unfortunately for me, I never completely bought into either thread.  Other than a handful of times, the Knight is never disconnected from his militia or his advanced weaponry and, while this might not make him different from other villains or even Batman himself in some ways, he all too often seems like a petulant boy with lots of very, very big toys rather than a force in his own right.  Even when Batman and the Knight are brought into direct confrontation, it’s generally vehicular combat rather than a battle of wits or fighting skill.  Also, the fact that he is obviously taking orders from Scarecrow positions him more as a very powerful henchman than a truly menacing villain.   As to his mysterious identity, I had a pretty good idea of who he was earlier than I probably should have and, while I’m sure others will be surprised, the grand reveal left me feeling a bit flat.  It’s not that the character is bad by any means – I actually found his story generally compelling and the character design is sleek and sci-fi cool – but there’s unrealized potential for what is supposed to be a central figure.

The second twist occurs when Batman inhales a nearly lethal dose of Scarecrow’s fear toxin in his last-second attempt to keep it from releasing into the city.  He returns from death’s door to find he has been revived by the Joker.  Except the Joker is dead, right?  In the first scene of the game, we as the player literally pressed the button to cremate his corpse.  Unfortunately, it seems the Joker lives on in one particular place:  the shadowy corners of Bruce Wayne’s already tortured psyche.

There are not enough superlatives to throw at the writers and Mark Hamill’s voice acting here.  It’s not hyperbole to say that this this particular story and the interactions between Batman and his arch-nemesis here may be some of the best ever crafted for the two.  Anyone wondering if “Arkham Knight” would suffer without a living Joker can put those fears to rest.  The Joker that exists in Batman’s mind is as dangerous as ever, perhaps more so.  I won’t get into the details as to why exactly he is there – honestly, that particular explanation is a bit silly – but it almost doesn’t matter and it’s fitting that the two are still handcuffed to each other even postmortem.  Throughout the game, Joker becomes the devil on Batman’s shoulder, the id buried deep in Bruce Wayne that wants to really terrify and punish his adversaries, perhaps permanently.  Underneath the madness, there’s an undeniable and persuasive logic to much of the Joker’s commentary.  He’s also – dare I say it – pretty funny.  I’m not sure what that says about Batman…or me for that matter.  Seeing Batman literally haunted in this way and understanding that for once the torture is actually self-inflicted makes this a truly gripping character study.  It’s the single biggest reason to experience the game and worth a playthrough just for the stunning caliber of the work by all involved.  Bravo to everyone involved.

As for the rest of the game, the core elements of the series are as solid as ever.  The free-flow of combat is the same brutal ballet it has always been.  I don’t recall as many “Predator” encounters in this game as in previous ones – most situations didn’t seem to punish the player very strongly for choosing combat over stealth.  Detective work is still a mixed bag mostly involving a few subplots where clues must be sought out or criminals followed to locations of interest.  Side missions are intriguing short stories featuring some of Batman’s old foes or missions to bring down the militia – most are outstanding, some wear out their welcome a bit by the time they are completed.  Essentially, everything you loved about the other Arkham games (or didn’t love) is still here, just more refined than ever.  Between these mechanics, the production values and the stellar writing and voice acting it’s almost enough to push “Arkham Knight” into my top choices for Game of the Year.  Almost.

First, let’s deal with the much debated Batmobile/Bat-tank.   For me, there are two versions of this vehicle – the one that exists through most of the game and the one that is forced on me in the end game.  I actually enjoyed both the Batmobile and its tank form for probably 80% of the game.  Chasing Firefly or militia vehicles around town made for a fun, wild ride.  Facing off against the drone tanks was entertaining the first eight or nine times.  And, if nothing else, driving can be a nice alternative to gliding sometimes.  But, by the end of the game, the tread on these particular tires had worn woefully thin.  In particular, there are two or three boss battles that inexplicably force you to use the tank against vehicles that are decidedly overpowered by comparison.  Oh, and more tanks too.   Always more tanks.  It’s aggravating both because it’s not particularly fun and because I felt cheated out of much more interesting and more personal encounters with these foes.  I wanted to fight them, not their vehicles.

The other infuriating decision is to lock the so-called “true ending” behind a full 100% completion of the game.  I don’t know that I’ve ever done so much work in a game only to watch the actual ending on my laptop later. I appreciate that the AR challenges and Riddler trophies are there for those who simply can’t get enough Batman.  For better or worse, open-world games will forever have their maps dotted with numerous activities, challenges and collectables and there will always be compulsive hundred-percenters to gobble them up.   But I cannot recall another game that forced a player to complete these things simply to see a rightful conclusion to their game.  I know some will feel this is a just reward for full commitment to a game.  That’s fine, but then at least make the pursuit of these things more interesting.  Am I really supposed to enjoy first finding 250+ Riddler trophies, then traveling all over the map to get to them, then jumping through numerous hoops – races, timing puzzles, logic puzzles, image searches – to solve and collect them?  And if I don’t enjoy it, I’m now punished as a player despite the fact that I’ve taken the time to finish every other thing in the game?  Add to this the completely implausible idea that the best idea the Riddler could conjure to defeat Batman was a glorified scavenger hunt and you have something that is only there because it’s “supposed” to be, not because it adds something unique to the game.  Instead of a game with a fantastic climax, it creates a game that will always feel unfinished for me.

(By way of contrast, I also recently finished “Sunset Overdrive” – more on that in another post – and it is a game that gets collectibles right.  They’re easy to find, fun to obtain and, most importantly, non-essential to experiencing the game fully.)

Again, these may be minor quibbles with an otherwise outstanding game, but their inclusion – especially their prominence at the end of the game – slightly tarnished the experience for me.  Still, I whole-heartedly recommend “Arkham Knight” to any gamer, Batman fan or not.  The strengths far outweigh its weaknesses and, compared with the elongated grinds of “Bloodborne” and “The Witcher”, there’s something to be said for just hopping in and beating up some bad guys for a number of hours.  Even with some flaws, “Arkham Knight” is still at or close to the pinnacle of the series and that’s truly saying something.  If this is Batman’s video-game swan song, the Dark Knight definitely went out swinging.