*** Disclaimer: As a person who really hates spoilers, this and all my future reviews will have none of those. Ever. ***
So I just finished the main story line with about 35% or so completion rate overall, pretty low, I know but I was pushing the main story more than completing the side missions.
Which, I have to admit now is probably why I’m encountering some weird things that are totally annoying like not being able to spend my XP for new stuff because I haven’t unlocked the new perks yet. This also emphasizes a big UI quirk that is annoying me to no end. When you had a level up and have XP pending to spent, everytime you hit <tab it takes you into the XP screen instead of the map. So now I have to hit <tab> and then <q> a few times only to look at the map.
That actually brings me no my next point: Bugs. Lots of them. Batman is one of those games where you can really see what the industry has become and how rushed releases damage the product. It’s not as bad as in Betafield4, where crashes are the most common problem but it really is bad. So what happened to me?
I got stuck under a lever, I had spasctic attacks while flying, I had to reload my savegame because a door won’t open other wise, I had broken NPCs that I couldn’t talk to, I got punched by NPCs through a wall but on the bright side, I could attack them too, only seeing them in detective mode and happily punching into the wall though. Combat bugs where chain actions just break without no reason, Batman refuses to jump to the next target and instead punches into the air and conters that I spam pressed just won’t happen. Apart from that a few clipping problems here and there, big holes where I could not throw my Batarang though and of course the stuff that got fixed by the recent patches like not being able to complete parts of the story at all.
So what’s my verdict now? Well the story is really good, not told as good as in the other parts before though. I often felt like I lost control because combat was interrupted by cut scenes or quick time events.Graphics are fine, good old Unreal Engine 3 doing it’s thing. Bugs are obviously a big minus. Time played is 40 hours so far but I probably spent half of that on the desktop or half asleep on my bed but still, I have lots of stuff to do left and in an era of shooter games that have 3.5h campaigns, it’s refreshing to see games that last way longer.
The combat system has improved a lot over the last installment and really feels amazing. Crime scenes are fun to do and a good addition to the usual puzzle solving (those are way too easy now btw) and battling. Also I’m a big fan of the franchise.
Score: 7.5/10!
Last Words: WB Games Montreal, Guys, I really love your games but please please for the love of god, don’t rush things and test your shit. Most of the stuff I’ve found could have been easily found and fixed by your team.
P.S.: If you want to get the game for PC and don’t have a lot of money, gameladen.com has it for only 18 EUR.
