Batman: Arkham City - 1st hour blog: Introduction to Familiar Faces!

Story

The first hour of Arkham City starts interestingly enough. Batman traps himself inside the titular Arkham City (which is a cordoned-off section of Gotham where criminals are imprisoned, but free to roam around) to find out about the latest scheme by Joker and Dr Hugo Strange, which is called “Protocol Ten”. We still don’t know what Protocol Ten is, but I’m gonna assume we’ll know more about it in the next hours.

So far, I’ve met with a few well-known characters in the Batman lore. First off, there’s Catwoman who is caught stealing some stuff in the early part of the game, and just when she is about to get dunked in a tub of corrosive acid by Two-Face, Batman swoops in and saves her at the last minute. He asks Catwoman what the hell is Protocol Ten, but even she don’t know what it is.

Catwoman doesn't know what the hell is Protocol Ten

Brief appearance by Penguin

Calender Man is here too, but I think just as cameo

Two-Face, just before attempting to kill Catwoman (and failed)

Harley Quinn had to look after Joker, because apparently he's sick

Two-Face is here too, but I don’t know what he is in the game for (for now). The Penguin makes a brief appearance, but Batman beats him up just a few seconds after meeting him. Same with Harley Quinn, who takes a group of paramedics hostage and left the scene soon after.

Right now, the mission is to track down Joker, who is presumably sick and no longer the criminal boss that he once was.

Gameplay

Combat is easy for now. There’s a Strike button for the regular attack, Counter button to counter enemy attacks when some lightning marks appear on top of them, and during stealth sections, a Takedown button can be used when approaching enemies from behind.

Movement wise, it’s pretty fun too. Batman can glide from high buildings using his iconic cape and use his grappling hook to get to a high point easily. There’s some parkour sections at the beginning, when Bruce Wayne still don’t have access to his gear and has to shimmy over some ledges. But I doubt this will happen again since he’s having all his Bat equipment now.

Bruce had to do some parkour shit before he gets access to the Batman equipment

Using Detective Mode to see enemies through walls and smoke

I can Takedown enemies, even when they are behind thin wood paneling

Using comic-book BS to solve some clues on a crime scene

It's not an Arkham game if you don't beat people up

There’s that familiar Detective Mode, where I can activate it to see enemies even behind walls and plan my stealth attacks accordingly while hanging on top of gargoyle sculptures. Detective Mode can also be used to solve puzzles, which so far is only used once.