• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Batman: Arkham games haven't been topped in the Superhero gaming space

bitbydeath

Member
If inFamous counts as a superhero game then that is the best IMO.


cole-mac-grath-infamous2.gif
 
I think Insomniac Spider-Man was basically the Arkham of Spidey games. Maybe Batman is just cooler and more fun to play?

Or maybe Spidey 2 makes a large jump and it gets into the conversation.
Spidey is fun but is a shallow copy of Asylum and Arkham City. In both the Batman games there was an emphasis on exploration and discovery that is almost completely missing in Spidey games.
 
I liked all the games and I’m not even a huge Batman fan. They are just fun as hell, and make you feel like Batman. Spider-Man is also amazing and overall I like it better, but it wouldn’t exist without the Arkham games.

Arkham City is still the crowning achievement in that series imo, small open world, with a touch of Metroidvania, Improvements to combat and stealth and more fleshed out upgrades over the first game. Better boss fights. Also the story in City is so badass, taking place over the course of 1 night, and throughout the story you see batmans suit slowly falling apart in the cutscenes. Best version of Harlie Quinn and joker too, writing was hilarious.
 

The Cockatrice

I'm retarded?
I liked all the games and I’m not even a huge Batman fan. They are just fun as hell, and make you feel like Batman. Spider-Man is also amazing and overall I like it better, but it wouldn’t exist without the Arkham games.

Arkham City is still the crowning achievement in that series imo, small open world, with a touch of Metroidvania, Improvements to combat and stealth and more fleshed out upgrades over the first game. Better boss fights. Also the story in City is so badass, taking place over the course of 1 night, and throughout the story you see batmans suit slowly falling apart in the cutscenes. Best version of Harlie Quinn and joker too, writing was hilarious.

I genuinely shed a tear at that ending, for a fucking villain. City is not only the best Batman game but one of the best games ever made.
 

Cashon

Banned
Metroidvania...Also the story ... is so badass, taking place over the course of 1 night, and throughout the story you see batmans suit slowly falling apart in the cutscenes. Best version of Harlie Quinn and joker too, writing was hilarious.
All of this applies to Arkham Asylum, but without the dumb Al Ghul plot line.
 
Last edited:

ResurrectedContrarian

Suffers with mild autism
Spiderman certainly doesn't compare, the entire city is so stale and boring to explore compared to the more chaotic & lawless streets they give you in the Batman games.

Arkham games will never be topped. And the voice acting with Conroy / Hamill was a once in a lifetime moment.
 

PsyEd

Member
Batman AK is always the first game I tried when I got a new GFX card/laptop. In true 4k with all nvidia stuff bumped up and forced Dolby Atmos...it looks and sounds insane. Like IMHO no other UE game looks this good or better than it at. Not to mention the mod scene is very much alive and active to this day! Not to mention I got the psvr for the VR game just to perform the Batusi!

Great times...
 
I think they had the best atmosphere for sure. I still think they suffered a bit from repetitiveness like most of the hero games do.
 
Facts. Love the Batman. Spider man good. Also, for some reason I enjoy the old PlayStation spider man game the most still. Idk why. I play the shit out of it. Guess it help since I was kid.
 

Gojiira

Member
Im terms of overall quality the Arkham series really is the peak. BUT Miles Morales PLAYS so so so much better.
Im sorry but nobody is convincing me that ‘Hold to Run’ isnt a wasted button, or no dedicated jump isnt a garbage idea.
If Arkham series had controls as polished and fluid as Insomniacs Spiderman they would be literal perfection.
Dont get me wrong either, I love the Arkham series.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
No one will be able to top these games, just like no one has beaten Riddick games when it comes to movie adaptations in video game space to this day. Spider-Man games are good when it comes to story, but failed to capture Rocksteady's gameplay and combat loop along with core design.

If it's boring af to play your comic book game after ~10 hours or so, if side stuff is so by rote, unimaginative and cringe beyond believe and I just want to see the story to the end and forget about everything else, then you failed miserably when it comes to core design, gameplay and combat.
 
Last edited:

Pimpbaa

Member
Arkham Knight was really got with all the story content DLC. Also Rocksteady’s heavily modified version of UE3 is massively better than UE4 (on console at least, PC version was a shitshow for a while). Shame WB Game Montreal never used it for Gotham Knights. I consider the Spiderman games from Insomniac just as good, definitely better in regards to a really optimized and amazing looking game engine. I just hope Spider-Man 2 has evolved a bit gameplay wise, I really can’t do the exact same gameplay after Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales. Also Really really disappointing that Rocksteady is abandoning this type of gameplay for a co-op 3rd person shooter.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Spidermans is equal goord gameplay but Batman a wayyyyyyyy better superhero characters Gotham Joker

Spiderman character crud is comparison
 
I doubt they ever will be.

I wish they would do an anthology at 4k/60 with all 4 games in one box
They never will be. The non completely soulless corporatized landscape of gaming coupled with a time in technology where games didn’t literally take longer than a whole entire college 4 year undergrad program, plus the unrivaled, UNRIVALED passion of the teams that made these games.

You’ll probably never get that again. Spider-Man serves as a passable poor man’s facsimile of it though
 
Yeah, I agree. I bought the Spider-Man games, but something about me still hasn't drawn me to them for whatever reason. I loved Spider-Man growing up too, so it's not like I didn't love the character. It's just something about Arkham's vibe and aesthetic that made me more excited about jumping in.

Venom was always one of my favorite villains ever since I was a kid, so hopefully I'll want to play Spider-Man 2 more. But I don't know, right now I'm not feeling hyped at all. :(

I love Spider-Man, too, but what I love about Arkham, Asylum especially, is that it slowly opens up and gets bigger and bigger as you get to new areas. Once you're past the tutorial in Spider-Man, you're basically in a big city doing whatever you want and being redirected to missions. I've played it three times, I like it, but it doesn't give me the sense of adventure like the Arkham games do.
 

bender

What time is it?
The Spider-Man games are fine, but I do prefer the web swinging of Spider-Man 2 on PS2 even if I understand why the complexity of those systems will never be carried forward.

I just played this a couple of months ago and I disagree thoroughly.

I'm with you. I always hated how your character stuck to edge in Sucker Punches games (Sly, inFAMOUS). Cole's character design is terrible as is the rest of the supporting cast. The overall look of the game, like many games that generation, is overly brown and dull. Speaking of games that generation, the open world often feels dead and underutilized. Cole's powers are neat but I hate how binary the good/evil paths are.
 

Gamerguy84

Member
Was streaming BM AK yesterday for a while. One of my favorite titles of PS4, everyone complained about the Bmobile but I liked it.

Tried to go backward to thr PS3 ones and just couldn't do it as the gameplay wasn't as smooth. I'm sure they are good though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TLZ
Nah, Spider-Man is easily better overall.

The Arkham games are good but always had something missing about them from feeling like the authentic batman experience to elevate it to a higher level, whereas Spider-man hits all the notes for me
 
Arkham Knight took a Glorious Golden shit on all the competition, minus Spider Man. These are the two franchises to beat. They should give us Superman game with space battles and Earth Battles so fierce, you end up changing the shape of some of the geography. Blowing up mountains, making craters in the planet, maybe forced to stop a huge meteor from smashing into Metropolis? Extremely detailed city destruction, or destruction in general. I want to stop focusing on graphics for a bit.
 
my old trusty gaming pc had its hard drive die on me so that’s it until the switch version comes out

It is kind of sad playing them now. You don’t get games like them anymore. As someone said here spiderman is a diluted version for casuals. The Arkham games come from a bygone era where this shit was made by nerds for nerds. You watch the behind the scenes from the games and the passion is Fuckin palpable.

The serious tone + attention to story is something that has seriously been lost in modern gaming. Spider-Man is alright though a distant, very distant silver medalist. The worst Arkham game shits on Spider-Man PS4 IMO
 
Last edited:
Definitely worth it. It's odd seeing Knight always on sale for pennies while the others are not, seems to be treated differently. I personally enjoyed Knight (minus the driving), Asylum, then City in that order.
 

Barakov

Member
Spider-Man 2018 was good for what it was but I felt the Arkham games did the superhero thing better. I'm excited for the sequel but I feel it's going to have even more of the casual bloat than the first one.

my old trusty gaming pc had its hard drive die on me so that’s it until the switch version comes out

It is kind of sad playing them now. You don’t get games like them anymore. As someone said here spiderman is a diluted version for casuals. The Arkham games come from a bygone era where this shit was made by nerds for nerds. You watch the behind the scenes from the games and the passion is Fuckin palpable.

The serious tone + attention to story is something that has seriously been lost in modern gaming. Spider-Man is alright though a distant, very distant silver medalist. The worst Arkham game shits on Spider-Man PS4 IMO
Agreed. Something went pretty wrong in the mid 2010s(arguably earlier) and game quality dropped off pretty hard in the AAA space.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I remember when Arkham Asylum was reviewed for the first time, some magazine (Game Informer?) gave it a 95 or so. And I tought this can't be true. Superhero game? Rocksteady? But this trilogy is still on top. And Origins, which I think is incredibly underrated.

Spiderman has nothing on this, sorry. The indoor level design is far worse, the AI is worse, I found nearly everything to be worse in Spiderman.

The Batmobile was actually perfect but Rocksteady just needed to limit its use to free roam and some set pieces. They went overboard with it, I never enjoyed having to do platform puzzles with this car and there were a few tank bosses too many.
 
Top Bottom