Batman: Arkham City might well be the best video-game sequel ever made. It retains the core elements that made it’s prequel Arkham Asylum such a revelation, while expanding the series’ ambition exponentially. The open world works excellently in Arkham City. Better yet, the way the limitations of the it are actually written into the story is a stroke of genius. The world feels real and integral to the plot, rather than just a sandbox to swing around in. Likewise, the story’s flow works brilliantly, with each villain having their own reasons to exist within it. Nothing feels shoehorned in and everything just seems natural. Just like Arkham Asylum, this really feels like a genuine Batman adventure. The pacing also deserves a mention; the game peaks at all the right moments and ends in a suitably climatic fashion.

Batman considers bringing his ‘moterboat’ tactic into play.

Technically, the game looks beautiful and is (outside of Uncharted or The Last of Us) one of the best looking titles on PS3. The world drips with bleak, Gothic atmosphere and drops the jaw at many intervals. Snowy Gotham vistas and a romp through Penguin’s twisted, fortress-like museum are both phenomenal highlights. The game’s controls and level design are universally tight, rarely offering up problems, bugs or glitches (which is no mean feat in an open world game). The open world traversal is fun (who doesn’t like divebombing?) and the famous, fast paced combat is still top of it’s class (who doesn’t like kicking people in the nuts?).

Batman always did love a good game of ‘peanuts”.

Arkham City is pretty much a perfect sequel. Such a perfect sequel, in fact, that it’s hard to see how the series can maintain it’s momentum. How do you ever make a Batman game that can again move the goalposts so spectacularly? How do you ever make a Batman game where an open world would make as much sense? It’s going to take a magician to pull that one off, I think. So… Batman: Arkham City is a true, authentic Batman adventure, a masterclass on how to do a videogame sequel right and a really fun to game to boot.