'Arkham City' marks new high for Batman franchise

In 2008, Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" arrived at theaters to rave reviews and reception alike. Based on the iconic DC comics character Batman, the movie was a strong argument for the validity of comic book-based films as Oscar-contending works of art and is responsible for popularizing Batman to mass audiences once more. It's only fitting that the sequel to 2009's critically acclaimed "Batman: Arkham Asylum" become the video game equivalent of "The Dark Knight," providing not only a fantastic simulation and representation of the character but ultimately, one of the best games of this year.

Set one year after "Arkham Asylum," "Batman: Arkham City" starts with a bang at the first second and only continues to improve from there. The player begins the game as Bruce Wayne, attending a protest to close down the Arkham City program, in which the criminals of Arkham are moved into a closed-off city section to fend for themselves.

With the threat to the city obvious, Wayne's campaign to put the criminals back onto Arkham Island is a noble one that is cut short when he is thrown into the city section by project coordinator Hugo Strange, who knows that Bruce is, in reality, Batman. Upon retrieving his gear, dropped into the city by Alfred, Batman seeks to get to the bottom of what Strange really hopes to accomplish with Arkham City.

Unlike its predecessor's throwaway plot, existing purely as an excuse for a Batman simulator, the story behind "Arkham City" is intense, engaging, and genuinely compelling. The opening starts with the player having to dodge and defend as Bruce Wayne in handcuffs, but the game is so cinematic that it becomes easy to question what is a cutscene and what is actual gameplay.

Needless to say, the game's sense of immersion plays a significance role in its overall greatness. The controls are as responsive as ever and possibly even more so. Combat has been given even more variety than "Arkham Asylum," and gliding with Batman's cape has been tightened up significantly. This is very good, because a grand majority of navigating through Gotham City in the game is done through a combination of gliding and grappling. Movement in the game has a sense of parkour about it, with Batman moving more elegantly as long as you keep up momentum.

Gotham City itself is bustling with life. The criminals chatter, try to mug each other, start gang wars, and none of this is a part of the actual main campaign. Batman can even confront several villains in between his primary missions, like the Riddler, Zsasz, and Bane, whom you actually work together with on a mission. The sheer amount of variety and content feels endless.

All of this is compounded with the excellent voices of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and The Joker respectively. Both reprise their roles from "Batman: The Animated Series" and are iconic enough to sleepwalk their way through the roles. However, Conroy and Hamill bring their A-game, giving performances significantly more emotive than they have in the past. If this really is Hamill's swan song as The Joker, he at least went out with a bang.

Prowling the streets of Gotham is a feeling like no other. The moment I saved a pacifistic prisoner from an impending murder at the hands of one of the Joker's gang members, not as a mission, but as an optional circumstance that just happened to occur while I was in the area, I knew that this game had exceeded my expectations. "Arkham City" doesn't just break the curse surrounding licensed games; it shatters it, becoming what may not only be the best-licensed game of all time, but the best game of the year, hands down.