Gotham Knights
While I had asked for a few slightly older games for Christmas, I also unexpectedly received a new release - Gotham Knights. I didn't know much about it going in other than the internet had seemingly snubbed it because it wasn't an Arkham game, and that there was a completely unrelated TV show of the same name being made.
My first hour with Gotham Knights was spent installing it. I'd put the disc into the PS5, then left for a shower and came back to find the bar was only a third of the way along. I'd done the same with Immortals: Fenyx Rising a couple of days earlier and that had done in that time, and that had even downloaded a patch.
The game opens with a pretty lengthy sequence of cutscenes in which Batman chooses to detonate some explosives knowing that he will be caught - and killed - in the blast. The playable characters are then introduced, and an option is given to swap the camera between the characters, but there is still a few minutes of them chatting amongst themselves that has to happen before you can actually select to play as them.
There are two parts to the game - the open world of Gotham where the chosen character explores suited up, and the Belfry where all of them are hanging around in plain clothes. It switches between them with the Belfry acting as a hub for training, swapping characters, crafting and equipping weapons, examining stuff on the Batcomputer, and speaking with Alfred to progress certain missions. Once ready, the player suits up to patrol Gotham for a night - and returns to the Belfry, typically when all available activities are done, to prepare for the next night.
The Batcomputer is also accessible while exploring Gotham, as is crafting weapons - but you can't equip it until returning to the Belfry. Perhaps an in-universe explanation is that commands are being sent remotely to the 3D printer, but it seems a bit silly to have enabled it at all while in Gotham. It does eventually have its uses as Lucius Fox keeps demanding that items get crafted, but that appears to be an endless pit of nonsense with the only real end goal being a bronze trophy.
Traversing Gotham is not fun. Right off the bat - no pun intended - it's possible to grapple up to high places, but it isn't possible to glide around until a few nights have passed and, even then, it feels slow. The alternative to air travel is to use the Batcycle, which can be summoned on demand, but almost every time I've set a waypoint the very first thing the arrow indicators have told me to do is turn around. It doesn't matter if the waypoint is in the direction I'm facing because the streets of Gotham never lead where you expect them to.
Plus, there isn't any joy in driving around. There's other vehicles driving around that can be avoided, and you are best to avoid them because colliding with them doesn't result in an almighty crash but with a whimpering thud. Both vehicles just stop instantly. Despite lines around the edge of the screen to indicate that you are driving fast, it takes ages to get anywhere. Whenever making my way to a marked objective in a game, I always use the distance as an estimate for how long it will take me to get there and then start a countdown in my head. It doesn't matter what game it is, the countdown is usually accurate to within 10 seconds. The first time I did this in Gotham Knights it was out. By 2 minutes.
By the end of the first night roaming Gotham, I was hoping a fast travel system would activate the next time I went out. Some new activities had become available, but none would give me access to fast travel. Eventually I did unlock fast travel, and promptly went to make sure I had access to every point, but even the fast travel is slow. There's a shot of the character riding in on a glider, then a few seconds where they start to descend where it's possible to slightly change direction before eventually full control is available again. It's cute the first time, but given how frequently it is needed to avoid the other forms of traversal, I'd much prefer a loading screen before being given control at the point I selected.
And this, I think, is one of Gotham Knight's problems. It loves to show how things work in this world, almost as if they were designed to combat complaints about how the world makes no sense. Except very few people would likely have complained, and in implementing these things you've just put up barriers that temporarily prevent gameplay, which people are going to complain about.
So much time has been spent on world building, but at what cost? Sure, I appreciated seeing that Kara Danvers had sent an email to Barbara, but that's because I love Supergirl so it was nice to see her get a mention. And if Supergirl exists, then presumably Superman is also around. The emails also confirm the Batfamily are in contact with Wonder Woman, so how come none of them came to Bruce's funeral? Although the introduction to the game was that long, I think I'll let that particular point slide as it would have made it even longer.
It was somebody's job - probably a team of people - who had to write these emails and databanks about places and people in Gotham. But who is actually going to read them? Is it even necessary - what value is it actually adding? There is so much of it, speedrunners could probably do a playthrough quicker than the time it takes to read everything. Whoever did write these likely doesn't have the skillset to ensure that when you press grapple that it actually takes you to where you wanted to go instead of the new point it locked onto between the time your thumb touched the button and pressed it in, but what could they have done with the skills that they do have to inject some more life into the game if they weren't tasked with writing a novel?
That what if extends beyond the writing team. What else could have been in the game - or what could have been more refined - if the crafting system didn't exist? Because I genuinely do not understand it's purpose. If you are going to allow players to switch costumes, just let them unlock costumes without having to craft them with some nonsense materials. I think some rich bloke high up at WB said "crafting is all the rage these days, put crafting in" and the team in Montreal knew it was a terrible idea but were stuck with it.
Going back to the writing team though - the dialogue is incredibly generic and either phoned in or over exaggerated to the point it is painful to listen to. The cutscenes in the Belfry between main story missions feel like they are from a preschool show, with characters doing a recap on something that has literally just happened. Yes, Tim, I know that First Name Surname is dead because I saw it 30 seconds ago. And then there is a complete whiplash when it goes from over explaining, to not bothering to explain at all.
One of the side missions involves fighting Mr. Freeze and it made me think of the fight at the end of Insomniac's Spider-Man. Spider-Man has built it up so there are actual consequences at the end of the fight. Here, despite multiple missions of opportunities to explain, I have no idea what Mr. Freeze was actually planning beyond "Everything go cold, brrr", and ultimately it has no impact on anything anyway. Yes it's optional, but he's literally never mentioned again once defeated, nor do the areas that he froze over remain frozen over.
There was one point where a cat meowed in the Belfry and the characters said that maybe if they left some food out, they could get a pet. Every time I go back into the Belfry, I hope there is an update on where we are with the cat, but it has never been referenced again, much to my disappointment.
Even though I have come across as negative, Gotham Knights is not a bad game, but it's not a particularly good one either. The open world is pretty standard, and the number of collectables initially seems somewhat refreshingly low. Although collecting them all requires using the internet to find a map that some poor soul has put together, because the game itself refuses to tell you where they all are. If the Bat-family have all of this technology, how come they haven't developed something that says "We've detected a Batarang somewhere in this area"?
It doesn't even have to appear on the map. There could have been a list of Batarangs somewhere in a menu with rough locations, and then you can go to those locations and have a look round. But given that the very first historical document it makes you collect is marked on the map, it makes absolutely no sense that the remaining 41 are not. I was aiming to go for the Platinum trophy, but the collectables were incredibly close to putting me off, especially in combination with the game continually deciding to grapple to wherever it decided rather than what I requested.
I wouldn't have minded having more of the activities involving secret caches and keeping identities secret, but the gliding time trials can fuck right off. I've already fucked up traversing to the end, and to retry you want me to retread my failed path instead of providing a retry option popping up that will automatically reset my position to the start? Jog on. Why can't the glider from fast travel come and pick me up? Stop putting things in your world if you aren't going to use them.
There is definitely potential for a great game here, but there are just too many frustrating things that stop it from getting there.
