Bradygames – Batman: Arkham City Guide

• 9th Nov 2011

Bradygames are back and supporting the Batman Arkham series once again with their fully illustrated, expertly design walkthrough and guide to every aspect of the gaming experience that is Batman: Arkham City.

You get a full walkthrough of the story mode – just in case you’re finding it a bit difficult to navigate your way through plot, or figure out how to take down those bosses. To be honest I managed it without the guide as the game wasn’t particularly hard when figuring out certain things. But this is handy to have at your side should you get stuck.

This book really comes into its own when trying to find those damn riddles. Yes, all 400 of them (actually when you add in Catwoman’s 40 collectables as well it ends up as 440). This is a slight boost in numbers from the previous game, but they’re all in this book, and all screen-shotted with a short description of how to solve them. There are even map shots with locations highlighted. So unless you want to be wasting unnecessary hours looking under every stone in Gotham, you’re going to need this. It’s key to taking the Riddler down.

There’s also an app version available for all you lucky iPhone peeps out there which I tried out. It has maps of the city divided into its four main districts, and then further divided up into interior maps – all with riddles highlighted for you to find and check off. Each again comes with screen-shot and a full description of how to find them. You also have the option to tick off what you’ve collected which is ideal. This app also gets updated (which is handy as there were a couple of mix ups with riddles on the first version).

Back to the book however – oh you like side missions? Plenty here! And these are trickier than the main story arc. And they add weight to the game and introduce a few side villains along the way for you to defeat. Plus you get to defeat them in a manner of different ways, and often have to repeat the process many times.

The Riddler is king of the secondary villains in this game though as he has all the riddles. And every now and again when you gain the right number he’ll summon you to an interactive room to help save one of his captives. Again – it’s all in here!

Maybe you’re a challenge map addict? Well, Arkham City has loads of those. And they range from the beat ‘em up challenge rounds, to taking out a room full of brutes in predator mode without being detected.

I knew I was going to need this book to get anywhere near 100% completion and even after doing the story, the side missions, getting every upgrade, collecting all those riddles and doing Catwoman’s missions alone I’m still only on 70%. So this should hint at how dense this game is for content. I needed the Arkham Asylum book when that game came out, and needed this one too. And it’s so well put together that it’s pretty much a collector’s item of sorts. It’s worth having a flick through just to appreciate the design aspects even when you’re not actually playing the game.

Steven Hurst