July 23, 2011 by Paul Curtin
There’s no doubting that Batman: Arkham City looks amazing. The last game, Arkham Asylum, was a strong contender for 2009’s Game of the Year and Arkham City looks to be even better. But could the latest Batman game be making a big mistake that often happens in comic book adaptations? The mistake of packing too many villains into one story and as a result diluting the overall plot? We’ve seen it happen many times in films (Spider-Man 3, Iron Man 2), but can the same problem occur in a video game?
Arkham Asylum had around 8 villains: Bane, Zsasz, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, The Scarecrow, The Riddler and The Joker; although only four of them would really be considered real bosses. With the next game in the series taking the scenery to the city, it’s no surprise that there would be more villains. All the villains from the previous game will be returning, plus there seems to be around 10 new villains: Dr. Hugo Strange, Two-Face, Catwoman, Black Mask, Mr. Freeze, Victor Zsasz, Calander Man, Talia al Ghul, and now The Penguin and Solomon Grundy in the latest trailer which brings the total to around 18 villains, possibly more announced as the game gets closer to release.
With a plot revolving around the entire city, it wouldn’t make sense having the same amount of villains as in the last game which only took place in Arkham’s Asylum. Although close to twenty villains does seem like a high number of bad guys, even for a video game, I don’t think that we have to worry about Arkham City making the same mistakes that some recent superhero movies have made. While superhero films have to cram everything into 1-2 hours, video games have the ability to span 20+ hours depending on extras like side-missions. Judging by their last game, Rocksteady knows what they’re doing, and the more villains, the better, because that means more epic boss fights. And who doesn’t love a game packed with a ton of memorable boss battles?
