Batman DLC Thus Far: Good or Unworthy?
Posted by David "Snarkasaur" Stewart on September 27th, 2009
There have been two Batman DLC packages as of this Thursday; they’ve both been available free of charge. If you have the game and haven’t downloaded them, please leave your address and physical description so I can find you and slap you in the face. If you’re on the edge of buying the game and are simply curious what the DLC is offering, then read on! If you just love me and like reading my writing, then call me. We can move this to a more private setting. Bring duct tape.
The first release, titled “Insane Night,” gave us a stealth map and a combat map. The combat map is different, and not everyone’s cup of tea. If you’ve played Survival Mode in Left 4 Dead and enjoyed it, you might like this as well. It’s just waves on waves of endless enemies. The only difference that I’ve seen from the other maps in substance is that they threw in the guys that jump on your back. They can be annoying, as it takes longer to pull them off your back than it does to kill anything short of a titan. But they’re also dealt with quickly if you’re on your game and keeping watch for them.
The stealth map is a treat, though perhaps a tad on the easy side. It has you in a completely new area to the game, at least from what I can remember. It’s sort of a waiting chamber outside. It may have briefly been in the beginning of the game, but if so it was a flash and nothing more. The trophy objectives are decent. One has you smashing through a glass ceiling to grab someone with an inverted takedown, and the slow motion effect is quite satisfying. The other two are mundane at best.
“Prey in the Darkness,” this Thursday’s release, adds another combat map and another stealth map. The combat map isn’t more unlimited nonsense, but does feature another new map. It’s one with an electric floor, much like the area in the game that features said floor, but in this particular area only certain parts of the floor light up to shock the bat out of you. It adds to the visual intensity because not only do you have to watch for the enemies, but now you’re having to avoid just certain parts of the floor. You can even knock the idiots into the electrified area for bonus points and easy “kills.” The last round gives you a titan to worry about, but for some reason stops the floor from glowing. This makes the map, frankly, simple and it would have been nice to see some consistency. I beat the thing on my first go-round, which I didn’t expect from DLC that so far has been increasingly more challenging than that released with the game. The stealth map, however, more than makes up for it in frustration.
And why is this ladies and gentlemen? Because of a DON’T TAKE DAMAGE RULE!
Man…I hate it when developers do this. Yes, you can beat the map if you take damage, but the batty trophy requires you not to, and I wants my trophies. But a no-damage clause is very frustrating in a game of this type. It shouldn’t be. Theoretically, you should take out every enemy in the Batman-iest way possible. No one should ever even seen you to fire a shot off. But the mechanics of the game, as well as the other two trophies obtainable on this map, make that task very upsetting. Not only do you have to take out a certain red henchman before any others, but you need to engage in fisticuffs with at least three other enemies (a decidedly un-Batman strategy). The problem with punching people in the face is that those around them tend to notice, and the guys in this room have some super hearing and react like cracked-out ferrets. If you decide to punch a dude, other dudes swarm you and fire their uncannily accurate machine guns. The map is frustrating, to say the least, and I’ve still not conquered it to trophy perfection. The fact that it’s in a not particularly well designed room only adds to the frustration. The gargoyles are trap free, blessed be thy will Rocksteady, but the room itself just…sucks.
That’s the DLC so far. I suppose it’s expected. There’s not too much they can do to add to the existing story. The challenge maps are a blast, I’m not arguing this at all, but I do want to see more than just increasingly difficult obstacles to overcome in small rooms. I was impressed with the stealth maps before the DLC. They had ingenuity and required creative thinking at times. The DLC ones, while still entertaining, don’t quite live up to that. The combat maps may live up to their predecessors, but that’s not saying a whole ton because the combat maps were never that fantastic to begin with.
So what would I like to see? More Joker maps possibly. I also want to go back out to the island. I loved the Arkham Asylum environment. Being restricted to just the inside of a few rooms is vexing. I think they do have some room to play with it too. Croc, for instance, remains at large. Clayface is still sitting in his cell. I’d love, in unholy ways, some type of Clayface challenge where you have to use your detective skills to figure out who he’s posing as. That would be stupid fun. There’s so much they could do, but thankfully for all of us it’s only been a month since the game came out. Four maps isn’t a bad haul, particularly when they’ve all been free.
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