Batman: Arkham City Harley Quinn’s Revenge Review
The Good:
This game keeps on giving more great actionThe Bag:
Paying more for DLC still sucksI’ve already declared that Harley Quinn’s Revenge is what downloadable content should be based on.
I’ve already declared that Harley Quinn’s Revenge is what downloadable content should be based on a 30-minute preview of the single-player story expansion for Batman: Arkham City. Luckily, after playing through the entire two-hour campaign, I’m not going to try and weasel out of that statement. Although I wish the ending was a bit more satisfying, that’s nitpicking. Harley Quinn’s Revenge offers a fresh take on the gameplay we love and expands the narrative developer Rocksteady has worked so hard to create. This is the type of DLC story-driven games should be pumping out.
Picking up a few weeks after the events of Batman: Arkham City, Harley Quinn’s Revenge opens with Batman missing. Seems Harley took over the Joker’s old haunt in Arkham City, Batman went to investigate, and now the Caped Crusader hasn’t been heard from in days. As such, we start as Robin investigating the scene, jump back to Batman to see what went wrong, and then flip flop to tell the tale.
But it’s worth pointing out that you can’t ignore the mission at hand here and go scope the city for side quests as the Boy Wonder. Harley Quinn’s Revenge is a standalone mode off the main menu and doesn’t tie into your previous saves or the open world, although it does have a collectable set of Harley balloons to find and a bunch of new Trophies/Achievements.
The missions you’ll tackle drop you right back into taking out snipers and wailing on guys with stun guns, but they can be a bit fetch questy, focusing on collecting keycards and defusing bombs. Still, I never got sick of heading out on the next leg of my journey because the enemies are always varied. Even though I’m taking on room after room of guys as I make my way around the steel mill, Harley Quinn’s Revenge tweaked the formula with each group.
Switching out the enemy types is great, but the continuation of the Arkham City story kept me playing and justifies the purchase. Challenge rooms and costumes are enticing to some gamers, but I wanted to know what happened to these characters after Batman walked out of that theater with Joker’s dead body. To pick up here and find the Dark Knight’s friends concerned about him emotionally — as if he’s grievingfor the Joker — is alarming and intriguing all at once. Batman’s always been unhinged, so how crazy is he now that his partners are this concerned for him?
