photoblog6

For my final photoblog I wanted to do something a little bit different to what I had been doing. Batman Arkham City takes place in a version of Gotham City that has essentially become one giant prison/insane asylum. Post-apocalyptic in a sense, but not just quite. I also thought it'd be interesting to take a look at another city environment this time. This is actually quite an old game but was (fairly) recently remastered and re-released for current-gen consoles.

A lot of the game heavily relies on Batman's abilities to get around the City, so it can be somewhat redundant to try and walk around and discover new things. Street-level is also crawling with the Joker's goons so can be difficult to have the time to enjoy the little things. There's a big emphasis on stealth gameplay though, which makes this not feel as restrictive as it might in other games. It's a bit of a shame though, because the ground-floor of the city is so well designed and detailed, even for an older game, but most of the action does take place either within the buildings (which are generally only open, or useful, for missions) or on the rooftops.

This shot gives a general idea of what much of the map looks like architecturally. I think Gotham City in general was loosely based off of New York City originally, which is clear when playing the game. It seems very faithful to the general style, while still having its own comic-booky twist. Oh and it's always raining and/or snowing in the game, and never daylight.

The games map is an island so is essentially locked by water, as there is no Batboat or anything like that. If you fall in there is a brief black screen and Batman pulls himself up on to the nearest ledge. There is a portion of the island that the Joker uses as his base so I thought heading down there and walking around at ground level could give a good idea of the level of detail, and specific style of the world.

Pictured above are the sorts of environments that are commonplace in Arkham City. Each alleyway and street has unique shops, signs, and things to discover. It truly feels like a real, living world.

To get a good perspective I tried to find the highest point on the map, which is this tower here. However, it is only accessible on a certain mission and is otherwise locked. So I tried to find some of the next best things to get a good view of the city.

This picture shows just how dense the city is with all of its different buildings and decorations. Even the blimp and the searchlights add a certain amount to the atmosphere making the world feel full.

The above shot shows me, after a bit of a scuffle, trying to get a different camera perspective on the city, albeit from a similar place as the previous shot. It can be a little hard to make out detail from this angle and height, but everything you see has it's own "type" of decay, and must have been a painstaking job for the designers and artists. You can ever see how one of the buildings, a hotel I think, has sunk in to its foundations which wasn't as obvious in the previous shot. The detail on Batman's suit is impressive too, the light reflecting from the material, his cape in particular, really puts a good shine on some of the coolest little details. The constant night time setting really makes these things stand out with the moonlight, neon signs, and rundown street signs providing most of the city's illumination.