Guhhh...blurgh...Arkham City...

Sorry, I've been playing Batman all day and I'm in something of a daze by now. It is awesome. I finished the main story and started on the challenges and the sidequests. Took care of Zsasz, Bane, and the Mad Hatter so far.

I tried to buy the DLC, but ran into a problem—apparently I can't buy it except as part of the Game of the Year edition. 'Cept it's not 75% off anymore. Awkward. Maybe I can trade. Ironically, as it turns out, if I'd bought the game retail instead of getting it for free, I'd have had the DLC from the start and I would have actually saved money. Oh well.

Is it just me, or is Batman: Arkham City basically the same game as Spider-Man 2?

I don't know if everyone remembers the Spider-Man 2 video game, but we had it for the GameCube. The game takes place on the island of Manhattan, and although there are story missions that advance the plot, Spider-Man can also swing freely around the streets doing good deeds for the people of New York. It's also full of secret collectibles scattered around the city, which can be collected for bragging rights. Movement and physics are heavily emphasized, and the game is unique for its amazing web-swinging controls.

Playing through Arkham City, it's impossible not to be reminded of Spider-Man 2. The open world of Arkham City is about the same size as Spider-Man's Manhattan. Both games have the same scattered collectibles. Both games have groups of thugs who take up residence around the city and serve as semi-random encounters to hold the hero's attention between quests. Both games have augmented-reality acrobatics training courses as side missions. Both games advance the character the same way, by adding points after every encounter which can be redeemed for minor upgrades. Both games have a combo-focused combat system with a "spider sense" for dodging and countering enemy attacks.

 And Batman's grapple-and-glide method of transportation, while a somewhat different experience from Spidey's web-slinging, is a fair approximation. Catwoman's pouncing and climbing is about as different from Batman's style as Batman's is from Spider-Man's. In fact, if Spider-Man were an unlockable character, he'd feel right at home in Arkham City.

I liked Spider-Man 2 very much. I sank many hours into it back in the day. I even pulled out all the stops and went for 100% completion; I think I got to 99% or so. I remember playing around and finding out that combining the rising kick attack with the web-grapply attack allowed Spider-Man to bounce off a mook, pull said mook back up to meet him, and bounce off the poor guy again ad nauseam. Good times.

Now I'm playing through Arkham City, and it's getting me nostalgic. See? Look at how nostalgic I'm getting.

I think anyone who liked Spider-Man 2 would probably like Arkham City, and vice-versa.

I got a new computer. Check it out, 50 fps at max graphics settings in a giant resizeable window.

I fired up Revenge of the Titans, Trapped Dead, and Atom Zombie Smasher to see how they'd run. They ran great.

I had a couple hiccups with Batman: Arkham City. The game crashed as soon as the initial cutscene ended. I did some Googling and the solution was, apparently, to go to the Nvidia control panel and tell it to have the CPU handle physics instead of the graphics card, or something. Unfortunately, attempting to open said control panel resulted in an error message because I wasn't connected to a monitor. Yeah, my laptop with a built-in screen isn't connected to a monitor, how about that? >_<

I plugged it into the TV and it worked fine, so I changed the setting, went back to the game, and all was well. Except for the bad guys running amok all over Arkham City, but Batman's here to kick their asses now, so give it a little time.