Batman: Arkham Knight & Her Story
Swooping down from a nearby building, I land boot first on one of the thug’s heads, crushing his body into Gotham’s cold pavement. As if by magic, my fist magnetises to the next enemy’s face, emitting a sudden joyous crack as the two connect. Gotham has been cleared out due to a bomb scare; only criminals and thugs remain on its three islands, which is handy, as it allows me to beat up and imprison absolutely every single person I see.
The third guy tries to bolt, but he can’t escape the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader. He can’t escape me: I am Batman, and I am absolutely gaining on this lad. As I draw closer the prompt arrives at the bottom of the screen: *Press triangle to interrogate*. The control is stripped from me as the game cuts to a pre-determined scene of Batman shouting at the man for information before slamming him into the ground. It is at this point, that I realise I am in fact not The Batman, but a person (myself) playing as The Batman in the videogame Batman: Arkham Knight.
Arkham Knight is an incredibly pristine game of outstanding graphical fidelity with a surprising plot-line that’s sprinkled with meta-narrative subversions. Unfortunately these self-reflexive flashes are thinly dispersed, leaving the majority of the game to play out as a slogging brawl of hyper-violent encounters and repetitive side-quests. For a story which ultimately attempts to be highly personal, the stiff delivery of Batman’s lines only highlights how much of a non-character he is in developer Rocksteady’s universe.
While detective work in Arkham Knight consists of linear plots guided by beat-downs, Sam Barlow’s Her Story approaches the idea of investigation with an open-ended attitude puts onus on the player to decide when they have solved the mystery. The game operates as a search engine which allows the player to search through video clips for phrases or words spoken by interviewee Hannah regarding her husband Simon’s murder. The catch is, only the first five results of a search will ever show, making the player delve deeper into the plot by searching new, inventive combinations of words. The non-linear story unfolds so seamlessly that it’s easy to overlook the robust writing and narrative design which is equal parts exciting and haunting. – AW
Automatic for the Meeple
From the banal dice-rolling of Snakes and Ladders to the hypnotic number-watching of Cookie Clicker, games that have a tendency to ‘play themselves’ can inspire as much derision as they do idle amusement. But some games with strong elements of automation can be genuinely satisfying, as long as the player can have some part in the building of the engine.
Roll for the Galaxy, by Thomas Lehmann and Wei-Hwa Huang, is, as the name implies, a dice game set in space, where players are competing to create the most efficiently productive galactic empire. Dice are rolled and the results allocated in order to colonise new planets or ship goods for points. While the early game consists of a lot of umm-ing and ahh-ing and deep consideration, by the time you’ve a few developments built, an optimal path reveals itself. There’s a smooth transition from participant to onlooker, but the conclusion can still have the thrill of watching a tight race.
Likewise, Marc André’s Splendor, which just had a slick digital adaptation released on Android and iOS, sees excitement rise as the decision space shrinks over the course of the game. At first, players take turns gathering chips that can be used to purchase cards, which in turn act as discounts on the chip price of future purchases. This lets you get even more cards which then further depresses prices, and on and on until you’re drowning in a deflationary sea of cards, your point-collecting machines accelerating mercilessly towards victory.
Both games create an odd sense of enjoyment, becoming more compelling when you have less control over them. Be careful, though – fun is fun, but nobody wants to be smushed by some sentient Dice-Voltron. – LD
Like a Boss
Satoru Iwata
Considering that much of video games’ significance in the popular consciousness comes from their being a ‘multi-billion dollar industry’, it was always a comfort that Iwata, who passed away last month, never held such a cynical opinion of his own profession.
As president of Nintendo during its most billion-dollar-generating period, he forsook convention and common sense in the name of producing weird and delightful games and devices. His work may have generated a lot of money, but his legacy will be a lot more precious – the primacy of joy. – LD
Words: Leo Devlin & Aidan Wall
