Review

Batman: Episode 2: Children of Arkham

When it comes to being a super hero, one has to learn that nothing is ever easy. Punching bad guys, solving crimes, rescuing the innocent – sure, those feats are expected to be difficult. Worse though is the need to appear normal when not donning the cape and cowl. In most cases, it just isn’t possible to separate the hero from the alter ego. This is especially true in Bruce Wayne’s case!

“Children of Arkham” opens with a familiar setting – Bruce is in the alley where his parents were shot. Allegations of their ties to Falcone had taken their toll. Angered and confused, he confronts Alfred who confirms this to be true. Apparently, they worked with Falcone and Mayor Hill in controlling Gotham. The only reason Alfred stayed was because of his fondness of Bruce. That and the fact that his parents were killed, leaving him an orphan. This brought about all sorts of questions. To what extent did Bruce’s parents “work” with Falcone? And who would be foolish enough to mug them knowing their connections to Gotham’s underbelly? Unless of course, they weren’t actually mugged on their way back from the theater that night…

While I won’t go into what happens next, I can say that Telltale is doing a fine job weaving a memorable story together. Whether we’re given a reimagined event from the comics or an entirely new scenario, Batman fans will be enthralled with what’s happening on screen. Some of it has to do with the fact that we get to control Bruce as Bruce. We aren’t just beating up minions while a cutscene does all the heavy lifting plot wise. No, instead we get to drive the narrative with our choices before putting on the costume. The other reason the story is so good is that Telltale is playing for keeps. Death comes swift as key characters are violently dispatched; outside of a few major players, there’s no guarantee that we’ll see Batman tussling with the same foes again and again. Because this game isn’t official cannon, it allows Telltale a little more freedom to fashion things to their liking.

As most comic book story’s go, things will get worse before getting better. Thankfully that isn’t the case when it comes to this game’s quality. If you read my review of the first episode, you’d know that it was saturated with bugs and frame rate problems. This episode is mostly clear of those issues, sans the frame rate. For whatever reason, it can’t seem to stay at 60fps (or 30 for that matter), mostly dropping really low when things heated up. While this didn’t completely ruin my experience this time around, it did cause some problems. One of the more shocking moments was nearly ruined because the screen stuttered, almost completely skipping the event at hand – I was able to hear what happened but didn’t see it until a few seconds had passed. This also proved troubling whenever there were quick time events which, given the nature of this sort of game, was often.

All and all, this episode was better than the last. That isn’t saying much given how bad the other fared (bugs and such). That said, the dark plot is entertaining, the action scenes are cool and Troy Baker is excellent as the voice of Batman. Hopefully, Telltale can fix the framerate issues before releasing the third episode. As it stands, that’s the only thing holding this series back on PC – the console versions have their own problems.