[Fresh Tendrils]

This game is beautiful. Arkham City has aged really well thanks to their more comic/cartoon leaning art-style, but the fidelity and vivid imagery in Arkham Knight is fantastic. Even in a dreary *** setting where it's gloomy and raining its tempting to just stop and stare.

Thankfully, gliding over map and looking around satisfies that itch. Pausing for photo mode reveals small details easily missed out on like the fabric of the cape or the rain drops splashing off it. To answer the recent question about building interiors on the map - you will be amazed at much you simply DO NOT CARE about entering any building, much less walking around on the ground. Traversing the maps in this series has been fantastic since AC. Hearing the cape flap and flutter. Its the small things that really push this series over the top for me.

I'm enjoying all the additions and wrinkles to the existing combo and freeflow system. The FEAR chain takedown is very effective and so far very rewarding. I can see how it could be abused and eventually lead to boring gameplay segments, but its a nice way to clear out remaining predator areas or just clear out groups of goons in general.

On the flipside the Batmobile will forever have me on the fence. I understand the "need" to have it included in a game and the missed opportunity if they wouldn't have put it in. Generally its OK to cruise around, but I feel there's a disconnect between the power of the Batmobile and how its presented. The engine sounds flat and dull which is weird considering how bombastic the rest of the audio is for the game. Its obviously a tank because it ****ing handles like one when cornering and the fact that it is demolishing large parts of Gotham (and its citizens) when it goes down a street. This aspect reminds me of Burnout all the time. Then again the launch into glide is so fun and I never get tired of summoning the Batmobile in a dive bomb to glide safely into the cockpit.

Luckily, I haven't had to do too many combat scenarios with the tank yet. I'm thinking that will be the first things I update so I can just muscle and power my way through those missions.

The menus feel super clunky to me - especially when trying to navigate all of the AR Challenges/Missions. AC wasn't exactly the best, but it all felt centralized. I'm still getting accustomed to not using LB for detective mode, but I almost always call the Batmobile when attempting to scan for different things.

Overall I think I was very hard on this game when it came out initially, but I'm trying to keep a more receptive approach this time around and have been enjoying it a lot.