Recent reviews by Bandit Fustercluck

A breath of fresh air and a long awaited entry in PC gaming.
Essentially the closest thing and the best the PC community will ever get to a Harvest Moon game without running emulators.
The continued support and added content, which is FREE, from the devs goes to show how much they care about the game, and that alone is worth its purchase price.
Highly recommended.

The only RPG to get open world pirate gameplay right so far. Aside from the occasional bugs one of my pet peeves in this game is that the sailors don't know port from starboard.

Now that the pc port fiasco (which I myself had the pleasure of experiencing) has been patched, for the most part that is, I can start fresh with a new review of this game.
*There will be spoilers in this review. My verdict is at the end*

To be frank, is it the finale the Arkham franchise deserves? No. Far from it, really.

While the story was interesting as far as the Arkham games go through the bar already having been set by City, this was a fun but quite flawed romp that fell short off the mark in the end. The first and second acts were quite good, along with Joker being added into the story in a pretty clever way despite biting the dust (that musical number along with the Joker nightmare sequences were the best). Giving Oracle a 'face' and playing a bigger part in the story was long due although this came at the cost of Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing having even less screentime. Robin has nothing more than a glorified cameo while Nightwing was essentially a questgiver and Catwoman, who had a separate storyline in Arkham City that tied in nicely with the main campaign, was shamelessly demoted to a damsel in distress. One of the promises for this game was that Batman and those who followed him would be thrust into the conflict and yet Poison Ivy played all three supporting characters' parts in one fell swoop.
Scarecrow as the main baddie for this one was, if anything, disappointing and he basically functioned a hell of a lot like a typical movie villain. Always cowering behind the scenes and letting the generic cardboard cutout Arkham Knight, who despite being promised by the devs as an original villain (was predictably not), steal the limelight. And the Arkham Knight was as boring and archetypal as villains came. The small choices were welcome but meant absolutely nothing in the end aside from a few lines mentioned which was pretty damn disappointing as well. Things got to a point where the game would be forcing the narrative down your throat that you would exasperatedly yell "Alright I get it! It was Jason Todd!"

Also, despite slaving over all 243 riddles, the 'true' ending went the eyerolling Nolan route and consequently left more questions than answers for what was supposed to be the finale jfc.

Having polished the freeflow combat and the detective aspects of the game, taking pointers from Arkham Origins for the detective scenarios here, Arkham Knight plays fluidly yet feels more like a remaster of the older games rather than being a brand new and improved Arkham game. Aside from remapped special moves, there's not much added to it at this point and the combat still has some problems its predecessors had but these are pretty minor.

Leveling up is now done through more productive activities that move plotlines forward which is a pretty good improvement honestly. It gives the player more incentive to do more. The AR challenges this time around reward the player with points to spend on Batman in the main campaign which is another good move so these things get a big thumbs up from me.

The world is just as what one would expect Gotham would be. Vibrant and full of stuff to do; albeit Arkahm Knight went for quantity over quality in a lot of these side quests as most are pretty short and repetitive. There's a lot of content here but whether you're willing to go through all of them or not is entirely up to you as this aspect of the game is completely hit or miss. There are barely any boss battles in this game too so that's a big letdown when even the least liked games of the franchise have those done right.

And the last point of this review, the batmobile. Is it as controversial as people said it was? Yes and no.
While being a welcome addition to the game, it overstays its welcome from the over-abundant and repetitive af drone tank battles and the ridiculous Riddler racing tracks, which thanks to the weird way the vehicle operates, makes it haphazardly more difficult to play on a keyboard and mouse than it should be.
The Riddler puzzles that needed the Batmobile were fine but, again, they got pretty carried away with the trophies and puzzles so much that if it weren't for the promise of unlocking a full ending, which isn't really full as I found out when I finished the game, I wouldn't have bothered with it at all like I did in the past.

As for the Arkham episodes, like the side missions in the main campaign, they were hit or miss and painfully short for what they were supposed to bring. Batgirl's episode was arguably the best as the others only felt like padding to hopefully fill out the horribly lackluster ending of the main campaign. There were some pretty good moments in them, like Robin and Oracle complaining about how they were supposed to be on their honeymoon instead of bringing down Twoface's operations, or Nightwing taking over things in Gotham for a whilem but these were just too damn short in what could've explored the supporting roles even further.

*Spoilers end here*

In conclusion, it was a fun ride for the most part and there really is a lot of content here, but not all of it is good. The combat is the best of all the games but the narrative and basically everything else, pales when put beside the ever excellent Arkham City; even Arkham Origins did a lot of things right despite its criticisms. I highly recommend to get it on sale and as a starting point for the Arkham franchise as the others are just superior in every other way in comparison.

HANDS DOWN, the best movie based game in video game history.

What people say about Mad Max = So shiny... so chrome.. I AM AWAITED IN VALHALLA!!

What people say about Arkham Knight = MEDIOCRE (the port that is)!!

The president of the United States can be British, Hispanic, or even a woman. 10/10 for the idea, 9/10 for the gameplay and content.

2023 Update: Thumbs down due to forced integration to Epig garbage.

Tactical, turn-based strategy and base management at its finest. XCOM retains its predecessors' qualities (especially the difficulty) and innovates to keep up with modern gaming for nerve-wracking yet highly satisfying gameplay. Highly recommended for strategy fans. Can't wait for the sequel!

Going commando never felt this nostalgic. Still waiting for a sequel.

A rare third person action/platforming gem. Clever writing, unique art design, several worlds (minds) to explore, fun psychic powers, and you rarely fight the camera for control which is sublime in this genre.

One hell of an emotional game. Great soundtrack and compelling story. I highly advise against playing if one just got out of a relationship due to all the feels it brings.

The milk of Ultraviolet... not even once.