Batman: Arkham City DLC

All the deets on what eager fans can expect.

Despite all of the top-notch games hitting shelves right about now, Batman: Arkham City still feels special to me. It wasn’t just solid gameplay and a thrilling storyline that kept me going back for more. It was the exquisite attention to detail that Rocksteady poured into the game. They also seem to appreciate just how much people can pay for a triple A video games these days and compensated by packing in a huge amount of replay value. Continuing their high standards, they have now released additional content available for download that is worthy fanfare and helps extend the game’s shelf-life.


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Most players have experienced the Catwoman storyline episodes already. Although they weaved in-between the Caped Crusader’s chapters in a slightly clumsy manner, they added an extra tier of plot to the antics of Gotham City. Her saucy demeanor, snug costume and different style of gameplay ensured there were few complaints from its target market too.

Most owners of Arkham City received Catwoman’s content as a free download with their retail version of the game. For those who didn’t, it’s well worth a try for 800 MS points and around a 250mb download. Users can access her storyline chapters even after they have finished the original campaign and she is an extra playable character for the Challenge Mode as well.

The Boy Wonder(s)

The two new additions to the online content include Robin and Nightwing. Unlike Catwoman, who had campaign missions, these two characters only offer Challenge Mode gameplay, where players must fight waves of enemies.

However, as anyone who’s played the game will tell you, fighting off hordes of baddies for hours on end isn’t a chore. The excellent combat mechanics in Arkham City require finesse and a sense of timing that would make the late John Bonham nervous.

Just like Catwoman, both Robin and Nightwing have completely different fighting styles. Although these don’t change the controls at all, players will need to work to their respective strengths. For example Catwoman is fast, but weak and unable to sustain much damage. Instead she relies on ‘attack-and-evade’ combat rather than Batman’s stand-up, intimidating brawling technique.

Robin and Nightwing fall between the cat and the bat. They’re both quick, but feel a lot more solid in combat when outnumbered, unlike the nimble Catwoman. Robin, equipped with an extended bo-staff and an acrobatic prowess, is able to clear a room a lot quicker than Batman due to his speed.

Nightwing, a personal favourite of mine, is a bit more high-tech and uses two electric batons as his main weapons of choice. He also has some fancy gadgets, such as wrist darts. However the confined spaces of Challenge maps, combined with a clunky first-person aiming mechanic make these almost unusable in the heat of battle. To be fair though, Nightwing makes up for this by having some of the coolest damn costumes in the entire game.

The Nightwing pack is available now for download. Those who didn’t get the Robin DLC as a pre-order special will be able to download it on the 22nd of November. Each cost around 560 MS points, take up around 100 to 150mb, and include new Challenge Mode maps and exclusive costumes for each as well. Unfortunately Robin and Nightwing can’t be used to free-roam Arkham City like Catwoman, however there are rumours that Rocksteady will be adding future episodes as DLC at a later date.

Also look out for the Batman costume pack, featuring seven skins for Batman, including: 1970’s Batsuit, Batman: Year One, The Dark Night Returns, Batman: Earth One, Batman Beyond, Sinestro Corps and The Animated Series. This is due to land early December, but at this stage pricing is unavailable.

Holy Save-Fail Batman!

Despite most fans having no problems, there have been some reports of Xbox owners experiencing issues after installing the above new DLC. While PS3 and PC owners are zipping around beating up goons, a few 360 owners have reported corrupted or missing save game files, especially after installing the Robin DLC pack.

NZGamer.com hasn’t had any issues and so far, it appears that it might be a couple of isolated complaints. Some of whom appear to have installed a Beta of the forthcoming Xbox 360 “Holiday 2011” system update, where bugs are likely to be discovered. Rocksteady and Warner Bros. Interactive have stated that they are unable to recreate these problems in their testing labs and therefore are unable to correct a possible problem.

Has anyone here experienced any post-DLC issues with saved games? If so please comment below and we’ll pass it on to the powers that be.