• Graphics
  • Audio
  • Customization
  • Controls

Everybody wants to be Batman right? Who wouldn’t want that kind of recognition for being a super hero and saving lives of the innocent? The same can be said for the bad guys. How bad ass would it be to be the Joker and take anything you want and have lackeys willing to do your bidding because if they won’t you could just kill them. The sad reality though is that not all of us have millions of dollars to spend on high tech crime fighting weapons, or have been trained to beat the hell out of anyone who opposes justice. Most of us were also taught right and wrong and have morals unlike the Joker. However these facts don’t deter those who truly want to be a hero/villain. Screw bat-a-rangs grab a hatchet. Who needs fists when you have a shotgun? Instead of a flower lapel why not use a rocket launcher? Gotham City Impostors takes this idea and makes a game out of it. You play as the civilians of Gotham City while Batman is away taking the law into your own hands. The good guys known as the Bats are vigilantes who honor Batman with street justice. Their main opposing force are a group of thugs known as the Jokerz. These are the civilians who idolize the Joker and want to take everything for themselves. Its the players job to fight for justice or cause as much mayhem as possible while Batman is away. How does Gotham City Impostors stack up against other Batman games? Avoid the bear traps and let’s take a look.

The Gotham City Impostors beta plays a lot like quite a few games. Its a first person shooter with the options to create certain load outs like call of duty. Depending on your play style you can customize the weapon and gadgets you use in order to compliment everything you do. You can also change your body type. Being able to change body types reminds me of BRINK, but before you get the wrong impression let me say that this game is what BRINK should’ve been like. The smaller the body type the faster you are and harder to hit from a distance, but your melee attacks are weaker and take more hits to kill enemies. Plus you have lower health then the larger characters. Their are 5 body types to choose from. Your melee attack will kill anyone in one hit if they are a smaller body type than you. Every character however can carry any weapon without being slowed down. The same goes for the outfit you wear. Every player can also choose any gadget. There are a nice amount of selections you can choose from. If speed is your game you can equip roller skates. These make you faster and also allow you to use the ramps that launch you across the map. You can also use a glider which you can use to fly across the map. While airborne you can perform a dive bomb attack on other players. Again depending on your body type the damage will vary. Scattered around each map are air vents and trampolines that will boost you to significant heights allowing for some nice hang time. Also included are the grappling gun, allowing you to latch onto walls and travel over long distances quickly. The spring boots allowing for super high jumps. The inflatable shoes enabling you to perform double jumps. There is also a smoke bomb allowing you to become invisible until you fire your weapon and finally the goggles which allow you to tag enemies for your whole team to see and if the enemy is killed while he is spotted you are awarded assist points. You are also granted with the presence of support items. These range from boomerangs and shurikens to pipe bombs and bear traps. Some of these like the hatchet and most of the explosives are a one hit kill others like the bear trap do damage and can kill but only if the enemy is weak enough. One cool thing about the bear trap is it slows down the speed and turning radius of the character.  You can also choose equip body armor allowing you to take more damage or an energy drink that will replenish your health. The beta also offers a nice plethora of guns to choose from. Rifles, SMG’s, snipers, shotguns, and rockets are all available for you to destroy your enemies. You also have a grenade launcher, freeze gun, and crossbow. The best part about this is you can have any 2 as your load out. No sidearms needed. Also like Call of Duty there are perk like abilities that you can unlock as your progress through the game. You can equip 2 perks at a time. Perks range from taking more damage before dying, your bullets doing more damage, staying invisible from the goggles, and having your explosions cause more damage. The Beta also hints at something called Rampage and your Psyche Profile. Rampage is activated once your get a current kill streak going. I have no idea what the Psyche Profile is for, but I imagine its something cool.

The beta offers 2 maps and 2 game types for us to try out. The two game types to choose from are Fumigation, which plays a lot like domination from the CoD series. There are 3 points on the map and the more points you control the faster your score rises. Whoever gets to 100% first wins and a super weapon is activated killing everyone on the other team and ending the game. The Bats release a pheromone calling in actual bats to destroy and maul anybody looking like a clown, whereas the Jokerz release a nerve toxin killing all Bats. The other game type Psyche Warfare plays a lot like sabotage. There are two bases on the map and one neutral battery. You need to insert the battery into the other teams base and guard it for 25 seconds. If your team is successful in defending it the other team loses its weapons for 25 seconds allowing for a merciless slaughter of the other team. The other team isn’t defenseless however, they are able to kill you with a single slap. There are two rounds and after the first round the teams switch bases. Whoever has uploaded and defended the most batteries win. The two maps are Crime Alley (a city block allowing for quite a few sniping positions) and Amusement Mile(an abandoned theme park with many different levels for combat.) Both maps are the perfect size and during each match frantic firefights are happening everywhere. Gotham City Impostors offers 6v6 on both game types. If everyone on the other team quits the round turns into a practice round and all you earned before the practice round carries over into your next game so none of your stats will be lost.

Another awesome thing that GCI added to their game is challenges. These are related to what weapons, support items, and gadgets you use, along with body type and time spent playing the game overall and as each body type. Not only do completing these challenges offer booku exp, but you also unlock calling card catchphrases and backgrounds. The callin card is basically the emblem from Black ops. Everytime you get a kill the player who died will see your character and your calling card. You’re not able to create your own design or anything but you still have options.

Overall I think Gotham City Impostors is an amazing game and I cannot wait until its released next Tuesday February 7th. I’m telling you now you need to pick up this game. It will be the best 1200 Microsoft points you ever spend. N+ was the only arcade game that I would continually play and still do today, but I can’t imagine me or anyone for that matter not playing this game for months to come. With all of the different ways you can customize your character and weapon loadouts, all of the challenges, and of course the level cap being an insane 1000 you have no reason to go outside till summer. You didn’t read that wrong either. The maximum level is level 1000. If you don’t get this game all I can say is that you are letting every Joker and Bat down, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint Batman or the Joker. I mean based on their track record I would see a ton of pain and or death in your future. If you did let either one of them down.