Batman Arkham City – Is Joker Really Dead? – May contain Spoilers

Greetings my fellow gamers, this article is based on my conversation with my good friend Akash after we finished Batman Arkham City.

Don’t worry; I am not going to walk you through the whole conversation. Actually, as we talked about the game, we came up with some interesting points (at least I thought so) and I would like to share them with you.

Note: This article does not discuss graphics or performance of Arkham City on PC. However, if you do want to know about it, just follow the link.

After finishing the story, we had this great feeling that cannot be expressed in words. You have to play the game to feel it.

I recommended Akash to play Batman Arkham Asylum before playing Arkham City. He didn’t know about it when the game was released and between job and other things, he could not keep up with what amazing things were happening in the gaming world, like Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2, etc.

So, we discussed about the plot before anything. I actually liked it a lot. It was very intriguing and for the first time ever, I felt the thrill of a movie in a game.

The point where Talia kills Joker without knowing that it was Clayface and the whole game rotates (rewinds to be precise) like a suspense movie from start to finish, explaining everything clearly, it was mind boggling.

I mean, Joker comes out of nowhere and, it takes few seconds for Batman to figure out what the deal was, kills Talia. She was Bruce Wayne’s one and only love interest in Batman Arkham City.

Arkham City is supposedly 5 times larger than the map of Arkham Asylum. That’s true actually, but it is significantly smaller than Gotham City. However, as you perch on a Gargoyle and look at your surroundings, you feel that there is so much to do.

After discussing the plot and environment, we discussed some strange things about Batman too. Particularly, the oath of never killing someone and within the game, he actually kept his oath alive even for Joker and Penguin.

However, I would like to point out that he killed Grundy and Clayface. I get it that he was not a normal human being (monster for some folks), but still, Batman just ripped his heart and in case of Clayface, he froze him to death.

To be honest, I was kind of shocked and puzzled. I never would’ve thought that Batman would kill someone, even if he was a monster because in a Grundy World, he would have been normal!

Now … I know that I wouldn’t want to keep them alive too, but just like he caged Bane, he could just leave Grundy after he was beaten badly and chained once again to his original position. As for Clayface; he was already melting away.

Oh! Before I forget, Clayface actually dropped in the Lazarus Pit so I don’t know if he would become alive or not but before that, Batman killed him for sure.

Akash thought that it was weird too but we guessed that DC Comics (because it is their property) wanted to make Batman a little harder than ever. Anyway, this was the only thing that we felt was a little strange about the story line.

After this, we discussed that several people died in Batman Arkham City and the most puzzling and unpredictable Death was of Joker.

While Arkham City was under development, people were already making guesses and posting leaks of the plots and I read on some blog that Joker would be in coma or something after the end.

Besides Joker, we saw Ras-Al-Gul die when Batman jumped from the building as a escape attempt from Dr. Hugo Strange’s Protocol 11. Also, Strange was killed by Ras.

Here is a little list of who died in Batman Arkham City:

• Joker
• Talia-Al-Gul
• Ras-Al-Gul
• Clayface
• Grundy

Survivors:

• Batman or Bruce Wayne
• Catwoman or Selina Kyle
• Harley Quinn
• Penguin
• Two-Face or Harvey Dent

One of my friends told me that Catwoman would die as well. I think that he must have seen a trailer where Catwoman nearly dies due to an explosion at her house. Two-face planted a bomb in her house when he learned her location.

But she survived the blast and got back on her feet to kick all the henchmen who were there to witness and report the blast back to Two-Face. This is why we can switch between Batman and Catwoman to finish side missions later on.

Gameplay

Gameplay of Arkham City was amazing but yet, it reminded us of Arkham Asylum. When we complete Assassin’s Quests to get the blood sample of Ras-Al-Gul, the background music reminded me about Scarecrow.

The mission related to Penguin, when we have to walk on thin ice, reminded me about Killer Croc’s lair.

I am not nitpicking here; just thought that you would like to know because I did not think that there would be any repetition in Arkham City.

On a happy note, I would like to say that I loved Batman with the sword. I mean, the way he was swinging his sword and killing Clayface’s parts or something, it was just awesome.

I mean, it was way (way) better than Assassin’s Creed’s Ezio Auditore. It was graceful and boy Batman looked marvelous with a sword.

I wonder what would really happen if Batman Arkham City’s sequel would feature that sword as an optional weapon.

The End

Our discussion ended with the gameplay. We were running late and everything was pretty much covered. Actually, I just gave you the gist of the whole discussion.

Batman Arkham City really took us by surprise. I have yet to complete several quizzes of Riddler and explore Arkham City further. I am sure that you had fun with the game as well.

I am desperately looking forward to a sequel that might actually conclude the storyline of Arkham. Till then let’s have fun playing the game. Ciao.