Gotham Knights’ Batkids fake it but never make it
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The trailers for Warner Bros. Games’ Gotham Knights have pitched a pretty straightforward concept: What would Gotham City look like without Batman? How would the various proteges of the Dark Knight function in this grim city? The answer, is very badly, it turns out. Please Brucie, come back to me!
Let me start this by saying I didn’t make it to the end of Gotham Knights’ story, so I suppose this is a review in progress. I won’t score it for that reason, but to be honest, I don’t think I’m going to finish this game, because I don’t really want to. I don’t want to keep playing Gotham Knights, even for the benefit of GamesBeat’s readers, because it is one of the most desperately un-fun things I’ve played all year.
The story is a simple one: Following Batman’s death, his four adoptive offspring — Dick “Nightwing” Grayson, Jason “Red Hood” Todd, Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon and Tim “Robin” Drake — come together to take over his job. They face several of Batman’s classic villains, including Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin and the mysterious new threat called the Court of Owls.
Let’s get the good things out of the way first, if only because this review will be mostly bad things. Gotham City looks cool, its layout drawing real-life inspiration from New York City. It’s also, as always, a hellhole. But it’s a much brighter, more vibrant hellhole than it’s been in past games. It also has actual citizens for the Gotham Knights to defend and protect — a lot of them, in fact.
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