If an enemy throws something at you, you can deflect it right back using the counter button. The skill is also in developing context-appropriate reactions. While showing off the Challenge mode, Rocksteady's community manager was effortlessly attaining 50+ combo chains, wracking up mountainous scores.

With better knowledge of the combo system, however, you start to string more flamboyant moves together, chaining multiple attacks, moving seamlessly from one baddie to the next. Just pounding the buttons and analogue stick produce an acrobatic display, with Catwoman, high-kicking here, whip-cracking there, and occasionally pausing, bending over to peck an enemy on the cheek, before throwing him over on to the ground. You can choose from Batman, Robin or Catwoman (though more characters may be announced) and the latter is just an absolute pleasure to control, her lithe animation and roster of slinking moves combining beautifully to create a combat system that both flatters and challenges the player. My hands-on 2D demo with the Challenge mode worked brilliantly though. Taking place on a static Gotham rooftop, the stereoscopic visuals added little in the way of depth, while Catwoman's speedy animation gave me double vision at times. Two of the studio's team showed us a combat challenge where you select a character then battle ever-larger, more insistent waves of enemies. For Gamescom, Rocksteady Studios was also showing off Arkham City's expanded Challenge mode, which provides players with a range of contained gameplay tasks, based within familiar campaign locations. Where it didn't really help, or indeed work amazingly well, was in the actual combat segments. Sadly, I didn't get hands-on time with the 3D version, but I wonder if it will be useful as well as visually impressive, providing more depth perception for those precarious landings on tight ledges or looming gargoyles. Immediately, there was a real sense of scale, inclusion and distance it works in the way that successful 3D cinema works, by grabbing the viewer and for a few brief seconds taking them onto the other side of the screen.

The title now joins Gears of War 3 as an interesting fresh recruit to consumer electronics' latest marketing drive.Īnd in a demo room in the Gamescom business centre, I watched impressed as Batman spread out his wings and swooped above a city that unfolded in three dimensions around him. Warner Bros announced this long-awaited title's support for the oft-maligned stereoscopic technology at Gamescom. If one game experience is capable of tempting 3D naysayers to don a pair of active shutter glasses and gawp in wonder at their screens, it could be Batman: Arkham City.

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