If you're going to copy something, a game that's been nearly universally applauded is a good place to start. The Dark Knight Rises brings reasonably open-world gameplay and a similar counter-based combat system to pint-sized hardware. Even the signature cape glide, grappling hook and stealth vantage points are present, albeit in modified forms for touch control. Dropping down from a convenient hidey-hole and knocking out an armed guard pushes the same mental buttons as in the above titles.
The plot, which loosely follows that of the blockbuster, takes a
backseat to the action. Those hoping for a play-by-play of the social
struggles in The Dark Knight Rises will be disappointed. But then,
monologues on the nature of justice and the morality of compromise would
hardly make for compelling gameplay. You'll get a story that intersects
with the movie at key points, filling in with what boils down to a lot
of fetch-quests and wave after wave of baddies. The puzzles presented
include a hacking mini-game similar to Mass Effect, though the
justification for some of them - like "hacking" into three separate
power couplings to move a train - are a bit contrived. Small point: why
does Bruce Wayne have to collect "credits" for power-ups? You'd think he
could just, you know, buy them.
Unfortunately, TDKR features a few problems that are rather endemic to
third-person action games with touch controls. Moving Batman around and
keeping the camera at an appropriate angle is nearly impossible, unless
you're blessed with three thumbs. And though Gameloft is copying
Rocksteady in combat and gadgets, they can't seem to get the flowing
movement just right - ol' Bats moves around as if he's had his back
broken. Dispatching enemies is a fairly bland chop-socky affair. Though
you're given plenty of trick batarangs to play with, none are as
effective as a knuckle sandwich. In contrast, the vehicle segments are
great fun, for the short time that they last.
The graphics on the Android version leave a lot to be desired, at least
once you get past Batman's costume. It seems that at any given moment
half of the game's polygons are being dedicated to the various nooks and
crannies of the Batsuit, leaving enemies and environments quite bland.
Normally this wouldn't bother me, but when central characters like
Selina Kyle and Bane look like they're made out of Lego, you've got some
seriously unbalanced visuals. The voice acting is serviceable, though
with the exception of the gravely Bale-Batman voice, none of the
sound-a-likes are particularly convincing. At least the game is fully
voiced.
The Christopher Nolan series of Batman movies take a pretty serious
attitude to the caped crusader, and that follows over to the Android
game. You won't be beating up on giant crocodiles or dodging murderous
plants; here you're mainly stepping out around Gotham and beating up
thug after thug. And while that makes for a gritty and almost believable
universe for a movie series, it makes for a dull, dull game. An
overriding gray and brown color scheme doesn't help matters - and
doesn't help to actually see elements and enemies on a glossy
touchscreen.
Though normally a pretty trivial concern, the sheer size and
compatibility of this game deserves some attention. The Dark Knight
Rises is a whopping
3.6 gigabytes, which is nearly the size of a
standard DVD, just for the mobile game. Half of that will come from the
Play Store download, the other half will be downloaded after you
install the game. That's beyond bloated, it's ridiculous: this one game
would wipe out the storage capacity of many phones and even weight down
some tablets. The
Nexus 7
8GB would be brought to its knees. With mobile data getting more and
more expensive, this kind of lazy optimization really isn't tolerable
anymore.
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