Batman: Arkham City Lockdown review

In an attempt to cash in on the fantastic Arkham City franchise, Neverrealm studios fashioned the IOS game; Batman Arkham City Lockdown; a game that feels clunky, lazy and downright frustrating. This is a blemish on the otherwise amazing Rocksteady Batman franchise.

What kind of a fighting stance is that Mr. Master of most known Martial Arts?

To begin, the graphics in the game are actually really good. The feel strong and almost match the feel and tone of Rocksteady's games. Batman looks like Batman and the thugs look real. However, that's about it for positives. Levels in a certain area all look the same, so you feel as though you've just returned to a place where you've already been whenever you play. Also, there's only a few new lines, most have just been ripped from the good Arkham games. The story begins with all the inmates escaping Arkham Asylum once more and Batman has to round them up. However, this is not done in an epic cutscene, it's done via radio broadcast. This lowers the scale of how much you feel emerged in the game. Also, there's no backstory behind these super villains. You just; go and beat them up. In the end, you feel as though you're playing a demo rather than an actual game. The story is also littered with continuity errors.


The gameplay is an attempted Batman take on Infinity Blade, but it fails spectacularly. You can swipe the screen to punch, but this feels clunky as the screen rarely picks up what you actually wanted to do. It also takes away Batman's freeflow prowess and replaces it with slow moving, awkward fighting. You can only do a 4 hit combo and that just feels bad. You can dodge moves, or counter them, but this too feels vague and uncontrolled. Also, enemies do more damage to you than you do to them. WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?! SERIOUSLY?!?! YOU'RE BATMAN!!! THAT JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN!!!!!!! Boss fights are no different from regular fights, they just have a few gimmicks here and there like Joker's flower squirting on your screen making you have to wipe it off before you can fight. 
You can buy upgrades, but it takes ages to level up and you can usually only buy one at a time and some require you to level up multiple times. You can buy points with real money, but that's just complete garbage. In short; Batman Arkham City Lockdown is a waste of your time, money and effort. Avoid this at all costs.