For the first time ever in the Batman Arkham series, we get to take direct control over Batgirl as she beats up bad guys in her own adventure taking place well before the events of Arkham Asylum, and obviously before she takes on the identity of Oracle. Her dad, Commissioner Gordon, along with a few other GCPD cops, have been captured by Joker and Harley Quinn, then taken to some run-down amusement park just off the coast of Gotham City. Under threat of having all the hostages executed should Batman show up, Batgirl calls Robin and asks him to assist her in rescuing the hostages and stopping Joker.
The amusement park setting may be smaller than those of any of the previous DLCs in the series, but it’s still large enough to hold some collectibles and secrets, as well as enough enemies so that there’s rarely a shortage of them. Batgirl herself comes with the usual gadgets: batarangs, line launcher, explosive gel, batclaw, and smoke pellets. She also has the remote hacking device, which she can use to greater effect than Batman thanks to her genius-level hacking skills. She’ll be able to disarm bombs, activate speakers and other contraptions to distract or scare enemies, and momentarily blind enemies by turning off nearby lights, allowing her to take down several enemies back to back in a similar manner to Batman’s fear takedowns in the main game. And when fighting groups of enemies, Robin will normally be at her side to assist her through dual combat.
“Don’t be mad that I’m the star here Tim, at least I included you in my adventure.”
The standard combat and stealth sections so popular with the series return for Batgirl’s outing, and aside from the extra tricks she can perform with the remote hacking device, there’s really nothing new that this game offers gameplay-wise. The game’s length is basically the same as Arkham City’s story-related DLC, Harley Quinn’s Revenge, and should take no more than an hour or so to complete, though that time could nearly double if you make it a point to find all the collectibles. Also like Harley Quinn’s Revenge, the story for Batgirl: A Matter of Family is very straightforward. One saving grace for this DLC is that it ends on a high note with an admittedly fun boss fight that shakes things up a bit with the dual play element, namely an intense two-against-two battle (not counting the regular goons that insist on taking part in it).
Overall, this story-related DLC is fun, but has limited content and may only be worth getting if you really love the Batgirl character, or if you’re like me and simply must have all story-related DLCs for a game. As of now, Arkham Origins’ Cold, Cold Heart DLC is the best story-related DLC in the Arkham series with its superior story and larger amount of content. Thankfully, Batgirl’s little adventure costs $6.99, which was a rather fair price (Harley Quinn’s Revenge cost me $10 and it had basically the same amount of content). This price makes it clear to me that getting the overpriced Season Pass for Arkham Knight may not be worth it if you only plan on getting this and any future story-related DLCs for the game. Getting these DLCs separately should be much cheaper than getting the Season Pass for $40 since it apparently will only add a bunch of skins, race tracks, and challenge maps on top of the story DLCs. At the very least, it was cool seeing Joker alongside the classic Harley Quinn in her red and black jester get-up that we grew up with in the Animated Series back in the day.
9 comments
‘Buy a 49$ / € season pass, and enjoy some great new content during 6 months’
If the 4 or 5 dlcs fans are going to get, by paying almost the price of a full AAA game, for that 49$ season pass, are only 30-45 minutes long stories, that could have been in the main game as side missions, well, NO.
I wish nobody will buy this ultra expensive season pass.
People can vote with their wallet, and make the industry go wherever they want. By spending all this cash, we are saying ‘ yeah, studios, publishers, please, keep on releasing short games, and moving a big chunk of the game to dlcs and other season passes crap. Instead of making a 20h campaign, just give us a 7-8h campaign, and the rest of the game, just sell it as dlcs. That way, to enjoy the full game experience, we will have to spend 120-150 $/€. Thank you so much, dear publishers’.
What’s next? In 2016, will we see some 90$ season passes?
How is it possible, that a digital game sold on the psn can cost 20-30% more than the retail disc?
and why, a 4 yo call of duty title still costs like 90% of the price of a new retail title ?
We gamers, are being raped by the industry.no doubt about that.
I 100% argee with you. What happened to the days of expansion packs that really add to the game. And the PSN prices drive me crazy. In fact you’ve given be a new idea for an opinion feature piece. Thanks
You’re welcome.
If I had a blog… I have plenty of ideas for some nice articles.
One in particular, you would have 100’000 visitors in no time, as the theme and content would make you look like an anti-patriotic guy, who would be telling the sad truth nobody wants to see.
If you want, I could write it and show you.then, if you don’t hate me for telling the truth, and want to modify a few things here and there, and post it..feel free to do it : )
We would love to hear what you have, drop us a message at
https://gamingrespawn.com/contact-us/ and I’ll personally get back to you! 🙂
Yeah, many season passes nowadays simply cost way too much. I’m not totally against DLC in general, especially if they’re well priced, but some are just not worth it. I’m a sucker for story-related DLC, I admit that, but season passes like the one for Arkham Knight with all that extra unneeded stuff are not worth getting.
I paid $6.99 for this Batgirl DLC and it was mostly worth it, and hopefully the other two story-related DLCs coming up will have similar costs if they’re about the same length, meaning I’ll probably pay $20 total for all three story DLCs, if that. Had I bought the season pass for $40, the only other crap I would have gotten was skins, races tracks, and challenge maps. No thanks. The challenge maps should have come WITH the game already, like in all the previous Batman games.
Right.
This industry has become a huge joke.
I wonder if future games in 2017 and beyond will even have a single player campaign.
All companies are doing everything to bring people to the online. Online where the micrograms actions and other passes are.
Even uncharted series… did they need a multi player component ? Of course not.
But because it is almost impossible to integrate microtransactions in a sp campaign, and force people into buying items, outfits, weapons, etc, making an online multi player section will allow the studio to create tons of other items, that they will be able to sell.
Like call of duty boost packs… A newbie can play 5 minutes, he buys all the percs/weapons/etc for 200$, and he is ready to go kill some other noobs, with all the powerful weapons they just bought.
I’m OK with spending some cash, WHEN that makes my gaming experience much better. Ex, mass effect 1-3 weapon packs and extra missions. For some cash, I could buy new expansions, that would bring another 2,3,+5 hours of fun, and for 2-3 bucks, I could have some cool new weapons, weapons that would literally change the way I played..
But today, we buy a full game, and the studio is already begging gamers to buy ultra expensive season passes for content THEY STILL NEED TO CREATE. It’s just crazy.
They all want us to go online.
Even naughty dog, that I love and respect, I hated what they did with uncharted 3: one day, I wanted to check what options we have, on the multiplayer side.just watch. To see what options we have, playing modes, co-op, etc.
Well, JUST to enable the multi player menu, I had to use the online pass, which can only be used once. Damn, just to look at the multi player options, I was forced to use that serial number ! Even if I wasn’t going to play on multi player, local or online, they absolutely wanted me to use the serial, so, in case I would sell the game, the buyer would need a new 10$ online pass.
That was REALLY LAME. Really.
The same with God of war ascension. In order to platinum the game (my first plat ever ), I had to play 5 minutes in the gods arena. Of course, I had to use my online pass number. !
Again, uncharted 3. Some of the trophies require ‘go online and create a session’.
Why the hell should I need to go online and use my online pass, if I’m only playing the single player offline campaign? !
Again, online is where they can sell us tons of 2$ crap.
Like little big planet scam. How dare they charging $2.50 for a simple outfit, that a 13yo unexperienced designer could create in 4 minutes. There must be thousands of different outfits for lbp. I purchased the n°1 and 2, but not the 3. They could have done a huge fantastic lbp ps4 title, with plenty of incredible new features, chips, processors, etc. But no, they did a game that the ps3 could still handle, and as a result, the ps4 version was simply a ps3 port.
Big comment, but I really hate the game industry,now. No more passion and risks to create great new experiences, it’s all about makes as much money as possible, to please shareholders and investors, who have never played a video game before.
While I don’t agree with everything you said in your comment. It’s very clear you have some passionate strong views. Have you ever thought of writing and getting your opinion out there? Seems you have alot to say but just need the platform to say it.
It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. If it was 3-4 hours of extra game play and a more fully fleshed out story, I’d see the point in it. But for what they’re providing I wouldn’t be comfortable spending money for it. Each to their own I guess. I’ve bought DLC before for other games and enjoyed it. I got the MK X dlc pack for instance
I can most certainly see why this and many other DLCs would not be worth a purchase for other players. Personally, the only story-related DLCs that were undoubtedly worth the extra cash were Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption, Festival of Blood for Infamous 2, First Light for Infamous: Second Son, Cold, Cold Heart for Arkham Origins, and probably Pigsy’s Perfect 10 for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
I’m hoping the upcoming Season of Infamy DLC for Arkham Knight will have more content since Batman will apparently be fighting several more villains trying to take over Gotham City in that DLC.
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