Mr. Freeze Trailer for BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY; Plus Gameplay Impressions

Too many villains can’t bring down a movie, but it can work perfectly for a sprawling video game like Batman: Arkham City.  We’ve already seen trailers for Catwoman (more of anti-hero but whatever) and The Riddler plus we know that Two-Face, Hugo Strange, Harley Quinn, and Joker are back (there was also a trailer for The Penguin which we didn’t post but you can check out here).  Now the folks at WB Games and Rocksteady have released a new trailer showing that Mr. Freeze is in the mix.  We’re a little over two months away from the game’s release and I’m wondering what other villains will be in store.  My bet is we’ll be seeing the Scarecrow again and the teaser trailer hinted that Black Mask will be around as well.

Hit the jump to check out the new trailer along with my impressions of the game from the brief demo I played at Comic-Con.  Batman: Arkham City hits Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Games for Windows on October 18th.

[via GameTrailers]

I got to play through the part where Batman has to rescue Catwoman from Two-Face.  Flying through the city is going to take a little getting used to as I was mostly just gliding a little bit and then had to keep pulling myself up by grappling onto just about anything in the city.  But whereas stealth was a key element in Arkham Asylum, it’s going to be a bit trickier this time around.  I couldn’t find a secret entrance to the building where Two-Face was holding Catwoman so I had to use the front-door and fight a bunch of guys.  Granted, I had about twenty people behind me in line so I didn’t have time to find another entrance (if one existed) or to do the Riddler side-quests I saw on my way to the building.

After busting in on Two-Face’s mock trial over Catwoman (he had a spare vat of acid to hang her over), Batman busted in and it was time for yet another big brawl.  I’m hoping that Arkham City retains the stealth element of Arkham Asylum because while the combat flow system is still great, the programmers as Rocksteady said it best when talking about the first game (and I’m paraphrasing): Batman can’t charge into a room of enemies because he’s human and they’ll kill him fast.  The groups of thugs I was fighting weren’t armed with guns, but I missed the thrill of picking off the bad guys one by one so hopefully this demo was built around showcasing combat rather than detective work and stealth gameplay.

The Joker then took a shot at Catwoman from a sniper rifle (his laser sight was a smiley face, which I loved), but Batman saved her.  Then he mapped out the trajectory of the bullet and went to find its origin.  Then the nice lady at the Warner Bros. booth told me it was time to let someone else play.  I was grateful to have the chance to play it, but the wait until October 18th now seems longer than eternity (even though that’s impossible).