Face-Off: Batman: Arkham City

By David Bierton Published 26 October, 2011

Dark Knight in shining armour.

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- Xbox 360 PlayStation 3
Disc Size 7.8GB 7.7GB
Install 7.8GB (8.1GB with Catwoman DLC) 1601MB (1833MB with Catwoman DLC)
Surround Support Dolby Digital Dolby Digital, DTS, 5.1LPCM

Following up the excellent Arkham Asylum was always going to be an awesome challenge for UK developer Rocksteady, but given two years of development time and plenty of inspired design choices, Batman: Arkham City is an outstanding experience all round. In terms of gameplay, the biggest change comes with the introduction of Arkham City as the game's 'hub', where main missions and side-quests are accessed.

The new, open playground of Arkham City also brings about some major changes to the visual look of the game. Unreal Engine 3 has seen its fair share of enhancements over the years, freeing it from the shackles of the smaller, more claustrophobic level layouts originally favoured by the tech and into much bigger spaces. Here we have an expansive landscape, complete with plenty of areas to explore along with a large amount of buildings which contain the bulk of the game's story missions. The mixture of the more constrained environments seen in the last game and new open-area segments works wonderfully, giving the player plenty to do whilst also showcasing the improvements made to the underlying game engine.

A few tweaks and optimisations to UE3 has also allowed for an even closer multi-platform conversion than we saw in Arkham Asylum. As our Batman: Arkham City 720p comparison gallery and head-to-head video demonstrate, many of the differences found in Batman's last outing - ranging from lower resolution textures and pared back effects on the PS3 - have mostly been eliminated. The changes made to UE3 also allow for an upgrade in environmental detail and additional lighting effects.

Batman: Arkham Asylum on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Use the full-screen button to ensure you see full 720p resolution.

Starting off, the first thing that visibly sticks out is the quality of the artwork on both formats: it's largely identical with very few differences between them. In comparison there were a fair few examples of lower resolution textures and paired back normal maps on the PS3 version of Arkham Asylum, which have now been taken care of. The alpha buffers are also rendered out in the same way on both formats - there's no drop in resolution on the PS3 - with smoke, fire and other effects looking identical.

With regards to texture detail, most of the peculiarities apparent in our comparison gallery are likely down to the game's LOD system of streaming in higher quality artwork: things appear pretty much interchangeable between both consoles, though there are times when the PS3 appears to be slightly ahead - bar the odd occasion whereby high resolution textures fail to load, or where high resolution assets are briefly swapped out and the swapped back in again.

Given the increase in load when dealing with detailed open world areas, it appears that Rocksteady has carefully chosen to remove certain elements of the game's visual make-up in order to help maintain a steady 30 frames per second update, while also upgrading the visuals significantly in other areas. We presume that the idea here is that those extra GPU cycles can be used for more important duties elsewhere: the lighting model is visibly improved over the previous release and we don't see quite the performance hit you might expect from the graphical boost the new game offers.

360-14
ps3-14

In terms of texture pop-in, the experience on both platforms is mostly similar, but the PS3's streaming appears to be slightly better. However, on the odd occasion, textures fail to load at all.

In terms of the specifics, the 2x MSAA present in the 360 version of Arkham Asylum has been excised, with both versions of Arkham City recieving no edge smoothing at all while screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO) has been removed on the Microsoft platform. Again, neither version utilises the effect at all.

The end result doesn't have all that much of an impact: we're still looking at a native 720p framebuffer on both formats, and the application of MSAA in Arkham Asylum added only mild benefits to overall image quality. As with most UE3-based titles that use anti-aliasing, sampling is carried out before various elements of the scenes are rendered - usually lighting and post process effects - and as such the overall impression we got was that the AA was selective: visible on some edges, so its overall impact wasn't especially noticeable and removing it almost certainly frees up some GPU cycles.

For the same reason, the lack of edge smoothing in Arkham City isn't really much of an issue on either platform. It's only in the more open areas of the game that we see some noticeable jaggies, with elements such as fences, railings and other metallic materials causing shimmering, pixel-crawling issues. Curiously, edge shimmering on some sub-pixel elements appears to be less evident on the PS3 in places. The cause of this seems to stem from the brighter gamma set-up on the platform along with use of a less intensive bloom component, than from any additional edge smoothing.

Similarly, the omission of SSAO isn't especially an issue here, either. The effect was subtle and very difficult to pick up in Arkham Asylum within the game's overall aesthetic. Its omission here isn't really a problem considering the amount of depth on offer with the existing shadowing model.

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Comments (41) Latest comment 6 months ago

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  • Subquest #1 7 months ago

    sitting on my hands until the pc version is released, played a little at a friends house on 360 and I know I'm going to love it. Rocksteady deserve enormous credit for providing an excellent experience on both consoles, whilst also giving the pc version the required tlc

  • cloudskipa #2 7 months ago

    So it sounds like the 360 version just edges it. No surprises there (given the engine) and it just looks that little bit sharper but both are so close your controller preference is probably more of a factor. Great article.
    Edited by cloudskipa at 26/10/11 @ 16:14

  • Kill_Crazy #3 7 months ago

    Fanboys in 3..2..1..

    /great on both systems is the word

  • stevethemeat #4 7 months ago

    Quality game. looks like a great job was done for both consoles.

  • coomber #5 7 months ago

    I'm playing this using the old paper glasses and I'm finding the 3D effects not as impressive as I did with Arkham Asylum. It feels like a hindrance rather than a seamless addition to the visuals this time around.

  • Vortextk #6 7 months ago

    I still refuse to understand why CG has no anti-aliasing. It makes no sense. It's a movie, it can't require -that- much more rendering time unless they're doing it dead last, can it? I've still yet to play or really see it, waiting for the pc version..

  • onyxbox #7 7 months ago

    "retailer Face-Offs too" oh man!... just imagine that :S

  • telboy007 #8 7 months ago

    So we have to watch the uncharted 3 ad TWICE on EVERY comparison video? Are you having a laugh?

    Edit: This is a monster of a game, so much to do.
    Edited by telboy007 at 26/10/11 @ 17:11

  • tancredo #9 7 months ago

    Given the UE3, no surprises. Great game for everybody. The only issue stopping me from buying it is that I do not agree with the DLC policy for this title.

  • FuzzyDuck #10 7 months ago

    Given how dark the game is, you'd be hard pressed to notice much of the screen tear on the PS3 anyway (and that's coming from somebody who usually abandons games with noticeable tear).

    I'm about 75% through the story on PS3 - just buy it for your console of choice, it really needs to be played regardless.
    Edited by FuzzyDuck at 26/10/11 @ 17:08

  • Markitron #11 7 months ago

    Just finished it on PS3 and the very slight issues described are not noticeable in-game at all, Sounds identical on both systems

  • technicianTed #12 7 months ago

    Loving the game and as it's an UE3 title, choosing the 360 version over the ps3 one seemed like a wise choice.

    I'm glad this face off backed that up even if the differences are only slight(then again what's new).
    It's very rare these days that cross platform games vary that much on the consoles.

  • Badassbab #13 7 months ago

    Very close. Not surprised the 360 just about edges it. This is UE3 after all.

  • Demiath #14 7 months ago

    Can't wait for the PC version, but it's released at such a terrible time (right next to Skyrim) that I'll probably not play the game before the end of the year.

  • mumblyjoe #15 7 months ago

    Been playing solidly for a week on PS3 can't see any issues that you referred too.

  • TRUTH #16 7 months ago

    I always find Rocksteady games a bit samey! GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Batman...They start of exciting, but by half way through you end up repeating the same missions over and over again. The mini games just become a bore and quiet unnecessary. The games length time are artificially stretched repeating the same things.

    I hope this game is more then atmosphere and beating thugs. Got great reviews, but so did many other RS games - which I found lost there steam before the half way mark.
    Edited by TRUTH at 26/10/11 @ 23:46

  • Jamman3 #17 7 months ago

    @TRUTH - I think you're getting Rockstar and Rocksteady mixed up, haha

  • sfp_noodle #18 7 months ago

    I'm surprised Rocksteady managed to achieve what is pretty much platform parity when you consider they used Unreal Engine 3. The original was the same. A shame most other UE3 games are normally poorly optimised for the PS3.

    Bought this on the PS3 like the original as I prefer the PS controller for these kinds of games and it's fantastic. I do feel the "open city" is a bit of an illusion though as it isn't really a free roaming game. Most of what you can do is limited to collecting Riddler trophies, rescue missions or beating up random thugs for bonus XP. Still a cracking game though.

  • Sectus #19 7 months ago

    I recently played through Arkham Asylum on PC, I noticed the pre-rendered cutscenes usually has better lighting (potentially better textures too) than ingame (it was also very jarring to switch from 1920x1080p at 60fps to the 720p at 30fps cutscenes with compression artifacts). I expect Arkham City to be the same in that regard.

    Based on the PC screenshots released by nvidia, it looks like the assets and lighting is the same as the console versions. I expect the major improvements will be resolution, framerate and physx.

  • PeacockDreams #20 7 months ago

    @TRUTH Ouch! Epic fail!

  • Goodfella #21 7 months ago

    @TRUTH

    Dear, oh dear, oh dear. LOL.

  • TOSH9313 #22 7 months ago

    @TRUTH You sir, are an imbecile.

  • Ahskay #23 7 months ago

    Will we be able to plug in a gamepad with the pc-version?

  • ronuds #24 7 months ago

    @TRUTH

    RockSTAR makes GTA and RDR... not Batman.

  • smurphs #25 7 months ago

    Oh come on, give the guy a break. Honest mistake, no need to be rude about it.

    I love the face offs as much for the hype-free second opinions as for the technical analyses.

  • Goodfella #26 7 months ago

    @Ahskay

    I don't see why not, 360 pad works fine with Arkham Asylum.

    Anyway, waiting on the PC version as AA looked and ran superbly on my PC at max settings.
    Edited by Goodfella at 26/10/11 @ 20:42

  • spongebob #27 7 months ago

    I absolutely love and endorse your decision of dumping the multiple page article system. This is much better, thank you!

  • greekgoddj #28 7 months ago

    DTS and LPCM on PS3, again not taken into account in the summary?

  • TTP #29 7 months ago

    @1:20 mark (furnace) in the frame rate analysis both footage come from the 360 version.

  • TTP #30 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:53 12-12-2011

  • Badassbab #31 7 months ago

    @greekgoddj

    They are automatic PS3 wins by default if you have the set up. The same as 360 get's cross chat, custom soundtrack and upscales all games by default.

  • azix2 #32 7 months ago

    smfh @ unreal engine. The game looks like garbage

  • Darren #33 7 months ago

    I agree that it is odd the FMV scenes have no AA but perhaps it was done to maintain better consistency with the realtime stuff which lacks AA as well?

    I hope the PC version loses these FMV scenes though and instead has realtime ones as there is nothing more jarring than consolesque low-quality 720p FMV mixed with uber-sharp anti-aliasing 1920x1200 realtime rendering. There's no reason the PC version shouldn't handle these scenes in realtime a la GameCube Resident Evil 4 IMO.

  • _alucard_ #34 7 months ago

    cut-scenes and in-game Comparison is a good idea Please keep this in other games like uncharted 3
    Edited by _alucard_ at 27/10/11 @ 10:12

  • gandhimaster #35 7 months ago

    @_alucard_ won't be doing an uncharted 3 comparison video as its PS3 only mate...

  • Darren #36 7 months ago

    @Sectus - The PC version supports DX11 and tessellation (for less blocky looking polygon models) plus (hopefully) higher resolution textures. It does have a 17 GB install size after all compared with the sub-8 GB of the console versions but the difference may well be because the FMV is rendered at a higher quality and resolution... maybe? Audio may be better too. We'll know for sure come 18th November.

  • ccfb #37 7 months ago

    I hope the next generation of consoles renders these comparisons utterly useless

  • _alucard_ #38 7 months ago

    @gandhimaster
    certainly I mean a graphical analysis

  • djronz. #39 7 months ago

    question - how is the disc size on ps3 slightly smaller when it has dts and 5.1lpcm sountracks extra? ive notice this on a few game face off?

  • brod #40 7 months ago

    "Of course, in the here and now, only the console versions are available to buy. The good news is that both Xbox 360 and PlayStation games come highly recommended, and the graphical differences have no meaningful impact on either the overall look of the game or the gameplay."

    In other words they are both equally crappy.

  • IvorB #41 6 months ago

    Nice to see close to parity from an Unreal Engine game. Still no discussion of audio. I know most gamers probably don't have the equipment to appreciate the difference between different audio techniques used but some do. This would bring it in line with standard practice when reviewing high def tech. Can we have discussion of audio please?