Game Review: Gameloft’s The Dark Knight Rises for Android

Gameloft’s recent foray into the Batman universe has hit thousands of Android and iOS phones worldwide. This comes as no surprise after the successful releases of games like Arkham Asylum and Arkham City as well as Christopher Nolan’s box office hit The Dark Knight Rises. Gameloft’s The Dark Knight Rises is a direct tie in to the movie, which is immediately obvious once you start playing. While based on the movie, the game takes a lot of liberties with the plot. Don’t expect a scene-by-scene game rendition of the movie’s plot.

Visuals

In terms of visuals, The Dark Knight Rises is an impressive game taking into account the fact that it’s supposed to run on a mobile platform. If you’re not expecting PC grade graphics, then you won’t be disappointed. However, there is a distinct difference in quality between the 3D model and textures of the main character compared to the NPC characters in the game. Batman himself is impressive with high quality graphics and textures. The rest of the game, however, including backgrounds and other characters can be blocky and fuzzy at times. Given the fact that you’ll be staring at Batman for most of the game, you will quickly forget about the difference in modeling quality.

Audio

In terms of audio, the game is fully voiced and Gameloft did a pretty good job getting voice actors who actually sound like their movie counterparts. This is a large step up for Gameloft since most of their game releases are plagued with clichéd and generally low quality voice acting.

Gameplay

Gameplay is fairly what you’d expect from a game meant to be played on a touch screen device. Which means it can be clumsy to control and downright frustrating at times. I tested the game using both a Galaxy Tab and an Xperia Play. On the Tab, controls include a standard touchscreen joystick for moving around and on screen buttons to control a variety of actions such as combat moves, blocks, counters, throwing Batarangs, and using the grappling hook. You can also jump from a higher vantage point and glide around which can be pretty fun to do. On the Play however, the game is a lot more enjoyable. You can move around using the Play’s D-pad and you can use the right analog controller to move your point of view. The Play’s hardware buttons make the experience more intuitive and a whole lot easier to control. With the Play however, I experienced some lagging here and there but this is probably due to the Xperia Play’s aging hardware. That said, this game runs reasonably well on older single core devices.

While The Dark Knight Rises is often pegged as a sandbox game, this is not really the case. While you have some freedom to move around and do certain missions in any order you like, movement is still dependent on the plot. Think of it as a hybrid between a sandbox game and an on-rail rpg. There are also a number of mini-game puzzlers that you need to go through in order to open locked doors. Another notable feature is the fact that you actually get to use vehicles such as Batman’s iconic BatPod as well as the highflying The Bat.

Final Thoughts

While Gameloft’s The Dark Knight Rises is certainly nowhere near Arkham City or even Arkham Asylum, it’s as close as you’re ever going to get on a mobile device. It’s definitely worth picking up on the Play Store, especially if you can get it on sale.

Pros

Great graphics for a mobile game

Immersive and action packed combat sequences

Great voice acting

Cool vehicles

Cons

Difficult to play using a touchscreen

Large memory footprint (almost 4 Gigabytes in total. 1.8gb for the apk and another 1.8gb worth of game files which will be downloaded after you install the apk)

Terrible camera angles