Good, Bad...I'm The Guy With The Hockey Pants
Monolith's Gotham City Impostors is flawed but fun.
Published: February 13, 2012
“As you know, we are dedicated to honoring Batman's nobility through our words and deeds. Of course, just as Batman can afford fancier and more expensive gear and gadgets than us, so too can he afford a more honorable approach to crime fighting. His, is the righteous path of blunt trauma and painful but non-lethal contingents. Ours is a more...efficacious path of cordite and home brew explosives.”
And so you are welcomed into the world of Gotham City Impostors. A more fitting introduction, there has never been. These words, delivered humorously during the game's tutorial, could just as easily have been developer Monolith's mission statement when pitching their design document to Warner Brothers. Just find all the instances of the word “Batman” and replace them with “Call of Duty” and the analogy should start to click for you.
However, despite the obvious ways in which the game apes the most successful multiplayer shooter of all time, Gotham City Impostors still manages to be an enjoyable, if familiar game. It stresses goofball hi-jinks and gadget driven mayhem over prodigious sharpshooting and shrewd tactical decision making, and the game is all the better for it. While it lacks both the polish and the depth of perennial fan favorites like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Whatever Number We're On Now, many players who felt those games were too daunting to play will find Impostors to be just the alternative they needed.
The game sets the tone early with menus that look like a Staples delivery truck just crashed into them. Post-it notes with little doodles on them, crumpled pieces of paper adorned with indiscernible chicken scratches, and ratty looking spiral bound notepads are all mainstays of Impostors' presentation. Remarkably, not only is it all clear and readable, it's actually quite charming.
Of particular note is “Office Bat” - an adorable, animated paper cutout of Batman as an office grunt, complete with shirt and tie. He sits in the lower left hand corner of the screen and keeps you informed about upcoming unlocks and recently completed feats of prowess. Despite being nothing but a simple pencil sketch, he somehow manages to be more memorable than the main protagonists of many full retail games I've played. He's just perfect proof that the folks making this game knew exactly what they wanted it to be. This is a plucky, underdog of a shooter about plucky, underdog crime fighters and right from the jump, Monolith takes complete, and delightful ownership of that fact.
While digging through the menus for the first time you'll see a lot of familiar sights. Stat pages, progress levels for weapon and gadget related achievements, and custom class slots are all present, as has become expected since CoD: Modern Warfare burst on the scene years ago. What you won't find, however, are any single player options. This isn't a gripe by any means, just a heads up. There's no campaign, or even a way to set up a custom match with bots for offline practice. All you get is a tutorial, and a series of optional challenge maps designed to teach you how to use all the crazy mobility gadgets the game features. Your fifteen bucks buys you an online multiplayer suite, nothing more, nothing less.
That said, you get quite the suite if customization and unlockables are your thing. Custom class slots, body types, character voices, interchangeable costume pieces, weapons, weapon mods and camouflages, gadgets, support items, perks, and much more await you as you sink more time into the game. Like leveling up? Good. How does a level cap of 1000 sound to you? Do stats do it for you? No problem. Sign up for a free Warner Bros ID and get access to on-line stat tracking, community challenges, and clan support features. Again, if you are a proud graduate of the Call of Duty university of hamster wheel grinding you will certainly not be left wanting.
And so you are welcomed into the world of Gotham City Impostors. A more fitting introduction, there has never been. These words, delivered humorously during the game's tutorial, could just as easily have been developer Monolith's mission statement when pitching their design document to Warner Brothers. Just find all the instances of the word “Batman” and replace them with “Call of Duty” and the analogy should start to click for you.
However, despite the obvious ways in which the game apes the most successful multiplayer shooter of all time, Gotham City Impostors still manages to be an enjoyable, if familiar game. It stresses goofball hi-jinks and gadget driven mayhem over prodigious sharpshooting and shrewd tactical decision making, and the game is all the better for it. While it lacks both the polish and the depth of perennial fan favorites like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Whatever Number We're On Now, many players who felt those games were too daunting to play will find Impostors to be just the alternative they needed.
The game sets the tone early with menus that look like a Staples delivery truck just crashed into them. Post-it notes with little doodles on them, crumpled pieces of paper adorned with indiscernible chicken scratches, and ratty looking spiral bound notepads are all mainstays of Impostors' presentation. Remarkably, not only is it all clear and readable, it's actually quite charming.
Of particular note is “Office Bat” - an adorable, animated paper cutout of Batman as an office grunt, complete with shirt and tie. He sits in the lower left hand corner of the screen and keeps you informed about upcoming unlocks and recently completed feats of prowess. Despite being nothing but a simple pencil sketch, he somehow manages to be more memorable than the main protagonists of many full retail games I've played. He's just perfect proof that the folks making this game knew exactly what they wanted it to be. This is a plucky, underdog of a shooter about plucky, underdog crime fighters and right from the jump, Monolith takes complete, and delightful ownership of that fact.
While digging through the menus for the first time you'll see a lot of familiar sights. Stat pages, progress levels for weapon and gadget related achievements, and custom class slots are all present, as has become expected since CoD: Modern Warfare burst on the scene years ago. What you won't find, however, are any single player options. This isn't a gripe by any means, just a heads up. There's no campaign, or even a way to set up a custom match with bots for offline practice. All you get is a tutorial, and a series of optional challenge maps designed to teach you how to use all the crazy mobility gadgets the game features. Your fifteen bucks buys you an online multiplayer suite, nothing more, nothing less.
That said, you get quite the suite if customization and unlockables are your thing. Custom class slots, body types, character voices, interchangeable costume pieces, weapons, weapon mods and camouflages, gadgets, support items, perks, and much more await you as you sink more time into the game. Like leveling up? Good. How does a level cap of 1000 sound to you? Do stats do it for you? No problem. Sign up for a free Warner Bros ID and get access to on-line stat tracking, community challenges, and clan support features. Again, if you are a proud graduate of the Call of Duty university of hamster wheel grinding you will certainly not be left wanting.
