Dear Reader,
I have been a vocal opponent of Monolith’s “Gotham City Imposters” for some time, but now that the game is out and I’ve put some time into it, I’m willing to concede it’s not as bad as I feared. More or less a cut-rate “Team Fortress 2,” “Imposters” benefits from Monolith’s steady hand for game design, and even offers up some reasonably enjoyable deatmatch, but eventually crumbles under the weight of its inherently flawed premise.
First, the positive. The guns handle reasonably well, the different classes are balanced and enjoyable, and Monolith packs a surprising variety of player movement in for good measure. “Imposters” lets you use roller skates, grappling hooks, even Bat-capes to zip around the map, and they all work well and have inherent strengths and weaknesses. “Imposters” also gamely tries to keep up with “Call of Duty’s” upgrade system, and while what it offers is neither new nor particularly exciting, it does work.
But the negatives here are significant, too. The above mentioned character movement is damned near tactically useless except for escaping unwanted conflicts, and it’s not even great at that. It’s just extended mobility slapped on top of an otherwise rote multiplayer shooter, so it comes off as more of a gimmick than anything else. Speaking of which, even though the gunplay is functional, it’s really nothing special and there’s plenty of shooters (even on XBL/PSN) that feel much better. The guns take up too much of the screen when iron-sighting, but shooting from the hip isn’t great either, so you never really have a good aiming position.
Also, the writing is just terrible. It’s terrible. The Jokerz are supposed to be edgy or whatever, but most of what they say is heavily white-washed and censored; the Bats, meanwhile, are unredeemable idiots. Neither is charming. Meanwhile, in an act of pure laziness, the Jokerz and Bats have almost identical gear and tactics. Doesn’t this strike anyone as inherently wrong? The Jokerz have capes for flying, really? These two teams should have played very differently from one another. This would have not only made more story sense, it would have freshened up “Imposters” and helped it stand out from other titles.
“Gotham City Imposters” is not the disaster I thought it would be, but it’s still a little embarrassing. It achieves competence in broad strokes, and even distinguishes itself with interesting character mobility, but shallow tactics, sparse replay value and moronic writing bring down those positives and the game ends up kind of a wash. It’s just hard to understand why a studio as talented as Monolith even bothered with this thing.
SCORE: 6/10
_AA
why can’t I harass you sometimes?
2 Comments
6/10 is much more generous than I would have given this thing. Boring, clunky, useless.
Maybe my expectations were set low, but meh.