Here’s my Metro reviews for the week of July 6th
Batman: Arkham Knight
PS4/Xbox One
Rated: Mature 17+
Gotham has grown to the size of four games, leaving it up to you to choose which emergencies to save and which villains to chase after. It’s not just the freedom to explore that allows for this, across a city so well-crafted that the details never feel repeated or stock, but it’s the way the game is organized with a quick menu system that makes it easy to hop between story paths and challenges.
Some of these missions are made clunky by a new first-person tankmobile, an addition that allows the game to start with all of the old franchise toys unlocked and still have something to improve. The Tankmobile is neat, and running around in it to do shoot-outs a novel idea, but one that does get overused.
The Arkham Knight is an awful villain, a henchman on steroids with adolescent style, but thankfully a rogues gallery of familiar, scene-chewing faces show up to keep things entertaining. This is what makes the game so formidable, any disappointment you might come across is quickly followed by twenty new features or extras that will bury it.
That ambition comes at a cost as the game is susceptible to bugs and glitches, enough to have the PC version pulled from the shelves by Warner Bros. Games and for the console versions to require 40 GB update downloads. This is a game well worth playing, but you might want to wait a bit for the issues to be ironed out before buying.
Book of Numbers
Joshua Cohen
Kindle/iBooks/Kobo
In profiling the founder of a fictional Google, Cohen wrestles with a manic tech addiction that makes this book dense with digital texting and web jargon. It’s done with humour and craft, but says more about personal disorders than how our lives are made colder in a digital age.
Annabel Karmel Family Cooking
iPhone/iPad
$5.79
This collection of 120 recipes includes prep tasks and stages that can be given to kids as young as four years old while covering the needs for family meals and lunches. It includes planners, timers, convertors, and interactive badges to reward your kids.
TaoMix
iPhone/iPad/Android
Free
This ambient audio mixer lets you place nature sounds about you at different distances. Thunder off on the horizon, for example, with crickets nearby and wind chimes right in front of you. There are 45 different sounds to draw from for a personal relaxation soundscape.
Gran Text Auto
iPhone
Free
Distracted by her emojiphone, Grandma needs your help to drive. You must tilt your phone to steer and type out her texts to the Golden Girls theme song. As in real life, it’s hard to do both and car crashes are inevitable.
