Gotham City Impostors

So did you hear the news? Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty had a baby. Yep. No, it’s not cute at all. It’s very light too. I don’t know. I didn’t even know they were dating let alone knockin’ boots. Regardless, that poor little thing is going to be a deranged little bastard. Those two are nothing alike. Oh, they named it Gotham City Impostors. Team Fortress 2 dated Arkham City?! I hope Call of Duty doesn’t know about it.

Simply put, Gotham City Impostors is a genetic freak sprung from the loins of popular, current-gen first person shooters. It can be a blast to play but more often than not it’s kind of a borefest in comparison to its parents. Gotham City Impostors is a team-based first person shooter that draws a lot of its appeal from the ongoing superhero hype mocked in the tongue-in-cheek style of similar cartoony shooters. Sadly, Gotham City Impostors just doesn’t quite hold a candle to its greater competitors.

Batman is out on call so local vigilantes and miscreants take this opportunity to run amok in Gotham City. I don’t think Batman’s wannabes got the non-lethal methods memo however. Both teams are armed to the teeth with deadly weaponry to tear each other to shreds. The gameplay isn’t far from a typical multiplayer game of Call of Duty except for the fact you can roller blade off ramps and sore through the skies from air-expelling grates. Gotham City Impostors does do one thing well: it shows how petty and simple these wannabe vigilantes and villains really are. While Batman is out actually preventing deadly, city-threatening issues, these idiots are fighting amongst each other in what seems to be a simple gang war.

That is most likely the point but it is lost in the fact that the gameplay takes itself a little too seriously and rewards very little. If you are familiar with Call of Duty (I know, who hasn’t played it?!), you will remember how the multiplayer rewards you with a leveling up system for your extended bouts. You unlock NEW weaponry and perks to keep the game interesting. Well instead of rewarding the players with new content, Gotham City Impostors rewards the player by slowly unlocking items already available to specific classes so that they may create a custom class of their own. WHOOPY! Not really that rewarding if you ask me. Oh wait, you get new decals that pop up with select messages so that you can “harass” your opponent with cookie cutter phrases. SOLD! If I was ten years old again.

It gets even better. You get to listen to the characters say the same three things throughout your entire experience. Their witty interjections really keep the experience fresh and entertaining for about the first five minutes of your first match. Then you realize you aren’t going to hear anything new and crank up your latest dubstep track. There was a hilarious instance where I got so bored by my fifth game of the losing team jumping ship at the first sign of loss that I started shooting my own teammates to no avail.  However, eventually my boredom led to no bullets which led to this awesome little megaphone that spouted propaganda supporting my team while belittling the other. But again, after getting to the end of the minute audio clip only to have it loop repeatedly,  I decided that I’d much rather listen to dubstep myself than listen to Gotham City Impostors’ audio.

Visually, the game aims for a light hearted and cartoony experience. It just doesn’t match up with the iron sight gameplay. It also doesn’t help that these visuals look terribly low-res. But for the quirky audio and concept, it fits the scheme. So maybe the gameplay is more of the issue than the visuals and audio. Though I am not sure adding a set of quirky class-specific weapons unique to each of the Gotham City Impostors’ classes wouldn’t piss me off to a certain degree, I much rather the design be complete and consistent than playing a game similar to playing God of War where Kratos hugged everyone into happiness.

Gotham City Impostors does provide cheap means to experiencing the well-refined gameplay of the unaltered, pricey price tags of a Call of Duty game ‘cept with capes and rollerblades. Maybe in a few months when the game permits mid-match hop in and server selection it will be more entertaining, but as it stands, the community severely weakens the fun. It is very rare that teams aren’t stacked. This keeps me from enjoying the game to its fullest potential. And even when a match is balanced, the small maps and small player count keeps the gameplay at best only occasionally active. Pair this with the semi-witty cracks from the Bats and Jokers, Gotham City Impostors entertainment and replay value quickly diminish. For these reasons, Gotham City Impostors can only be a Minor Distraction.