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Batman: Arkham City aims to add replay value with 'New Game Plus' mode
It's a story we've all heard a million times: you play Game X; you love Game X; you find every single item and do everything you possibly can, yet still you crave more. Tough, there isn't anything left in Game X. You guzzled Game X when you should've sipped Game X, long and slow, savoring every second. It was our problem with Batman: Arkham Asylum, much as we imagine it was a problem for a lot of you. Rocksteady is looking to fix that in Batman: Arkham City with a "New Game Plus" mode, which ramps up the difficulty and modifies a few things for your second go around Crimeburg. Thugs are meaner, boss fights are tougher and Bats will retain all of his XP and gadgets from the first playthrough. The difficulty setting for "New Game Plus" isn't customizable -- whether you make it through on normal or hard, the difficulty of "New Game Plus" will be the same. Also, there won't be any counter icons on thugs, but we imagine that won't be a huge deal after you've spent a whole game punching them in the face.
The Daily Grind: Characters go around again?
One of the features that's become more and more de rigeur for single-player games is the concept of a "new game plus," a second go-through of the game with all of the abilities and equipment you picked up the first time around. In some cases, you can't even actually play the full game until you've managed to beat it once, at which point you earn a number of rewards that would have been useful to beat the game the first time around. (Insert your own jokes about boss loot here.) Kill Ten Rats recently suggested the idea of allowing a similar mechanic in MMORPGs, borrowing from games such as Torchlight that allow you to retire a character and pass benefits on to a new one. Certainly it has advantages -- we've all had a character or two that's sat at a level too high to be deleted that we don't want to play any longer, and it'd be nice to pass along something useful for the playtime. On the other hand, a forced cycle of leveling followed by retirement followed by another level grind could get tedious quickly. What do you think? Would this sort of feature be an enjoyable way to expand your character stable, or a searingly obnoxious grinding treadmill?
Mass Effect 2's save game import features explained
This past summer, we learned that Mass Effect 2 players could import save files from the previous entry in the franchise, bringing all of the decisions made in the first game into the sequel. But are decisions capable of decimating hordes of insidious, robotic invaders? No, boosted stats and abilities are -- and according to a recent forum post from BioWare Community Coordinator Chris Priestly, players who import their saves will get access to these as well. Of course, you won't be able to play as your super-high-level Shepard when you import -- however, the higher your character's level was when you finished Mass Effect, the better bonuses your Mass Effect 2 Shepard will receive. Some of the bonuses mentioned include extra money or crafting resources when you start the game. In addition, though BioWare has said that the game won't have a "New Game Plus" option, Priestly says that multiple playthroughs with the same Shepard will be possible. %Gallery-70022%
