Batman. Frikkan Batman. A superhero with no actual superpowers kicking, except the straight shit out of large groups of people with just his bare hands and some gnarly gadgets. A normal guy — albeit a billionaire — who trained himself to the peak of mental and physical perfection in order to fight crime after witnessing the murder of his parents. Who doesn’t love that? The Dark Knight, as we now think of him, was largely shaped by Frank Miller in 1986’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” a four-issue limited series. Miller rescued Batman from the campy ’60s and ’70s versions of “Bam!” “Biff!” fighting and ridiculous villains, returning him to the dark, gritty and often incredibly violent DK. And with that brought a large-scale Batman resurgence, from Tim Burton’s “Batman” in ’89 to 2008’s “Dark Knight.” Batman was back in a big way, so DC and Rocksteady Studios decided to finally develop a Batman series worth playing. “Batman: Arkham City” is the sequel to Rocksteady’s 2009 “Arkham Asylum,” which I sincerely hope all of you have played, and takes place about a year after the original’s closing events. Quincy Sharp, the ex-warden of Arkham Asylum, took credit for stopping the Joker’s asylum takeover in the first game and leveraged that into becoming the mayor of Gotham City. Now, we all know it was actually a big dose of ass-kickery dished out by Batman’s fists and/or feet that stopped the Joker, whatever. Bruce Wayne is too busy banging supermodels on a huge pile of money to be bothered with some nerd stealing the Bat’s spotlight. Mayor Sharp decides that Arkham and Blackgate Prison are no longer fit to hold the truly staggering number of sociopaths residing in Gotham and builds a wall around the city slums. After shipping all the prisoners in, hiring a private military company and placing Dr. Hugo Strange in charge of the whole thing, voilà — a big-ass new prison for Gotham City. Well, the Dark Knight thinks this isn’t the best idea and things are going to get out of hand, and guess what? Turns out the whole thing wasn’t the best idea and things start to get out of hand. So ol’ Brucie gets himself thrown into the clink to dispense a little justice. “Arkham City” improved on the already solid core of “Arkham Asylum.” The city is about five times larger than Asylum, and is much more open and easier to traverse. With improved grappling and gliding, it’s very easy to get from one side of the city to the opposite without touching the ground. The fighting system is far more fluid as well. The way attacks, counters and quick use gadgets all flow together, it’s very easy to feel like the world’s biggest badass. You know, like Batman. Going untouched during a 50x combo while destroying 15 goons before quickly grappling away to a nearby rooftop is VERY satisfying. The campaign is not very long, about seven hours by my estimation, but the side quests and diversions keep you coming back. With 400 Riddler trophies to find and side quests with Deadshot, Zsasz and Bane, the extras add hours of gameplay. The rest of the rogues’ gallery is very well represented in the campaign as well; The Joker, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Clayface and Ra’s al Ghul all play major parts in your quest. In addition to the campaign, Riddler challenges make their return: Combat challenges in which a bunch of goons are basically unloaded on you while you dump-truck them as the game keeps score. Hit a certain score, earn a trophy. Pretty basic stuff. The predator challenges are actually pretty slick: They put you in a big room with about six armed men and give you three challenges to complete, such as knocking out a foe with an explosion, performing a takedown through a window and getting a silent takedown after dropping smoke. Batman is the greatest American hero, and this game makes you feel like you’re Batman. That’s really all you need to know.