Gotham City Impostors

Gotham City Impostors is a first-person shooter multiplayer-only video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Set in the universe of DC Comics' Batman, it consists of two teams of six players which try to kill the other team: one with amateur vigilantes dressed like Batman, and the other with criminals dressed like his archenemy, the Joker.[3][4][5] It features customizable characters and a range of both traditional and imagined weapons.

Gotham City Impostors
Developer(s)Monolith Productions
Publisher(s)Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Producer(s)Nathan Edson
Designer(s)Craig Hubbard
Programmer(s)Brad Pendleton
Artist(s)David Longo
Composer(s)Nathan Grigg
EngineLithtech Jupiter EX
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
ReleasePlayStation 3
  • NA: February 7, 2012
  • EU: February 8, 2012
Xbox 360
February 8, 2012
Microsoft Windows
February 7, 2012[1]
August 30, 2012 (F2P)[2]
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Multiplayer

Unlike other Batman games, Gotham City Impostors was not physically released. It was released on Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network and Microsoft Windows via Games for Windows – Live in February 2012.[4][6] The game was re-released on Microsoft Windows as a free-to-play title in August 30, 2012 via Steam using Steamworks.[2]

Gameplay
In Gotham City Impostors there is a heavy emphasis on allowing players to customize their character. Weapons, clothing, and even the size of the character can be modified.

Gotham City Impostors is playable by at most twelve players simultaneously.[3] Players can customize their costume, gadgets and other aspects of the game.[5] It features a colorful and over-the-top visual style, including such settings as an amusement park. In addition to guns and knives, the players are able to use other gadgets such as grappling hooks, glider wings, roller skates and explosives.[4] The game includes both conventional guns and outlandish weapons, including a grenade fashioned like a jack-in-the-box and a rocket launcher made of PVC piping.

The game has four different modes: Psych Warfare, Fumigation, Bounty Hunter, and Team Deathmatch. Psych Warfare involves the two teams trying to bring a battery back to their base and defend it long enough for it to allow a machine to brainwash the other team. Fumigation sends players to capture and hold three gasblasters, a type of command post, to get their gas level to 100%. Players are treated to the sight of the enemy being swarmed by bats (if the Bats win), or suffocated by a poison cloud (if the Jokerz win). In Bounty Hunter you win the match by collecting coins enemy players drop when they die, you can also pick up your teammates' dropped coins to deny the other team points. In Team Deathmatch the goal is to kill enemy players as fast as possible. There are also Challenges; these are played alone, and are used to master gadgets and earn extra experience. Lastly, there is a training mode called Initiation, where the Bats' leader instructs the player on how to use weapons and gadgets.[5]

Development and marketing
Promotion at E3 2011

Batman: Impostors, a storyline that ran through Detective Comics #867-870, was inspired by Gotham City Impostors.[7] The premise for the storyline is that the impostor Jokers were created by Winslow Heath, a man who was a victim of Joker venom early in Batman's career; as a result of narcotics that he had ingested before he was exposed to the venom, Heath survived the attack, but was left paralyzed while fully conscious for years, his features twisted into a permanent duplicate of the Joker's own visage. When he regained full mobility, he discovered that his girlfriend, Beth – who was exposed to the Joker venom under the same circumstances, as the two took the same drugs - was left to die in their apartment as Batman was so caught up in trying to catch the Joker that he never looked back after 'rescuing' Heath, with the result that Beth was left to get eaten alive by crows. Driven insane by the torment that he endured in the hospital, Heath called himself the Impostor Joker and created a unique 'Joker juice' named Formula 5 that would turn those who used it into temporary duplicates of the Joker with a significant high in the process, simultaneously posing as the Impostor Batman to rally others to also become impostor Batmen, go up against the impostor Jokers and trigger a gang war. Although Batman deduced the truth and captured Heath, he was left troubled at the implication that Heath was correct in his statement that Batman creates his own villains.

The preview for Cartoon Network's upcoming animation block DC Nation Shorts in 2012 included animation of Gotham City Impostors. Downloadable content was released for all platforms and includes new weapons, costumes, and three new stages, The 25th Floor, Arkham Asylum, and East End.

The game went free-to-play in 2012, but since then no new updates have been released. In the game's menu it was announced that, due to GameSpy shutting down on May 31, 2014, the servers for the PS3 version will shut down. As of July 25, 2014, all PS3 servers for Gotham City Impostors have been shut down and the game is now unplayable.

It was released for free as part of the Xbox Live Games with Gold program on July 1, 2014.

Gotham City Impostors remains obtainable and playable on PC via Steam.

Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
MetacriticPC: 65/100[8]
PS3: 72/100[9]
X360: 71/100[10]

The Escapist writer Allistair Pinsof called the demo a "carbon copy" of Call of Duty first-person shooter games, but said it added enough new features to be enjoyable.[4] G4 writer Leah Jackson said of the playable demo: "Quite frankly, the game doesn't feel like your run of the mill downloadable title. It controls great, looks fantastic, and with all of the options, I can say that I was quite impressed."[5] The game scored a 65/100 on Metacritic.[8]

gollark: Parse errors don't strictly "crash" it, since it chooses to error.
gollark: It's fine as long as you never do overly big things, or use negative powers.
gollark: Try not crashing it.
gollark: No. This is logically impossible, as C isn't fearlessly concurrent.
gollark: That's the wrong notation and I don't have any special functions.

See also

References
  1. "Gotham City Impostors Free to Play on Steam". Gothamcityimpostors.com. 2012-08-30. Archived from the original on 2012-10-31. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  2. Crecente, Brian (August 31, 2012). "'Gotham City Imposters' goes free to play on Steam". The Verge. Retrieved August 31, 2012.
  3. Kollar, Phil (July 2011). "The First-Person Spin-Off". Game Informer (219): 63. ISSN 1067-6392.
  4. Pinsof, Allistar (June 9, 2011). "E3: Gotham City Imposters". The Escapist. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  5. Jackson, Leah (June 9, 2011). "Gotham City Impostors - Psychological Warfare: Multiplayer Impressions". G4. Retrieved June 10, 2011.
  6. Hill, Owen (June 8, 2011). "E3 2011: Gotham City Impostors trailer brings the crazy". PC Gamer. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  7. "Gotham City Impostors Free to Play on Steam". Gothamcityimpostors.com. 2012-08-30. Archived from the original on 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  8. "Gotham City Impostors for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  9. "Gotham City Impostors for PlayStation 3 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  10. "Gotham City Impostors for Xbox 360 Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
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