Have you ever thought to yourself: “Yeah Call of Duty is good and all, I just wish it was more… zany.” Well friends, someone, somewhere was listening. Just under the Batman veneer Gotham City Impostors is ‘Call of Duty’. Equipment, customizable weapons, perks, all present and accounted for. Don’t take this the wrong way we aren’t saying this is a bad thing, in fact it’s a very good thing. By building a game on such familiar ground, such a sturdy foundation, Warner Bros. really has something special here. They’re essentially releasing a new first person shooter IP that is a “pick up and play” – we’re talking about a learning curve of zero, with the exception of map memorization of course. WB has successfully held onto core FPS gameplay while dropping the attitude.

There are two maps available in the beta. Set on a city block Crime Ally is a series of tight corridors leading to a slightly more open main street. Some low roof tops and indoor areas are also accessible. With limited sight lines and mostly narrow combat areas Crime Ally plays fast and frantic. Amusement Mile is maybe the least fun amusement park ever, being populated by costumed weirdos murdering each other and all. As a multiplayer map however it presents certain challenges that make it great. Large open areas, narrow passageways, vantage points at varying heights balance against each other and require player specialization and team work to ensure victory.

The beta offers two game types: Psych War and Fumigation. Psych War is ‘Gotham City Impostors’ version of One Flag, with a little twist. Capture the battery (flag) and return it to your propaganda machine (scoring zone), then the twist, your team is then required to defend the machine while it powers up to deliver the ultimate in morale destruction. It’s pretty funny when the propaganda machine does go off, it breaks the will of the opposing team so hard they are forced to run around arms flailing trying not to be killed with their only means of defense being limp wristed slaps. Fumigation is a pretty straight forward domination game type. There are three gas machines on the map, control as many as possible to build up the percentage of your team’s gas in the air, and first to 100% wins.

There was a question posed by COIN-OP TV’s Robert Welkner (on Twitter) that we need to address. “Anyone else concerned that the Gotham City Impostors beta opened a week before release?” The answer is yes. The beta part of the beta is a little disconcerting. ‘Gotham City Impostors’ is more buggy than one would expect this late in the game, but with patches and updates coming constantly (we saw two in about a day) there is a good chance Warner Bros. will have this thing smoothed out by launch.

‘Gotham City Impostors’ is set for release February 7 on PSN and February 8 on XBL.
For more information visit www.GothamCityImpostors.com