Wednesday 5th October 2011 by Alex Winehouse

A scriptwriter for Batman: Arkham City has promised fans that the new game will feature better boss fights than it's predecessor.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was lauded upon its release in 2009, but did come in for criticism for its boss fights, which could end up being five minutes of mindless punching.

This time, though, Paul Dini thinks they've got the game right, telling The Official XBox Magazine: "There are certain elements that just seem very traditional for a fight based game, and that's the game that we were making. In the end, we thought, 'well, if we have to do those elements at least lets come up with the most creatively visual way we can of doing them'.

"Once the game was released, we listened to what the fans liked, and what they didn't like - but to some degree, we are kind of prisoners of the genre of our game. But we noticed areas that could have been stronger, and we learned from our mistakes, We've gone for maximum impact in Arkham City - both in terms of what you can do with a game, and where we can take the characters emotionally. We throw the player a few curves. There are more surprises, and more creative solutions."

He continued: "There are some traditional fight elements. But I'd say that we've opened it up a lot. The arenas in which these fights take place, and the fights themselves are more challenging and more surprising. You might be locked in a fight with a bad guy, but there are more ways to get through it that simply slugging him."

Batman: Arkham City is released on XBox 360 and PS3 on October 21, with a PC release following in November.

Must buy games for Christmas...