Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

Like many people I didn’t really see this one coming until, that is, a demo hit. That was the point a lot of people had to buy this game. Until the demo landed people viewed the game as another amazingly average superhero game or just another thunderingly shit nod to the caped crusaders that have been pulled off so well in movies, but rarely in games.

Well, for starters you play as Batman himself, set on Arkham Island, during and after the escape of The Joker. The story develops from there, a very good story which includes many of the villains we know and love including Bane, Poison Ivy and Killer Croc. There’s not a great deal to say of the story other than it stinks of a superhero title, but in a good way, it’s a very mature game. It has almost a noir feel to it, but that feel can be interrupted by some gameplay aspects, but you get used to it.

The gameplay is nice and balanced, you know when you’re supposed to have a brawl, you know when you’re supposed to do a Batman and get rid of them one by one. Although the combat is basic, including such classics as, a counter, a stun and your run of the mill basic attack. The baddies are also as generic as they come. You have your regular unarmed grunt, a grunt with a night stick, armed guards, and then you have some crazy mutants that develop as the story does. Once you know how to kill them you’ll never struggle, I promise. However building up your combo meter lets you do an instant takedown, in effect a one hit kill or a throw. Not much variety considering you’re the Dark Knight. The stealth parts are a pleasure to play, for example you can place explosive gel on weak walls, string enemies up by the ankle or glide kick them into oblivion; it still gets old. There’s only so many times you can do those things before you get bored, which is such a shame considering it’s an amazing game, it really is. I mean. why couldn’t the developers put the extremely simple option of kicking baddies over ledges, easy, no?

As you progress through the game you unlock more and more upgrades, including a special Batarang, Batclaw, and a device for opening certain doors, yeah that’s right, like Zelda. These gadgets make the game, Batman is useless without his gadgets, he’s even more of a man when he’s geared up. I suppose it’s the only way the developers could give us any real sense of progression other than story, after all, through countless comics, good movies and bad movies, we know everything there is to know about The Batman, his character is already well moulded. It’s not going to change.

A massive gripe I had with the game is the silent takedowns, when you sneak behind an enemy and strangle them, it takes way too long, by the time you’ve done the deed his friend has found you and has started shooting, you’ll barely escape when this happens. However, you will feel like Batman, and you will love it. The lack of variety annoyed me at first but when you’re so engrossed in the story, you lose sight of that.

You will also love the tiny references to other Batman characters, be it the Penguins umbrella, Catwomens mask or even Raz Al Ghouls body bag. These references don’t just exist just to please the observant gamer, no. They make up part of the extremely fun riddles that Edward Nigma aka The Riddler has placed throughout the island to riddle the face of Batman. Other ‘riddles’ that make up this little side quest include destroying the jokers chattering teeth or finding riddler trophies. There’s others, but they sound so mundane that you may pass out, but actually getting them is surprisingly fun, and adds hours to the game. They also serve another purpose the more riddles you find the more of these challenge rooms you unlock, which are accessible from the main menu. They’re divided into to two categories the first is a Combat Challenge, where you face wave after wave of The Jokers henchmen and then there’s the Predator Challenges, where you must use stealth against your foes, otherwise, you will die. They also happen to be hard as nails, after a few attempts I couldn’t even get the high score on the first combat challenge, I’d imagine they would be fun if you were a master at the game, but to me, they got old, fast.

The graphics are nice as are some of the vistas that you will see, well…as nice as graphics can look when your character does all his criminal hunting in the dark. It’s more than worth grappling to the top of Arkham Mansions clock tower to see Arkham Island spread beneath you with Gothams’ beautiful skyline in the distance, and that’s something Batman would totally do. An aspect that can sometimes ruin the look of the game is the detective mode, which is essentially night vision crossed with heat vision crossed with some other stuff. When you access detective mode the regular look of the world is transformed into something rather more gross, it’s almost monochromatic, it ain’t ugly but it ain’t pretty and it sure ain’t the world I want to be looking at. You’ll be using this aide such an amount that you’ll get used to it and forget about how nice the game looked before.

Overall, this game is a must buy, even if you’re not strictly a Batman fan, but seriously who doesn’t love him. The game is at least thirteen hours long, that’s if you’re doing all the difficulties and all The Riddler challenges. It’s a solid all round title and Rocksteady have done a brilliant job, there’s almost no faults with this game. My only worry now is for a sequel; now that all the ‘good’ baddies have been used up. Who cares about a sequel now though we have this beauty to cope with.