Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman Arkham Asylum isn't just a good comic book game.  Its just a good game period.  Rocksteady really took the time and effort to make a quality game and after playing through the game i can say this is one of the top games of 2009.  

First off, the story is great.  When they took the time to flesh out a story of one of comic' book favorite villian its hard to have a bad story.  While the main is engaging enough to keep you playing what makes this game ten times better than other comic book games is all the other character developments and how they relate to Batman.  This is one of the reasons the Batman series is famous to this day and Rocksteady has finally tapped into this.  I loved picking the interview tapes and understanding more about the characters.  And one good thing is that you didn't need to be a diehard fan to understand everything, it was all told very well.  The voice acting is also amazing giving a huge nod to Mark Hamil on his amazing performance as the joker.  

The graphics are great, just from the intro you can see how much middleware Rocksteady had to learn to use and take the time to perfect but what came out was a great looking game.  Arkham Asylum looks like a really screwed up place and it shows in its art design.  The big achievement here is that Arkham Asylum isn't big but i never got tired of seeing any of it because there was so much detail in it.  I must also commend on using the unreal engine admirably unlike other people who took a whole game to grasp it (Mass Effect series..)  

The gameplay, most gamers can forgo ok graphics and story for their favorite comic book hero games, but most comic hero games falter when it comes to gameplay due to the lack of inspiration and boring gameplay.  This is where Rocksteady achieves.  The gamplay is extremely solid and fun to play.  The combat system is easy to pick up yet hard to master.  I was able to take out a couple of people at a time but when it came to big fights and still died because i didn't master the combat system forcing me to counter and dodge when necessary (where many times i could forgo this in other mediocre games).  They also found a good way to make Batman look like a bad ass super hero fighter yet still maintain the idea that he is human.  The batman gadgets are not only great but they took the time to make them very integral in playing the game.  Some of my favorite parts were where you had to take out a room of thugs with guns. The only fault the game has is the boss battles where all pattern based.  It would have been nice to change the pattern more frequently but thats me being extremely nit-picky.  The biggest point to make in this is when Batman is around guys with guns, he takes damage and a lot of it.  This forces the player to be more stealthily by acting like Batman and using his gadgets.  This is a true achievement of Rocksteady, not only having a good gameplay, but having good gameplay that makes us feel like Batman.  
 
 All of these good points combined into an extremely great polish.  There is so much attention to detail.  I loved that when you died the villian would come up to your body and talk to you.  Also loved all the Riddler challenges but i'm not a fan of the challenge rooms but looking at the leader i'm pretty sure other people are.  Arkham Asylum is one of the best comic book games i have played and i hope to see more comic games have this kind of polish to them.