Why did I drive my Batcar into the river?
I'm a year late on this one, but despite its age I was very happy with Batman: Arkham Asylum. The atmosphere of the game was great. There were times that it felt a little too gritty. Batman would say something or do something that feels completely wrong, but that's what Batman is all about. He's been avoiding killing people for over 50 years . . . so there's no surprise when he avoids taking out a badguy.
For the most part, the story was a side note to the nostalgia. I found myself playing just so I could see what new villains they would throw into the mix. The Riddler challenges would normally be to tedious for me to bother with, but the fact that it came with lore that I remember from my childhood made it worth the effort. I was genuinely excited to see how they would fit a part of a villain into the Asylum.
The mechanics of this game were pretty solid. The platforming was a little difficult at times (trying to line up jumps or a stupid question mark), but was never such a burden that I was really frustrated. Similar to a good Ratchet game, there were lots of gadgets to play with. These were accessible through the XBox's less than quality D-pad. I thought this would be a big setback, but they intelligently allowed you to quickly throw a batarang or use the batclaw with some hot keys.
Perhaps the best and worst feature of the game was Detective Mode. This changed the palate of the game to almost all blue and then cast anything you could interact with in orange light. The was great for figuring out the location of a hidden panel, but also made it pretty darn easy to find the hidden sections of the game. In addition, it also allowed some crazy form of XRay vision where Batman could see the bones of an enemy from miles away. This made fights too easy to stage and set up . . . if you had to fight that is. I wondered if this setting would have been better with a timer, allowing you to use Detective Mode for a small amount of time, with a recharge timer to prevent you from just wandering around with it on. You could even allow upgrades to extend the duration of detective mode.
This game was an excellent way to spend a handful of hours. I haven't even gotten to the extra challenges and I feel like it was a complete game. Like other great games before it, Batman: Arkham Asylum wins first on its scenery, and gets by with decent mechanics that don't get in the way too much.
