You dawg hear about this blogger initiative that Sweep started up back in September? I did...and promptly forgot about it...checking back in recently I noticed it was over...dammit.
On the positive side it doesn't mean I can't post a blog and I have a backlog of user blogs to read through. So getting down to business here's a blog about a two year old game.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Like many of you I played this game back in 2009 while we were all still riding the wave of adrenaline that Christopher Nolan stabbed into our veins months prior. Not only was it an excellent revisiting of Batman the Animated Series and some of the more darker toned comics but unlike many a person I actually managed to avoid almost all information about this game before it got into my hands! Now to be fair I hadn't found this site and was even less technology savvy then I am today. (Read incoming side note.) When I got down to playing it, after a lengthy install spent looking at a grey picture of Poison Ivy, I was more or less blown away. This was not just due to the quality of the game but also because I was a Batman fanatic!
I blew through the game in a matter of days and was left with an unsavory taste of post-game depression and challenge maps starring me in the face. During the two years between then and now I've thrown my best at those challenge maps and downloaded the free dlc. Right now the Freeflow Gold trophy is laughing at me...I can hear it...
What I want to do is S-Rank Arkham Asylum before I get Arkham City. Now make no mistake I'm not Vinny when the 18th rolls around in a few days I'm playing Arkham City regardless of failure or success but I gotta try dammit! It would be my first platinum trophy and it would help get my reflexes ready for Rocksteady's magnum opus to bat fans. What do I have left to finish? freeflow gold and predator gold both of which require you to get all bat medals in their respective category of challenge rooms. Before writing this I gave two of the combat challenges the good old public high school try and learned a few things.
Side Note: I originally tried to record my trials and tribulations in the challenge rooms but after a few minutes trying to rip a DVD I gave up...because I'm a wimp. So you'll have to be content with boring prose.
Other Side Note: I'm assuming that you've played Arkham Asylum before.
The first map I played was Sewer Bat extreme a rectangular map with gun racks and some throwing objects. Something I immediately remembered from my most recent attempts at S-ranking the game is that I would try to throw a thug away from the group and then go zipping across the map like David Tennant after cake to punch him in the ass...this sounds a little odd out of context. Unfortunately I noticed that the way the map is set up, it being kinda cramped, I would often find myself hitting the edge of a wall or nudging a thug on my way there that would negate my flow. This made getting past the first round more then just a little frustrating as I kept trying to get the flawless freeflow bonus. After I made it passed the first round and lazily shuffled my way to the 4th and last round I had two out of three medals and was feeling pretty decent. Then I was just overwhelmed. An insane amount of thugs that are blocking you from getting at the stragglers that are ripping concrete from the walls and busting out the assault rifles. I didn't think my issue would be dying so much as getting points but I was DEAD wrong...I'm sorry I'll never do that again. So yeah I died trying to swim through the thugs on my way to a gunman. I left the Joker taunting me on for a solid minute after his animation...there was no anger only Shock and Awe!
Damn it all I'm sorry...the next map I tried was Shock and Awe extreme and I basically just dicked around there trying to find some more entertaining ways to play. The map itself has a timer and is sectioned off into three platforms. The platforms that you don't start on are useless ignore them. I know this because I tried running to either of the other two platforms and placed an explosive charge to knock the incoming thugs this worked with proper timing...until you run out of dudes to uppercut. There was also no way to get to another platform in under a second, how long you have till your counter drops, so if you run up to one of these platforms your really gambling that enemies will consistently climb up to the same platform...beyond this I really didn't do anything of note here.
Rage Quits
Now I could post a video of a guy jumping out a window as an epic rage quit but let's talk about Arkham Asylum more because I know you couldn't possibly be tired of that! Whenever I was hit in the first round or my flow halted I just flat out restarted, now I usually don't restart parts of a game when I don't like the outcome unless the situation is special. Example: The first Bioshock when your protecting a little sister I rebooted my ps3 when I failed to protect the first little sister they give you. Now granted there is no ingame penalty for letting them die but the atmosphere that game built made me actually care on some level. In an odd way my sheer suspense at getting 3 medals in the Arkham Asylum Challenges gave me a similar sense of dread. I felt the need to get as much as I could out of the first round and kept going back to chucking dudes across the room because that's what a lot of the hint guides said and refused to play out the rest of the map. What I want to ask you guys is if you have ever rage quitted because you wanted to avoid a story from going in one direction or for gameplay purposes like those Asylum challenge maps?
So that was my first shot at a blog under strenuous conditions, my batter life has gone down to abysmal and I need to bend the charger in dangerous ways to get a charge that wont stick, hopefully it wasn't to boring a read...oh and here's an apology if it was...
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