You're Batman
Batman Arkham Asylum is a welcome entry into the long maligned genre of licensed games. It is the first serious (and successful) attempt in enabling players to experience every aspect of being Batman; the gadgetry, the detective work, the terrorizing of thugs, and the moral struggles.
The game starts with a very familiar premise: capturing the Joker and leaving him at the mercy of Arkham Asylum. The smugness he exhibits even while being stretchered away into his high security cell is definitely unnerving, and one immediately senses he has an ace up his sleeve. This suspicion is almost immediately realized as he effects an adroit escape and embarks on yet another one of maniacal schemes.
It becomes very clear that the game's combat is extremely satisfying the moment you face your first group of hoodlums. One is able to gracefully batter and counter your opponents with a few well-timed clicks, and combat animations are very fluidly done, making it very satisfying. The unlocking of special combo moves (such as instant takedowns) as you rack up more hits provides an excellent incentive to keep the constant pummeling going. Batman amasses a plethora of gadgetry as he nears his final objective, which makes combat even more compelling. As ridiculous as it may sound, it’s hard to argue against how empowering it is to chain together a combo that starts with batclaw-pulling 3 thugs towards you for a pummeling, doing an artful leap over their felled bodies to throw 3 batarangs at other members of the pack, and then picking up a dazed crony and throwing him at his peers (or to a bottomless pit if you’re that heartless) to finish it off.
But that’s not to say this is a mindless combat-centric button masher. Batman can also opt to dispatch sentries stealthily by
launching off higher planes and glide-kicking to concuss them, zip-lining from one platform to another and kicking a guard off, pulling structurally-unsound floors from beneath patrolling guards, lying in wait on a gargoyle for unsuspecting sentries so that you can string them up and hang them from there, and the like. Your creativity and trauma-inducing dispatches are rewarded by increasingly-agitated remaining guards. It’s difficult not to chuckle as the lone survivor in the room shoots around the room futilely looking for you while he pleads for mercy. The sheer variety of ways to dispatch and torment your enemies makes an oft-ignored aspect of being Batman rather well-realised: the persona of the ruthless Dark Knight. This is a refreshing direction that hasn’t been previously explored in games that have dabbled in stealth. One explores all these creative avenues to torture Joker’s henchman because he’s the Batman and wants to, not because he’s a fragile everyman who’s a poor shot with that lousy pistol or knife.
The game takes a very liberal Metroidvania-esque approach to exploration, and you are free at most times to venture off in search
of bonuses and hidden trinkets. This is encouraged by the Riddler’s littering of Riddle Trophies and several riddles that must be scanned in the environment. They are sufficiently challenging but not unduly unfair, so they make a nice distraction that prevents you from just barreling all the way to the end of the game in two or three sittings. There’s a lot of nice variety to this element of the game that tries to align itself with the “World’s Best Detective” facet of the Dark Knight: your riddles are as mundane as aligning question marks to complicated stumpers that will confound you for hours. Most importantly, you aren’t coerced to track back to use your new gadgets in previously inaccessible areas as there aren’t any missile tanks or in-game bonuses for doing so, so this feature shouldn’t unduly frustrate those short on patience.
However, the best part of the game is the Asylum itself. The Gothic architecture (complete with gargoyles and arches) and the perpetual sense of foreboding engendered by the subtle BGM, distant howls, and dark hallways go a long way in giving this oft-ignored locale some much needed personality. The Joker revels in trash talking and constantly torturing you via proxies (his cronies, and the monitors littered around the facility) and it won’t take long before you resolve to end his plot to make him stop. He even attempts to present Batman with Sophie’s Choice scenarios that he of course overcomes.
The taunting and mind-games never let up: he even has the audacity to roll out a red carpet welcome (complete with applauding thugs) right before the final confrontation. It’s clear that trudging further into the deepest recesses of the asylum mirrors Batman’s slow descent into insanity and fatigue: his suit and cape get ripped and several hints of frustration start creeping up in his dialogue.
Bosses that you will face later in the game taunt you through their cells and promise you that they will even the score, which is another great touch.. This element of the suspension of disbelief is further explored during the Scarecrow—induced dream sequences that allow you to experience young Bruce Wayne’s trauma after his parents’ demise. It goes without saying that all this immersion would not succeed but for convincing voiceovers, and Mark Hamill does an especially stellar job here.
Despite how engrossing this game is, it does have its fair share of slip-ups. The Detective Mode that serves as a blue-filtered X-ray vision mode to clearly demarcate foes, doors and structural weaknesses is so useful that chances are you won’t turn it off. This means the grim colour palette employed by the game’s art direction won’t be a major part of your experience. There’s also the rare contrivance or two that will jar the purist fan (a Batcave built under the Arkham Asylum for contingencies!?). The bosses are interesting but come across as pushovers. Arkham Asylum is also sorely lacking in substantial replay value: the challenge modes to brush up on your close combat combo skills or ability to orchestrate sadistic ways of dispatching foes don’t quite hold up without any storyline context as they occur in timed, isolated rooms.
Having said that, these are the kinds of misgivings that arise only when attempting to nitpick on a game that is simply fantastic and devoid of any game-breaking flaws. The system requirements are relatively modest so you should definitely do yourself a huge solid and get a copy.
