Batman: Arkham Asylum

This game has the reputation of being one of if not the best Batman games ever released. Almost a year since its release and I’d still say, “Yea it’s freaking awesome.” Maybe this review won’t be helpful to you in your decision to try this game out. Chances are you’ve already picked it up and loved it with the rest of us. But if you haven’t, you might as well take the opportunity to grab the Game of the Year edition in the stores and play the crap out of this game because it is still awesome. Though, perhaps not perfect. 

Story

Based loosely on the graphic novel of the same title, Batman AA follows the caped crusader through the halls of the asylum as he tries to thwart the plans of the Joker. For those who have not read the Arkham Asylum graphic novel yet, it is worth picking up for how it shows a great deal of depth to Batman as a character. The game does a decent job at that, but doesn’t quite go into as much detail or symbolism. The graphic novel’s story focuses on how Batman has the same sort of makings as any one of the serial killers in the asylum. As Batman wanders the halls there are references to Amadeus Arkham, how he came to build the place, and how he slowly went insane wandering the same halls. With this reference, you can see how Batman is walking his own fine line of sanity. The video game brings these ideas to a dim light, but never quite brings them out completely, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

What ends up happening instead is a shift in focus. From the start, you know Joker has a plot and Batman has to stop him, but the details are unclear and it seems like this is just a mind f*** for the dark knight. Eventually the story starts to focus more on Joker and his scheme entirely. By this point, the game starts to turn into one of the episodes from the animated series of the 90s; this is also not a bad thing. All along the way you fight thugs and some super villains that may or may not be tied to the plot involving Joker. There’s a great deal of collecting for the completionist and the game does a good job at pacing the story. You never feel like you’ve gone too long since the last big event took place. The game feels episodic, but the fact that there are no episodes, makes it feel more seamless as you traverse the island and the asylum.

I don’t want to divulge too much of the plot considering the fact that Batman is known as a detective and being indiscrete would only damage that aspect of the gameplay. I will note a few things I was disappointed in though (the few that there are). My main complaint was the lack of villains. Batman has always had a huge roster of villains that are outlandish and wild, but only a handful make an appearance. There are data files to collect on all the super villain masterminds and remind you of all the ones who have failed to make an appearance. The ones that do appear are terrific, of course, but having one of my favorites pace like a puma in a cell with no hopes of fighting him was just torture.

My other big complaint was the ending. It all felt really anti-climatic, especially after the long journey just to find out what was going on. You use deduction to figure out what is happening and what needs to be done and the ending just sort of happens. It makes a slight nod to the whole thing about Batman being close to insane, but by this point it didn’t feel like that had much meaning. And the final boss battle was not satisfying at all in comparison to some of the other ones in the game.

Gameplay

Arkham Asylum is the so-called best Batman game because of this alone. The whole time I played the game I felt like this was how you were meant to feel when playing as Batman. You feel powerful and cunning with all the tools at your disposal. You start off with the typical “batarangs” and grappling hooks which are more than satisfying to use, but you quickly get upgrades to your abilities, which, in turn, allows you to use them in creative ways. There’s a batarang that is controllable mid-flight. There’s also a grappling hook that you can use to pull people over ledges or use in combat to sweep out their legs. 

There is an assortment of other gadgets at your disposal but probably the most useful is the detective vision. At the click of a button, a visor comes over Batman’s eyes and shows the area in a transparent x-ray mode. You see the skeletal structure of your opponents and various parts of the environment that stand out only in that mode. But most importantly, you can see your enemies through walls and floors. This little fact made me keep the vision on most of the time when sneaking about or anticipating some unwanted surprises. Perhaps too useful of a tool but at the same time, I don’t want it to go away. It proved most useful in the storyline and definitely made the detective part of the gameplay feel much more involved and integrated. You didn’t have to be too anal about details you might uncover because the vision would help highlight items of interest, but it still involved you enough to make sure you didn’t feel like someone was holding your hand. But gadgets aren’t the only thing you have on your side.

The fighting system in Arkham Asylum is also rather satisfying. Many people believed it to be too simple and repetitive but frankly I thought it was only simple if you wanted it to be. If the player took the time to practice the fighting he/she would see the level of depth in the fighting that only makes it more challenging and satisfying. You can take on multiple opponents at once in a fighting system that Assassin’s Creed could learn from. The enemies don’t all lunge at you at once, but they make attempts while you’re preoccupied and it never feels like you have to wait long for a counterattack. Batman has a basic attack as well as a counterattack for when an enemy throws a punch. The action is very quick and only involves pressing a single button; before you know it, the guy is on the ground, stunned from your counterattack as you move onto the next foe. Eventually you unlock more combo abilities like take downs and grappling moves that make the fighting more exciting. Even the extra content that involved fighting waves of enemies never really felt boring to me.

But the part that I enjoyed the most about the gameplay was when you get to be the “silent predator.” Straight from Splinter Cell and Metal Gear, you stalk the rooms filled with armed enemies and you have to take them out one by one without being spotted. It’s not necessarily game over, but Batman can’t take too many shots from an automatic rifle before he kicks the bucket, so you have to get away quickly if your cover is blown. That doesn’t mean this part of the gameplay is hard. Unlike in Metal Gear, where I felt like a badass after I killed everyone in the room but extremely vulnerable until the deed was done, I felt extremely confident and powerful as the dark knight the whole way through the scenario. 

There are plenty of methods of handling these scenarios. There are various hiding spaces for you to use, unique ways to employ your gadgets, or special abilities that allow you to crash through the environment dramatically delivering pain to a henchman. The reason that this is so satisfying is the fact that the game is constantly introducing new methods opportunities for you to approach the situations. Just when you are about to feel like you might use the same tactic to the end of the game, the enemies throw a curve ball and take away some of the hiding spots. But that didn’t make me lose confidence; it just forced me to employ a new tactic, which was half of the fun. Perhaps the most satisfying was taking out all the guards quietly one by one till there were only two left. I’d take out one in a very “loud” manner, causing the other to come running to find his friend unconscious. This would then cause nervousness leading to panic as the man stumbles across all his fallen comrades one by one, when he had been completely unaware of my presence. Watching the characters behave in such a fearful way made me feel like I was the killer in a “slasher” movie stalking my victim. But you try playing these parts that way and tell me you don’t laugh a little when the guy screams and sprays bullets at the ceiling randomly out of fear. My only wish is that there were even more ways to take guys out both silently and noisily.

As for the big villains themselves, I enjoyed their presentation thoroughly (the ones that appeared anyways). For the boss battles themselves though, they were a little hit or miss. Some fights were truly thrilling, while others left me asking: that’s it? But I will say that each of them felt like how Batman would handle the situation. The Killer Croc encounter was stressful and tedious because I didn’t get a chance to take him on the way I wanted. But it was done the way Batman would probably handle the situation. In the end, the number of boss battles felt a little slim in comparison to what I expected, especially considering how many villains Batman has.

Presentation

The gameplay is enough to make the game good, but the presentation is what made the game great. Visually, it’s stunning. It’s running on the Unreal engine so, naturally, everyone is extremely muscular, save the ladies and Joker. Even Commissioner Gorden looked extremely beefed up. When he and Batmen entered the same room I thought they’d have a moment out of Predator where they gripped hands and started a friendly arm-wrestling match. But the engine still looks good nonetheless. The textures are crisp on the environments and the characters. Even the models for the henchmen were pretty impressive. But most of all, I couldn’t help noticing how good Batman looked. There would be cuts on his uniform that would stay there throughout the game, or sweat on his face in the tense moments, or even a little stubble by the end to show how long of a night this was. Every character moved well and the attention to detail was fantastic. Hell, Killer Croc is eye-candy alone for this game. They could have put a screen shot of him on the cover and you wouldn’t believe that he looked that good.

The overall design of the Asylum’s island was well thought out. Several of the places you go through in the game require a second visit, often after a catastrophic event, thus changing the place around since you last saw it. This is a great way of keeping the player involved and making it feel familiar as he/she traverses the island, but is never completely sure of what to expect. The layout of the place feels like it was lifted out of a comic book and I’d love to know where they came up with their blueprints of the place.

But the area of presentation that even trumps the visual is the sound department. The voice acting is SUPERB; some of the best I’ve heard in a video game. Do you know why? Because they got real professional voice actors for the game, several of which were from the animated series. Mark Hamill does his unforgettable Joker and Kevin Conroy is the ever satisfying voice of Batman; these two make the game feel even more like an episode out of the 90’s show. A few other voices from the show make their appearance though I won’t spoil any surprises. But it isn’t just the voice work that’s good. The writing helps you really get involved in the characters. Joker is constantly spouting off lines into the intercom as you wander the island making the experience that much more immersive and downright entertaining. The chemistry of the moments when the characters interact is truly satisfying to watch and listen to. I doubt you won’t get caught up in it all.

As for the music, it does a decent job filling the ambience. It hits all the tense notes for a battle sequence and stays low for the moments of exploration and solitude. But hell, the second time I played through this game I popped in the soundtracks from the Tim Burton movie and the Dark Knight to make the flow of my cape that much more dramatic when I ran.

Conclusion

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a great game. It’s surprising we had to wait so long for such a good game about the Dark Knight, but it was certainly worth the wait. The gameplay is solid, the story feels something ripped out of a comic/animated movie, and the game looks and sounds great. How could they make it better? The only real why I can dock it from being perfect is for my own greed. A few more abilities and a few more boss battles is what I’m hoping for. They don’t need to redesign much, but just make it even more satisfying. Perhaps they’ll add co-op to the next game and let someone play as Nightwing or something along the way. Whatever they do, it doesn’t need a whole lot of work.

I will say however, that if it is going to take place outside of the Asylum (which it should) then don’t call it Arkham Asylum 2. Players will be able to figure it out that this is the sequel. Give it a new name. Also, on a brief sidebar, if you haven’t played the game yet and considered getting the game of the year edition, I’d like to at least give a brief thought. Part of the reason I don’t like these editions is that they often serve as an excuse to bring a game that has since dropped in price, back up to full price. With the exception of Fallout 3’s GOTY edition, I usually don’t feel they are truly worth it. With Batman AA the price rises back up to $50 for console versions with the added content and the ability to see it with the crappy 3D glasses. The extra content, however, has since been available for download for the game since its release and all of the content was free. If you didn’t have a PS3 you missed out on the Joker extras and if you didn’t preorder it, you didn’t get the ultra hard gauntlet of battles. But none of these are worth 20 bucks. So really you’re paying 20 extra dollars for 3D. If that’s worth it to you and you haven’t played the game yet, then by all means.

Regardless on how I feel about GOTY editions or my apprehension toward the inevitable sequel, Batman Arkham Asylum is a great game that should be played by everyone with a system not just the fans of Batman or even the fans of video games. There is something in the game that will even make the non-gamer get excited.