User Review : Batman: Arkham Asylum

I am Batman

I have to admit that when I first started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, I had no idea what to expect. I had read previews and seen some wild screen shots, but I had no clue how it would all come together. I wanted to love the game, but I have always had doubts about videogames based on franchised content. Let me just make this as blatantly clear as possible: I love this game.

As a gamer, there is little more satisfying than to play a game and be pleasantly, genuinely surprised. There is just something about having your expectations totally surpassed. Arkham Asylum does this with flying colors. Let me start from the beginning. The game opens with the Batmobile, in all its rendered glory, blazing down Gotham’s city streets to the rusted gates of Arkham. In the passenger seat is a subdued Joker, rambling in all his insanity and a trademark purple suit. After you arrive at the infamous insane asylum, a lengthy introduction ensues. The joker is being literally towed through the frightening corridors of Arkham, Hannibal Lector style, in an upright harness, throwing out one liners and bad jokes like it’s his…. well, job. For the sake of avoiding spoilers and ruining the experience for you, let me cut to the chase. The deranged clown hadn’t been captured by the Dark Knight, after all (as Batman, and player, was already suspicious of); it was a trap set up by the green haired villain himself. What’s more is that there is a wealth of Blackgate thugs, Arkham Asylum inmates, and old, familiar ‘super criminals’ in on the plan. By this point you can already tell this is going to be a dark, enthralling ride.

What makes this game so great is that the developers really put forth the effort to make it a Batman experience. While the game follows the time-old formula of ‘find this guy here, now get that item there’, it doesn’t ever feel linear. The island is rather open and you can explore to your hearts content. As a matter of fact, you are rewarded for doing so via the Riddler’s challenges, which I’ll elaborate on later.

The game focuses around Batman’s ability to hide in the shadows as well as his very capable hand to hand combat skills. Regarding Batman’s Wayne Tech gadgets, you’re initially outfitted with your ever-useful grappler and unlimited batarangs (bat shaped boomerangs). The grappler lets you travel to nearly any vertical platform above you with the simple push of the R1 shoulder button (I played the PS3 version, so I will be using the sixaxis layout from here on forward). However, perhaps one of the grappler’s most important uses is to reach overhead gargoyle statues in the various buildings. From these gargoyles, Batman is able to hide and devise a plan of attack as well as escape from and even take down baddies. The batarang can be used for a distance attack, both aimed and ‘quick fired’, depending on the situation. One of the most used gadgets you will get throughout the entire game, however, is ‘Detective Mode’, which is accessed by simply pressing the L2 button. This mode lets you see in a form of ‘x-ray vision’, letting you focus on the current emotional state and armed status of people around you, as well as details of inanimate objects. You get more gadgets as you progress in the game, such as explosive gel and electronic decoding devices, that really put you in the boots of the Dark Knight, but I will not go into those details. It is important to mention, however, that the game is experience based. For each bad guy you incapacitate, or riddle you solve, you are awarded an amount of experience that can be used to upgrade your fighting abilities, your gadgets, or your overall health capacity.

As I stated before, there are really two styles that this game focuses on. When you have patrolling enemies armed with guns, your best bet is to not take them head on. Instead, you take to rafters, swinging from gargoyle to gargoyle. Thankfully, Rocksteady did not make this an afterthought. Hiding in the shadows is great fun and taking out bad guys one by one is a blast. You really get the feeling that you’re a super hero, stalking enemies. Take down one bad guy and the others gather around and form a plan of attack to flush you out. They work in groups, covering one another’s back and even predict your location, should you grow too trigger-happy with batarangs or other ranged objects. The fact that enemies panic and even start firing blindly is a wonderful touch, and it really makes things exciting as you swoop down and pull a straggling bad guy into the shadows, causing even more fear to ensue.

When thugs are unarmed, the game allows you to go into a free flowing melee mode. In all honesty, the system of fighting Rocksteady developed is one of the most intuitive, fun, and beautifully mechanized fighting systems I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. If you’ve got the reflexes and the skill, you can literally take on any number of bad guys at once, and most importantly, look good while doing it. The way the fighting works is actually pretty simple: start hitting an opponent and a combo meter starts in the top left of the screen. The number of hits you make will continue to tally until you get hit or you miss a strike. When you reach a certain number of combo hits (depending on your upgrade), you are able to perform a takedown or throw move which seamlessly links into your combo tally. When a bad guy is about to strike you, a symbol appears above their head and you simply have to hit the triangle button to initiate a quick, fluid counter attack which, yes, also adds seamlessly into your combo tally. What I love about this system is that it is so stylized; no button mashing allowed here. Once you get a hang of this system, you really start looking and feeling like Batman; beating a thug with a flying jump kick, countering another by using his own lead pipe against him, and ending it all with a MMA style arm break. Some might argue that this can get a bit repetitive, but often the game throws in some weapon wielding characters that take a special tactic to take down. All in all, this is one of the best parts of the game.

Let’s talk visuals. If this game deserves obvious praise in one field, it’s definitely visuals. The graphics in this game are great. I found some textures that seemed a little blurry or lacking, but overall this game looks impressive. What impressed me the most, however, was how the developers at Rocksteady did such a fantastic job at capturing the dark, gloomy feel of the Batman universe. The asylum is beautifully detailed. There are papers strewn about the cracked tile floors, deceased guards in opportune places, and nice little touches from the Joker himself to give it that mocking, sinister feel. I loved the game’s interpretation of familiar faces and Arkham Island itself. The island looks like a gothic playground and, in many ways, it is. It’s a small, open world that deserves to be explored. As I said, I love the interpretation of the characters, too. Batman is perfect as a gruff, no-nonsense oversized bruiser with a five o’clock shadow tying his ensemble together. He is perfectly counter balanced against the almost-too-slender Joker, complete with lime green hair, creepy blood-red smile, and deathly pale skin. Seeing characters like Killer Croc and the Scare Crow come to life in the game is nothing short of a visual treat, and the same can definitely be said of the femme fatales Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. This game was definitely tailored toward the adult crowd, but with a T-rating it’s safe for a larger audience; violence, mild language, and skimpy outfits notwithstanding.

The sound in the game is superb. The music in the game really sets the tone, growing to dramatic heights at just the right moments. There are some memorable tracks, but I feel that it is best described as a musical ambience. The voice acting, however, is on another level. The studio was able to get the talented Mark Hamill to voice his trademark version of the Joker. It is a real treat to hear that maniacal laugh and those flat jokes coming from Hamill, and other honorable mentions of returning roles include Kevin Conroy as Batman and Arleen Sorkin as Harely Quinn. Overall, the acting is great, including the trite threats and overly violent banter coming from Blackgate thugs. Everything fits.

If the game has any weaknesses I feel it would come from its short length. It took me about 12-15 hours to beat Batman: Arkham Asylum for the first play through. There is no multiplayer, but there are a variety of challenge maps that the developers included for replay value. The two different modes include predator challenges (stealth) and combat. To their credit, it is in these combat challenge maps that the combat system really shines through. It is also fun to play the predator maps, trying new and sometimes elaborate techniques to satisfy the objectives. It’s worth mentioning that these challenge maps are unlocked by the percentage of completion of the game. In essence, this is another layer of replayability as you have to complete the Riddler’s challenges in the main game to get a higher completion percentage. The Riddler’s challenges are a clever way of distracting the gamer to solve extra tidbits, all the while connecting it back to the game. Some riddles are elaborate “I-Spy” challenges, asking the player to find an item that is hidden somewhere in a particular level of the game with only a one-line riddle as a hint, and other challenges are as simple as destroying a number of Joker Teeth (those little gag-toy walking teeth you find in novelty stores). You are also asked to collect interview tapes of Arkham patients, a fun exploration into the villain master minds. With over 250 riddles to solve, among a beautifully designed and easily navigated environment, it is a welcome layer of replay, not forced.

All in all, I really loved this game. I think it’s one of the summer’s best releases and anyone that enjoys an action game would do well to purchase this one. Batman fans have been done a great service by Rocksteady, as has the gaming community. Anyone on the fence about this game, as I’ll admit to being myself, should similarly pick this one up. With great controls, design, game play, audio, and ample replayability, I can’t find a single reason not to recommend Batman: Arkham Asylum.