GameGuide

After months of waiting, Batman is finally here. There have been only a couple games released so far this year that caught my eye, and frankly I have been a little disappointed with them. But I knew in my heart of hearts that Batman wouldn’t let me down, Batman always delivers, well… except for some of those awful movies.

Batman Arkham Asylum is a sandbox rendition of the island institute with a linear propelled story. Similar in some ways to Mirrors Edge you have to get from A to Z but you can choose what letters you want in between. The controls are intuitive and easy to pick up so travelling around as Batman actually feels pretty authentic, you don’t fall off buildings and die, they only mapped relevant spaces so you don’t get lost in amongst a labyrinth of hallways and if you miss a jump and fall into a bottomless pit or cloud of Jokers gas you can hit the grappling button and escape your doom. If this all sounds to easy or sounds like they have padded the walls to keep you safe let me remind you, YOU’RE BATMAN! Batman doesn’t fall to his death, Batman doesn’t get lost and some of the walls were already padded ‘cause it’s an asylum. 

Fighting is a relatively straight forward process of button mashing, which seems a bit harsh but when most battles against a dozen unarmed enemies can be won with X and Y its hard to pretty it up. As batman levels up (as if he wasn’t enough of a badass) you get other combo options like throws and such, OK so you can get away button mashing but I suspect only for so long. What really stands out about the fights is the way it interprets your wild flailing on the buttons, no matter how silly you look banging X, Batman just sorts it out and looks damn cool. Its almost like the manual should have read press X to see Batman kick some arse and press Y to warn Batman there’s someone about to hit him so he can counter there move and kick their arse. Combat is really a matter of finesse and when you stop mashing and start timing your blows you see how the system should work, with mashing or precision the ease of battle is another way to another way to remind you that YOU’RE BATMAN!

The Story in a nutshell is Joker has orchestrated a hostile takeover of Arkham Asylum, Batman apprehends Jokers almost without a fight and takes him back to Arkam at which point the trap is sprung. Batman must now fight to regain control of the Asylum and thwart Jokers nefarious plans, which run much deeper than just taking control of Arkham. The story takes place over the course of one night and as you progress through the game new events will unfold, delaying Batman and buying Joker more time to carry out his plan. One of the brilliant strokes of the story, the setting of Arkham Asylum, ensures that you can do battle with any of the villains from the Batman universe. Rather than a mass breakout or weak plots as to why the bad guys appear in the game, bringing Batman to the villains solves it.

The games audiovisual assets are a credit to the developers, the world is detailed and well planed out, the enemies are well designed and it manages to escape the Kung Fu movie feeling of fighting the same guys over and over. Batman is a pleasure to follow round and is detailed right down to the weave of his suit and the stubble in the paws on his chin. One of the important game play aspects of the game is the cowles detective mode, an enhanced vision mode that highlights interactive object, allows Batman to detect clues and most importantly incorporates the x-ray sonar thing as seen on the Dark Knight movie. You will spend a lot of time in detective mode, which washes out all the colours and gives a blue night vision quality to the game. It also makes all the other occupants on the island look like skeletons, which is very cool though it can make it hard to discern knife wielding bad guys who are a lot more dangerous than unarmed or pipe carrying ones. It’s a bit of a shame that you’re in detective mode so much because you can miss out on a lot of the lovely details.

The sounds in the game are like wise a pleasure, I did find some places where I would hear what seemed to be sounds with no source but it might be something I missed. What really stands out is the Voice acting and for a good reason, Batman is voiced by Kevin Conroy, the Joker by Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn all have been voicing these parts since Batman: The Animated Series. The script works well the extras are believable and it just sounds right.

There is a lot in this game and even the collect the flag quests are fun and challenging as the Riddler put them in the game and take a variety of different forms. The achievements are flowing in so it looks like a good one for game score lovers and its getting high marks in other reviews. A lot of games promise they are the business but just don’t deliver, Batman Arkham Asylum isn’t one of those and if you don’t buy it you owe it to yourself to at least rent it.

Reviewed on: XBox 360

Available on: XBox 360, PS3, PC


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