Summary [10 out of 10]

When Joker turns a prison transfer into Arkham Asylum into a full fledged take over of the island it is up to Batman to round up the inmates and stop whatever Joker has planned in the first game to ever fully and accurately capture the Batman experience. Finally, Batman’s entire skill set is on display as you use stealth, gadgets, combat ability and detective skills to figure out what Joker is up to and stop him before it is too late.  With flawless controls, a great story, voice acting straight from the animated series and a plethora of extras Batman: Arkham Asylum is what every Batman fan has been waiting for all these years.

Introduction

I would start this review off by mentioning that I am a big Batman fan and that he is my second favorite super-hero and I have been into him since I was age 4 but given that pretty much everyone in the fanboy geek realm is in mad, passionate love with the Dark Knight (unless they are the sorts of contrarian haters who can’t wait to diss the thing that everyone loves because they are so much cooler yet oddly just as unlikely to kiss a girl) I don’t really feel like I need to make huge pronouncements of love for the character as it is probably a given.

All that being said, Batman games have classically been really, really terrible. I think the last one I enjoyed (and I should mention I haven’t played Lego Batman) was the   of the ’89 Batman movie. It was that long ago. Even then it wasn’t a great Batman game so much as a decent platformer. In the years since we have seen a lot of earnest efforts in capturing the magic but none have managed to do so.

Generally this is due to games trying to focus on only one aspect of what Batman is about or only manages one of them properly while other aspects suffer. One of the remarkable things about Arkham Asylum is that it juggles all the major aspects of Batman masterfully and there is never a time when I felt like I wish I could hurry past the section I was on to get to something fun. It is all fun. I can’t think of a super hero game prior to this that has so completely ‘gotten’ it. I don’t want to get to far into hyperbole-ville but with Batman: Arkham Asylum, the hype is well deserved.

The Great

• Game-play: First and foremost the game succeeds tremendously at being easy and intuitive to play. When I say easy to play I don’t mean the game itself is easy but rather the mechanics work wonderfully and none of the systems in the game are broken. There is never a time when you will fight the game itself or find Batman doing things you didn’t tell him to do.  In a game where you have three main game-play styles there is a lot of room for things breaking down or having a lackluster component. That doesn’t happen here. Each of the styles is the best possible example of that style and other franchises should take notice of what is going on here.

• Graphics/Art Design: The game is gorgeous. The backgrounds and environment are pretty enough to stand and stare at and the character models and animation are terrific.  The level of detail in both the environmental assets as well as the character models is truly impressive. The art design reflects the darkness of the story with aesthetics reminiscent of Jim Lee’s work on the Hush storyline or All-Star Batman and Robin. These are gritty looking characters to go with a gritty looking game and Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy have never been sexier.

• Story: The story, written by Paul Dini of the animated series,  isn’t intricate particularly and there aren’t many twists and turns along the way but it is very much a classic Batman story that is both interesting and engaging. Joker’s plan unfolds nicely as you progress through the story and there is just enough intrigue to keep you interested. The scripting is also spot on and easily stands with the Animated Series. It is also very dark and gritty, much more so than we’ve seen in previous game efforts. The language and violence is roughly PG-13 and tracks with the general feel of the Nolan films without quite getting to Miller’s Dark Knight Returns level of darkness.

• Voice Acting: The major voice actors from the Animated Series reprise their roles here including Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamil as Joker and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn. It takes a minute to get used to the voices from the Animated Series coming out of dark and edgy looking characters but once it sinks in the voices really make the experience feel like Batman. Conroy has been voicing Batman for over 10 years an is true to form here. He is a relief from the raspy and almost unintelligible delivery from Christian Bale in the movies.  Mark Hamil is absolutely flawless as the Joker which is a really good thing since he talks to you over the intercom incessantly. And Sorkin does a great job of Harley, which makes since given that the character was created for her. The other voice actors all acquit themselves equally well with Wally Wingert’s Riddler being another stand-out.

• Controls: I am always very appreciative of games that don’t make me want to break my controller. In the case of some melee heavy combat games and stealth games, I find myself wanting to put my controller through the wall. Intuitive controls seem to be particularly elusive to the stealth genre. As much as I like Metal Gear the controls make me want to scream. Watching Snake lay down on the ground while enemies put bullets in his ass is very frustrating. Sneaking and CQC in such games also usually make me want to rip my hair out. In fact, I will go so far as to say that I don’t really care for stealth games at all and most of that is due to the controls. When it comes to stealth here, I have no complaints.  It is never frustrating to do what I want to do and the controls are very precise and responsive. Likewise, the combat and detective segments work so well in large part because of how successful the controls are.

• Combat: I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already but the fighting in the game is really good. It is a very simple concept and is easy to get the hang of but is difficult to master. There is one button to attack, one to counter, one to dodge and one to distract.  One attack buttons sounds like things will get boring and stale but this is not the case. As you are surrounded by enemies you hit the attack button and press in the direction of the attacker you want to deal with. Batman responds in a contextually appropriate manner and you can keep hitting the attacker in front of you or you can press in the direction of another attacker to move on to him. You also get a spider-sense like indicator when one of them is going to attack which allows you to counter, a simple button press that triggers a series of moves that often include stripping a weapon and scoring multiple hits. The evade button allows you to dive over and around attackers to flank and maneuver the attackers where you want them. If you did this repetitively to one or two attackers all the time, it would get boring fast but in this case you are often surrounded by several attackers at once and you do all of these things together to form combos that are truly bad ass. Batman has some crazy moves and he uses them to put some serious hurt on Joker’s thugs. It really looks painful. What really makes the combat shine here is that you can change up your tactics on the fly and each fight is unique. That they throw in special thugs with knifes and stun guns that require special techniques to take them down just further shows the level of variety in what could have been a really boring system.

• Stealth Sections: Now I mentioned this in the controls but more needs to be said. Basically, Batman wears body armor that is somewhat bullet resistant but a dude with a machine gun is going to kill him all kinds of dead. You get six such guys together and Batman has to be a bit more subtle. Enter the stealth segments. Generally you get four to six machine gun and shotgun carrying fools patrolling and area and you have to deal with them. You can do this a variety of ways. If you go up into the air on to ledges and gargoyles you can hang upside down and grab them and string them upside down by a wire or you can perform a glide kick which allows you to do a follow up knock out move. If you want to be more ground based you can sneak up behind them and do a silent take down or hit them with a batarang and then finish them off with some quick punches while they  are down. You can hang from ledges and pull them over the side, or set up charges to blow up sections of wall to knock them out or take out sections of the floor to drop them to the level below…you just have a staggering number of options here and Detective Mode, which is essentially an infared view showing the thugs’ skeletons through walls and the floor, allows you to set up your strategy with ease. These sections could have been tacked on but they are very fun and challenging and are every bit a puzzle as the actual puzzle segments. Occasionally they will throw some extra variety in and put a hostage at risk if anyone even hears you. Good times.

• Gadgets: Batman is well known for his gadgets and they are well on display here. From batarangs to grappling hooks everything you get is effective and useful. Your standard grappling hook lets you reach the high ground and get out of situations most people couldn’t and can allow you to grab thugs and pull them toward you or off ledges. The standard batarang can be upgraded to allow you to throw up to three at once and also comes in a remote control and sonic emitter variety. Then you have small explosive charges to set and a wireless hacking device. All of the stuff Batman carries makes sense and seems like it could exist if there was actually a Batman and makes sense for the character. There’s no ‘Batskates’ nonsense nor is there anything that you will never use. Everything is useful and you will use it often.

• Replay: There is just a ton to do here in addition to main story goals. That isn’t to say that you get Spider-man style side quests, but there are a lot of things to collect and puzzles to solve. Aside from that stuff, some of which will get its own bullet point, the game is just fun enough that you want to go back and do it again. The moment I finished the thing I wanted to jump right back in.  There isn’t mode to play through with your skills and equipment beefed up but it does let you explore Arkham so you can find all the stuff you missed during your play through and that is pretty handy.

• Riddler Challenges: While the Man in Green never physically shows up in the game, he cuts into your radio from time to time to give you a series of 200+ riddles around the asylum. Generally solving these is as simple as going into Detective mode and doing an environmental scan of the answer to the riddle. The riddles aren’t super difficult but many are clever and they are a fun diversion while you are making your way through the game. Aside from the riddles, there are also Riddler Trophies to look for. These are scattered around, often in hard to reach areas. Collecting these things become a matter of bragging rights to have actually found them.

• Easter Eggs: The game is loaded with fan service content. In addition to the Riddler Challenges you also have interview tapes to look for and another mystery involving the spirit of Arkham. The interview tapes are a series of psychiatric interviews with various inmates. These are reminiscent of the recordings you find in Bioshock and are very interesting and often times pretty disturbing. Some of them flesh out the storyline in the game and some are just generally messed up. One interview with the Riddler involving a riddle about a baby is particularly messed up. The Spirit of Arkham is a series of stone obelisks throughout the game that contain coded messages from Arkham’s founder leading to  a particular mystery.

• Challenge Rooms: As you collect Riddler Trophies and solve mysteries you unlock challenge rooms, a series of combat and stealth rounds where you compete for high scores. This seemed kind of tacked on to me until I started playing and I found them to be addictive. They are pretty much just rooms from the game with time limits and point scores but they are a fun distraction from the story mode. I bought the Xbox version of the game  mostly because of my controller preference but I am kicking myself for not getting the PS3 version which has downloadable challenges where you can play the Joker. Oh well, hopefully it will eventually be available for the 360. I suppose the charge that would accompany it content would be stupid tax.

The Hot

• Harley Quinn: Damn. That is all I am saying.

The Bad

• It ended.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

I am kind of forcing myself to wrap up here. There is a lot more that can be said about this game and my love for it is the sort usually reserved for one’s children. I don’t give it a perfect score lightly and I am not one to throw that sort of score around willy nilly. This game deserves it, though, and while game reviews are just subjective opinions, if you don’t like it I have to seriously question whether you really like video games or not. I really hope that a sequel will be forth coming and I hope they don’t change it too much. If other developers use this game as a template we could see some really great things come out of it. I can’t recommend it highly enough and you really to go out at get it as soon as possible.