Batman Arkham Asylum: I swear Eidos isn't paying me for this one :p
I'm not going to lie and say I had any high hopes for "Batman: Arkham Asylum." When the demo first surfaced on PSN and Xbox live earlier this year I was none to impressed. The demo had batman in a room beating up bad guys and each level that was won would result in a subsequent one with more enemies. The combat system wasn't all too diverse. Most of the fights could be won by simply spamming a single attack button. It just seemed like another beat em up game with some batman pain on it.
I became even more skeptical when in early August there was somewhat of a scandal. Some reviewers were claiming that Eidos, the game's publisher, would only allow magazines to publish early reviews if they gave the game a score of 9.0 or better and used the game as the cover story. This whole thing led me to believe that Eidos did not have faith in their game. I mean why else would you try to tie reviewers hands into giving it a good score? Can the game not stand on it's own merit?
The game has the player taking control of the Dark Knight himself. The game begins with Batman having captured his arch nemesis the Joker. Batman escorts the Joker to Arkham Asylum, where he is to be held. The Joker escapes custody shortly after his arrival and begins to wreck havoc on Arkham island. As Batman you have to stop the Joker and find out what his ultimate goal is. The story is interesting and rather dark.
Contrary to the impressions of the demo, the game is not just a series of enemy filled rooms. In fact the demo was actually the "challenge mode" of the game, but I'll get to that later. The game is more of a stealth action game than a straight beat em up. You spend more time traversing the island than just beating up dozens of henchmen. The game gives you objectives that need to be accomplished in order to progress the story but for the most part you are free to roam the island as you please. When you encounter enemies you can fight them in a street fight or attempt to take them out stealthily. The world is open ended, it's not huge by any means but in the context of the story it feels daunting. Throughout the course of the game there are boss fights with some of Batman's other foes, I'm not going to ruin any of the surprises for you.
The combat is a "freeflow" system, where you can link punches, counters, takedowns, and throws. When you are actually chaining all of batman's attacks together combat is smooth and satisfying. But like I said it really isn't always that necessary to get fancy. Most fights can be won by simply spamming a single attack. How much fun you get out of the fights is really up to the player. Spamming a single attack can get boring but the game finds a nice balance between the length/occurrence of these fights that it never gets a chance to get boring. The fights are usually over in the blink of an eye.
The stealth aspect of the game is quite a bit more fun. The walls of Arkham are peppered with gargoyles that Batman can swing to and from. The best part about the gargoyles is that they feel like they actually belong there, not like they were something tacked on just to allow Batman something to swing from. Well fine in some areas they do feel like that but as a whole they work. Once Batman is onto of a gargoyle, he can perform an "inverted takedown" in which he quickly hangs down and grabs an enemy below him and hangs him upside down basically incapacitating him. Or he can glide down and kick an enemy thus starting the melee combat.
As the game progresses Batman will acquire more gadgets, which include batarangs, and explosive gel to name a few. The new gadgets allow you to enter areas that were previously inaccessible. It gives the player a real sense of progression. Although when Batman does acquire a new gadget it leaves the player wondering why he didn't just get the it sooner since Batman seems to be able to call the new gadgets to him at will. Some of the gadgets can be improved upon by a very simplistic RPGish level up system. Essentially Batman will level up and allow the player to choose a skill or item to upgrade. It too helps the player feel like they are making progress.
One of my absolute favorite things about this game are the Riddler's riddles hidden throughout the island, 240 in total. Some are simply objects or question marks hidden throughout the game. However others are actual riddles pertaining to Batman villains. Once the riddle is solved by finding the correct object in a room it may unlock a short bio about the villain and the date of their first appearance that can be viewed in the pause menu. They really help to immerse the player in the world of Batman and it's lore. I personally found these characters bios to be a real treat. Many of the villains were one's I hadn't even heard of before. There are also Asylum interview tapes of many of the major villains like Joker and Harley Quinn. The tapes are voiced rather well and they add a lot of depth to the characters. You do not have to be some hardcore fan of the comics to enjoy this aspect of the game.
After the main story is completed there is a challenge mode, which has two types of challenges. One has Batman trying beat up enemies and receive as many points as possible by chaining combos and the other has him trying to stealth kill enemies in various ways cryptically hinted at by the game. These modes really help to add some length to the 6-8 hour long main story (the time varies depending on whether or not you try to find all the riddler riddles). The modes are fun for a while but can get old rather quickly.
After gushing about this game now it's on to a few things I didn't like. I did not like the fact that every time a grate needed to be opened there would be a sorta cut scene that has the player pressing X repeatedly. At first this was not a problem but there are a lot of grates through out the game. At some point you start to go "wow this is kind of annoying." They should have had an option to turn the button pressing off. It adds nothing to the game experience.
Another complaint I have is that some of the boss fights aren't as epic as they could or should have been. Alright almost all of them were not as epic on scale as they should or could have been. The final confrontation especially. The build ups to the confrontations were leading me to expect a big all out battle but they were never that scale. They usually boiled down to finding the pattern and timing your attacks. So basically the boss fights sometimes didn't feel like you were fighting bosses.
Aside from those minor complaints the game is a very good superhero game. Probably the best one I've played to date. The story is one fitting the great Batman. The gameplay is varied enough to keep the player from getting bored. I found myself playing for hours at a time and losing track of time. Despite my earlier skepticism of the game I would recommend it wholeheartedly to Batman fans and non fans alike. It is just a solid, fun game in general.
Batman: Arkham Asylum gets a 9.3/10 in my book. So where's my check Eidos? Just kidding :p
I became even more skeptical when in early August there was somewhat of a scandal. Some reviewers were claiming that Eidos, the game's publisher, would only allow magazines to publish early reviews if they gave the game a score of 9.0 or better and used the game as the cover story. This whole thing led me to believe that Eidos did not have faith in their game. I mean why else would you try to tie reviewers hands into giving it a good score? Can the game not stand on it's own merit?
The game has the player taking control of the Dark Knight himself. The game begins with Batman having captured his arch nemesis the Joker. Batman escorts the Joker to Arkham Asylum, where he is to be held. The Joker escapes custody shortly after his arrival and begins to wreck havoc on Arkham island. As Batman you have to stop the Joker and find out what his ultimate goal is. The story is interesting and rather dark.
Contrary to the impressions of the demo, the game is not just a series of enemy filled rooms. In fact the demo was actually the "challenge mode" of the game, but I'll get to that later. The game is more of a stealth action game than a straight beat em up. You spend more time traversing the island than just beating up dozens of henchmen. The game gives you objectives that need to be accomplished in order to progress the story but for the most part you are free to roam the island as you please. When you encounter enemies you can fight them in a street fight or attempt to take them out stealthily. The world is open ended, it's not huge by any means but in the context of the story it feels daunting. Throughout the course of the game there are boss fights with some of Batman's other foes, I'm not going to ruin any of the surprises for you.
The combat is a "freeflow" system, where you can link punches, counters, takedowns, and throws. When you are actually chaining all of batman's attacks together combat is smooth and satisfying. But like I said it really isn't always that necessary to get fancy. Most fights can be won by simply spamming a single attack. How much fun you get out of the fights is really up to the player. Spamming a single attack can get boring but the game finds a nice balance between the length/occurrence of these fights that it never gets a chance to get boring. The fights are usually over in the blink of an eye.
The stealth aspect of the game is quite a bit more fun. The walls of Arkham are peppered with gargoyles that Batman can swing to and from. The best part about the gargoyles is that they feel like they actually belong there, not like they were something tacked on just to allow Batman something to swing from. Well fine in some areas they do feel like that but as a whole they work. Once Batman is onto of a gargoyle, he can perform an "inverted takedown" in which he quickly hangs down and grabs an enemy below him and hangs him upside down basically incapacitating him. Or he can glide down and kick an enemy thus starting the melee combat.
As the game progresses Batman will acquire more gadgets, which include batarangs, and explosive gel to name a few. The new gadgets allow you to enter areas that were previously inaccessible. It gives the player a real sense of progression. Although when Batman does acquire a new gadget it leaves the player wondering why he didn't just get the it sooner since Batman seems to be able to call the new gadgets to him at will. Some of the gadgets can be improved upon by a very simplistic RPGish level up system. Essentially Batman will level up and allow the player to choose a skill or item to upgrade. It too helps the player feel like they are making progress.
One of my absolute favorite things about this game are the Riddler's riddles hidden throughout the island, 240 in total. Some are simply objects or question marks hidden throughout the game. However others are actual riddles pertaining to Batman villains. Once the riddle is solved by finding the correct object in a room it may unlock a short bio about the villain and the date of their first appearance that can be viewed in the pause menu. They really help to immerse the player in the world of Batman and it's lore. I personally found these characters bios to be a real treat. Many of the villains were one's I hadn't even heard of before. There are also Asylum interview tapes of many of the major villains like Joker and Harley Quinn. The tapes are voiced rather well and they add a lot of depth to the characters. You do not have to be some hardcore fan of the comics to enjoy this aspect of the game.
After the main story is completed there is a challenge mode, which has two types of challenges. One has Batman trying beat up enemies and receive as many points as possible by chaining combos and the other has him trying to stealth kill enemies in various ways cryptically hinted at by the game. These modes really help to add some length to the 6-8 hour long main story (the time varies depending on whether or not you try to find all the riddler riddles). The modes are fun for a while but can get old rather quickly.
After gushing about this game now it's on to a few things I didn't like. I did not like the fact that every time a grate needed to be opened there would be a sorta cut scene that has the player pressing X repeatedly. At first this was not a problem but there are a lot of grates through out the game. At some point you start to go "wow this is kind of annoying." They should have had an option to turn the button pressing off. It adds nothing to the game experience.
Another complaint I have is that some of the boss fights aren't as epic as they could or should have been. Alright almost all of them were not as epic on scale as they should or could have been. The final confrontation especially. The build ups to the confrontations were leading me to expect a big all out battle but they were never that scale. They usually boiled down to finding the pattern and timing your attacks. So basically the boss fights sometimes didn't feel like you were fighting bosses.
Aside from those minor complaints the game is a very good superhero game. Probably the best one I've played to date. The story is one fitting the great Batman. The gameplay is varied enough to keep the player from getting bored. I found myself playing for hours at a time and losing track of time. Despite my earlier skepticism of the game I would recommend it wholeheartedly to Batman fans and non fans alike. It is just a solid, fun game in general.
Batman: Arkham Asylum gets a 9.3/10 in my book. So where's my check Eidos? Just kidding :p
Comments
Also, excellent review very professional etc.