With very few exceptions, licensed superhero games seem to exist on a sliding scale where one end is reserved for lacklustre game design with the other belonging to the insipid and banal. Whether you are ‘down’ with the Dark Knight or not, you have to at least admit that it’s nice to see a licensed superhero game get the royal treatment for once. Batman: Arkham Asylum is not only stylish, original, and undyingly faithful to Batman canon, it manages to take something that is so familiar to all of us and still make it exciting, without the need to ‘re-imagine’ the universe and change all the wonderful things that make the night-time adventures of Bruce Wayne so compelling in the first place. It’s not only a vindication to Batman fans, but also to us gamers who have long suffered with a history of games that barely rose above the average mark.
As the title implies, the game’s entirety is spent on Gotham
City’s least visited tourist attraction: Arkham Asylum, a
mental institution for the criminally insane...and part-time
vacation lodge for one fanatical and disturbed individual, The
Joker. The Joker
lives for only one thing, to make life as cheerless and chaotic
as possible for Batman, and Gotham City. Even though
you play as Batman, I am happy to report that the Joker is the
heart of this game. His
character rises above an equally impressive roster of long time
villains such as the Killer Croc, Harlequin and the Riddler
amongst others and serves as the only person devious and
skilled enough to be the puppet master of someone as
dynamically powerful as Batman. There
are plenty of twists and turns along the way, but one thing is
for certain, everyone in Arkham wants a piece of the
Batman. Who wouldn’t
be mad about being caught by a guy who dresses like a bat and
then thrown in the most treacherous place in
Gotham?
The story has been penned by Paul Dini, the guy behind The Animated Series, and it delves deep into the Batman universe, sometimes only mentioning famous villains and in others involving them without directly showing them. You’ll see what I mean when you sit down with it for yourself. The actual design of the game is a little bit out-dated, certainly, but it’s playable and never stops being enjoyable. It really goes to show that if the design is done with a great deal of planning and executed without the trouble of a deadline that belongs in the years instead of months category, you can end up with a great game that will be celebrated and remembered for years to come instead of being universally panned. I don’t think there isn’t a game developer in the land who doesn’t envy and admire what Rocksteady studios have achieved here.
As the game progresses you’ll be able to unlock new upgrades, weapons, combos and gadgets, all of which end up with objectives and secrets that belong to each device accordingly. There are no superfluous objects in your inventory, everything you possess will need to be used somewhere in on the island of Arkham. At first it will drive you nuts as you try and try to get to a certain area, only to come to the realization later on that you will only be able to access certain areas when you finally unlock the ability or gadget to do so. While backtracking is always a chore, they do a good job of making the levels slightly different as you cover old ground to get back to where you need to be. New enemies spawn, new elements and puzzles are added to the scenarios and never did I once thought that anything was starting to feel a little old...ok maybe on bit involving a deep elevator shaft that required me to climb up it more than I would have preferred. Usually with this type of game you would probably be looking at only a handful of hours before tedium would set in, but AA avoids this by staying sharp, keeping the player focused and continually moving forward, even if you are moving back over old ground sometimes. For myself I found the combat to be particularly pleasing to play. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, you will now start to get a sense of this brilliantly vibrant combat system that is easy to start with but one of those things that are hard to master. It never gets old fighting off hordes of bad guys and I actually came back time and time again to fight rather than run. Sometimes I’m a little bit strapped for time and usually try to avoid confrontations in favour of progression, but here things were a little different. I took my time with Batman, I soaked it in and enjoyed the experience and fighting crazy goons and henchmen was far more cathartic than it had any right in being. After you have completed the story there is a ton of unlockable content to uncover and areas to explore. As you start coming across more hidden trophies and clues left behind by a very famous inmate who is now on the run, you will start unlocking costumes, upgrades and challenge levels that allow you to pit your skills against friends over Xbox Live via leaderboards. A whole weekend was entirely devoted to this game and I have to say that it was one of the fastest passings of 48 hours I can remember in a long time. Admittedly it’s a game that does require the player do his best and hasn’t entirely made up it’s mind from holding your hand to letting you fend for yourself, but you never once resent having to do so.
Batman: Arkham Asylum isn’t a perfect game. As I said before there are some old design choices that we have seen appear in other games from the last generation, but because there is enough innovations the weapons and the fighting engine, everything feels just right. Achieving the ‘Goldilocks’ position with a game, any game, surely has to be hard enough, but when you’re dealing in such a strict set of rules and established mythos, you really have to give a big tip of the hat to the people who have obviously worked so hard on this game. To make a long story short, a few minor flaws should never outweigh the shining and triumphant progressions that this game has actively trapped. Even if you hate Batman but like action games, trust me, you’ll love what Arkham Asylum has to offer. It’s a long game but one that never outstays it’s welcome. The controls can be a little unfastened and sluggish when exploring but the fighting is so spot on that I can guarantee that you will be looking around yourself in the hopes that someone just saw the amazing combo you might of pulled off. It’s full of meaty wow moments and plot twists and turns and will suck you right in if you let it.
Pretty much what I’m getting to is that Batman: Arkham Asylum
is a game that deserves as much attention as can be afforded to
it. It’s worthy of all the praise it has been getting because
on a fundamental level this is just a solid and well thought
out game. Gamers and comic book fans aren’t mutual by any sense
of the word, but today I feel like either camp has achieved
something wonderful. A Batman game that was made on more than a
shoestring budget and with more than deadline of a few months?
Who could of predicted such a stupid idea!…yet look at the
amazing results that the ‘impossible’ sometimes create,
hopefully the sales follow the positive press, because I want
to Rocksteady to start on another Batman game as soon as
possible.
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