Batman - Arkham Asylum Review

Quick Bat-Review: Bat-tastic

Longer Bat-Review

With Batman seeing a rebirth as a concept in Hollywood thanks to the awesome Batman Begins and Dark Knight movies, it was only a matter of time till the gaming industry would jump on the band-wagon to make a profit off of the caped crusader.

Thankfully this is a great addition to the Batman library of video games which spans all the way back to the Commodore 64.

In Batman: Arkham Asylum we’re dealing with a contemporary and relatively darker vision of Batman, very similar to the one portrayed in the aforementioned movies but with certain differences mainly being that Christian Bale didn’t voice this Batman, but more on that latter.

Quick Synopsis

The entire game takes place in, around or under Arkham Asylum which is situated on an island, this is a pretty big place with several buildings each of them catering to various psychiatric and penitentiary purposes. You’ll get to visit each and every one during the game. The entire plot of the game has to do with a very elaborate Joker plot to trap Batman on the Asylum island and that’s about all I’m going to say about the plot, suffice to say it’s pretty classic and there won’t be a lot of unforeseen twists to the tale. This is probably the weakest part of the game, considering the plethora of very detailed and great storylines that the Dark Knight has benefited from over the years it’s a shame the story didn’t play a bigger role but the game does compensate with some other features.

Gameplay Features

Barman: Arkham Asylum doesn’t play as an ass-kicking third person game like Wolverine, in fact the fighting in this game is definitely secondary to the puzzles and stealth element, and this is very well demonstrated by the extraordinarily simple combat system which basically involves clicking the left mouse-button over and over again sometimes alternating with the right one and occasionally the middle one. Personally I found the combat system to be highly uninspired, simple and back-ass awkward as fuck on the PC, because your hand cramps up like hell when trying to do those motherfucking combos. – I understand this is only a PC-related gripe but thankfully like I said earlier there isn’t that much overt fighting in the game. I do have to mention that the fighting moves look good and the end-of-fighting animations are great, gotta give credit where credit is due.

The best part of the game comes thanks to Batman’s trademark stealth moves, which are necessary to master because you won’t be able to go through the game otherwise. Don’t forget, Batman doesn’t carry weapons and he never kills anyone. While he doesn’t carry weapons per se he does carry quite a few bat-gadgets and a shit-load of batarangs.

Now this is something I’ve been wondering ever since the animated series, but the question is even more pertinent in the case of the game: where the hell does Batman keep all of those goddamned batarangs?

Anyway, comic-book logic aside, it is extremely fun to throw batarangs at stuff and gets even more fun once you upgrade your batarang throwing ability.

Yes I said upgrade, while Batman doesn’t play like Wolverine it has a similar lite-RPG component to it, but in this case it’s even lite-er than Wolverine’s since you’ll get most or all of the truly useful upgrades by the time you finish. Why would Batman go into a situation and not have his best abilities or tools on him? I don’t know but it’s part of the suspension of disbelief one must go through when accepting more ridiculous concepts… like a dude dressed like a flying rodent who fights crime…yeah.

One of the coolest upgrades you get is the Inverted Takedown which is something that every Batman fan will love to do; stringing your enemies to the gargoyles is just plain bat-fun.

As you go through the game you’ll gain access to an increasing number of bat-gadgets, which you’ll need to access most of the secret or hidden content of the game.

Now this hidden content isn’t obligatory or necessary to find but it does offer the game an extra dimension of an adventure-platformer of sorts. The entire island is riddled with Riddler trophies (saw what I did there? I know, horrible) and every stage of the place has a special riddle associated with it which you can choose to either look for the answer or don’t. It is important to note that every piece of hidden content will give you experience upon finding it, so it is important to the extent of wanting to get your upgrades faster. Besides the exp gain you’ll get from the hidden content you’ll also get extra information about various Batman-related characters, an interesting look into the psychiatric sessions that the main super-criminals you encounter have gone through, a very spooky oral history of the Asylum and finally you get to unlock special challenges, modes and character models which you can play through or view at your pleasure.

The game features some amount of puzzle solving but it’s nothing difficult and it’s all made the more easy thanks to Detective Mode which adds an interesting layer to the game making it quite Batman-like. In Detective Mode you’re able to see secrets and places which you can usually access with your bat-gadgets as well as see all the enemies in the level as skeletons, once you start using it you’ll find yourself using Detective Mode for most of the game, and that’s too bad because the game looks great.

Also of somewhat importance when talking about the game’s content, the percentage you’ll see displayed when you go into the menu of the game takes into account the story-line as well as all the hidden content so you’ll usually finish the game’s story-arc before you ever get close to 100%. Don’t know if that matters but I just thought it was worth mentioning.

Now everything I’ve mentioned till now would make for a pretty decent game, but what lifts this game from the realm of decent to good is the stellar voice acting the game benefits from. The voices of Batman and the Joker are none other than Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill the same voice that featured in Batman: The Animated Series of the ‘90s and by far the best choices they could’ve gotten.

Kevin Conroy is THE voice of Batman regardless whether we’re talking about animated Batman or live action Batman – although I have to be honest and say that Diedrich Bader does a good job in The Brave and The Bold - the man imbues the character with so much personality and Mark Hamill’s Joker is exquisitely insane as always. The game wouldn’t have been as good without these two guys voicing the main characters. The other characters also benefit from great voice casting.

These are the main chunks of the game but of course there all sorts of other little touches here and there which I’m not going to spoil, it’s so much nicer to get to experience them on your own.