Review
Release Date: 08.25.2009
Platform:
PlayStation 3Developer:
Rocksteady StudiosPublisher:
Eidos InteractiveReviewed by
Christopher Pioli on 10.29.2009
I love Batman. I once took the waist tightener out of a pair of my old sweatpants, tied it to a giant bent paper clip, and used my new "Bathook" to grab out-of-reach objects. That was the closest I ever got to being Batman.
Until now...
Batman: Arkham Asylum is fantastic. Developer
Rocksteady Studios, and publishers
Eidos Interactive and
WB Interactive Entertainment have done a great job with the game. After my first five minutes with the demo I proclaimed my love of the game, screaming, "I am the goddamn Batman," into my Facebook status. This superhero game raises the bar for all superhero games. Take that,
Superman 64! Your kryptonite fog and poor collision detection are no match for
Arkham Asylum's production values and game design.
The game feels a lot like a long, long episode of "Batman: The Animated Series." This is due to two very important features of the game: first, "The Animated Series" writer and producer Paul Dini was brought on to write
Arkham Asylum's script. Second, Batman and The Joker's voice actors from said series also reprise their roles. Listening to Kevin Conroy's badassery as the Batman was enough to make me feel like a kid again. While Mark Hamill (yes,
that Mark Hamill) does a fantastic job as The Joker, taunting the Dark Knight throughout his exploration of Arkham Island. Those of you who revere Heath Ledger's performance as Batman's arch-villain in
The Dark Knight might find Hamill's interpretation a little zanier than Ledger's; however, fans of the comic books will tell you that both interpretations of The Joker are equally valid and well played.
As you start the game, Batman is hauling The Joker back to Arkham Asylum, where the clown prince of crime gets free of his cuffs and lets his hired goons take over. Batman must chase him through the entire island, evading capture and scraping around for any clues to help in his hunt.
Arkham Asylum has been expanded from a simple mental hospital on the outskirts of Gotham into a small island populated with buildings, abandoned hallways, sewers, and hidden paths. New pathways and secret crevices can be explored with each upgrade Batman accquires, and you will be revisiting every area twice or even three times to find all the extras hidden about the island (but more on that later).
The graphics are remarkable: the eerie interior lighting and moonlit night are the first thing to notice. Rocksteady Studios did a fantastic job expressing the history of the island through the multiple architectural and interior designs of every building. From Gothic mansions to Late-Victorian hospitals, to modern, ironclad prisons and medical facilities. What deserves special attention is the detail put behind the cape and costume, which slowly tear and strip as the Caped Crusader engages with the many thugs and super villains on the island, and gives the player a good sense of time and Batman's endurance.
Gameplay can essentially be divided into four components: investigation, predator mode, Freeflow combat, and trophy hunting. This is perhaps the first Batman game that puts a large emphasis on stealth combat and investigation as opposed to all-out brawls. All of these components share a reliance on one of Batman's most important tools: detective mode.
The detective visor is Batman's all-purpose X-ray/night vision/crime-scene analysis tool. You'll be using it to detect enemies, find new passages and pick up The Joker's trail as he and his goons make their way through the island. You will be using it to track things such as fingerprints and alcohol residue, find ventilation shafts and hidden passages, and most importantly it will be used to detect armed guards during Predator Mode. The downside to Detective Mode's versatility is that you will be spending at least half of your in-game time with this visor on, which overlays the incredible graphics with a jarring cel-shaded night vision effect of purple, cyan and orange hues.
Investigation portions of the game ask you to find clues in detective mode and follow trails of DNA or hand prints to determine where your next objective will occur. Fortunately these objectives appear sparingly throughout the game, and the mechanic does not feel overused.
There will be times in the game when Batman is faced with a small group of armed guards who must be taken eliminated in heavily fortified rooms by evading capture and incapacitating his opponents. Only Challenge mode (available from the game's Start Menu) gives this particular type of combat a name - Predator Mode - so this reviewer will assume that the name also works with this kind of sneaking gameplay. Even during the first few hours of the game, armed with only your fists a couple batarangs and your grapple hook, there are many ways to clean an area of armed guards, and I love nothing more than playing cat and mouse with The Joker's hired goons. Their reactions to your movement and attacks are priceless, the fear can be heard in their voices and witnessed as you check their heart rate in detective mode; and as you gain access to explosives, sonic batarangs and other useful goodies the possibilities become endless - as does the fun.
Freeflow combat is just what it sounds like: all out brawls against untold numbers of muscle-bound minions in clown makeup. You'll start out with five basic moves: regular attacks, mapped to the Square or X button (PS3/Xbox 360), stuns with the cape, dodges, counters, and floor takedowns. Connecting these moves together forms combos and increases the amount of experience you're rewarded with, which can be used to upgrade your equipment. Eventually upgrades such as instant knockout moves, throws, critical hits, and combat batarangs will be made available. An additional upgrade - the Batclaw - is made available through the story. To simplify the combat mechanics, each of these moves are mapped to its own button on the controller. What can easily be passed off as "button mashing" can become a cinematic display of Batman's moves if you time your button presses correctly and plan your attacks carefully.
Sadly, there is no real incentive to use all of these moves until you obtain access to combat challenges or are playing the game on Hard difficulty level. You can get away with playing the game on Easy and Normal difficulty purely by button-mashing the main attack and counter buttons, occasionally relying on stuns and dodges when faced with particularly unique enemies. However, button-mashing raises the risk of executing an improperly timed move - executing an attack when you need to counter, for example, so you might not be able to run up exciting combos. For me, a lot of replay value comes from taking advantage of this combat system.
Freeflow combat and Predator Mode can be replayed extensively in the Challenges section, available from the Start Menu. Many critics have argued that the challenges aren't sufficient and lack a lot of the original gameplay found in the story, but I disagree. Freeflow combat challenges are about accumulating tons of points through extensive combat against numerous enemies. It feels a lot like playing
Tony Hawk, but the skateboard and tricks are replaced with an endless supply of goons and chaining a 60x combo for 10,000 points in a round. Predator challenges encourage you to try inventive, unique ways to take down the enemy, many of which you might not have thought of before.
Finally,
Batman: Arkham Asylum has secrets and extras, like all games these days, but Rocksteady Studios found an excellent way to integrate these into the story. The Riddler is responsible for placing these secrets throughout Arkham Island, and it is Batman's responsibility to find every item and solve every riddle. What could have been a monumental set of boring stunts and fetch-quests as a means of extending play time actually becomes a fun and engaging diversion from the main plot.
This game sounds like a lot of fun, but that's a nine in the final score, not a perfect ten, so what's not to like about the game? Well,
Arkham Asylum doesn't have any new or revolutionary game mechanic; it just sews together the newest and best elements from games made in the past decade into its own experience. Take the Info Visor and level design from
Metroid Prime, the over-the-shoulder camera angles of
Resident Evil 4, stealth gameplay comes from
Metal Gear and
Splinter Cell, and some particularly interesting-yet-spoilerific aspects are inspired by
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, and you get our game-in-question. Granted, Rocksteady Studios did a wonderful job integrating all of these features together, but it isn't new. If you haven't played any of the aforementioned games, though, consider yourself in for a new experience.
Also a major let down are the boss battles. Other than an interesting fight with Poison Ivy in the second half of the game, all boss battles involve one really strong bad guy and a horde of regular bad guys, rinse and repeat. Granted, these are challenging fights, and it can feel great to fight against Gotham's worst villains. However, they lack the epic scale found in other games' boss battles, and neither stealth combat or detective mode - important assets in the regular portions of the game - prove to be very useful.
While this game does not offer anything new, it's definitely a fun and engaging experience. If you are enjoying the recent surge in Batman-related films and stories, then you'll definitely want to pick this game up. After all, who wouldn't want to be the Batman?
