Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

I recently finished Batman: Arkham Asylum and must admit that I was very pleased. As I mentioned in my impressions post, I had started playing Arkham Asylum with relatively low expectations. I had heard that the game was good, but I've never been a huge Batman fan. Arkham Asylum was so good, however, that it made me want to be one.

Loved

• Combat. Combat should not have worked in Batman. It really is little more than pushing the analog stick in the correct direction and mashing the attack button. As you progress, the game provides you with a take down, a throwing move, a Batarang move, a grappling move, and the ability to jump up and over the thugs. If you were to see the combat or even to play it for a short period of time, you would assume (as I did) that it'd get boring really fast. Some how though, it just doesn't. The game does a fantastic job of providing different arenas, thug types, combo moves, and other such things to mix the game up. I found myself enjoying combat even in the final boss fight.
  
  
• Stealth. The other main gameplay mechanic in Arkham Asylum is stealth. Every once in a while you find a room full armed thugs that requires you to take them out one by one as quietly as possible. Once again, the game provides you with a plethora of ways to take them out. You can sneak up behind them, string them up on gargoyles, pull them off walkways with your grapple gun, jump down on top of them, and on and on. I was impressed by the many different ways I could deal with these thugs. Towards the end, it became a personal challenge to take them down in the most unique ways possible.
  
  
• Challenges. Even after you finish the game, there are 16 (I think) challenges for you to complete. They alternate between combat challenges and stealth challenges. In the combat challenges, you are tasked with attaining a high score by stringing together really long combos and not getting hit. In the stealth challenges, you have to take out enemies in specific ways, such as exploding three different walls to take out three different enemies. There are a handful of these I haven't even finished, but I can guarantee you that I'll be doing so.
  
  
• Riddler Challenges. In addition to the story, the combat, and the challenges, the Riddler has strewn trophies, chattering teeth, "patient" interview, and even hidden puzzles to solve. Not only do they provide some experience that help you level up and unlock new moves and tools, but they also provide insight into the Arkham Asylum villians and even into other Batman characters. I really enjoyed this part of the game and actually worked hard to find each and every trophy and solve every puzzle.

Hated

• Install/Steam. Because I feel like I have to put something down here, I'll mention the install process. Steam did not setup the game properly, and I was forced to manually install some PhysX drivers and a .NET redistributable. I also had the game crash about 3 times. It really wasn't that big of a deal, but it definitely provided some annoyance and could have been a complete game stopper to somebody who isn't computer savvy.
  
  
• Repetitive Boss Fights. There is a particular boss fight that you repeat multiple times in various forms. While they try to make it different each time, it definitely stood out as being annoying in an otherwise amazing game.
  

I picked this game up for $25 during Steam's Black Friday deals, but I would have paid full price for this game and been happy the whole way through. While I've heard that it plays well with a mouse and a keyboard, I used a gamepad and would definitely recommend that anybody who plays it does the same. I don't think I can emphasize this enough, but outside of that one boss fight, I pretty much liked everything about this game. The combat was fun, the stealth was varied, and the length was perfect. If you are a Batman fan, you need to play this game. If you aren't a Batman fan, you need to play this game.

If I can pull myself away from Modern Warfare 2, I'll start into Dead Space. Expect that soon.

Batman: Arkham Asylum or Why is this game so good?

In the excitement of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I walked away with 4 new games, one of which was Batman: Arkham Asylum. I'd heard universally good things about it, both from friends and from game journalists. Despite the positive reviews, I was definitely skeptical, especially since I'm not a huge Batman fan. I mean, I like it as much as the next guy, but I was both tired and bored by the time Dark Knight was over. Regardless, I'm happy to admit now that I was wrong. Really, really wrong.

Arkham Asylum is AMAZING. Draenoth calls it the best licensed game he has ever played and I think it's hard to disagree with that point. They took everything that is great about Batman and put it into this game. They took everything that makes games like this boring and some how took it out. Case in point: combat.

The game routinely throws groups of unarmed goons at you to fight. Despite a couple of unlockable special moves and Bat gadgets, combat is pretty much a one button affair. You push the attack button, then push it again in the direction of a different guy and repeat. By any measure of game design, this seems like it would a recipe for tedium, but it just isn't... and I don't know why. Maybe it's the cinematic nature of the combat or the slow motion power swings, but every time I land a debilitating blow on the final thug, I both make a smashing noise and jump up in my chair a bit. Sometimes I giggle. It's just wildly fun in a way that few games have ever been.

Outside of combat, there are tons of collectibles that unlock Batman back story, Riddler riddles that you have solve, and lots of little puzzles that require you to use your Bat tools to the best of their abilities. When you play this game, you feel like a bad ass, which is pretty much all I could ever ask of a game.

The only hiccups I've had at all with the game so far was the install process: it seems to require some Visual Studio redistributable, .Net and PhysX drivers that it didn't install on it's own, even through Steam. All of the installers came with the game though, so after finding and running them, it seems to work fine. Also, the game pretty much requires a gamepad, so don't pick it up for PC without one (if you don't have an XBox 360 gamepad for your PC, just go get one).

I'm super excited to finish this game; as far as pure fun goes, I honestly haven't played ANY other game this year that compares.