Batman Arkham Asylum

Developer: Rocksteady
Year of release: 2009, August
Platform: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC
Official website: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/start
Date finished: 20 December 2009
Playtime: +-14 hours, spread over 4 weeks

A few months before the games release, I downloaded the demo and was really impressed how polished the demo was. The movies, cutscenes, graphics, animation, combat and the ambiance all are of high quality and perfectly fit the Batman franchise. The only issue that came to my mind was that it felt small; narrow passageways and small rooms. But in overall the demo was impressive.

Another thing that was done well is the moment of release, summer of 2009. In the summer there was no other game being released that could threaten Arkham Asylum in sales. It was the best game to get in Q3, while all the other big titles were aiming for Christmas.

Even though I got Arkham Asylum in the early weeks of release, I still had some other games to finish first. At the time that I started playing Arkham Asylum, 4 weeks ago, Uncharted 2 was also released and I thought I'll quickly finish Arkham Asylum and start with Uncharted 2. Thinking back of it, that was quite an unfair thought.

So I started playing Arkham Asylum and just as in the demo almost everything in the game feels polished. But after 2 hours I stopped playing it, because I thought it sucked. Why? Well, every game that I play, I try to do as much as possible in 1 run. In Arkham Asylum I wanted to solve every riddle question the moment that I got it. I spend 10 to 15 minutes searching through small areas just to find the answer and became quite frustrated when I could not find it. An other thing that got on my nerves was that you can sometimes see the riddle trophy, but you can not reach it. Until later in the game, but at that time I did not know and I spend quite some time looking for a way to get to it. After 2 hours when I got outside for the first time and saw this big area, I was really thinking by my self that it would take a long long time to solve the riddle. So I quite the game out of frustration.


A few days later I gave Arkham Asylum a second chance. In the days that I didn't play I came to the conclusion that I should spend not more than 5 minutes to solve a riddle and otherwise leave them be. So with that thought I started playing again and from that moment the game really started to appeal to me.

In the next play sessions I had hours of fun and I just kept on playing. I was really hooked up in the story. It felt like watching a good movie that makes you forget everything around you.
The story itself is fairly simple; when you bring the Joker back to Arkham Asylum he takes over the place and since you are there it is your duty to stop him. Later in the story you will find out that it was all planned and that the Joker wants to create an army of super goons. One of the doctors in Arkham Asylum holds the key to the 'venom' serum that turns inmates into super strong versions of them self. The Joker needed to get back to Arkham Asylum to attain this serum and to give it to the inmates. It is the amount of detail that is put into the story that makes it so good. Almost every villain of Batman is in the story. Some have a big role while others are just mentioned briefly.

The game is like an action adventure detective game. The action is in the combat, since Joker has taken over Arkham Asylum goons are everywhere and trying to make sure that Batman does not jeopardize Jokers plans. The combat is fairly easy with one main button for attack and one button to counter. But as you level up you can unlock new moves like throws and special finishes, and use the batarang, explosives and the batclaw in combat. If you are facing a few unarmed goons the combat can be very easy, but when there are a lot of enemies with weapons the combat can be quite challenging and you may die once or twice. When you are fighting enemies with fire arms, it is best to take them out by surprise instead of heads on. Once they fire at you, you will take a lot of damage. The enemies with fire arms are often in areas where you can hide and climb on objects from where you can take down the enemy one by one by surprise.

The adventure part is that you often need to find new ways to get to certain places, climb shafts and buildings using your batclaw or blow up walls and ceilings to create new entrances. The detective part is that you need to find clues and trails of people and backtrack them to find out where they have moved to. Finding clues and trails is done in the 'detective' mode. In this mode the clues and trails will light up for Batman to be scanned.

All over Arkham Asylum, there are riddle trophies to be found and riddle question to be solved. Solving riddles can unlock character profiles from friends and villains. The profiles give background information about the characters, their strength, and appearances in the comic. For some villains there are audio tapes to be found. The audio tapes are interviews from the doctors with the villain and give you extra information about the villain and often also about the main story. Excellent voice acting is used for these audio tapes.

At the start I didn't like the riddles, but as I played more I had more feel for them and left the once that I couldn't solve for later. Later on you will find the Riddler maps for each area. On the map the locations that contain a riddle are marked making it much easier for you to solve the riddle. After I had finished the story mode of the game, I toke the time to look for all the riddles with help of the Riddler maps.



When you find the riddle trophies you will unlock new challenges in the challenge mode. There are 2 types of challenges; combat and predator. In the combat challenges you need to defeat enemies and set the highest score. This can be done by creating big combos and by using different moves to defeat enemies. In the predator challenges the enemies are armed with fire arms and you need to take them out by surprise as fast as possible. Each predator challenge has different requirements e.g. certain moves that need to be performed in that challenge. In the Playstation 3 version there are a few special challenges where you can play as the Joker. The Joker really has some funny moves.


The good

• Highly polished, Arkham Asylum is a polished game. Almost everything in the game is good. The cinematic, graphics, animations, combat, ambiance, voice acting, sounds and music are all done very well.
• Scare crow levels, their design are really good. When the scare crow levels start the game turns into a horror game, with some crazy things happening that really play with your mind and turn up the suspense. I was really suprised and amazed with the first scare crow level and the moment when you are the Joker bringing Batman into Arkham Asylum. In the scare crow levels the game changes from a 3rd person action to a side scroller platform game.
  
• Clever level design, Arkham Asylum is not that big at all with the areas, but you often have to visit places multiple times with a different objective. Later in the game, certain areas will be changed by Poison Ivy and her plants. Because of the clever use of the areas the game is quite lengthy.
• Excellent pacing, all the game play types; combat, predator, scare crow platforming, adventuring, playing the detective, follow up perfectly. I never had the feeling that any of the gameplay types were to long, except for solving certain riddles. They mixed the gameplay types well with a good pace. It always feels fresh when you transition to an other gameplay type.

The bad & improvements

• Riddles can kill the pacing; some riddles really killed the pacing for me. With some riddles I spend 15 minutes just to find out that I can not get to them yet and that often got me frustrated. Making someone frustrated about something in your game is like the worst thing that can happen; it completely kills the intended experience of the game. It would have been nice if there would be a signal that would let you know that you can not get to it yet, like Batman saying: 'I need the ... gadget to get there'. That would have saved me from the frustration.
• Bosses could be better, most bosses in Arkham Asylum are fine, but some of them could have been better, especially Killer Croc and the final boss, mutated Joker. For Killer Croc you only need throw your batarang, while with the mutated Joker the goons are the boss and not Joker him self. For Killer Croc it would have been nice if you could really fight him face to face and the same counts for the mutated Joker. When you play as the Joker in challenge mode, he has some awesome and yet funny moves. It would have been nice if he would also do those moves against you in the story mode.

Arkham Asylum is a very well polished game. It is hard to mention any flaws except for riddles killing the pacing. The game plays really well and contains all what you expect from a Batman game. In most cases the game felt like an awesome ride and if you ask me it may have continued much longer. It's good that Arkham Asylum 2 has been announced, cause I'm looking forward to it.

8.8/10