Anyone who has their ears to the ground in the video game world has probably heard every possible accolade attributed to this new Batman game. In general, the consensus is that Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best Batman game ever made, and moreover, the best superhero game of all time. This is no shallow praise, and my time with the game has convinced me that this is only minor hyperbole, which is really saying something.
As Rob Nunley, a freshman in creative writing agrees with the praise that the new Batman game has been receiving.
“Batman: Arkham Asylum is easily one of the best games of the year,” Nunley said.
The most important aspect of any Batman experience is the overall atmosphere, and Arkham Asylum truly delivers in this category. The experience of playing the game is that of total immersion, from the inclusion of great voice-acting to the plethora of added features such as a comprehensive heroes and rogues biography gallery, and various extra challenges to test your skills well beyond the initial play-through. You really feel like the dark knight, and this is accomplished through a three-pronged assortment of different game play types that come together to comprise the bulk of the experience. Each of these styles of play complement each other in various ways, but also each exemplify one main aspect of Batman’s skill set.
First and foremost, Batman is a detective, and therefore a large part of the experience is based around exploration and problem solving. The player starts out with a batarang that is useful in solving basic spatial puzzles, but soon you’ll acquire explosive gel, a batclaw, and other devices that further facilitate your exploration of the Arkham complex.
This game, unlike Grand Theft Auto IV, is by no means an open-world sandbox game, but that is not to say that deviating from the main quest path is discouraged. The Asylum itself is composed of roughly five main buildings, and three large courtyard areas, all of which are rife with secrets to uncover.
All of the secrets in the game fall under one large heading titled “Riddler Challenges,” and although many of them are optional, they yield crucial experience points that allow the player to choose which items and abilities to power up, and in what order. The exploratory portions of the game take up about fifty percent of the total playtime, and are fun and rewarding for the most part. Annoyingly, however, only some of the secrets can be uncovered when you first explore an area, which promotes backtracking, but is also frustrating and almost certainly included to artificially extend playtime.
Batman is known to be a superhero who never uses guns, and refuses to kill under any circumstances. Therefore, do not expect to be gunning down the enemy with reckless abandon in this game. Instead, the other two main aspects of the game are sneaking and fist fighting, with a preference placed upon the former.
In most situations, Batman is able to sneak around the game’s enemies, employing his grappling gun to grab onto strategically placed gargoyles and other platforms above and around them. When the moment is right, and an enemy is in the perfect position to be taken down from above or behind, the game will prompt you to press a button to finish the takedown. This game play style borrows liberally from both Splinter Cell and Bionic Commando, and the result is surprisingly visceral and rewarding.
Occasionally (in the comics and in this game), Batman is forced to rely on sheer strength and combat prowess to defeat his enemies, and in Arkham Asylum, this provides the third prong of game play. At certain scripted moments, Batman will just happen upon a group of ten to twenty generic thugs, and it is up to the player to provide a relatively simplistic beat down on said generic thugs. It sounds rote and repetitive, and it is, but the one saving grace here is that it looks fantastic.
The combat is based around two buttons, one to hit the enemy, and one to dodge and counter. But oh, how pressing a couple buttons causes such sweet carnage on screen! The graphics in the game are current-gen through and through, and the combat animations are an excellent showcase for this fact. Albeit simple, the combat experience is somehow quite satisfying.
As Ryan Ewert, a freshman in the college of management, that one of the most satisfying experiences with the game was the fighting system that the game employs.
“The camera angles and slow motion when Batman’s fighting really make the game for me,” Ewert said.
Rocksteady, the developers of Arkham Asylum, have easily created the best Batman game of all time, hands down. But a Batman game is exactly what it is, and Batman is hardly a stereotypical superhero. He hangs out with The Justice League, but he doesn’t actually have any super powers. For a truly super heroic experience, I would probably recommend Raven Software’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance which incorporates a wide range of characters and acres of comic book lore. But Arkham Asylum is nonetheless a fantastic game that provides between 7 and 10 solid hours of intense, varied Dark Knight game play that is sure to please Batman fans and gamers alike.
It must be mentioned that this game is also more than just the sum of its parts. There are numerous boss fights which combine each of the three game play styles in various ways, showing that Rocksteady really has a handle on each of its game’s subsystems. But what really makes this game shine is the overall level of polish. From beginning to end, from the voices to the graphics to the credits, it is obvious that tremendous care was taken in creating this decidedly solid game.
