Batman: Arkham Asylum Best Quality

I wasn't expecting much from this game as in the past Batman has not been treated well by the gaming industry.
I am happy to say that in this case they have done it right.

Its not perfect in every way, but no game is.

One thing that did bother me was the speed at which batman walks, which is terribly slow. Now, most of the time you will be running though so its not a big problem. But when you do walk its slow. And the transition from walking to running by pushing a button is a bit on the slow side as well. Truly this is not that big of a deal though.

There are LOTS of Batman Gadgets in this game, some of them you will have to use to progress through the game and some are just there for spice.

Throughout the game, Batmans costume will get cuts in it and the cape will start to look tattered. Now, this isn't like the new Wolverine game where the damage is a direct reflection of what your doing, its more like the farther you get in the game the more withered the costume looks. And each play-through I notice that its the same exact formula. You will see the same cut on your chest in the same place at the same time on a second play-through.

There are a lot of characters in the game and I love how they were treated. The art guys did a great job of making everybody look great and updated. Joker was more of a throwback here and I liked that a lot.

I believe in order to be a good review you need to understand what you will be doing in the game so this next section aims to give you an idea of how the game works.

The game is about combat, stealth, gadgets and puzzles.

Combat
You will find yourself performing many combos and cool moves, which are contextual. What I mean is, lets say your beating on a guy and you have hit him 3 or 4 times and another guy is walking up behind you and starts to attack, you can press Y (I used a 360 pad for the PC) and counter that blow even mid swing on the guy your fighting. This is because the fighting system seems to be built in such a way that it will slow down or speed up things based on how you are fighting.
The combat felt well done and Batman will be performing combos and jumps and counters almost without you doing anything but button mashing. Obviously it will be even better if you learn them, and their aren't many to learn. What you need to learn is how to use them effectively and together.

One thing that is cool is you can be fighting one guy and decide to fight another at any time by aiming the thumb-stick his way and continuing your button mashing and Batman will switch to the character your aiming at and usually do it in a sweet looking fashion. He may, for instance, perform a roundhouse like kick over one enemy and into another.

Stealth
There is a lot of stealth in the game but generally its line of sight and gargoyles. So you can crouch behind walls and such and do takedowns when an enemy walks by and you can use the gargoyles to hide from the other jokers henchmen that will come around to find the guy dead. You can also learn an ability to lower from a gargoyle and string up a guy below it. Its pretty sweet. I found myself waiting for guys just so I could do it every now and then.

Gadgets
The gadgets are fun. From swinging around levels, to unlocking doors, they were all implemented well. I don't want to give to much away, but they all work like they should and I had fun using them.

Puzzles
There are a lot of small puzzles that your going to need to do to get through the game, none of them are hard and most involve your gadgets. Again, don't want to give to much away.

There are some fun boss battles too, none of them are all that hard, they just require that you learn what to do. For instance, one boss fight you may have to dodge his rushing attack and let him hit a wall and get dizzy, then jump on his back and make him hit other things. Again, trying not to give to much away.


All in all I found the game fun. Its very short but offers replayability if you like to collect things as riddler has left you things across the entire game and some of them require gadgets that you don't have at the beginning of the game. There are some areas that you must play back through but the environment has usually changed a bit so its less annoying than some games.

If you like Batman, then this game is a no brainer easily. If your less of a fan, you might try renting it as its short and collecting stuff might not be your forte. Get more detail about Batman: Arkham Asylum.