Batman Arkham Asylum - Review

Reviewed for the PC played with Xbox360 Controller.
Pros

• From the Batman comics
• Great Story
• Well Developed Gameplay
• Characters are Well Designed
• Amazing Graphics
• High Quality Audio

Cons

• Purely Batman Atmosphere (For those who don't like Batman)
• Low Replayability
• Maybe to slow pace for some people

I just finished Batman Arkham Asylum a few days ago finally, it has been sitting around for ages but let me just say it was a great game. At the start I was a bit skeptical whether I would actually like it or not, the pace just seemed so slow compared to most games, but getting into the combat the pace really picks up and is incredibly statisfying when you are taking on 10 to 1 odds manuvering around combat without taking any hits getting 30~50x combos.

I have never read any Batman comic books all I have ever done is watch the movies, but the game gave me a ton of insight on what the Batman world was exactly like, reading the character bios was enlightening, listening to the interview tapes was interesting. I learned that what actually happened is nothing like what happens in the movies lol.

The story is placed in Gotham of course in the Arkham Asylum, you have captured the joker and are taking him to custody when of coure he breaks out and takes over the Asylum, from there on out you are trying to foil the Jokers plans of course the story is a lot more indepth then that lol and a lot more thought is put into it but I don't really want to spoil it. ^^

Overall the gameplay is very statisfying, in combat you need to be able to keep on the offensive while countering incoming attacks to inflict maximum damage as the damage increases as your combo increases, so if you just stay on the defensive and counter incoming attacks you can't build a combo and will be sitting there fighting for like 5 minutes, of course this is always a option as well.

There are quite a few enemy types from the normal henchmen to knife wielding ones to sterioded out huge bulks of mass lol. Each one requires a specific tactic to take down having to adjust your fighting style to incorprate this otherwise it could break up your combo. For exaple when fighting the minions with knifes you need to stun them before you attack them.

There is also stealth scenes in the game where the enemies are equiped with full auto rifles and you have to take them out one by one without letting them see you or well full auto rifle + batman doesn't end well. Later on the joker attaches collars to these henchmen that triggers and set off alarms when they are knocked unconcious meaning you have to get away quickly after you take someone down.

The last part of the gameplay is the detective mode, these are far and few but you will have to look around rooms for clues that will trigger a event where you can detect people's smell or finger prints then you have to follow them somewhere it is pretty elaborate and quite funny at times, when you see like fingerprints on the ground like people have been crawling around on the floor like a cat.

The graphics in the game are still stunning to this day and hold up better then most newly released games, as you play through you will see visual changes on your character like knife cuts on your cape and on your suit. Overall the way the cape flows is amazing of course the enemies are just as impressive with the amount of detail put into them, can see bits of spine sticking out from enemies and such, really just the entire graphics engine is amazing.

The audio in the game is impressive, never once did I fell there was any strange sounds going on that felt off, it really drew me into the experience, however I did have my music off the entire time since I like to listen to my own music, but if i'm to review my own music lol i'll give it a 10! lol kidding.

As with most story driven games there isn't much replayability there past the achievements and collectibles added in which may be worth getting since you get some pretty neat character trophies that you can look at as well as the bios which are pretty neat to read, but aside from that there is some challenges which people hack on to get the top score, really there isn't room for a whole lot of replayability.

Overall I really enjoyed the game and most certainly will be giving the next one in the series Batman Arkham City a playthrough in the future. Check below for the interest questionaire to see if you might be interested in it. ^^

(Do you enjoy games)*

• that involve Batman?
• with deep stories?
• with the genre of Action, Platform, and Puzzle games?
• that are slower paced then most action games on the market today?
• that take a lot of time and effort to complete everything in the game?

For each YES give yourself +1 then for each NO don't give yourself anything, after you answer and add them up check below for a general idea on how much you might enjoy the game.
0-2 Forget
3-4 Rent
5-5 Buy
I encourage you to play any demo available for the game before you buy or rent a game, there is nothing better to help you decide then trying the game firsthand.