Holy Top-5 games of all time, Batman! That’s right my peeps and fellow gamers, Batman: Arkham Asylum is easily Game of the Year material in my opinion. This title easily goes right up there in the top 5 games I have ever played for any system. Everything in this game absolutely oozes attention to detail. Fun gameplay and just pure awesomeness. One thing that came as a real surprise to me was that the demo for this game didn’t really grab me. Well, I can tell you that the demo is very meager in comparison to the full copy of the game. This game is equal parts of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Devil May Cry and Splinter Cell all rolled into one stellar experience. It is extremely well paced, challenging at times and very engaging. I am telling you now, once you pick this one up and dive into the awesome world that is Arkham, you won’t want to stop. The detective mode alone is really cool and sorta give you a hybrid X-Ray and infrared type of vision. I had it on almost the entire game and it never bugged me one bit.
Let’s start out with the premise of this game. The story begins almost identical to the demo, with Batman capturing Joker and driving him to the asylum in the Bat-mobile. While booking him into the asylum, Batman is worried as Joker basically gave up without a fight. Batman knows that something is up, and something definitely is. Upon booking the Joker, he ends up escaping and getting loose in the asylum. Most of the goons and patients are peeps that the Caped Crusader had put in there in the first place, and it’s got that lingering feel of the movies where the cop gets put in jail. As it so turns out, the whole fiasco was planned, and Harley Quinn has already prepared for Jokers arrival and Batman is now in Jokers funhouse full of maniacs. The story just gets better and better as you go.
The game is incredibly immersive, and really puts you in the shoes of the Batman we all grew up watching and reading about. The voice work is top notch with the characters that have been doing the cartoon for years providing the dialogue. I had no idea that Mark Hammil, (Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) did the voice of the Joker. You would never guess it was him unless you knew.
The cutscenes are also terrific, a nice change from the games I have played as of late. Polish, polish, polish! Take notes on this game developers!
Stalking your enemies is so fun, the basic formula never really seems to get old. Zip-line up to a gargoyle, glide down and kick the shit outta someone, zip back up before detected and wait to take out the next thug. Once you obtain more gadgets, the possibilities really get cool. My personal favorite that was executed flawlessly is the explosive gel. Once unlocked, you will be able to paint explosive gel in the shape of a bat, (nice touch) and remotely detonate it. This gadget becomes especially awesome when you use it as a weapon. Use the aforementioned formula but instead of zip-lining back up to the gargoyles to lay and wait, paint some gel on the enemy you just took out, then zip back up and wait for his comrades to come and scope out the body, once they do, detonate the gel and take them all out. Cool stuff, eh? It only gets better from there. The ways in which you can dispatch of your enemies is just plain awesome.
On the subject of enemies, without giving anything away, Scarecrow is one of the best enemies I have ever seen portrayed in a game. The sections of the game containing Scarecrow are absolutely incredible. Just a hint to those who are going to play it: there will come a time about mid-game where you think your console is freezing or crashing. I won’t give anything away, but it’s not crashing or glitching, just let it play itself out for one of the best in-game moments I have ever witnessed.
It’s also quite ironic that most of the boss battles in the game you aren’t really actually fighting, but rather playing a sort of mini-game to take them out. While this sounds uninviting, it works well. There are however a couple of boss fights that are combat oriented, but they feel a little uninteresting and repetitive compared to the mini-game style battles I just spoke of. The “freeflow” combat that is implemented has its ups and downs. The ups are that it stays true to the name, “freeflow. The animations are just plain sweet as you fly from enemy to enemy countering and beating the snot outta them. Where it takes a dive is when the camera swings to a radical angle and takes you out of scope of the rest of the enemies. This becomes particularly annoying when an enemy that you cannot even see attacks you and ruins your combo. It’s not a huge issue, but a nag nonetheless. It’s kind of a shame as the Challenge half of the game sort of suffers from the flaws in the system. Gliding, zip-lining and grappling just feel good, and even navigating never really seems to get old.
The collectibles in the game are very cool too, particularly the Riddler’s Challenges. Each time you enter a new area, a Green riddle with question marks will appear next to the name of the area and indicate somewhere in that area, there is answer to the riddle. Once you find it, a hold of the left bumper will sort of snap a pic. If you are right, it will tell you the riddle has been solved. Some of the really cool ones involve using detective mode to position yourself somewhere in a room where you can see a question mark sort of painted on the wall or ground. They start out pretty simple, but sometimes the dot of the question mark will be on a ledge or ceiling. Sometimes you even need to position yourself so that 3-4 ledges or tiers need to make the question mark. I thought it was a very neat way to implement a collectible in the game, and I am sure most would agree it’s puzzling (no pun intended) that other game developers didn’t think of something like this yet. I am sure many will copy this idea in some way, shape or form in the future.
This game is deep, intricate and absolutely AMAZING. It’s a must play for anybody who remotely enjoys Batman. If this game doesn’t get game of the year, I will be amazed! I know that that’s saying something with some of the bigger titles like ODST, and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. While I usually would rent this particular type of game, I wouldn’t pass up buying it if you got the cheddar. If you have played it, drop us a line and let us know what you think!
**Stay tuned for a review of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
-DIGGITY OUT
The Gamer Report 
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