batman

Batman:  Arkham Asylum has been one of the most notable releases this year so far. It has drawn critical acclaim for being one of the few excellent licensed games, and the almost-unknown developer Rocksteady Studios has suddenly found itself at the front of the game developer pack, along with Eidos and Warner Bros. Interactive, the publishers of the game.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a third-person adventure game, with you controlling Batman as he goes through the halls of the dark and eerie Arkham Asylum, a place where the most violent and horrible criminals of Gotham City are locked up… but frequently not for long. As the game begins, Batman is escorting the Joker into the asylum after one of his many crimes. Soon after Batman is unable to follow him further, he makes his escape and flees through the facility, aided by Harley Quinn, his sidekick. Most of the asylum’s patients are released, preventing plently of obstacles for Batman and his arsenal as he tracks down the Joker.

Unfortunately for the obstacles, Batman is more than capable of dealing with them in an expedient fashion, flowing through combat in a beautiful fashion, with simple clicks guiding you through several combat moves that are beautifully animated and look almost effortless on Batman’s part. He also has several gadgets at his disposal that can help deal with the thugs and bosses in his path, such as the common Batarang, which is your only long-range weapon.

In some sections of the game, you have an opportunity to become the “silent predator”, circling high above the thugs patrolling unawares beneath you. As you watch from above, you have several options for takedowns- you can fly down and knock out the thugs from the air;  you can go down on the ground and grapple to different railings and pull the thugs over them;  or, in my personal favorite move, hang down from one of the conveniently placed gargoyles and pick up a thug from the ground, then drop him all the way down. These sections really do their job in making you feel like an unstoppable force, and really feeling like Batman himself.

The game’s graphics are excellent- if you have a good enough graphics card, you can enable PhysX, which adds to the atmosphere of the game greatly. The game’s visuals are dark and gritty, giving the impression of hopelessness and fear, as well as general disrepair. It feels convincing, especially in some scenes. Sadly, one of the game’s biggest features, Detective Mode, takes away from the atmosphere. While it provides huge advantages like X-ray vision and tracking of certain things, it detracts from the immersive world that has been created for you by overlaying it with a blue tint. The features outweigh the drawbacks, but it would have been nice to have that feature be less invasive.

Replayability is excellent- there are several things scattered around the game world you can find, such as riddles, trophies, and things of that nature. As you progress, you also unlock Challenge Modes, which will give you chances to take on thugs or try yourself in the Silent Predator mode, which tasks you with silently taking out a group of thugs. This offers a lot of replayability, especially since modes are unlocked through the game.

In all, Batman: Arkham Asylum is a finely crafted work of art. Its production values are stellar, and those small drawbacks that it has are very much suppressed by what the game has to offer you.

Rating

Gameplay – 9
Graphics – 9.5
Replayability – 8.5
Overall – 9