In Hollywood, after Tim Burton decided he didn’t want to make more Batman movies after Batman Returns, we witnessed the fall of a great comic-book character. A few years later, Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman finally presented the Caped Crusader the way he should be. In the videogame world, after a series of extremely poor and boring titles, we were still waiting. How come such a mythical character couldn’t have a "good" game? We asked ourselves if someday, someone would ever be able to capture the dark and grim Batman of the early years and make the ultimate game. If Christopher Nolan was able to pull it off in Hollywood recently, developer Rocksteady Studios managed to pull off what seemed to be impossible.

In Batman: Arkham Asylum, you play as Batman bringing The Joker to Arkham Asylum, Gotham City’s institute for the criminally insane, after he randomly attacked the Mayor’s Office. Surrendering far too easily, Batman suspects Joker of having a back-up plan to escape from the nut house. Batman soon realizes that the Joker’s plan was to trap Batman inside the asylum and make him pay once in for all. With hundreds of thugs and the most notorious criminals known to Gotham at his disposition, Joker takes over Arkham and is determined to make Batman pay. Paul Dini, whose past work includes Batman: The Animated Series and the Detective Comics series, penned the script of the game and from the very first minutes, you’ll be completely drawn into the story.


Gameplay

Batman: Arkham Asylum’s gameplay relies on combat and exploration. Using four different combat moves, Batman’s fighting mechanic was labelled as a “Free Flow” fighting system, which means that every punch, counter or stun move is based on timing and rhythm, something similar to what we’ve seen in Assassin’s Creed for example. All manoeuvres can be executed with the face buttons of your controller, keeping the combat system to its simplest form. Chaining attacks will let you build-up a point multiplier. The faster you chain them up, the higher you combo bonus will go. At the end of each fight, experience points will be awarded and applied to your XP bar and overall score. Once your experience bar is filled, useful upgrades to  your equipment and skills can be purchased.


While Batman is known for being a master of the hand-to-hand combat form, he also relies on gadgets. These will become very important towards your survival in the asylum. Aside from your trusty Batarang, the Dark Knight has a grappling hook that will be used either as an escaping tool, to reach out of reach places and even string enemies to gargoyles after performing inverted takedowns (a very cool move by the way). The Batarang can also be used against enemies as a short or long distance weapon. Other gadgets such as the Frequency Scanner, which can be used to unlock doors and set-off traps, and the Explosive Gel Gun that allows you to destroy structural weakness around Arkham, will also become available during the game.

Certainly, one of the coolest options made available right from the beginning is the “Detective Mode”, which allows Batman to analyze his surroundings, find the best way to move around without getting detected and even find clues (240 in total) lying around Arkham thanks to a certain villain who likes enigmas. Detective Mode also gives Batman the possibility to gather information on the enemies’ threat level depending on what weapons they have. Move around a room filled with thugs; create diversions and see how nervous they will come as you will see their blood pressure increase to a point where they are completely scared and start shooting everywhere asking themselves where you are. Since Batman does not have any superhuman powers, avoiding thugs with guns is recommended meaning that using the shadows and taking them down one by one silently is your best bet othwise you may have to fight groups of 5, 6 or 7 unarmed enemies at one time while being shot at.

The only issue I had with the Detective Mode is that you will tend to overuse it. Since it reveals important info towards your investigation, falling into easiness is too tempting. The development team should have thought of incorporating a cool down system or limit its usage in some way. Regardless of this, combat remains efficient, fun and easy to master.

Graphics & Sounds

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a feast for the eyes. Rocksteady’s attention to detail can be felt everywhere in the game from the neat character models (especially Killer Croc and Harley Quinn) to the outstanding visual rendition of Arkham, whether you’re inside the asylum or outside. If the overall graphics are impressive, the art design plays an important part in the game’s immersive storytelling, giving us every reason to play with the lights off and enjoy the ride. The visuals are very striking but the sound build is certainly the most impressive part of the game. Every character has its distinctive voice and is far from sounding cheesy. No cheap, un-interesting pre-recorded lines here (looking at you Iron-Man). Everyone seemed to enjoy what they were doing as every line delivers.


While Kevin Conroy continues to do an amazing job at voicing Batman in other videogames and animated features, I have to hand out a special shout-out to Mark Hamill, who delivers an incredible depiction of the Clown Prince of Crime. His distinctive laughter and mischievous one-liners are right up there with Heath Ledger’s work in Dark Knight and certainly reminded me of the same twisted Joker from The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth books. Besides the excellent voice-over work, the heart-pounding musical score also deserves some recognition as it draws you into the game every time and never lets you go. If you were a fan of the musical score work done by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard in the Christopher Nolan’s Batman film series, you will definitely enjoy this one too.

Value

In terms of value, the fact that this game went on sale at different retailers around the U.S and Canada for less than $40 during the first days of its release has attracted a lot of people. Regardless of this, the game is worth every buck. Sure, there’s no multiplayer and honestly, there’s no way to tell if it would have helped the game or not. Instead, the eight Challenge maps offered on the disc (including playable Joker levels and the promise of additional downloadable maps, both exclusively for the Playstation 3 version) will increase your replay value exponentially. Besides, we can guarantee that you will replay the game at least two more times after you’re done with your first playthrough. There’s tons of cool stuff waiting to be unlocked such as the aforementioned psychiatric analysis audio tapes. Yes, Batman: Arkham Asylum is that good.

Conclusion

Batman: Arkham Asylum can be easily compared to classic games like Eternal Darkness and Bioshock, a game that no one expected to be good and turned out to be one the most impressive, immersive and breathtaking games ever released. The grim set-up mixed an incredible voice-over work and great storytelling makes of Batman: Arkham Asylum, not only the best Batman game ever published but also the best comic-book/superhero videogame so far and a very serious “Game of the Year” contender.