Greatest Hits: Batman Arkham Asylum, Review

It’s an unfortunate truth of journalism that harsh criticism and general negativity is the bread and butter of public interest, and that a witty jab at a title’s insecurities will always be a more effective hook than an overt thumbs up. Certainly our beloved Yahtzee constructed his throne of popularity almost entirely on being difficult to please. But this time I cannot bring myself to engage in such arbitrary attention grabbing; I hope that you will all instead join me in celebrating what some would call a miracle. Lo and behold, the definitive Batman experience. Arkham Asylum is more than a licensed game that does its subject matter justice, more than a high-concept title that pays off on its potential, more than a long-anticipated release that lives up to the hype, more than a Batman game that doesn’t suck; Arkham Asylum is ALL of the above.

Welcome to the Mad House: Mantle of the Bat
Unlike previous titles Arkham Asylum does not recoil at the Dark Knight’s complexity. It embraces each one of his talents, providing the first genuine opportunity for gamers to step into those armour-plated boots and become the Batman. Whereas the adaptation of Begins forced players to walk a cowardly and melee impotent Batman through hopelessly linear stealth sequences, and dozens of early 2D titles conversely reduced him to a brainless brawl machine sifting through endless minions; Asylum indulges every side of the character equally. Unarmed thugs are fodder for Batman’s flawless martial prowess, whereas a room of armed baddies will move players to adopt a much more stealthly approach. And unlike most mediums in which he has been portrayed, Asylum doesn’t forget that Batman was originally introduced on the back of being the “greatest detective who ever lived”. Players have access to a range of ingenious gadgetry to aid them throughout the game, and can swap to the constantly useful “Detective” mode at any time, which will reveal enemy locations and numbers, scan “crime scenes” and vitally highlight any interactive scenery in the area.


Black Cape, Black Belt: Combat, Counters and Considerations
Hot off the top of that juicy list was the games combat, which brings just the right amount of effort to effortlessly dismantling a room of henchmen. Utilising a 360 degree free flowing combat system (something valiantly pioneered by many an ultimately average title) Batman is able to glide from enemy to enemy with a brutal grace, easily taking apart entire rooms of men. The animations are perfection, the ideal combination of flowing martial style, grim practicality and decisive bone shattering force; exactly what you expect from a character who has honed his knowledge of a dozen martial arts into a single focused weapon against Gotham’s worst. You begin with one attack button and the ability to counter any incoming attack if you are quick enough, and then gradually the game layers on new considerations and challenges. As enemies take up knives you must employ a cape stun to drop their guard, as some get hold of stun batons you have to remember to flip over them before you lay down the hurt, as some become sneaky enough to throw debris from a distance you must be sharp enough to evade out of sequence... employing your knowledge of how each enemy must be dealt with, prioritising upcoming threats, and always striving for longer flawless combos against ever increasing numbers of men, this beautiful mix provides players just enough to think about to make them feel worthy of the intense spectacle that unfolds on screen. Batman is so talented at dispatching enemies that it would have been easy for Rocksteady to fall into the trap of the combat feeling automatic or detached from the admittedly simplistic inputs that inspire the on-screen carnage, but instead I rejoiced at each new room of scum the Asylum presented, and as my digital proxy swiftly resumed an unperturbed neutral stance in the midst of half a dozen freshly beaten crims, I felt like the goddamn Batman.


Invisible Predator: Shadows, Stealth and Suicide Collars
But as I lamented above, Batman is more than a brawler; to the underworld he is like a formless wraith stalking from the shadows, striking fear into his enemies. Handily, Arkham’s interior designers had the peculiar quirk of installing gargoyles on the INSIDE of the (unnecessarily high) walls, providing Bats somewhere to skulk and eye up his targets. At first it is easy to skim these stealth sections with your combat-relevant tools and notice all the environmental elements you were intended to use after the fact, but once the Joker craftily outfits his armed patrols with “suicide collars” that alert all hostiles in the room the minute the heart rate of one of their partners in crime drops below expected levels, players will have to up their game considerably; engineering elaborate traps to distract and confuse the enemies, or go for the holy grail, and eliminate all of them in one fell swoop. Luckily, there is no small number of ways to deal with these scenarios when you embrace Batmans arsenal of gadgets, and patient players could no-doubt spend countless hours crafting detailed games of human-dominoes. When it all comes together just right, Batman will be swooping in and out of the shadows, hanging Joker’s men from gargoyles, dragging them into underground vents, blowing out the walls and ceiling around them with his explosives, or pulling them off their feet with his grappling gun. Although the stealth sections are tougher to milk joy from (at least for an impatient berserker like me), the satisfaction of a plan coming together is immense.


Utility Belt: Gadgets and Platforming
As we all know, Batman relies heavily on his bespoke Bat-gadgetry in order to compensate for his lack of actual super powers, and fittingly Bats’ handy gadgets find themselves central to the experience of almost any part of the game. Finding, building or unlocking new gadgets is key to progression through the free roaming world of Arkham Asylum, and they will inevitably be employed during combat, stealth and all the platforming involved in between. Not wishing to reveal all the goodies that will be lining your utility belt by the conclusion, one of the most vital is Bruce’s infamous grapple gun, which is mercifully unrestrained. Whereas in the demo it was attuned only to the interior gargoyles, in the full game it will willingly latch onto any ledge or surface it deems sturdy enough (don’t worry, this is most of them) and allows Batman to scale buildings with the expected ease. The explosive gel and Batclaw can both be used to take out enemies and knock down those classic cracked videogame walls, but that isn’t the tool you will find yourself reaching for the most often. Whether it is a reliable default Batarang flung to pop a poisonous spore, disarm an armed thug, distract a behemoth or smash a pair of chattering nashers, or it is an upgraded model used to curve around corners, overload suicide collars or stun multiple targets, this truly is the Bat-gadget of a thousand uses. A veritable pair of rubber lips. A testament to the developer’s devotion to diversity, new gadgets or new uses for old gadgets are always on the horizon, expanding the experience and tailoring progress through the Island.


The World’s Greatest Detective: Crime Scenes and Bio-Scans
And at the heart of Batman’s technological arsenal is one of Wayne Tech’s true crowning achievements, “Detective mode”. Once activated, it pools information from the environment, painting the world blue so that all points of interest are helpfully revealed in red. At some points in the game detective mode must be employed to investigate marked areas tagged as “crime scenes” for a trace source Batman can subsequently track through the Asylum. These range from fingerprints to pheromones and perfumes, and it is a huge credit to Rocksteady the detail that goes into even this comparatively minor part of the game. For example, when Batman scans the fingerprints of his target, prints are highlighted everywhere in the room, he then reconfigures his criteria a moment later to match only recent prints, and the majority fall away to reveal the relevant path. It would have been so easy to not bother including the extra prints during that dialogue sequence, or skipping the concept altogether, and it warms the soul that neither shortcut was taken.


Batman Meets Bioshock: Freedom and Limitation
As name dropping goes, Bioshock will always be synonymous with state of the art immersion and atmosphere. On a personal level Rapture always reminds me of how you can achieve the illusion of total freedom in even the most classically linear claustrophobic environment, merely by ensuring any limitations put on the player are believable and realistic. It is clear why Rocksteady chose Arkham Island; it provides the perfect backdrop for this gritty re-imagining of the comic book mythos and places restrictions on the player’s movement which they will accept and understand without question. Batman is a difficult character to contain, but at no time did it feel I was being unceremoniously funnelled or unfairly blocked by contrived invisible walls or impassable knee high fences.


Gloriously Gothic: Visuals and Art Direction
This actually marks the first game I have played entirely in HD, which if visuals were ice cream, is a bit like adding rainbow sprinkles and a flake. Beautifully rendered, Arkham Asylums environmental design is utterly gorgeous, and although it might not have the visual range of Rapture, no expense has been spared in bringing each corner of it to life. Given that most of the game is spent in dank corridors and cell blocks, it would have been all too easy to re-use and repeat the same brick and rock textures and props ad infinitum like the recurring wall of some low budget animation. Instead Rocksteady again impress with a level of detail and polish too rare in this industry, creating a truly genuine slice of Batman’s grim gothic universe for gamers to explore. So confident in their character design and unflinching devotion to detail, players can even unlock turntables of the character models called “trophy’s”, where they can poke and prod at each nook and cranny and zoom in on every normal mapped wrinkle and crease. The only exception to the games visual quality is the guns, which for some reason look like malformed lumps of plastic up close. And as is typical of the Unreal Engine, the whole game is enveloped in a constant plastic sheen and glittering with bloom, which may be off putting to some, but not I, who appreciated the feel of the gloomy moonlight kissing the gothic architecture.


To be really Critical: AI, Maps and Backtracking
Unfortunately, even if I was still doing numerical values, Arkham Asylum would not quite be a perfect 10. Attempting to be a jack of all trades usually results in being a master of none, so while it is still a remarkable achievement that each side of Asylums gameplay could stand proudly beside the majority of even its more specialised peers without losing much of its lustre, I would be turning a blind critical eye if I didn’t highlight the minor irritations that scuff if not dent the Batman experience. Although the stealth-orientated rooms are pitch perfect in many regards, the accessibility of those sections are enabled primarily by notoriously dense and predictable AI, who apparently suffer from debilitating cases of selective blindness, short term memory loss and hearing difficulties. I feel this was a necessary evil to grease the stealthly wheels and prevent frustration, but venturing onto such an uneven playing field occasionally feels unfairly easy. Similarly Batman’s 360 degree prowess is made possible by an almost supernatural ability to move across the room to distant enemies in any direction. Although there are long range animations in place, occasionally Bruce will still unnaturally glide across the floor in order to connect with your chosen target, a rare departure from the otherwise superlative choreography of the combat system. And while Arkham Asylum provides a magnificent stage, the sprawling corridors of the Asylums interiors; all automatic doors, vent systems, multiple floors and staircases, can often be confusing to traverse. This confusion was notably aggravated by the map only being available in the pause menu, forcing me to regularly swap back and forth to check my orientation lest I find myself a dozen rooms shy of my intended destination, backtracking accidentally through huge chunks of a previous area. This is by far the games most grating oversight.


Rogues Gallery: Patient Tapes, Profiles and Psychosis
The early spin was that the setting of Arkham Asylum would be used to explore the hearts and minds of Batman’s rogues gallery, delving into the darkness of their psyche’s (and Batman’s) as players themselves delved into the bowels of the Asylum. This lofty goal was perhaps always out of reach of a game already so far stretched, but the patient tapes (Another feather borrowed from Bioshocks cap) do at least provide further insight into how deep the well of madness and hatred runs for some of Gothams foulest, while the unlockable character profiles and environmental Easter eggs pay numerous nods to the regular patients there just wasn’t time to address in full. Look out for a certain sub zero cell in the extreme incarceration area, a cameo by a disturbingly short wooden gangster and an impossibly changeable figure behind smeared glass. Each villain has been tweaked, either subtly or overtly, to be far darker, more monstrous and more definitively terrifying than previous incarnations, ensuring that despite the basis in comic book lore, the universe has grown up with its audience. The grim intent and merciless nature below the coloured capes and elaborate schemes crackle and bubble on the edge of outright horror. Perhaps most striking is their interpretation of the Riddler; his trademark condescending arrogance and elitism exaggerated to create a truly dark and obsessive character with echoes of Jigsaw.

It's a tragedy however, that the boss battles with these re-imagined villains are ultimately mundane repetitive affairs reeking of old videogame cliche's and tired tropes. Your showdown with Bane sees you evade his charge at the last moment so he smacks his head on a wall and gets dizzy. Yeah, do that 3 more times. It's not games design befitting such a polished clever title, and will be a key aspect ripe for Rocksteady to improve on in the sequel.


Breaking the Batman: Joker’s laughter and Scarecrow’s nightmares
The voice talent in the game is provided primarily by alumni of the original animated series, chief among them Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. Hamill’s vocal range is nothing short of stunning, capable of reaching anything from the highs of Joker’s shrill laughter, mad giggling and deranged joy, the crackling darkness under the surface of a sick joke, to the depths of his screaming unrestrained rage. As is fitting of his splintered personality, Asylum’s Joker can be jovial and fun-loving one moment, mercilessly brutal the next. Sometimes this dichotomy is uncomfortably stark, but when the balance is right there is no denying the potency of Hamill’s performance. The Joker’s overarching goal in the game is to put Batman through the worst night of his life, to finally “break” the Batman, reflected in Bats’ increasingly torn and battered armour and gradual stubble as the game wears on. For that psychological toll to hit home with players though, I feel the experience would have had to be more of a harrowing task for the gamers themselves and instead, the game is of course an absolute blast. The most effective weapon in Rocksteady’s psychological arsenal is Scarecrow’s fear gas, which transports Batman into a nightmare universe where he must face his worst memories and darkest thoughts. At first intriguing, this part of the game later becomes an opportunity for some games design so experimental and 4th wall defying that Kojima himself would be proud.


Conclusion: The definitive Batman experience
Arkham Asylum is a borderline masterpiece. Drawing all the best elements from the comic books, movies, animated series and other mediums, it paints a familiar but unique portrayal of the Batman universe. Dark and believable but still rich in the vibrancy of the original material. The gritty atmosphere of Arkham Island and its gothic visuals is close to flawless, and the gameplay is top notch to match, capably addressing every aspect of Batman’s considerable arsenal of talents, and always layering on new enemy types, new gadgets, new mechanics, new set pieces, new boss battles and new paths to explore, ensuring a truly diverse experience that never grows tired or tepid. The combat is a brutally satisfying spectacle, the stealth sections are open ended and true to character, the gadgets are suitably ingenious and the investigation elements are a welcome aside, but as an ensemble Arkham Asylum is even stronger than the sum of its parts.

And in the midst of all this, the designers still find room to experiment with delivery and form; watch out for the first person sequence towards the games conclusion and the aforementioned Scarecrow segments. The level of visual and creative polish, the attention to detail, the devotion to diversity, the inspired control system and unquestionably high-end production values all make this one of the best games of the year, and hot off the heels of The Dark Knight, it certainly seems to be a good time to be wearing a black cape. Perhaps the greatest disappointment was that the game ended at all. I wanted more villains, more gadgets, more rooms of enemies to defeat, I wanted to escape the confines of Arkham and explore Gotham; foil Two Face’s bank robberies and beyond. I can only pray for a sequel, as the tasty slice of Batman’s universe Arkham Asylum generously provides makes me hungry for the world beyond the Islands walls. Must Play for anyone who is a fan of Batman or top quality action games.

[Review originally written/posted September 1st 2009]
.. I chose to re-post this one in anticipation of the confirmed sequel: Arkham City. My most wanted title of the moment!