Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Achievements: 6/10
There are two ways that you can go about playing Batman and your decision will determine how successful you will be in unlocking the achievements. If you were to quickly play through the storyline you are inline to get about 400 G’s. However, there are 240 of Riddler’s Challenges that you will be given the option of solving. There are achievements associated with the challenges and if you are able to solve different percentages of them you will unlock achievements. Aside from the story Batman has combat challenges, such as beating a number of asylum inmates while scoring a predetermined amount of points. These challenges will earn a minimal amount of G’s depending on how successful you are.

Review: 9/10
Can I say game of the year? Alright, Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in August of 2009, which has been a relatively weak year for Xbox 360 releases (feel free to bash or agree with my opinion), so I don’t feel that my comment is outlandish. Even during a year of highly touted releases Batman would still be included in a ‘best of’ list. There are just too many positives in the game for it not to be considered a top game of 2009.

The story starts out with Batman personally escorting the Joker to Arkham Asylum. As always Joker is overly confident and Batman questions the ease in which Joker was apprehended. We learn before any real game play that Joker had an ace up his sleeve and quickly switches his role as the inmate to the warden. As a detective Batman has to figure out how Joker was able to escape, how to recapture him and ultimately what is the purpose of his scheme. Along the way we run into other super villains like Bain, Scarecrow, Killer Croc and Poison Ivy among others. It must have been a quiet time in Gotham with all these villains locked up.

The background and graphics looked amazing! The entire game is contained in Arkham Asylum, which is located on a small island, so the various buildings on the island house the main missions. The gothic architecture of the buildings is seen in great detail and while walking the halls within the buildings colors just pop catching your eye. Even small details made a lasting impression on me. For example, as the game went on Batman’s suit became more tattered or he grew a five o’clock shadow.

By now I imagine you are tired of hearing about the scenery and story and want to know about the actual game. Understandably, it is a game after all and it was glorious! Seriously, there was a good mix of action. While moving through the different levels you will come across different groups of inmates that you will have to battle. If the inmates are not armed you can rush in and just beat the snot out of them. In some ways this type of combat could be considered button mashing, but if you slow down and hit the buttons in a rhythm you are able to generate combat chains, making the fights more enjoyable and in the process unlock a couple achievements.

If the inmates are armed you will not be able to rush in and just fight. Let’s be real; Batman does wear armor, but it is not invulnerable. Combat with armed inmates was more of a challenge, but it was what I looked forward to, because you were able to use all of Batman’s wonderful toys. You had to take the inmates down while being stealthy, so you had to hide in the ceiling on gargoyles, in the air vents, or even just around corners to take down each inmate individually, since normal combat would make too much noise drawing the attention of the others. You could stun the inmates with your bat-a-rang, string them up with the grapple hook and even set a trap with explosive gel. I waited until I beat the story to participate in the combat challenges, but in hindsight I should have played them earlier to learn moves that I didn’t know even existed.

Even the Riddler challenges had variety to them with some of them being as simple as finding a question mark statue, or evening solving actual riddles related to Batman characters. There was a detective mode that allowed Batman to see structural weaknesses in the walls and take snap snots, which aided in solving the riddles. While in the detective mode you could easily see if the inmates were armed or not, so you knew how to approach the battle. There was one other type of Riddler challenge that I will not go into detail about; once I figured it out it was such an ‘eureka’ moment that I hope others are able to experience.

With the different combat techniques I never got a feeling of monotony during game play and to incorporate the Riddler’s challenges there was a constant mix of things I could do. Each battle and Riddler challenge completed earned Batman some experience points, which would be used to unlock new skills or attributes like better armor, an additional bat-a-rang, etc. If the combat vs. stealth is not enough of a difference there were a few encounters with the Scarecrow that will surely leave an impression. I can’t believe how scary the Scarecrow was in the game!

There was so much done right in Batman: Arkham Asylum that I really don’t have much to complain about; great story, great look and great controls. The encounter with Killer Croc was rather anti-climatic, but it by no means took anything away from the game. If you plan on attacking the game paying no heed to Riddler’s challenges then you should be able to beat Arkham Asylum within a rental period. However, if the Riddler & combat challenges sound interesting, purchasing Batman new or used is well worth the investment, especially with reports of free downloadable content coming soon.