RETRO REVIEW: Arkham Asylum

I know this game has been out for a while but that’s besides the point. I’m just now picking this up to play so now you get the distinct pleasure of reading my thoughts on it. This game, simply put, is absolutely amazing. Every bit of it captivates the player in ways most games nowadays can only aspire to. Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw of The Escapist has called this “one of the rare games that balances stealth and action and makes them both equally fun, where the stealth isn’t just a frustrating game of grandmother’s footsteps and the combat doesn’t make you feel like you f***ed up the stealth.” I honestly could not agree any more.

This game truly captures the essence of Batman mixing every element that creates the fear-inducing hero we’ve all come to love. By far my favorite parts of the game are when you are able to use your master stealth capabilities using high hanging vantage points and ledges to craftily and strategicly take down your enemies, and the element of fear that is induced in the remaining baddies as they find their unconscious buddies hanging from a gargoyle or having fallen ten feet to the floor below. A minor yet still fun detail of this is that you can survey the room in a “detective mode” and view things like heart rate and condition of your enemies. Seeing the bad guys’ heart rates spike and their conditions go from calm to terrified is strangely pleasing while you watch from the safety of your high hanging gargoyle deathtrap.

Even the combat portion of the game seems flawless. The controls are simple and can easily be strung together to form amazing combos and visually stunning effects. The best part of it is how fantastic the animation was done for Batman’s fighting style. Almost every strike flows perfectly from the last one making you feel as though you really are controlling this famous master of martial arts. Most games will pit some hero against a huge amount of enemies and it just seems unreal at any degree. While Arkham Asylum pits you against what seems like an unbelievable number of baddies just like most other games, the fighting style makes it seem much more realistic. There are still points in combat where you have that “I don’t believe it” moment, for the most part it really seems like this could potentially be someone in real life.

The only part of this game I didn’t like were the combat and stealth challenges. I might be holding a grudge because, being a self-admited achievement whore, I will probably never be good enough to get the achievements for these, but I’m pretty sure you have to have to be flawless to get all the medals on these challenges. Each combat challenge scores you on different attacks and successful hits. You get more points for flawlessly flowing from hit to hit, never missing an enemy or swinging wildly at the menacing air around you, not getting hit, and by using a larger variety of attacks in the same combo. I didn’t think it would be that hard to accomplish once I had given it a try once or twice; however, I came to realize that I am not nearly as perfect at combat as I believed myself to be and that the gold medal score is actually hard to get.

The stealth missions weren’t AS bad. There are still three medals, but there are in the form performing of specific, special takedowns. The first few missions required you to perform takedowns that were actually stealthy: snatch someone from above and hang them from a gargoyle, lay explosives and knock someone out from afar as they pass, hang from a ledge and surprise a passerby while tossing them to the floor below, you know, ninja-ish stuff. However the later challenges required you to do things you wouldn’t really ever want or need to do in a stealthy situation. One instance had me take down two guards as I whizzed by on my zip line from straight across where they are, pretty much asking them to see you at that point. Not very stealthy and definitely not something I wanted to do.

I already said it but I will say it time and time again. This game is simply amazing. Never before have I been so intrigued by a game for reasons outside of a plot, proven by my failure to mention it at all in this review. It has been announced that there will be a sequel to this game and all I can say to that is that I don’t know what they could really do to make a better game so I know I’m going to be amazed.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Eidos Interactive as well as Warner Bros and was released on August 25, 2009 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Microsoft Windows.
This game was rated “T” for teen by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) for Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence