Batman: Arkham Asylum – Game of the Year Edition (PC) Review
June 4, 2010 
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By Gophn
INTRODUCTION
Rocksteady Studios’ Batman: Arkham Asylum is the latest of the long line of Batman video games over the last two decades. However, this particular Batman game has something different in respect to almost every other… it’s actually good, or should I say AMAZING.
I have been a huge fan of the Dark Knight since the first time I read some DC comics from a local comic shop and even enjoyed the hilarious 1970’s Batman TV series. It was not until the Batman Animated Series that a new generation of kids (including myself) saw a true representation of the chronicles of Batman and the comic history behind the Dark Knight. That is why I felt that it was great that Arkham Asylum actually stayed true to the comic series by having DC writers and the Animated Series get together to hammer out such an amazing tribute to Batman. Even the original voice actors (Batman, Joker, and Harley Quinn) of the Animated Series are back to breath more life into this game.
Arkham Asylum seems to pickup from a Batman comic time period after the Robin and Batgirl era. From the title, this game will take place in the one and only Arkham Asylum (mental asylum) with all of Gotham’s most notorious crazies and professional villains. The most amazing thing about this game is the in depth storyline content of the Batman world and the great pacing that leads you from action to story twists seamlessly. I will elaborate about the details in a moment, as well differences between this “Game of the Year Edition” and the original release.
Questions to be answered in this review:
1) If you haven’t play the original release of Arkham Asylum:
“Is this just another game with Batman?” “Is it even worth playing or should I pass?”
2) For those that haven’t played the original release:
“What does this GOTY (Game of the Year) edition have compared to the original?” “Is it worth to buy?”
GAMEPLAY
Arkham Asylum is a third person 3D action/adventure game that is powered by the robust Unreal Engine 3, which many popular games have used (such as the Gears or War & Mass Effect series). This game also should be tagged as a stealth action game as well since you will be required to do some Solid Snake / Sam Fisher skills to do silent takedowns of enemies.
I would like to start by saying that, like some other multi-platform games, this game was definitely created for the console because the control scheme feels a bit awkward with a mouse and keyboard on the PC, as compared to a console’s gamepad. I will go over this in a moment about the combat system.
This game is expertly paced and never feels like you had too much of action, exploration or of the story. You can run through this game and get all of the Riddler clues in around 10-12 hours. And you will probably try to finish the challenges after finishing the game, which help to feed your cravings of more Batman action before the next Arkham Asylum is released.
The difficulty of this game is very balanced, so beginners to daring expert gamers will be satisfied. First off, you will find that Batman has something cool from his arsenal called Detective Mode (a cool hi-tech x-ray vision), which helps greatly to see through walls to spot enemies and find vulnerabilities in structures. I have to say that I mainly played the game in Detective Mode because it was always useful, but the main downside is that you will be missing the amazing scenery in Arkham Asylum.
Detective Mode is probably the most used gadget in the game.
The second thing that you will notice is the AI (artificial intelligence) enemies are very commendable and not entirely stupid. If you are not stealthy enough and get spotted, enemies will converge to your position. If you are unfortunate enough to get spotted by armed enemies, you will probably get shot up with amazing accuracy (something that feels like Unreal Tournament bots, if you ever played it). If you like close combat you will be awarded with more experience, but the AI will give you some challenges to stop your awesome combo. If you dare to play Hard Mode, you will find that close combat fights with multiple goons will be much more difficult since the game disables the “spider sense” indications from the impending attacks from each enemy. I do recommend saving the game before getting into a fight, you might always want to play out the fight in a different way to get a better combo (for more experience), lose no life, and/or do it with just explosives (which I like doing).
Death by explosives (no need to get messy with fists)… I’m evil. xD
There are specific enemies in the game. As the game progresses, Batman will be introduced to more enemies that have different attributes, behaviors, and weapons. The first henchmen that you will run into are mainly hand to hand combatants that help you practice the combat system in order to receive some crazy high combos and variations. Just a fair warning, when you start having to deal with thugs with knives and stun batons, you will have to try a different strategy in dealing with them in close combat. While playing the game, I cannot count have many times I got shocked and/or knifed trying to counter an incoming attack (probably not a good idea to always fight in Detective Mode because you will not get to see what weapon a goon is carrying). And enemies armed with guns are to be taken out with stealth takedowns.
The most impressive part of Arkham Asylum’s gameplay is the entire combat system. The movement system is simple and effective. Crouching, sneaking around, and grappling onto ledges are made quite easy with the keys and camera control. Even though I mainly played through the game using a mouse and keyboard, I found it easy to get used it after a few minutes. Of course, plugging in an Xbox 360 controller would make it much easier, but I still prefer the mouse and keyboard. I am glad that the PC version of this game actually played well without the need of a controller. The mouse movement controls the camera and aiming, while the left click acts as the primary attack and the right click as the alternate attack or counter attack. The keyboard controls the movement and weapon switching. The battle system is very simple to use, but difficult to master. You will see that it is simple to start a good combo, but it is just as easy to lose it if you are impatient and button mash a lot. You must work on attacking and countering when necessary, then using takedowns (with upgrades), to amass amazing combos. When you can take out an entire group of enemies in one long combo, you will have achieved something that you want to strive for, the Freeflow Combo. Speaking of takedowns, there are a good number of them in this game. You really do not need to know how to use all of them to proficiently beat the game, but knowing the uses for each one can actually help you in a situation where you want to remain in stealth. There are a few takedowns during close combat, but the ones iconic to a stealth game are: the Silent Takedown, Ledge Takedown, Around the Corner Takedown, and the iconic Inverted Takedown. Pulling off a takedown silently will take some practice and timing, but worth it.
A few takedowns that I normally use throughout the game. The Inverted Takedown always feels the most gratifying.
Now for Batman’s arsenal of gadgets in this game. You start the game with Batman’s iconic Batarang (optional upgrades: multi-Batarangs, Remote Control Batarang), a basic grappler hook for letting you get onto ledges, the Detective Mode that is built into Batman’s mask. As the game and story progresses, you will be receiving the Explosive Gel (with a few optional upgrades), the Batclaw (and later, the Ultra Batclaw) to pull objects and people, the Sonic Batarang, the Line Launcher to get to a far off location, and the Cryptographic Sequencer used to hack security sealed doors. Of course, the most important gadgets cannot be bought, but by playing through the story. So if you run into a snag about not being able to solve a clue or getting to a certain location, just know that you can come back to it after you receive the right gadget… just don’t do what I did and waste hours failing to figure out how do it without the right tool.
The Waynetech upgrades screen. You definitely as much XP points as soon as possible to power up.
STORY / PLOT
The gameplay may be amazing, but a game with great gameplay will not mean much if the story and execution is crap.
Arkham Asylum game begins with Batman already capturing the Joker and driving back to Arkham in the Batmobile. Apparently, Batman caught Joker without a fight, which he does not like at all. Also, Joker’s henchmen were transferred to Arkham due to a mysterious fire at their previous prison. As you walk Joker to his cell, he escapes with the help of Harley Quinn, whom had taken over the controls in the penitentiary. Simple plot right?… Think again, there are much more plot twists and surprises on why the Joker would be crazy enough to break into Arkham, rather than out of it. As you progress through the game, more famous Batman villains (such as Bane, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy) will present themselves as bosses, while also playing role in the overall storyline.
Is it just me or does this scene gives you deja vu when you think about the relationship between Batman and the Joker?
Now, if that were not enough, RockSteady Studios with the help of DC Comics added the Character Bios and Interview Tapes from various famous Batman villains that have come and gone through Arkham Asylum. You will find that this is really what makes Arkham Asylum the most accurate and enlightening of comic-based video games. Just learning about villains in the Batman world and getting to hear some of their interviews with the Arkham psychiatrists truly makes you feel immersed into that world. You will find yourself discovering and solving all of the Riddler’s puzzles and riddles (the most difficult being the question marks only seen in Detective Mode) in order to unlock these Character Bios and Interviews. As you are doing the puzzle searching and solving, you will find yourself running into indirect cameos of famous villains (such as Two-Face, Scarface, and Clayface) that you wish were apart of game to encounter and fight with… oh well, maybe in the next game.
These character bio’s are very informative, as well as giving this game more depth.
Also, this game adds some more meat to the Batman world with the intriguing Chronicles of Arkham, which are messages left behind by the “Spirit of Arkham.” It’s very interesting to hear the observations and stories from these chronicles, definitely dark and intriguing… and yes, there is a twist in the final chronicle, but you have to find them all.
These Chronicles of Arkham slabs are all over the island and worth the time to find… in order to discover Arkham island’s background.
GRAPHICS
Like in other Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) games, Batman: Arkham Asylum is a very graphically pleasing game to behold for the consoles (PS3 & Xbox360) or PC… granted that you have a decent computer with at least a mid-range videocard. Many other famous game titles have used the same graphics engine, such as Bioshock, Mass Effect, Gears of War, etc. It’s awesome that RockSteady would use a robust and solid graphics engine like the UE3 because it would help them develop and port games to the PC (from consoles) much more seamlessly… as compared to having to re-write or re-develop the graphics engine to make it work for the PC (like some recent ports released to the PC with awkward controls and graphics bugs). As for making a worthy Batman game, the developers and designers did an amazing job in depicting the darkness and amazing details of Gotham’s home for the criminally insane… Arkham Asylum. You will catch yourself just stopping a number of times during the game to just checking out the scenery and amazing views. Like I said before, being in Detective Mode is great for most of the game play, but will deprive you of the “beauty” of Arkham Asylum. The character design and detail is amazing realistic… make sure to check out the Character Trophies that will show off the level of character detail. The environment textures are crisp. The lighting is spot on. The game’s graphics plays through as good as the pre-rendered cutscenes.
Now those are some great views. The scenery should be appreciated when possible.
One note that I should point out is that this game does an amazing job in showing how a Scarecrow (the famous villain that uses drugs and gases to induce you worst fears) sequences can really be done in an interactive video game environment. Other than the fact that Scarecrow seems a bit like Freddy Krueger with his glove of syringes and the eerie presence; his sequences are one of the most memorable in the game. I did not ever think that a game could ever convey how it could feel to fall into one of Scarecrow’s drug-induced mind traps… but Arkham Asylum has shown that it can be done with an effective implementation, while making the player feel tense from the experience.
Check out these amazing character models. I think Harley and Poison Ivy are my faves… *wink*
SOUND & MUSIC
The voice acting and scripting in this was well done in fully complementing to the game’s overall storyline. You will realize that you should enable the subtitle captions in this game to catch all of the funny and crazy lines that the Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill) makes of the P.A. system that can be heard all over Arkham. The music soundtracks, if you even notice them at all, are understated… as it should be since the environments do not really call for any major music scores.
The voice acting with the well-written scripting is amazing… and funny at times.
REPLAYABILITY
The difficulty of Arkham Asylum is pretty simple in any mode other than Hard Mode. If you are like me and enjoyed the Normal Mode run through, I recommend giving Hard Mode a try. You will find yourself learning how to play the game differently since you will take more damage, deal less damage to enemies, and you lose the “spider sense” indicators from the enemies about the strike you. So you learn how to read the goons movements to become more proficient in countering or buying time (without losing the combo) with evasion/stun moves. Most people would just play this game once and probably completing all of the Riddler clues and Challenge Modes within 12 or so hours. Some will find a need to do another faster and much more informed run through, but the game’s resonance from one play through will suffice for 99% of those that complete this game.
Running around the many areas on Arkham island to do the Riddler’s Challenges will probably kill the most time.
| Difference between the original and the “Game of the Year (GOTY)” editions The main differences are (that you get in the GOTY edition):
If you have not played it yet or own the first release, then this game is definitely worth the $40-50. If you already own the original with the downloadable content, then there you probably won’t want to purchase this version. My gripe about the GOTY version: I would have really liked the GOTY version to give all the other platforms (Xbox360 and the PC) the PS3’s exclusive DLC of the original release, which allowed you to play as the Joker in the Challenge Modes… that alone would warrant a recommendation to get this game, regardless if you already own it or not. |
PERFORMANCE
Not surprisingly, this well-developed game was silky smooth at high settings on current dual core systems (1.8GHz or higher) with at least a mid-range videocard (Nvidia 8600/9500/GT 240+ or ATI 3600/4600+). I tested it on my four year old notebook (Clevo D900K) with a dual core processor and Nvidia 7800 Go GTX, which was able play the game perfectly at native 1920×1200 resolution at mostly high settings. This system does actually run better on systems with multi-core CPUs, but not too significant. I can safely say that this game can even play on low-end systems with a low-end dedicated graphics card as well (on low settings), but you will be missing out on a lot of great detail from the characters and environments.
This game should be able to play with smooth framerates and good graphics on most mid-range or better gaming systems.
CONCLUSION
I cannot convey in words how much I actually enjoyed this game. It is a very fresh way to make an action/adventure game, but it being a Batman game makes it so much cooler. I could not find any real flaws in this game from the story to the game play other than there were not more iconic villains to beat down. I fully recommend this game to anyone who is a Batman fan or just interested in the Dark Knight, from the comics, movies, or cartoons. You will not be disappointed on what this game has to offer you in terms of content, action, and visuals.
Positives
- Great storyline and plot twists
- Great voice acting all around (from the Animated Series voice actors)
- Amazing content that give you accurate details to characters from the DC Comics
- Simple battle system (and yet very rewarding if you master it)
- Some of the best visuals you will find in a current video game
- Very good pacing throughout the game
- Harley and Poison Ivy look awesome xD
- GOTY Edition gives some really cool challenge maps
Negatives
- The targeting system in combat can be improved with an indicator for targets.
- Makes you want to play the next game (like wanting to watch the next episode)
- Did not let you fight some of the other iconic Batman villains
- GOTY Edition’s 3D is gimmicky at best (if you even have the right monitor for it at all)
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