Arkham Asylum

For just about as long as there's been video games, there's been superhero video games. Some have been good, others have been pretty damn bad. Often times, especially back in the era of side-scrollers, the games sometimes seemed like rehashes of established games with sprites that happened to be superheroes to cash in on the popularity of the franchise. If you've played enough X-Men, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, etc., etc., games from back in the day, they probably sort of run together in your mind because a lot of them are all equally uninteresting beat 'em ups. Over time, more of an effort has been in giving superhero games the look and feel of the comics on which their based, but it hasn't always guaranteed their quality. I remember buying the tie-in game that coincided with the release of the first Spiderman movie, which just felt rushed and kind of uninspired. I've played a little bit of the X-Men Legends/Marvel: Ultimate Alliance series--which have the benefit of standing on their own and not having to be rushed out to match up with the release of a movie, or be tethered to the style and plotline of the movie--which are certainly fun, but games that I would describe as "good, not great."

Now has come Batman: Arkham Asylum, a game that I can confidently describe as great. In spite of the tremendous popularity of the Christopher Nolan movies, publisher Eidos and developer Rocksteady wisely decided not to use the style of the films as a crutch and decided to make a world all their own, in some ways more similar to the comics, but in other ways entirely dissimilar to anything. The amount of polish put into the same is incredible, and unlike the hastily thrown together beat 'em up reskins of old, the game absolutely smothers itself in Batman lore, and weaves a story that can be loved by casual and hardcore Batman fans alike. The game really does feel like it fits into the cannon of the Bat-verse, and was made by people who know and love the source material. All of the characters seem pretty much spot on to their comic book counterparts, aided by the fact that the voices of Batman, Joker (Mark Hamill!), and Harley Quinn from "Batman: The Animated Series" all reprise their roles here. The game's dialog is also pretty well written. I don't know if the script contains any great strokes of genius, but the essence of each character seems to have been captured well.

The game takes place a ways into the Bat-timeline. Its made clear that Batman has been doing what he's doing for a while, he's met and faced off against all the members of his rogue's gallery, and he's helped out by a wheelchair-bound Barbara Gordon, going by Oracle (the Joker paralyzes her in Alan Moore's graphic novel The Killing Joke from the late '80s). To this point, there hasn't been any sign of a Robin, although not ever Bat-Story in the era of Robins involves Robin anyway. The plot is pretty simple: Batman, for the umpteenth time, has apprehended the Joker and is delivering him back to Arkham. His transfers him over to Arkham's security, and they get him strapped into a Hannibal Lecter-esque board-on-wheels, but Batman decides to keep following them until the Joker is safely in his cell to ensure that everything goes smoothly. Surprise, surprise, it doesn't. With the aid of his ever-faithful girlfriend Harley Quinn, the Joker replaces the Arkham guards with an army of thugs that were transferred from Blackgate Prison, sets the inmates loose, and kidnaps Arkham's warden. Hence, as Batman, your goal is to stop Joker and save the day. It all takes place over the course of one night and entirely within Arkham, but Rocksteady nevertheless does a commendable job making the game varied and expansive.

Batman is like the Da Vinci of vigilantism: he's a scientist and a detective, he's trained in ninjitsu and can stalk around in the shadows, and he can also just straight-up kick the crap out of people. Arkham's gameplay is reflective of this. At any point as you're exploring Arkham, you can tap L2 which puts you in "Detective Mode." Using Detective Mode, you can see enemies--including those behind through walls--highlighted in blue, with those armed with guns highlighted in red. It also highlights anything interactive in the environment in orange, and shows you vents that you can pry the covers off of to crawl through, or structurally weak walls that you can blow up. From time to time, the game will also have you search a room for clues that you then may get a fingerprint or DNA sample off of, and which you can then follow the trail of in Detective Mode. Usually, this is a pretty simple task, but I think these moments in the game more to make it a detective story, like a good Batman story, and not just a fighting game. The game gives you ample reason to be in Detective Mode pretty much constantly, although sometimes I switch it off just because the effect of it (it gives everything a Tron-esque digital look with a purple hue, and all the enemies show up as these neon X-Ray figures) gets kind of annoying, which is my only real complaint about it.

So Detective Mode, appropriately, covers the detective side of Batman. The other two aspects I mentioned are covered in your encounters with enemies which are divided into stealth sections and straight-up melees. The stealth sections will vaguely remind you of Metal Gear Solid gameplay, though the AI isn't as smart and its usually easier to escape if you get caught (that, and there's no exclamation points over people's heads). The stealth sections will generally pit you against a half-dozen or so armed guards--enough such that if you tried to just fight them head on you'd have no chance. Gunfire actually hurts a lot in this game. Usually, it'll be in a generously sized room lined with gargoyles that you can grapple to (you can grapple onto just about anything that will support you in the game by just hitting R1 as you're facing it) and perch on top of. From there, you have a few different options of how best to engage the enemies below you. You can throw batarangs to stun them and knock them down, drop down below them as they're facing away from you and silently KO them (by pressing triangle, if you're behind them and undetected), or, once you unlock the skill for it, by swooping them up as they walk below your perch (which looks particularly badass). However you want to do it, really the biggest key is to try and isolate guards from the rest of the group, which sometimes they'll do for you, but you can otherwise do by causing distractions. If you get caught, you usually have a split second to get back up to the top of the room and hop between a few different gargoyles to lose the guards before you get gunned down in a hail of bullets. When you're on the ground, you can do things like duck around corners and take out guards as they walk past, or catch guards in remotely detonated explosions (they never die though since, you know, you're Batman). Again, it has a lot of similarities to MGS, but its a bit more simplified and harder to muck up. A lot of what I just described can be done with one button, so long as its in the right context.

At other times, you find yourself fighting in closer quarters with random thugs armed with just their fists or the occasional bat, knife, or stun baton. Fighting them in hand-to-hand combat is done through an easy to use system whereby you hit one of the four face buttons while pointing towards an enemy to do one of the following: square just hits them, triangle will counter if they're about to attack (a little indicator will appear for this), X will have you tumble to try and get behind them, and circle will execute a cape stun move. So long as you keep stringing together these moves without getting hit, you'll accrue combo points, and once you get up to x8 (or x5 once you get an upgrade), you can execute special throw and knockdown moves. You can also tap L1 for a quick batarang stun. There are a ton of varied, fluid-looking animations for Batman's combat moves, and even though the button scheme is pretty simple, it ends up looking complex and exciting.

As you're playing through the main story, you can take time to look for special "Riddler challenges" as a sidequest. Doing so also gets you experience points, which you cash in to improve your combat movies, items, and armor. Basically, early on the game, The Riddler hacks into your communication system that you're using to speak to Oracle and heckles you about not being able to solve his riddles. In some rooms, when you enter them, you'll get a clue in the form of a riddle, and you'll have to find something that matches up with it in the room. Often times, these will unlock character bios, and are sort of a hat-tip to characters not involved in the main story. As an example, in one hallway you can find Catwoman's goggles in a display case. There are also a bunch of "Riddler trophies" to find hidden around Arkham. A few of them are genuinely difficult, although often times finding them is pretty rudimentary, and they'll just be behind a not too discreetly hidden vent cover or something. You can also find patient interview tapes to get more of a backstory on some of the villains, and find "chronicles of Arkham", supposedly written by the spirit of Amadeus Arkham, telling the history of his life and the island. Looking for these hidden items lets you appreciate the detail work put into the game, which is tremendous. They did a great job making Arkham exude a creepy, gothic style, and cut no corners working on every area. Floors will oft times be littered with papers, and you can zoom in on individual documents and individual photos, which will all move independently of one another if you disturb the file. And that's just random bits of what-have-you in the environment. The characters look tremendous as well. The Joker, especially of all, looks great, and his big, wide grin looks downright sinister.

Arkham Aslyum isn't a perfect game. Its a bit short and a bit easy (I played on Normal, not sure what Hard is like), but damn is it a lot of fun. I hope the same developer has plans for, or would be willing to discuss, a sequel. This game takes place entirely on one island. Seeing this kind of detail put into a game played out in Gotham City proper would be that much more amazing. I don't know if it'll happen, but I'm hoping it does now. Even if Arkham ends up being a singular entity though, on its own merits, its a great achievement.