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 (Here's a riddle for you! What has wings, walks on two legs and is going to beat the fucking shit out of you?)
MODERN GAMING
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Developer: Rocksteady Games
Publisher: Warner Bros./DC Comics/Eidos Interactive
Year: 2009
Genre: Action-adventure/Stealth
System: Xbox 360/PC/PS3
In other media besides their own, comics have had a strange odyssey ranging from the incredibly unfaithfully pathetic to the frighteningly truthful adaptation. Videogames have had a harder time handling this somehow when there was so much to choose from and when usually the movie-based comic-based games are the only good ones, you know something's bad. Nevertheless comics have enjoyed some good hits. But I present to you what is the comic world's equivalent of The Dark Knight and its sequel.
Story - Basing itself more in the comic lore, Batman has captured the Joker after a large raid in kidnapping the mayor of Gotham City, the two currently off to Arkham Asylum on the dreaded island itself for Joker to be once again incarcerated. However Batman feels wary of the strangely easy capture of his greatest nemesis. Unfortunately his fears are made true when the Joker manages to escape with the aid of Harley Quinn and his own henchmen from Blackgate, ready to rule Arkham Asylum as his own base of operations to direct his plans for domination.
 (Oh great, that's another four fanfics to come out of this moment)
Navigating through the insane island Batman must deal with many foes naturally from the comics themselves (yes, Harley Quinn got added to the comics because of how wonderful a character she was in the Animated Series) to end Joker's insane plan as well as liberate the guards and doctors of the island. And this is all written by Paul Dini, a name you might not recognise as one of the ORIGINAL writers of Batman: The Animated Series. I don't want to sound biased or anything on how awesome this is until later so let's move on.
Graphics - The game looks and at a few times feels like BioShock, for real. Not too surprising due to Arkham Asylum using the same engine as BioShock, with shiny cracked lino and cracked up stone walls. Less could be said for the scenery though but more for the character designs.
Batman looks more closer to the 80s/90s Batman in the more classical black cape/grey suit combo instead of the more recent all black look from the recent movies. Without giving away what you don't know already, Joker looks pretty scary in these new sleek graphics, a combination of the lanky clean-suited look from the animated series with the crazier makeup of the recent movies. Harley Quinn looks fantastically kinky in a slutty nurse outfit.
In fact the whole feel of the game is more closer to the 90s animated series than anything else, which is not a bad thing. Hell many people agree the animted series had the best portrayal of the comics overall.
So to keep this a little short, the graphics look pretty fucking sweet, Arkham feels a very cold place to touch and the people look really good, close to their comic forms or at least by the feel of them.
 (brb brooding)
Gameplay - Now we have the main meat of the game which is split into two categories. Action and stealth. But first the basic controls of running and jumping and stuff. I will say sometimes the game can get a little bit picky at climbing and such. Mostly Batman will automatically climb anything he can scale if you run towards it, and I mean RUN towards it, like holding down the A button running, since if he's not he'll just be given the Climb option and you have to tap A for that, but the thing is, when you're panicking to run away from some strong enemies and you then double tap....well double tapping makes Batman evade or rather roll...it gets quite confusing, that's perhaps my main, if not, lone complaint of this game as well as the occasional bitchiness of not climbing something in particular for whatever reason, too rocky or something.
The action parts we'll go over first mainly dealing with combat. Combat only has three buttons for initial moves. Attack, Evade and Counter. You can launch into a three-hit combo against enemies, but also must avoid or counter other enemies who will have a signal when they're about to attack you, giving you about two seconds to either counter or evade them. Evade means either rolling out of their way or leapfrogging over them to initiate back attacks or just escape a bit.
Counters are a little tricky in terms of timing, since if you're in the middle of a punch, you might not have time to counter in time. I nfact combat is deceptively tricky by its easy button layout since you actually can't really button mash your way through them. You can try but it gets fucking bitchass difficult and tiring (I mean it was starting to feel Streets of Rage there a bit when I tried this).
You also must aim the left analog stick in the general direction of who you want to attack, which works great as long as you know what you're doing and can string up a fantastic combo if you're good with it overtime. All this does help in the long run as you can gain XP, which not only restores your health but also allows you to buy upgrades from WayneTech for armour and equipment.
 (This may be the greatest cape ever made but Superman doesn't even NEED his to fly)
Stealth is a more timely craft that's actually quite easy to do in this game as long as you have a tiny bit of patience. Stealth in Arkham Asylum mainly means knowing how to use your equipment, the most important being the bat grapple which allows you to winch yourself up in seconds to almost any ledge and thanks to a rather sensible camera is mostly efficient in getting you where you want to go.
Then comes the matter of dealing with enemies during stealth. You will be forced to act upon stealth since it's way less painful, as well as the fact that while Batman may be the Goddamn Batman, he is still mortal, and when it comes to something like guns, he is NOT going to fare very well.
Seriously, guns fucking kill you in this game in seconds, so you want to avoid them well Enemies can be taken down in various ways with either silent takedowns from behind, inverted takedowns from above (which hilariously hangs people on a rope by their feet, takedowns if you're hanging on a ledge beside them, takedowns if you're covering a corner right beside them, there's a lot of ways to deal with enemies, offering a great variety of strategy.
Next up is the Detective Mode, which is kind of in its own field due to the great detail in it. Batman, as the World's Greatest Detective says the comics, has a special visor for being able to detect certain things, like the smell of whisky or the blood of a particular subject and is then able to track them down. But the main thing you'll do with Detective Mode is scouting the room for enemies and places of interest. Any item and any certain part of the room of interest like an explodeable wall or a ventilation shaft entrance or a collectible will be highlighted for your convenience.
 (Pictured: SCIENCE)
Enemies are a more entertaining matter. When there are people in a room, you'll be informed by how many enemies are armed and how many are unarmed, the armed enemies highlighted in red being the most dangerous kind of enemy (seriously, take them down stealthily, you cannot win against them very easily). People are also shown with their current condition measured by their heartbeat. There's deceased, unconscious, calm, crazed, nervous and terrified.
Here's the awesome thing. If you work a room of enemies right, you can REALLY terrify the everloving shit out of them and mindfuck them a bit, get their heartbeat going, they start shooting randomly, looking around extremely paranoid and so forth. All in all, the enemies react rather realistically for stock thugs.
Now we come to the gadgets, one of the big features of Batman's history as having the means to make many fantastic pieces. The most important ones you have are an infinite supply of Batarangs that can break certain control panels, ropes and knock enemies about, and the bat grapple, which I just went over. Over time in the game you'll come across a wide range of tools to make the going easier to navigate through Arkham Island and defeat the Joker's monstrous plan.
There is however one small...side quest shall we say, in the hands of a certain Mr E Nigma who loves to challenge you with a variety of trophies and riddles laying all over the island, offering many unlockable things such as character bios and extra challenges in the game's menu for you to have a gander at. It's entirely optional but it can be very fun for the completionists.
 (Everytime this happened, I always go "Batman PAUUUNCH!" in the voice of Captain Falcon)
Music/Sound - Lemme ask you a question. Do you know who played the Joker in the animated series? It was Mark Hamill. Luke Skywalker in case you forgot the name. That awesome hilarious frightening character in one of the greatest animated shows ever made was voiced by Mark Hamill.
And that same voice is in this game. As the Joker. Fuck. Yes. It gets better. Harley Quinn sounds like her original self and Batman? Who did you think they got for him?
Yes, THE voice of Batman from the animated series, Kevin Conroy. That incredibly awesome smooth rugged voice AND HE IS IN THIS GAME TOO. I cannot begin to stress how fuckmothering awesome this is, I swear to god, I orgasmed out of my ear from hearing them, and that is the real main thing to say about the game's sound. Oh sure the wind whistling and cape billowing sounds very cool as well as the meaty landing of punches and kicks, but MARK HAMILL AND KEVIN CONROY ARE JOKER AND BATMAN, WHAT THE FUCK ELSE DO YOU WANT!?!?
The music also seems to have the same feel and influence from the series, hell it might even be the same orchestra, not entirely a surprise considering Warner Bros, the maker of the series, is involved in this game.
Overall, I consider this the best comic-based game ever made for its amazing amount of effort into the lore of Batman, the look of Batman, the feel of Batman, just everything! The fact it has a lot of inspiration and involvement from Batman: The Animated series is fantastic in itself and even if you aren't a big Batman fan, the game is brilliant in itself and doesn't even require you to even KNOW anything about Batman. All of you mad people are welcome in Arkham Asylum!
Fun and Innovation - 5
Replayability - 3
Gameplay - 4
Presentation - 5"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Can you review Jungle Strike again? Win Cookies Awarded: 7 (bawwwwww)
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
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Loved this review. I can't wait to pick up Arkham, hopefully sooner than later. Been dying for this game for awhile - looks so fucking sick. silverwasp wrote:Be careful what you wish for... I have 10 younger siblings and I am only 20....
Yes.... Same parents WarMachine wrote:meh...maybe if he hadn't been handed a burning house he could have done great things, but right now he has won the Prize for what? Damage Control?
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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Ciao Time wrote:Can you review Jungle Strike again? I could review Soviet and Nuclear Strike which were similar but in 3D and full FMVs with decent acting, that good enough? :P "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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The demo on Steam was very good. I was very suprised at how well my computer played the game! The graphics were great and the game was smooth. Very pretty. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan My Backpack
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
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I want to rent this game and play it...looks really good, but I don't buy console games anymore because of thier short shelf life.
Quote:
"Who the fuck is Leon Switch and why does he know we have a dog?" - Mrs. Giller
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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Giller [GwDR wrote:]I want to rent this game and play it...looks really good, but I don't buy console games anymore because of thier short shelf life. Well that's not a bad policy admittedly, at least you rent it, it's definitely worth that. "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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