Batman Arkham Asylum on Xbox 360 rocks! I finished story mode and now I’m at 80% as I look to solve more of the clues in the game. This is the complete Batman game and the best Batman game ever. It has everything Batman does, awesome fighting combos, cool bat gadgets, detective work and clue solving.
It starts with Batman bringing The Joker back to Arkham in the Batmobile. You walk with him into Arkham as he taunts Batman, the guards and other prisoners alike. You get a quick look at Killer Croc before going down in the elevator. You meet up with Commissioner Gordon and you watch as they take The Joker away. The Joker quickly overtakes the guards and is loose. Batman follows him into the depths of Arkham and has to deal with henchman prisoners that Batman can easily take down.
Soon most of thee henchman will be armed and Batman will need to use stealth and quick strikes to take them out before they shoot him dead. You will need to strategize which ones you take out first. As you get deeper into Arkham they seem to get smarter and harder to take out. Rather than be alone, they double and triple up to make it that much harder to take them out.
The fighting is easy without a lot of different button combos to remember. The strikes, kicks and takedowns are swift. There is a silent takedown and inverted take down when Batman hangs from a gargoyle. There are two basic modes, normal which is regular vision and Detective Mode which is a cool heat sensing vision that lets you see things you would otherwise miss. You will need to switch back and forth between the two settings as you wander Arkham.
Then of course there are the gadgets. You start with a basic Batarang, and Grapple but will get upgrades along the way as you solve clues and find Riddler Trophies and such left all over the place. Most of these are hidden, but a lot are out in the open to find. You will need to come back to most places after you have the right tool to use to get to the trophies and other clues. Once you complete the story you can go back and explore all the areas and find what you missed.
The Riddler is never seen, only heard as he taunts Batman with riddles that appear in almost every area. They appear when you enter the area and you need to find the answer to solve it. Some are easy, some not so easy. There are also Interview Tapes that go with the Bios of the characters in the story. Pick them up and they play. Riddler has also left some maps around that show where the riddles are making them easier to find, but not always easy to get too. Lastly there are the cryptic Spirit Of Arkham tablets left about. Combined these tell a story about Arkham and provide another problem to solve.
Mr. Zsazz, Bane, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and of course The Joker are among the main rogues you will encounter. Batman will need to rescue Doctors and Arkham Guards from some of these villains while others you will battle straight on, usually after a warm up fighting off some henchmen.
Batman and The Joker look relatively comic classic normal, but almost all of the others got new or revamped looks and they are amazing. Scarecrow in particular is wicked looking. Harley has a whole new outfit, which she comments on when you first see her. Killer Croc is huge like Bane.
Paul Dini wrote the story and it is worthy of it’s own film. Some of the cut scenes are great. Game play is over the shoulder with a floating camera angle you can move as you like rather than first person although some of the gadgets like the Batarang also have an action camera that will follow them to the target. I’m not a big fan of one stick for the camera and one for the character, as I often get lost looking one way but moving another, especially when being shot at. However play was really simple and fast when you needed to grapple up out of the line of fire.
I think even the casual gamer will like this as it has so much to offer. So many times fighting/shooter games are nothing but the same thing over and over. Arkham Asylum mixes it up. You can go all out melee or you can go stealth. You have to fight, but you also need to be a detective and look around for the clues. This is exactly how a Batman game has to be. This may even be the standard by which other games are measured.
RE: Video Game Review: Batman Arkham Asylum -
Posted on 24-09-2009 22:40
OK there is a bit of a Spoiler Alert ahead, but I wanted to know who else who has played this game thought the same thing.
This happens just before the first Scarecrow challenge when Batman is walking down a long hallucination induced hallway to where he becomes young Bruce Wayne at the scene of his parents murder. There is a voice over of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne and Thomas Wayne sounds a lot like Olan Soule who was the voice of Batman for the different Super Friends series from the late 70’s to early 80’s. Is Olan Soule’s voice in the video game?
Yes Olan is dead, he died in 1994, but maybe they used a portion of what he did from a Super Friends episode and that is what I hear in the game. Olan was the voice of Batman after Adam West and Olan has such a unique voice, I thought it was like an Easter Egg that they hid with a voice over from an actor who once did the voice for Batman. I’ve played the game twice and both times I swear it is him.
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