Batman: Arkham
Asylum is an example of a game done right. It’s a combination action adventure
game with a focus on stealth combat, puzzle solving, and creatively navigating
gothic structures with the use of cool tools like the Bat grapple. The premise
of the game involves recapturing the Joker after his recent escape from Arkham
Asylum, an island based mental institution that holds plenty of the more famous
Batman villains. One does wonder about the notion of bringing someone who
recently escaped back to the place he escaped from, especially when it lines up
with a huge transfer of bad guys from Blackgate Prison. Could this all be part
of a plan the Joker has brewing where he’ll escape, unleashing the villains
there, and using some of Arkham’s darkest secrets to continue his goal of
saving the city, mostly by destroying it?
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| Yeah…that sounds about right. |
While your
ultimate goal is to stop the Joker, which takes place in steps involving you
hunting down and saving other individuals, like getting some doctor because she
is the only one that has a key to this place you need to go, you’ll encounter
some of the more memorable villains from the Batman franchise along the way.
Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and the Scarecrow are all enemies you’ll
take on more directly, but they are not the only nemeses you’ll come across.
There is a whole side mission going on where you uncover hidden collectibles,
placed there by the Riddler, which reveal background information about many of
the characters in the franchise, and generally fill out the experience so it
feels much less focused on the Batman vs. Joker rivalry.
Encounters with
major characters usually come in the form of boss fights, and generally mark
some huge progress event whereby you got the item you needed to finish
exploring an area, defeat the boss, and then unlock some new area. Really,
think of the way the Zelda franchise works, and you’ve pretty much nailed it,
only instead of getting the Mirror Shield or Bow and Arrow, you’re getting something
called the Cryptographic Sequencer or Bat-Zipline. The rest of the time you’ll
be fighting those Blackgate Prison goons that the Joker so elegantly got
transferred. They come in several varieties, starting with unarmed, firearm
equipped, stun baton wielding, and knife wielding. Each enemy requires a
different method of attack, such as the stun baton enemies that cannot be
attacked from the front, or the knife wielding enemies that must be stunned
before they can be taken down. With the exception of the firearm equipped
enemies, you’ll usually find yourself faced with a dozen or so bad guys at
once. Here Batman’s gymnastic training and superior athletic ability really
comes in handy.
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| You can’t just go around punching every enemy in the face, gliding from one to the other, when they start bringing knives and stun batons to a fist fight. Or they are mutated brutes. Though you can use one against the other. |
You’ll have to
flip over enemies to get behind them, snap your cape at them stun or disorient,
and quickly Pow-Smash-Bang your way from one enemy to another to keep the lot
of them on their toes enough that they do not attack you. Depending on the
setting you pick when you start out the game, enemies will have a warning
notification that they are about to attack. That is your cue to counter.
Countering is less like Assassin’s Creed here, where it was instantaneous and
somewhat overpowered, and more like Sleeping Dogs, where timing is incredibly
important, as countering too early throws off your attack sequence, and
countering too late means you get more than a little smacked around. Fighting
in this game is very acrobatic, as you’ll have to dodge from one enemy to the
other, spreading the pain about. If you’re good at doing this you’ll start a
combo string.
Combos are good
for a couple of things. The first is that the higher your combo score, the more
XP you’ll gain at the end of the fight. Yep, this game has a leveling mechanic
that is based on how smoothly you can handle yourself in a little melee. The
second reason, which is related to the first, is how combos start to unlock the
use of special abilities, which you unlock with a bit of XP. The ability to
throw an enemy, or perform an instant takedown (as opposed to the longer, drawn
out few hits, enemy falls, enemy gets back up, few more hits, etc.) to finish
enemies faster. Upgrades from enough XP can even allow you to use combos
earlier in the chain, which turns out to be really nice if you’ve found it
difficult to time your counters or make sure you’re using the proper attack for
the proper enemy.
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| Uninterrupted combos, variation, instant take downs - all good things for a higher score. Yay bonus XP! |
The upgrades you
can unlock from combat benefit more than just your combat abilities, though things
like increased health are certainly useful in those situations. About 40% of
your upgrades impact available Bat-Gadgets (is that the official term?). One of
the earlier things you’ll gain access to is Explosive Gel. Mostly it’s used to
take down weak sections of wall, giving you a new path to progress. It’s also a
great tool when attempting to quietly take down a room full of bad guys, since
you can put a little gel down in an enemy’s path and blow it up when they get
near. Upgrading the Explosive Gel, or combining it with a few other abilities
and other upgrades, makes it even better. For example, you can place multiple
gels down at once, effectively placing many different traps. When upgraded, you
can detonate each one individually, letting you take down one enemy, which will
act as bait for a second or third. Add to this an additional upgrade that
automatically detonates the gel when an enemy walks over it, and your work just
got a lot easier.
Explosive Gel is
one of my favorite items to use when stealth is critical. The game feels like
it’s split about 2-1 between melee heavy combat, since Batman is a boy scout
that never uses lethal weapons, and stealth heavy silent take downs. The way
the stealth portions of the game work is actually kind of cool. You’ll enter a
large room, such as the asylum’s library, and discover that there are a half
dozen armed prisoners patrolling the area. While, in a one on one scenario, you
can take out one of these goons, if you actually attempt that with multiple
enemies nearby you’ll find yourself pretty quickly mowed down by everyone
you’re not actively punching in the face. This means it’s time for a little one
on one stealth action.
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| Gargoyles inside a building. Sure, nothing seems off about that architectural choice. |
As you glide
from one gargoyle to another, or slink through vents or grates in the floor,
looking for that lone guard and the perfect time to strike, you’ll find you
have more than a few options to silently take down an enemy. Explosive Gel
works, as I’ve already covered, and while it’s a good trap setting method, you
might want to consider some of these other strategies. Hang from the underside
of a gargoyle, and when an enemy passes beneath you, quickly zip down, grab
him, and leave him strung up for all his buddies to see. If you haven’t
unlocked that ability yet, maybe you just want to sneak up behind someone,
either gliding around where they won’t see you or by popping out of a vent, and
perform a silent take down via strangulation. If you want to get a little
louder, you can always glide kick someone, and then move in while he is down to
knock him out. It all sounds easy, right?
Of course, the
Joker knows how you work, and he’s gotten his hand on some of the toys and
tools stockpiled around the asylum. The most common thing you’ll run into is a
prisoner with a collar on. That collar makes a bunch of noise if the prisoner
wearing it is knocked out, which will very, very quickly draw the attention of
anyone else in the room, meaning you’ll have to make a series of hit and runs
if you don’t want to be immediately discovered and shot to death, which most
people would agree is generally a bad thing. If you do get discovered, you’ll
want to head between different gargoyles as fast as you can to lose the prisoners.
However, that’s not always a viable option either, as sometimes the gargoyles
get rigged with explosives that will blow up anytime you land on one,
relegating you to crawl through vents and sneak through hallways, maybe trying
to time an explosive on the floor so you fall onto an enemy bellow, which you
can see with the proper scanner.
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| Detective Mode gives you a ton of information you otherwise wouldn’t have, such as unlocking an X-Ray like view of your surroundings or allowing you to track a specific individual’s handprints so you know exactly where they’ve been. |
Now, if you’ll
allow me the time, I’d like to go on a brief, anti-Batman rant, because that
guy has got some seriously misplaced priorities. When you think about it, with
the amount of guards and other innocents that died as a result of Batman’s
unwillingness to kill, or at the very least, allow an unfortunate accident like
falling off the top of a building, thus removing Joker as a threat is a bit of
a major flaw. Sure, you can scream about Batman adhering to his principles, or
the idea that no one should be judge, jury, and executioner, but try telling that
to generic guard number 43’s family? Can such platitudes heal the loss of a
father, husband, and friend? Besides, utilizing the utilitarian school of
ethics, the small amount of pain suffered by the Joker, or even Batman with his
own internal struggles, is superseded by the gain experienced by everyone else
by simply being, you know, alive. Sorry, just something I’ve wanted to get off
my mind ever since playing the game, or perhaps since seeing Heath Ledger
dangling from a building at the end of The Dark Knight. Plus, I kind of wanted to make sure I could plant the word utilitarian in this review somewhere, after thinking about Batman's belt for a few pages.
Back to the
game. Batman: Arkham Asylum makes for a great time. It is a well-crafted
balance between the more time consuming stealth parts, the melee heavy sections
that toss in a few extra obstacles like electric floors or gigantic Bane like
enemies, varied boss fights, and a pretty large island to explore. Once again,
the Zelda comparison feels pretty apt, particularly if I were to point to
Ocarina of Time, which works, because I kind of love that whole style of game
where you can make your progress in noticeable chunks as you access new areas,
yet still need the new gear you found in those areas to go back and unlock the
last few secrets in previous places. I put 15 hours into the game, and while I
did manage a 100% completion on the story side (take that Riddler, you and your
stupid hidden items), that only amounted to 84% completion over all, given the
additional challenges this game has, at least in the GOTY edition, which is
pretty much what you’ll be getting at this point. Overall, this Batman game is
a worthy investment, with plenty for the action adventure fan to enjoy. You can
probably pick it up on sale for $5 or so, but even $10 wouldn’t be a bad deal
(just not the best), because in the end, all those gadgets, secrets, upgrades,
and enemies, even the ones that feel a bit redundant at times, make this game
an 9 out of 10.
So, the final
breakdown:
Score: 9/10Suggested Price: $5-10
*****
For more Batman:
Arkham Asylum, check out this collection of screenshots otherwise unused in
this review. Click on any one for a large image.
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