When Eidos and Rocksteady announced the new Batman game, I was filled with mixed emotions. Being a huge batman fan, it’s easy to say that I was elated, but at the same time, I feared that, like almost all the previous Batman games, it would not be able to do justice to the Dark Knight.

The previous batman game, which was based on the movie of the same name, Batman Begins was good, but not great. It was the first Batman game which incorporated Batman’s use of stealth and fear as a weapon, which was really good, but the game was flawed in many aspects and hence didn’t really turn out to be great.

The first teasers of Batman Arkham Asylum I saw, raised my expectations. But there was still some doubt. But now, having played the game, all doubts of this being a quality game has been removed. The game is awesome and does justice to the gritty and dark theme, presented in the comic books as well as the last movie.

The story is simple. Batman has captured his arch-nemesis Joker and has transported him to Arkham Asylum. While all would presume the situation to be hunky dory, Batman being his cynical self, smells a rat. His ‘Bat-Sense’ turns out to be accurate as Joker breaks free with the help of his girl Harley Quinn and escapes into the depths of Arkham, leaving a trail of death for Batman to follow.

All hell breaks loose as the inmates are freed. What follows is Batman’s fight to save Gotham City, the hostages within the Asylum and his atempt to spoil Joker’s master plan. Along this quest the Batman battles thugs, unarmed and armed, mutated giants and some old villainous faces — The Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, Bane — in Arkham.

The gameplay

The gameplay is divided into two part within the game (which can also played later in challenge mode). The first is fighting where Batman is attacked by a horde of goons. The controls are simple enough . A button to attack, a button to stun and a very useful button to counter an incoming attack when the player sees a ‘lightning like’ animation over the enemies head. This might seem a little too easy at first, but it gets harder as the game progresses and as the number of enemies increase. Later on in the game, you’ll encounter thugs carrying weapons (like a knife or a stunner and guns). In their case, you need to employ a slightly different tactics. Say hello to shadows, catch them unaware, attack from the back to name a few. More on the stealth aspect later.

The fighting mechanism works well and is extremely fluid. Moreover it looks as if the player is watching the action in a movie while playing simultaneously. The animation is detailed and I could forgive the few incidents where Batman missed the goon completely with a swing but still floored him.I like to call it bat magic

Another important aspect of the game is the stealth mode. Here Batman is put into a room filled with goons with weapons. Now we all know that Batman is unlike any other superhero, in the sense; he has no powers. Hence, when it comes to thugs with guns, Batman cannot go bash them up heads on. But what Batman has at his arsenal are his brains and his gadgets, along with his skills in terms of stealth and his reputation which instills fear into his ‘victims’.

All this has been taken into consideration when the stealth levels were conceptualised. What essentially happens is that Batman surveys his environment and threats from a vantage point, like a gargoyle. A press of a button trigger the view to switch to an infra red sort of a view called ‘Detective Mode’ where Bats can see his enemies through walls, see if they are armed, and also, get this, their heart rate. Here, the player needs to pick off his enemies one by one, without being detected. Don’t worry there are enough gargoyles in Arkham. As he eliminates his enemies, the level of fear instilled in the remainders increases. Once Batman picks off all but one bad guy, the last guy will be so scared that you can just jump in front of him and the victim will be too petrified to react.

This system works really well. The feeling when you pick off a bad guy without being noticed is really good. In case you are detected, you will be shot at, and all you can do is run, grapple onto a gargoyle and swing between them until they lose sight of you (which considering the fact that you could swing right in front of a thug, undetected, as long as you are in the air is a little unrealistic, but I’m not complaining). You might get out alive, but it will hurt your ego, nonetheless. But again, the system works well. All the stealth and picking off bad guys one by one without being detected makes you feel that you really are the Bat.

The Joker meanwhile will continue to tease you on the speaker phone and this adds to the feel of things. The conversation between the goons is even better. When Batman enters the room, the goons are confident, brash and cocky, which makes taking them out even more pleasurable. But things change once you begin to play with their heads. A slight sound can make the last few enemies start shooting wildly into nothingness. It gives the player a real essence of the Batman and fear and also gave me a sense of sadistic pleasure that I could mess with them so much.

At times, I didn’t even bother taking them out, but just kept throwing around stray batarangs to see a reaction. What also works well with the stealth mode is that you have so many options to take them down: Batrangs, Explosive Gels, falling debris and my personal favorite, the Inverted Takedown.

Of course, what would a Batman game be without the gadgets? And he has a lot of gadgets in his arsenal: Explosive Gel, Batarangs, Multi Batarangs, Sonic Batarangs, Remote Controlled Batrangs (yes!) and a handy device called the Bat-Claw. All of them work well. Also Batman’s cape can be used to stun enemies as well as glide a good distance. And there’s Detective mode, as I had mentioned before.

Detective Mode, as players will find is probably Batman’s most useful gadget, and will help him find clues and objects which he can use. The one problem I had found with Detective Mode is that, the user will have to use it for most part of the game, which is not a good thing considering that the user will be sacrificing the true graphic quality of the game while in that mode. I was also a tad disappointed that there was no Batmobile, but I didn’t really expect one as Arkham Asylum is a closed environment. Batmobile does makes a brief presence in the game, but then all you’re required to do is protect it from goons.

The game is a mixture of a linear game and a free flowing game. The game is linear as Batman has to follow a certain path for the story to progress, and doesn’t have missions to choose from. But at any time, Batman can deviate from this path to search for ‘Riddler Clues’, a bunch of clues and trophies which ‘The Riddler’ has hidden in different areas. The trophies can be found in normal vision but most clues can only be deciphered using Detective Mode. This gives the user a welcome change in pace of the game after beating up a bunch of bad guys or scaring the wits out of them. It also rewards the player with Character Bios, Models and Patient interview tapes, which make an interesting listen. Occasionally, the game breaks into what I’d like to call ‘Scarecrow Sequences’. These are brilliant!!! I will not get into details at risk of spoiling it for those who haven’t played the game, but they are out of this world.

Really graphic

Graphically the game scores well. The game has managed to capture the dark gritty environment of Arkham Asylum. One look at the Asylum and you can tell that this is a place with a dark past and a darker present. The character models are well done and even villains like Killer Croc look very realistic. Unfortunately, lip movements in the game should have been given a little more detailing, and proves to be a negative point in what sis otherwise a graphically sound game. Batman looks good except that his basic movements seem very stiff. But what really a treat graphically is the outdoor settings of the Asylum. All in all, the game looks beautifully disturbing, and is a visual treat, especially for fans of the comic book.

More brownie points

Another area where the game absolutely scores is in the voice acting department. Hats off to the producers of the game to get the real voice actors of the animated series into the game. Kevin Conroy, and the rest of the animated series cast, all do a brilliant job. But what really steals the show in this regard is Mark Hamill’s portrayal of the Joker. He has captured whatever Joker stands for in his voice acting. It is dark and sadistic which a hint of crappy humor. Hard to imagine he was once Luke Skywalker of Star Wars fame. Kudos to you, Mark.

Bashing time

This game is brilliant in every sense of the word. Well, almost. In spite of being such a good game, it is not without its flaws. The most notable flaw in the game are the boss battles. They get really repetitive, with Batman using a gadget, fighting a horde of goons, using the gadget again… and so on. The worse of these battles is the Killer Croc mission which really kills the mood of the game.

The Boss battles just don’t work, and kill the feel of the game which happens besides them. Another flaw of the game is the ending, which,  is not with the mood the game has set. But the most major flaw I found with this game is that it ends too quickly, or at least it seemed like that. Maybe the flaw is just that the game does come to an end.

Final Verdict: Must Play

But all the flaws mentioned above does not stop Batman: Arkham Asylum from being a great game. It is a must play game for fans of the Dark Knight, and it is a game which will make players fans of him, if they are not already. It is the best Batman game ever made, and dare I say it, the greatest superhero game of all time. Watch out for the story, the action, the stealth mode, the graphics and most notably the Scarecrow sequences in the game. I am already looking forward to the sequel (and praying that the refrain from bringing Robin into the game), and trust me there will be a sequel. So to those who haven’t played the game yet, Don your capes and cowls and go and be The Batman.

Rating: 4.5/5