I was lucky enough to procure a copy of Arkham Asylum on its release date, and I've summarily thrashed it about, in the best interest of you-my readers. And now, put on your cape and cowl, Joker's gotten loose in the Asylum... It's up to you to stop him, yet again.
We've been through a plethora of Dark Knight games, and they're pretty much all abysmal. Some manage to rise to mediocre, but that's about as far as they go. Let me tell you, that is not the case here. The premise is much the same, but it's the execution that carries this one-and buries it.
Simply put, the game drops you in the shoes of Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy, philanthropist and certified, armor-plated ass-beater. You've just apprehended the Joker, and you're tasked with taking him to Arkham Asylum (again) and making sure he is incarcerated safely. If it all went well, we wouldn't have a game, and so you'll be pulling on the utility belt and going to beat the living daylights out of everything that moves. And I do mean everything.
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There's a lot of these trophies out there...
Be the Bat, Bruce
Combat is at the same time childishly simple and mind-numbingly complex. It's left click-left click-left click most of the time, with a right click for a counter thrown in or a middle click for stun, with a left control+right click for a takedown or two. What that simple series translates into on the screen would make John Woo offer up a testicle. Batman flips, rolls, spins, and uses some of the most brutal moves in some of the most unique combinations-VERY seldom do you see the same move in the same fight. The variety is a relief, and once you get him to rolling or flipping with Special Combos, it's even a tactical thing, choosing this guy over that to keep your combo multi up. Upgrades will offer throws, takedowns and other goodies to make your score rise even higher.
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The detail is impressive, and I told you about the trophies
Boss battles, however, are a bit more of an interesting affair. While some have zero combat, most not only pit you against the boss but also henchmen and sometimes even the environment. This can be an exercise in frustration. I did nearly owe myself a new G15 a few times from the last few battles. If you use them right, the henchmorons raise your combo multi, letting you hit the big baddie harder, but mostly the extra targets just anger you. Also, the bosses all have a certain way to defeat them, and it's not always instantly evident. It's often hard, but then again, you're a powerless guy in armor versus someone like Bane-it's your brain, not your brawn that decides this.
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Whatever happened to lockpicks?
Speaking of, much of the game is about that magnificent brain of the Bat. There's Detective Mode, which is used not only to advance the game but also to spy on henchmen, find weak walls for explosives, or capture evidence. With enemies like these, there's almost no end to its uses. Especially as Edward Nygma, otherwise known as Mr. E. Nygma or The Riddler, has seeded Arkham with riddles, trophies, challenges, and just plain inside jokes. Detective mode is essential to finishing the Riddler Challenges-which are incidentally necessary to get all upgrades, and so on and so forth. It's all an interrelated narrative-just like a good Batman comic.
I've heard that line before
And if you have, then you were a fan of the animated series alongside me. The entire cast has reprised their roles, with good old Luke Skywalker himself as the voice of the Joker. While the voice acting harkens back to the animated series, the visuals are much more Dark Knight. The art of Arkham Asylum is stunning, and you can crawl, glide, and grapnel gun over almost every square inch of it. To everyone in the art department-go buy yourself a beverage of your choice, and tell them it's on me. Ignore the quizzical stares.
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Completely normal behavior, they assure me
If the art looks like The Dark Knight, the fighting is its first-born child. It's brutal, sickening and looks so real sometimes it's scary. I had to take off my headset and push away once, because I had to dangle over a sheer drop-and I'm afraid of heights. I had become so engrossed in the game, I had started to identify myself with Batman. Last time I was THAT into a game, it was FFVIII.
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Bit players get a nod too
Adding to the level of realism is the sound quality-not just the music, but the sound effects, and the bit character voices. I'm sure you'll get tired of listening to a few of the grunt sound clips over and over, but as a whole, the sound is an immersive experience. It's been enough to make me take off the headset and breathe a few times. It's not a soundtrack I would purchase to listen to, such as Voices from the Lifestream but as a musical backdrop to the action, it's one of the most fitting I've ever heard.
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"There was a firefight!"
It's little surprise then, that if it looks like a Bat, it hits like a Bat, and it sounds like a Bat, it's probably a decent imitation of a Bat. And to be honest, it feels like a Bat. I really do get into the action, swearing along, taunting my foes, cheering when I succeed at something ridiculously difficult. My wife wasn't even wearing the headset and she was leaning on the back of my chair, holding on white-knuckle tight as she watched me navigate a sewer complex-trust me, the level of immersion is very high. I'm never disappointed with anything that lets me treat the environment like a jungle gym.
Walk a mile in his (armored) shoes
So, I slogged through sewers, jumped from pinnacles, and scoured the insides of all the buildings. I answered riddles, dispatched bad guys with EXTREME prejudice, and in the end saved Gotham one more time. At the end of the game, how did it feel?
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Every puddle in there ripples, too.
Well, let me split that answer up for you. The answer is more complicated than it ought to be.
If I judge Arkham Asylum on gameplay, it left me feeling very satisfied-I almost wanted to take up smoking again, because I needed a cigarette after that game. For years and years, I've been playing superhero games that were utter trash, hoping each would be better than the last. That day has come. If the only score I gave it was gameplay, it would be something like a 5760/5. Mostly, because admittedly I am a huge fan of Batman. But also becase this game drew me in and made me keep playing until I had beaten that grinning idiot into the ground. If I wasn't playing, I was talking about playing. If I wasn't talking about playing, I was planning my next moves. I've had few games that good in my life. Most of them were true RPGs. Most of the time, in fact, I won't play a game with any kind of first/third person perspective, especially not one based on action. I'm a storyline kind of person. However, something like my once-a-year ritual of eating an entire box of chocolates, and staying sick for three days afterwards, I HAD to do it, but I don't feel guilty afterwards.
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That's a nice picture, Jim
However, I ran into two things that you will as well, and I'll warn you about them, and I'll mention one more that's a minor niggle, but you'll probably want to know too.
First is the nVidia Physx settings. While we all get Ambient Occlusion on PC (eat that, 360/PS3) only nVidia graphics cards get realistic fog, smoke and breaking tiles/stuff. And that's only 8 series or better. So that's a tiny percentage of gamers that get to look at the visuals (which are impressive looking, even if they don't really alter gameplay,) and what's even more upsetting is the fact that it's an artificial limitation-the game has its own separate physics engine. Tied to this is the fact that AA is also artifically limited to nVidia only-it's been confirmed that renaming the .exe will allow the application to process antialiasing correctly-and allowing for much better play experience on ATi cards. To me, it's kinda like cheating, though I will concede that Physx has its place, and the choice was always there to go with Havok middleware instead.
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Construction like this is why we have escapes
Masses of money were spent by nVidia for the exclusivity, and as far as I can tell, ATi (AMD) didn't spend any optimizing. As much as I feel like it's penalizing players, it's not Eidos and Rocksteady that's doing it. As it's more hardware vendors, I'm docking no points for that choice. It's unfair to blame them for the ongoing squabble between graphics card manufacturers.
Also incredibly annoying, and this time gameplay affecting, is Games for Windows Live (GWFL.) Welcome to facepalm generation central. Technically, they want you to sign in to GFWL every time you play, for leaderboards and such, as well as DLC. While this is a great concept, it falls flat on its face-cause it won't update, or work properly, or even pretty much work. I got around it by creating an offline profile-my Xbox Live ID won't finish updating, even after a few hours. While once again that's annoying-and this time practically inexcusable-at least there's a way around it, by creating an offline profile. There were many reports of simply being unable to play because GFWL wouldn't update. Offline profiles fixed all of them, though my special DLC for pre-ordering is locked away until I can fix this issue.
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Foreshadowing a sequel?
GFWL is used as a method of DRM for the PC platform, but it also carries SecuRom DRM as well-which I'm sure that will raise the hackles of many a gamer. Once again, legitimate gamers are punished for the actions of pirates-who can't even finish the game thanks to a cunning trick. Fail a disc check, the cape won't open, you suffocate and die. Appropriate. Why throw not one but two more types of DRM on there-and if you order off Steam, there's THREE! More isn't better, guys.
Last, though in the list of gripes is the control setup. It's really geared toward a controller. Keyboard and mouse is just a bit wonky. It normally only shows up in boss battles, where camera movement is fixed, but that's the worst place for it to show up. However, it's not impossible, it's not so bad the game can't be beaten-it's just slightly less responsive. Just to repeat, this is not a game breaker. It's just annoying.
If the planet was equitable, I'd still have my old job
So if this were fair, I wouldn't have to write this part. I'm really of two minds about this game. On the one hand, the gameplay is incredible. If I had to judge it on this alone, it would get Game of the Year. I've never played a game exactly like it, which is a compliment. It's gorgeous, gritty, brutal, and twisted. It's like the grown-up fulfillment of everything we wanted to see in Batman: The Animated Series. Or what would happen if The Dark Knight humped a server rack. But, the problem is that the gameplay isn't the whole story.
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Stop and smell the flowers, if they don't bite too bad
We also get saddled with a GPU vendor fight, LOTS of DRM (even more if you purchase through Steam) and controls that twitch sometimes. To be perfectly honest, a lot of that isn't the vendor's fault: it's choices that, while made in development, were ultimately in the hands of the hardware vendors. GFWL is technically a third-party application, and there are people that are able to get it to work, so there's hope there. And the controls are not so broken that nothing can be done-at worst, grab a 360 controller for the PC.
In closing, instead of bullet points, the tl;dr is this. Pretty much nothing beats tearing the Joker's thugs a new set of eliminatory orifices. It's a tight, well-crafted game that shines through all the issues that plague it-if you're a fan of Batman. If you're not, it's a completely enjoyable action game, but you may want to decide for yourself if it's worth it to put up with the issues it brings.
In closing, I award Batman: Arkham Asylum for PC a 5/5. There's still never been a better Batman game for any platform. The only thing I was left wanting was some of that explosive gel-I'd never get out of trouble, but I could have so much fun with that stuff... A special thanks to Louis Essman, Jody Spann and Stephen Benfield for their input on the differences between 360 and PC.
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