Batman Arkham Asylum: The Best Comic Game Ever
Nvidia chose this game as a free offering with one of its three top graphics cards and critics and gamers alike praise Arkham Asylum, a new action/adventure game about the famed caped crusader.
Based off of the original series of BATMAN comic books, ASYLUM begins as The Batman brings The Joker back to ARKHAM. Considering Rocksteady’s extremely limited pedigree, the amount of polish and detail present in Arkham Asylum is remarkable.
The Batman: Arkham Asylum opens as the Dark Knight and Commisioner Gordon return The Joker back into confinement at Arkham Asylum. But things soon fall apart as Thre Joker gains the upper hand and springs a trap, setting Arkham Asylum’s occupants upon Batman. The game offers gamers a taste of the fierce FreeFlow combat system, the cunning stealth of the Invisible Predator mechanic, and the feeling of becoming the world’s greatest detective as they navigate Arkham Asylum’s imposing Intensive Treatment facility. Players can unlock character bios, as well as get a sneak peak at some of the infamous foes that BATMAN will encounter within the cavernous and macabre confines of Arkham Asylum.
The real secret to Arkham Asylum’s appeal is instead of setting up a basic gameplay mechanic and repeating it until your thumbs fall off, this game jumps from hand-to-hand combat to stealth to detective work. The net result is that you never spend too long doing one thing, which helps fend off boredom.
The early moments make a remarkably strong first impression. Batman’s imposingly broad physique certainly calls to mind the exaggerated features of the comics more than any matinee idol, Mark Hamill’s voice-over work breathes the full spirit of insanity into the toothy green-haired mastermind.
Batman: Arkham Asylum excels when it comes to mood and audiovisual flourishes. Whether you’re stalking a deranged murderer in Arkham Mansion or piecing together the Joker’s true purpose in the Medical Facility, the most memorable corners of the island feel lived-in, even haunted. An outstanding musical score helps keep the tension from flagging even when the corridors and ventilation ducts start to blend together.
You’ve got a number of ways of neutralizing the roomfuls of gun-toting thugs you’ll often encounter — stringing them up by their feet on gargoyles overhead, swooping down on them and knocking them out, incapacitating them with explosive charges and pulling them off ledges are just a few possible outcomes. However, if you fail to mix up your strategies — or carelessly saunter into their field of vision — you will be shot. Most likely to death. Once you start executing these stealth segments with finesse, there’s no way to describe the exhilaration you feel as you effortlessly shatter the fragile bravado of a group of Joker’s lackeys. You almost feel bad for these nameless guards as their numbers begin to dwindle — especially once the unseen Joker begins to laughingly root against them.
Arkham Asylum offers up Challenge Modes, either to keep brawling and stealth-attacking or to polish your skills mid-game. The challenges allow you to check out your combat skills against leaderboards, or see who can clear a room full of shotgun-toting goons in the shortest amount of time. However, its usefulness is debatable. Although some will find plenty of fun in hitting the leaderboards with a vengeance, Challenge Mode undoes a lot of the magic of Arkham’s campaign. The reason that the game succeeds is due to the fluid transition between elements. Break them up, and it’s less fun. Again, some will enjoy the feature, but I’d rather start up another playthrough on Hard.
Game Price
You can get the game on Amazon.com for $51.99, eight dollars off the PS3 version’s regular price of $59.99. Considering that Amazon offers free shipping on all orders over $25, this is a pretty sweet deal.
PC : Arkham Asylum is scheduled for release for the PC on September 15, and will include Nvidia’s PhysX tech.