For those who are unaware I am a fan of Batman as a character mostly thanks to the 1992 Animated Series. Yet for some reason I had not played the critically acclaimed Arkham series of games released by rocksteady before they were forced to make Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. But enough of that slightly depressing downfall of a game studio’s reputation and now to talk about one of their most beloved games. Is there a lore reason why people think this game is good or am stupid.
In Batman Arkham Asylum you play as Batman last name Arkham Asylum as he arrests the Joker and drags him back to Arkham Asylum for what is probably the 16th time this week. After some Shenanigans Joker breaks free and starts running amok on the island and it’s up to the Dark Knight to track him down and put him in a jail cell yet again while also tackling his other enemies. You’ll be solving puzzles, fighting inmates and finding all other kinds of collectibles that somebody scattered around this highly guarded prison facility.
Of course this game that has you play as Batman as you venture through Batman Arkham Asylum beating up people and using your superpower of money to use advanced gadgets to beat up more criminals. The combat is really good even 15 years later, It’s fluid and every move you do from dodges, punches, rolls and finishers all feel really satisfying to do which is amazing.
There are also some great predator missions where you’re cast into a room with a bunch of enemies with guns who will not hesitate to pump your guts full of lead the second they see you. So in order to clear these guys out you’ll have to be sneaky and pick them off one by one. These are the best parts of the game for a reason because out of everything in the game they make you feel the most like Batman. Going around a large room from gargoyle to gargoyle or vent to vent if you’re into that stuff and slowly picking off goons one by one as their heartrate dramatically increases as you do so.
As for another section that Arkham Asylum is known for would be the scarecrow sections which are just fine. I vastly prefer the runup to these sections than the actual scarecrow platforming sections. Especially the final one where it kind of just jumps you out of nowhere which kind of scared me. But the actual sections were you’re in Scarecrows nightmare world are just fine, I didn’t particularly enjoy them nor hate them. I am glad they only did three of these and kept them spaced apart because it feels like if they did anymore of these it’d get old and repetitive.
Batman also has upgrades to upgrades his abilities which you can get upon level ups. These are pretty standard to be honest with stuff like more health, more combos and inverted takedowns which probably should have been unlocked since the start. These are honestly just pretty standard and aren’t anything too special apart from checking a box on the open world game checklist.
There are also a couple little collectibles you can pick up as you wonder around the Asylum. There are of course the infamous Riddler trophies which he somehow managed to hide around a highly guarded prison facility. These don’t really serve much of a purpose aside from getting to hear the Riddler verbally assault you every time you pick up one that was kind of in the open. I was very tempted to collect most of them to get the audio clip where he gets swatted by the police. There are also the interview tapes you get with some of the characters. It really adds a lot more depth and backstory to each of Batman’s villains that you wouldn’t get if these tapes weren’t added. There are some more collectibles like the riddles you get in each area and the Spirit of Arkham but I don’t have too much to say outside of the fact that the spirit of Arkham scared the life out of me because I genuinely didn’t know that it was in the game.
This game also has the majority of the Batman Animated Series voice cast returning to their roles which is great. Not only is this making me nostalgic but it means Kevin Conroy gets to be Batman and now I’m going to go off on a side tangent about why Kevin Conroy is the definitive voice of Batman. In the live action Batman movies a lot of the actors tend to deepen their voices to sound different/more intimidating which is fine. But Kevin Conroy manages to sound perfect. He didn’t really deepen his voice for when he played Batman, he instead gave a more intimidating tone for when he was Batman and had a more casual tone for when he was playing Bruce Wayne. We can argue who does the best live action Batman but for me the definitive voice of Batman will always be Kevin Conroy, May he Rest in Peace as well as Arleen Sorkin.
I think if I had to choose one fault with this game it’d be the bosses especially the final boss. Despite the actual combat feeling really good and intuitive that could not transfer over to the boss fights because most of them kind of suck. You don’t even get to fight most of Batman’s Rogue Gallery you just kind of fight a bunch of goons and then Batman arrests them in a cutscene. But the final boss is easily the most disappointing, before the fight the Joker takes some of the Titan formula which made me think we were going to be fighting a hulked out Joker as our final battle. What ended up transpiring was a glorified goon arena where you tangle with the Clown Prince of Crime for a little bit. It’s just disappointing more than anything else although I believe Arkham City and Arkham Knight improve on this issue by a lot, I cannot wait for that Mr Freeze boss fight.
Anyway that was Batman Arkham Asylum and while I don’t think it’s a perfect game I still enjoyed my time with it. As a Batman game it’s honestly really good at making you feel exactly like Batman which is especially impressive for a first shot. It’s just an all in all incredibly solid Batman game that I personally enjoyed very much. That’s been me for today so until next time don’t get cooked and stay off the hook.
Dragon In The Castle 