I think I've been promising little reviews and neglecting to actually post them.


Batman: Arkham Asylum

While Batman, dark in nature, generally, is a detective and all that good stuff, the game chooses to bring out the best in Batman's detective-type skills and some of the darker sides throughout the game. It definitely has it's spooky and grotesque or disturbing moments and they aren't afraid to throw in a few dirty words (i.e ass, hell, bitch... nothing much more) and a bit of exposed under flesh of villains/henchmen running about. The story is rather simple, not too stupid and not too clever and you get your wide variety of fun little abilities to choose from.

First off, I am not a follower of the comic book series, but from the game alone, I learned a truckload of info by soliving all of Riddler's riddles and finding all of his trophies. If there is a single character in any Batman comic book, that character has earned it's own gallery biogrpahy into this game. Hell it's got villains I've never even heard of.

Anyway, the story starts with Batman rushing to Arkham Asylum, the Joker in the back of the batmobile giggling and murmuring some inaudible insanity. Upon arrival, Batman informs Gordon how pitifully easy it was to arrest Joker and he thought something was fishy. In a rather pitiful escape attempt, (that succeeds...) The Joker frees himself and does well to quickly take over the entire asylum with the help of Harley Quinn. Obviously, the objective of the game is to track down Joker and take him down or whatever... later on some cracked out steroids that Bane is so used to gets manufactured into something called Titan. So... you see and face a good handful of villains, though unfortunately, Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, and The Riddler never make an appearance, however the Riddler speaks to you and gives you riddles and other miscellaneous things to solve. Among the villains you do see, (not saying if you fight them or not) are Dr. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow), The Joker (Obviously), Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Clayface, and Poison Ivy.

The gameplay is smooth for a third-person-over-the-shoulder-shooter game. You get fancy gadgets, detective vision, batarangs, some foam bomb shit, a hookshot and some other stuff. The game requires you to be as stealthy as inhumanly possible in several areas. If you're not careful, you get shot down much quicker than you like. There's a neat little challenge extra you can do, playing as Batman, or if you beat the game, Armored Batman. They all depend on being stealthy or defeating as many enemies as possible in the least amount of time and getting the most amount of points. If you get the PS3 version, you get exclusive Joker Challenges, where it's virtually the same thing, only you play as The Joker himself... and he makes a bit of a joke out of the guards, hence his name.

The graphics are beautifully constructed and the more CG effects are damn-near real looking. It's very impressive how they managed it and in my opinion, is one of the best looking games to date. My only disappointment is after beating it on the hardest difficulty, it has very little replay value.

Gameplay: 9.5/10
Graphics: 10/10
Story: 8/10
Overall: 9/10

Definitely check into it if you're a Batman fan and even if you aren't a fan of Batman, at least rent it. It's worth it.