Batman Arkham Asylum Review

(Written by Dan Milhous, aka "Comic Book Guy" ) I’m sure I’m not the first to suggest this, but I would like to nominate Batman: Arkham Asylum for Game of the Year. Now I realize the year is not over yet and there are still some great games yet to be released, but at least when it comes to the single-player experience, in the end I’m confident this one will still take the cake. And I’m not just saying that as a fan of the superhero genre. It’s true that this is by far the best comic book hero game to come out in a long time, but more than that it’s simply a great game for anyone who is a fan of games.

This game stands out for several reasons. The first is that there are very few if any aspects of this game that are not fun to play. Most games, even good ones, usually have one or two components that are either frustratingly difficult or annoyingly repetitive. That’s not the case with Arkham Asylum. Everything from the combat system, to the boss fights and exploration all work really well. Yes, you may have to revisit areas you’ve already been to find more Riddler puzzles after you’ve acquired new gadgets, but you won’t really mind because the environment is so well designed. And the free-flow combat system is only boring if you simply button mash and never try to learn new moves. Learning to chain moves together is relatively simple compared to other games, which is a lot of fun.

I think most of that quality can be attributed to my second reason, which is the fact that this game was not rushed. Usually games based on multi-billion dollar franchises end up being crap because they’re either rushed to coincide with the release of a film, or just simply aren’t taken very seriously at all since the studio is expecting to sell the game based solely on the movie hype. But that is not the case here. Before Arkham Asylum was announced, I had been excited about a rumored open-world sandbox game based on The Dark Knight, which got canceled and that’s probably for the best since we got this one instead. That’s not to say this game had no deadline (I imagine such a thing is extremely rare in the entertainment industry) but since they weren’t racing against a film’s production, I’m sure the developers had a lot more say in setting a time frame that was sufficient for them to do everything right.

Another thing that time gave them was the ability to pay extremely close attention to detail. They knew they didn’t want to just make a fun Batman game, but one that would appeal to Batman fans on an even deeper level. Throughout the beautifully designed environments are dozens of references to Batman’s large rogue gallery ranging from the well-known (Mr. Freeze, Penguin) to the obscure (Calendar Man, Humpty Dumpty). They even got the voice talent from the popular 90’s Batman: The Animated Series, which is awesome because while it may be voice only, I still think Mark Hamill is my favorite portrayal of the Joker yet.

Not to spoil anything, but in the end there appears to be a hint to a possible sequel which I hope happens. Although it might not be as fun if it takes place on Arkham Island again so hopefully they’ll move the setting to Gotham proper (fingers crossed).

So Batman fan or not, this is a game that I think every gamer will enjoy. I don’t really have the ability to play a game straight though, but this game sure made me want to try. And that’s why I think it deserves some consideration for Game of the Year.