Batman: Arkham Asylum review

Batman has taken the Joker back to Arkham Asylum, Gotham City's stronghold for the criminally insane, after his latest escape. Sensing something is off, he doesn't feel right unless he walks the Joker to the cell himself. It transpires that he's playing right into the hateful harlequin's (and Harley Quinn's) hands, as the Joker has managed to take over the entire facility, unleashing its brutal inhabitants on the Bat. What follows is pretty much one of Bruce Wayne's worst nights ever.Finding something to start gushing about is difficult, as there's so much worth praising, the English language doesn't have enough variations of the word "fantastic" to do it justice. Everything Batman does in the comics and films, you do here. You beat up thugs, you string people up by their ankles, you use your mind and gadgets to do some detective work, and you out-think some of your opponents rather than out-fight them. Unable to fit neatly into a single genre, fans have created a new one for it: Batman Simulator.After the excellent interactive opening, the first thing you'll be doing is fighting. Let it be known that you will not 'get' the combat straight away; it will seem simple, considering you have a whole three buttons to work with, but the idea is to get into a rhythm of countering and attacking, skillfully avoiding and methodically downing enemies. It's about being efficient, not overwhelming your foes with brute force. Put simply, it's about being the Batman. You can walk into a room and take on twenty guys who could hurt and kill you by sheer weight of numbers, but thanks to this delightfully simple control system, you can hurt them more.The X button does the actual fighting, while Y counters, and B stuns. A counter-attack can be activated mid-combo, seamlessly joining one animation into another, whenever a warning icon appears over your attacker's head. Say you're in the middle of delivering a roundhouse kick to one goon, while his buddy approaches carrying a pipe. As he's about to strike, a quick tap of Y will grab the pipe and shove it in the offender's gut before tossing it aside (for someone else to pick up), allowing you to punish him for daring to come near you with it. Now imagine that, but in a room of ten people, and they all want a crack at the Bat. Once you get into the flow of it and pay attention, you can take them all on without taking a single hit, and you'll look absolutely awesome doing so.Guns present a problem, however, because while you'll feel invincible taking on twenty unarmed guys, if one of them manages to get their hands on a firearm, you're doomed (some of them attempt to break open weapons lockers, so take them out first). Tough as he is, Batman cant punch out a bullet, and this is where the stealth element comes in. Certain areas will need to be cleared of armed guards, and they've handily got some stone gargoyles to hang onto, vents to hide in, and other areas good for skulking. You can be sneaky and try and take out enemies silently, or put the fear of God into them and take them out in a variety of noisy ways, such as stringing their mates up by the legs, or blowing up the weakened section of the floor they're standing on.While straight combat makes you feel like the Batman who can simply walk into a room full of violent criminals and walk out with barely a scratch, this makes you feel like the Batman who can also break in and out of somewhere without being seen, and the Batman who scares the daylights out of Gotham's criminal element. Because, if you do it right, you'll actually see the current survivors of your ninja ways find their fallen comrades and physically start panicking, firing their guns at every little noise. You can even use Batman's new 'Detective Vision' to monitor their heartrate, which sky-rockets on the lone thug left in the room.Speaking of the Detective Vision, this finally brings an aspect of the character that has gone ignored for years in games, namely that Batman is 'The World's Greatest Detective'. Rocksteady addresses this by having Batman perform ad-hoc CSI investigations at certain points, so he can track down the Joker and his entourage of nut jobs. For example, early on in the game you have to track down a particular guard who has been bought off by the Joker. He is seen drinking a flask of whiskey during the opening scene, so a scan of the area reveals traces of alcohol floating in the air, and a quick calibration lets you follow this trail right to him. You also use the Detective Vision in conjunction with other gadgets you acquire through the game to find routes to previously unavailable areas. It reveals weakened walls, wires leading to security consoles you need to hack into, and perhaps more importantly, hidden collectibles.Not only does the Dark Knight have the Joker, Scarecrow and Bane to contend with in physical confrontations, he's being mentally challenged by habitual clue-leaver, Edward Nigma, aka The Riddler. He's hidden 240 items and riddles around the Asylum and he wants you to try and find them. Some of these are simple collectibles, like the amusing and revelatory tape interviews with the Asylum inmates (or at least the ones with voice actors). Others are actual riddles that you need to look for a certain part of the environment to solve. Solving them unlocks various things, such as levels for the game's challenge mode, character bios and interviews, as well as the history of Arkham Asylum. They're actually pretty fun to solve and find, and the more you solve the more convinced the Riddler becomes that you're cheating; his voice becoming more agitated as you get closer to solving them all. The fact that some of the riddles you come across cannot be solved until much later in the game (when you've unlocked the required gadget to get to them) also leads to some Metroid-like back-tracking, which is where the free-roaming nature of the asylum comes from.But, quite frankly, the game is far more than the sum of its parts. Every area has so much work put into it, it should be an example to every developer who keeps shoving out half-baked movie license games. The graphics are stunning, really capturing the dark and gloomy nature of the asylum; the voice acting is superlative, roping in Animated Series mainstays Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin and, of course, Mark Hamill for the Joker. Hamill steals the show, with his voice perfectly putting into words Joker's cracked view on life, coming up with both scary and amusing moments such as mocking/threatening the guards as they're stealthily taken out, or mocking Batman after certain plot points. Everyone puts in a great performance.Batman: Arkham Asylum is one of the most memorable and enjoyable games this year, and has parts that will stick in gamers' minds for years to come (Gamestyle's personal favourites include every encounter with the Scarecrow). There's only really one aspect of it that could have used more work, that being the boss battles, the final one being a particular let down. You only really have two proper boss battles where you directly attack the foe, and they're really enjoyable. We can see what they were trying to do with others, particular the Killer Croc battle, but it would have been nice to actually physically fight Harley Quinn and others rather than just a gauntlet of minions. But that feels like nit-picking and doesn't come close to taking the shine off the final product.Everything has been crafted with love, and some proper hard graft has gone in to it. Simply put, you have to play Batman: Arkham Asylum to be reminded why you love games in the first place.