I don't get Batman. Some guy murders his parents, so he decides to become a vigilante and make amazing weapons and gadgetry with the millions of dollars he inherited. If he really wanted to help crack down on crime, surely he would become Gotham City's biggest police equipment contractor, rather than beating up crooks in a stupid outfit? Imagine a whole police force of Batmen... *shudder*
It's obvious why Batman does it. His wealth and power has given him the most massive superhero ego ever. In his mind, only he can stop nefarious evil-doers with his superior detective abilities. What a tool.
So now we have another game based on this clown. The basic story is that the Joker has planned a take over of Arkham Island by having all his incarcerated gang members transferred to Arkham right before he deliberately gets caught by Batman. It's a fair enough plot, until the opening scene when Joker pretty much spells out his plan to Batman. Superior detective skills, my arse.
The whole scene itself is pretty awful. It's a 5 minute trek from the gates of Arkham Asylum to the point Joker breaks out. It's another instance of a game trying to keep the player involved when it's completely unnecessary. A minute long cutscene would be suited better than watching Batman amble at the pace of a sloth on barbiturates.
We then get a glimpse of Killer Croc, whose dialogue might as well just have been "I'm going to be a boss later raaaarrrgh!". He's also unaccompanied in a lift. How does anyone on that island think letting a 16ft monster, with teeth bigger than my hand, walk around on his own in rusty manacles is a good idea? Seriously, they would have deserved it if they all got eaten.
After sleeping through that intro, I got to actually play the game. Initially it's a fun mix of progression puzzles, hand to hand combat and stealth. The open nature of the game lends itself to the detective aspect of Batman's persona as well. However, the game pretty much cheats you of using intuition with the inclusion of "Detective Mode", an overlay on Batman's vision flat out telling you what things are. It even lets you see people through multiple walls. In essence, Batman goes through life with debug mode on.
When our man isn't fighting thugs, hiding on one of about 4 million gargoyles around Arkham or being a "detective", he's usually in a vent somewhere. For a place that wants to keep people from escaping they sure are big on vents large enough for a person to climb through that bypass most of their security systems.
That's another thing. Almost every objective is blocked by an "unhackable" electric fence at some point. The fact that they're unhackable makes it obvious that they're just an arbitrary diversion to add length to the mission. God forbid Batman use his explosive gel to destroy them. You do get a device later that can disable them (so much for unhackable), then they just move the fence controls to somewhere that's blocked by the fence you want to disable.
Once you start getting into the later stages of the game, it becomes a rather repetitive slog between infrequent boss encounters. It usually features a combination of find evidence, scan evidence, follow evidence trail, beat up on grunts on the way, crawl in several hundred vents, arrive at your destination, fight grunt hopped up on crazysauce. When you're not doing one of these things, you can bet you're in a Scarecrow hallucination.
These levels are confusing. I really can't see much of a point for them except for them being fan service. If Scarecrow was a major part of the plot, then these stages would hold more weight, but as it is it's just some asshole doping you up randomly to annoy you.
The stages themselves are pretty tedious, having to avoid Scarecrow's gaze before reaching a floodlight to blast him which makes you recover from the effects of the drug. What I did enjoy was some of the subtle mindfuckery that happened before each stage. At one point you go into a morgue from a normal corridor, go back out through the same door you just came in into... the morgue again. Those moments were great. If the drug was more of that, they would have been some of my favourite parts of the game. As they were, they were out of place and just padding for the story.
All of his leads up to the final showdown with Joker. I didn't really know what to expect in terms of a finale before playing the game, seeing as Batman is about four times the size of Joker. What I did expect was better than what it ended up being. What it turned out to be was a mass brawl between Batman and a load of goons that he had been destroying since the beginning of the game. The only instances of actually fighting Joker came down to pulling him off a ledge with the batclaw and punching him when he gets stuck in the floor. Do that 3 times and well done, you've beaten the game.
No other forms, no multiple attacks, just waves and waves of goons. It's a shame because Joker was the best character by far. Why is it that Batman always gets overshadowed by his enemies? Probably because we know he's just an egomaniacal rich boy, who doesn't want anyone to touch his toys, but wants everyone to watch him play with them.
While the game is decent, it's not great. The hand to hand mechanics are great, which would have been disastrous had they been bad, and the open world of Arkham Asylum is awesome in it's Gothic charm. The repetitive gameplay and anticlimactic end spoil a game that could have been really good.
It's obvious why Batman does it. His wealth and power has given him the most massive superhero ego ever. In his mind, only he can stop nefarious evil-doers with his superior detective abilities. What a tool.
So now we have another game based on this clown. The basic story is that the Joker has planned a take over of Arkham Island by having all his incarcerated gang members transferred to Arkham right before he deliberately gets caught by Batman. It's a fair enough plot, until the opening scene when Joker pretty much spells out his plan to Batman. Superior detective skills, my arse.
The whole scene itself is pretty awful. It's a 5 minute trek from the gates of Arkham Asylum to the point Joker breaks out. It's another instance of a game trying to keep the player involved when it's completely unnecessary. A minute long cutscene would be suited better than watching Batman amble at the pace of a sloth on barbiturates.
We then get a glimpse of Killer Croc, whose dialogue might as well just have been "I'm going to be a boss later raaaarrrgh!". He's also unaccompanied in a lift. How does anyone on that island think letting a 16ft monster, with teeth bigger than my hand, walk around on his own in rusty manacles is a good idea? Seriously, they would have deserved it if they all got eaten.
After sleeping through that intro, I got to actually play the game. Initially it's a fun mix of progression puzzles, hand to hand combat and stealth. The open nature of the game lends itself to the detective aspect of Batman's persona as well. However, the game pretty much cheats you of using intuition with the inclusion of "Detective Mode", an overlay on Batman's vision flat out telling you what things are. It even lets you see people through multiple walls. In essence, Batman goes through life with debug mode on.
When our man isn't fighting thugs, hiding on one of about 4 million gargoyles around Arkham or being a "detective", he's usually in a vent somewhere. For a place that wants to keep people from escaping they sure are big on vents large enough for a person to climb through that bypass most of their security systems.
That's another thing. Almost every objective is blocked by an "unhackable" electric fence at some point. The fact that they're unhackable makes it obvious that they're just an arbitrary diversion to add length to the mission. God forbid Batman use his explosive gel to destroy them. You do get a device later that can disable them (so much for unhackable), then they just move the fence controls to somewhere that's blocked by the fence you want to disable.
Once you start getting into the later stages of the game, it becomes a rather repetitive slog between infrequent boss encounters. It usually features a combination of find evidence, scan evidence, follow evidence trail, beat up on grunts on the way, crawl in several hundred vents, arrive at your destination, fight grunt hopped up on crazysauce. When you're not doing one of these things, you can bet you're in a Scarecrow hallucination.
These levels are confusing. I really can't see much of a point for them except for them being fan service. If Scarecrow was a major part of the plot, then these stages would hold more weight, but as it is it's just some asshole doping you up randomly to annoy you.
The stages themselves are pretty tedious, having to avoid Scarecrow's gaze before reaching a floodlight to blast him which makes you recover from the effects of the drug. What I did enjoy was some of the subtle mindfuckery that happened before each stage. At one point you go into a morgue from a normal corridor, go back out through the same door you just came in into... the morgue again. Those moments were great. If the drug was more of that, they would have been some of my favourite parts of the game. As they were, they were out of place and just padding for the story.
All of his leads up to the final showdown with Joker. I didn't really know what to expect in terms of a finale before playing the game, seeing as Batman is about four times the size of Joker. What I did expect was better than what it ended up being. What it turned out to be was a mass brawl between Batman and a load of goons that he had been destroying since the beginning of the game. The only instances of actually fighting Joker came down to pulling him off a ledge with the batclaw and punching him when he gets stuck in the floor. Do that 3 times and well done, you've beaten the game.
No other forms, no multiple attacks, just waves and waves of goons. It's a shame because Joker was the best character by far. Why is it that Batman always gets overshadowed by his enemies? Probably because we know he's just an egomaniacal rich boy, who doesn't want anyone to touch his toys, but wants everyone to watch him play with them.
While the game is decent, it's not great. The hand to hand mechanics are great, which would have been disastrous had they been bad, and the open world of Arkham Asylum is awesome in it's Gothic charm. The repetitive gameplay and anticlimactic end spoil a game that could have been really good.
I agree that Batman is kind of a ridiculous story. I mean, really. However, I do love progression puzzles, so I could see myself loving this video game. However, you have to realize that the reason why they have everything spelled out (the Batman debugging mode) is because there are people that are too stupid to play the game otherwise. That's all I'm saying.
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