I am very skeptical about superhero games. Most turn out to be bland, boring, and just flat bad. But Batman: Arkham Asylum delivers on all promises made by the company, critic reviewers, and user reviewers.
This game is just fun. The story is entirely believable and the amount of immersion is palpable. You really feel like Batman. Let me start out with the little things that make this game so much fun.
1) Batman's costume and face actually degrade over time. I am not sure if this is based on damage taken throughout the game, but every boss fight or epic encounter I was in seemed to change his outfit. It would have new tears, his face would be cut, or his cape would be completely torn up. How awesome it was to feel like it is actually being done. It makes Batman so much more real and human. I loved it.
2) The Joker's voice-overs were hysterical. Some of them were subtle. An example was when Killer Croc first appears and the joker says "that reminds me, I need to get some new shoes"... I about died the first time. I love this sort of humor, and it is littered all through the game. Generously. And it never gets old or outdone.
3) The grittiness of the actual world delivers on what his world is like. Batman is such a conflicted person. As much as he is sane, he is insane. The only different between him and the other inmates of Arkham, is that he like all other conflicted and messed up people, he holds it in and represses it. It makes him human, and it helps us relate to him in ways we can't with other superheros. Batman is a guy just doing his thing like everyone else.
They didn't hold any punches with just how evil these people are either. When some people think of Batman, they go right to the Original Batman movies or series, but this isn't the real world of Batman. It's dark, gritty, dangerous, and very adult/mature. My kid did watch me play, but my sons went up stairs on a regular basis because they were actually scared of some of the game. I think that speaks wonders because they have watched a lot of the other Batmans and weren't even troubled by them.
The ending was paramount, and when you walked in and saw Joker sitting on his throne up high on a tower that was made of naked bodies, you really get to the point that this is a world that is NOT fun, full of neon lights, and Jim Carrey as the Riddlers.
The gameplay is awesome. I was so happy that a lot of this game is stealth. This is Batman to a T. He doesn't always go in fistcuffs up and ready to beat people. He was smart enough to go in and do it as quietly as possible. I love this about this game. The shear gameplay terror you can cause when fighting stealthily is just so much fun. The thugs are shouting "where did he go", "I didn't sign up for this", and "I just want to go home"... you really feel for them in some ways, thankfully Batman isn't a murderer and the gameplay is simple. You just knock them out.
Some of the boss-fights were a little too easy, but they did add a different element of play from the standard gameplay and I think they added just the right deviation since the actual gameplay throughout is so much fun.
I found myself in detective mode a lot though, which took away from the game's world. I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to a lot of the time, but mostly it wasn't a big deal. I would have liked some of the detective work to have been more player-run as well, most was just "detective mode, find evidence, hold down '0' and follow trail". I would have liked some more legit, Myst style puzzles.
All in all though, this has given me one of the best game experiences of my gaming life, as well as made me that much more of a Batman fan. Multiple play-through are going to be definite, which says a lot about this game when I am saying that.
