Batman Dark Tomorrow, takes it‘s place as one of the worst video games I have ever played; and I don’t even mean common era I‘m talking about years of video game history dating all the way back to the Atari. So I hope you understand my apprehension of picking up a Batman game developed by “Rocksteady” a development crew that I myself have never heard off.
In truth the only reason why I picked up the game was the trio of Paul Dini, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, three instrumental cog’s in the excellent Batman the Animated Series and in my mind the only team to get Batman a hundred percent right. After my play through of Arkham Asylum I can say that Rocksteady can join the small group of people that just get what Batman is suppose to be. ArkhamAsylum takes place in the fantastically, Dark and Gritty prison. Not the Campy world of Adam West nor is it the Ultra realistic and ultimately un-comic booky world of Nolan. It’s a game that takes itself seriously but doesn’t shy away from the 20 foot talking Crocodiles that roam the Batman universe, and ultimately feels a lot like Spider-Man and Spider-Man Enter Electro, in the sense that the story and presentation is directed to the comic book fans.
Batman has just captured Joker and is turning him into Arkham and maybe being the shortest period of incarceration in the facilities history Joker escapes and challenges Batman to go through out the Asylum and catch him. It’s a straight arrow story but the dialogue and voice acting are terrific and really drag you in. Also it doesn’t hurt that this is one of the best looking games using the Unreal Engine with zero pop-in textures.
So the story, voice acting, and the setting nails Batman, but how does the gameplay hold up you ask? Well thankfully that’s every bit as good as the presentation. You can basically break the game up in three parts, the first being combat. Arkham Asylum uses Free Flow combat a system not too much unlike Too Human but instead of being broken it actually works and is incredibly fun. By pressing a direction on the left thumbstick and the attack button Batman will gracefully glide over smack an enemy allowing you to easily move to enemy to enemy taking out large groups of men, and the great thing is the combat does not get stale. With unlockable moves and good mix of enemy varity and tactics your sure to always be on your toes, but the one aspect that gets you hooked is the combo meter, as you build up your combo Batman gets stronger and faster and just tears through his opponents; but if you button mash your sure to get hit, if your too cautious you’ll loose your Combo meter. It kind of forces you to be aggressively patient and it really gets you on the edge of your seat trying keep your combo meter.
Next up would be the Predator mode. This is a stealth heavy elements of the game that utilizes all the various gadgets you unlock through out your adventure, with help from you x-ray detective mode you get to find creative and fun ways to freak out Jokers goons. During these sequences you’ll want to be almost invisible to your prey, with all the henchmen armed with guns and actually pretty good aim you will not be punching or kicking your way out of these situation. Instead you get take them out one by one, either by silently taking them down or setting booby traps, and honestly you don’t need to be a completely invisible. One of the great parts of the experience is using the louder gadgets and just creating as much pandemonium for the hapless thugs as possible.
No doubt you’ve seen the four star rating and are probably wondering (if you read this far) what I didn’t like about the game. And unfortunately the most disappointing aspect of this game is the Super Villain encounters. There is no nice way to put it, five of the six Super Villain encounters are flat out horrible. The problem is there to simple and are never any real threat. In the beginning of the game you come across a Villain and your like “Holy Crap I don’t want to end up alone with him” but when you do the solution is painfully simple and the menacing figure is far less a threat than any of the generic armed thugs. It’s a shame cause this should be one of the highlights of the game and to the developers credit they get the look and sound of the Super Villains right, they just never ever posed any concern to me.
The only other two trifling problems I had with the game was that the controls for the gadgets could be better. I should not have to fight three buttons to use explosive jelly and of course the 360’s D pad rears it’s ugly head. The only other quibble was the lack of Cameo’s, I mean… I am in Arkham I actually want to see Mr. Freezes cold stare, Harvey muttering to himself as he flips his coin, Even the lay out of the Super Villain cells was perplexing as if the developer just randomly placed these cells through out the facility.
But all and all this is a great game that took me about 14 hours to beat and there is more to do after you finish the story. The Riddler makes a great non appearance, hacking into your communications he challenges batman to solve his 200 some odd riddles, with perfect voice casting the Riddler turned out to be one of my favorite characters in the game, and if it wasn’t for that stupid Riddler map that spells out the solution this would have been a real good addition to the game, offering hours Easter egg hunting. Still the rewards are great for going out of your way, unlocking audio interviews with the insane inmates, along with dozens of character bio’s is a nice touch.
Also the challenge mode is great fun, taking the combat and the stealth portion of the game and allowing you to test your skills against the rest of the world is really addicting and is a great excuse to throw the game in even after you’ve beaten it.
So ultimately Batman is a great game that just falls short due to the lack luster Boss encounters, yes it’s disappointing but Rocksteady does so many other things right that this game is easy to recommend and is one of my very favorite games this generation.