Game Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Welcome everybody to another game review! This is a game about Batman! Nananananananana Batman! This is Batman: Arkham Asylum!

Batman is one of the most recognizable superheroes ever created, he's up there with heroes like Spiderman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, ask anyone on the street who Batman is and chances are, they'll know. (But don't actually go out and do that if you haven't already. If you have gone out and done that already, you might be an aspie!) As well as comic books, Batman has been in TV shows, movies, and, of course, video games! Batman has had a (mostly) great career in video games, even way back in the NES era! Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in 2009 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and the PC.  It was a standalone title, rare for a superhero game, with no relation to Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight films. It was developed by newcomer game developer Rocksteady and the writers of the '90s Batman Animated Series, and they blew everyone away! The game was so successful that it spawned 3 sequels, Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins, and the soon-to-be-released Batman: Arkham Knight. In the game, The Joker has been captured and brought to Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Joker just kinda, gave up. OR DID HE??? Joker has an evil plan! Doctors at Arkham have been experimenting with a new drug called TITAN, developed from Bane's Venom drug. This new drug can make people grow to gargantuan size and completely lose there minds to become a mindless killing machine. Joker has control of the drug, and is about to release it into Gotham City! Can the Dark Knight stop Joker's evil plans? Play Batman: Arkham Asylum to find out!

I'm going to say this right away, I am a MASSIVE Batman fan! I always have been, from the campy Adam West '60s show to the Tim Burton and Schumacher films, to the LEGO games, I love it all! As a Batman fan, this game blew my mind! This game is great! It actually feels like you are Batman! The story is great, the voice acting is fantastic, ESPECIALLY coming from Mark Hamill as The Joker! That's right, The Joker is played by Luke Skywalker! And you can't even tell it's him! He just gets so into the role and you can tell he's having a blast with it! The gameplay is very good and it really captures the feeling of being Batman! The graphics are beautiful. The modern-gothic architecture of Arkham Asylum is both beautiful and creepy! This game is VERY creepy, which is fitting for a Batman game. Grotesque character design, creepy and dark environments, and stealth and survival-horror elements make this game very threatening! This game also has RPG, sandbox, beat-em-up, and platforming elements! It's a mish-mash of pretty much all game genres, and it totally works! This game also has a mechanic called "Detective Mode" which allows you to see through walls and locate enemies and other stuff. This feature is very helpful! The game also has Riddler Trophies and Interview Tapes. Riddler Trophies are left all over the map by The Riddler and you collect them to unlock concept art, character models, challenge maps, and a whole lot of other little goodies! Interview Tapes reveal some backstory about a villain's history in Arkham Asylum. They are fun to listen to and some of them are very messed up! This makes the game feel like a good old fashioned collect-a-thon, and I actually quite like it! You have to explore every corner of Arkham Island and solve The Riddler's riddles to find them all, and this gives the game some replay value if you're into completing games 100%. The game is quite long, but the bosses are kinda lame, ESPECIALLY the final boss! It sucks! The bosses were greatly improved in the sequel. You get lots of gadgets in the game that all have their own practical uses, kinda like Ratchet and Clank. Some of them require you to think like a detective for the best uses. All of them are useful and none are overpowered! If I could say something negative about this game, it would be that the game is very unclear of where you need to go and what you have to do sometimes. I found myself just wandering around aimlessly until I found wherever I had to go sometimes. This is only a nitpick, though. I just suck at open-world games and map navigation in games. Another thing is the game can get quite repetitive at times. The segments with avoiding thugs with guns, the fights with thugs on the ground, TITAN-infected thug mini bosses, and kicking off vent covers got old pretty fast. The soundtrack is also quite forgettable. It's okay for what it is, it's dark and moody and sets the tone for the game, but nothing really stands out. It's just a bunch of generic dramatic orchestra pieces. I love game music, so it's a shame that the soundtrack isn't anything special. So, yeah. That's pretty much it. This is a great game! If you're a superhero fan or a fan of games like Assassin's Creed, Eternal Darkness, Sly Cooper, or Metal Gear Solid, give this game a try! It's freaking awesome! I would recommend it for ages 12 and up. The game is quite combat-heavy, and the combat is incredibly brutal and realistic. It really looks and feels like it hurts! There is also lots of very violent talk in this game. The game is quite dark, disturbing, and scary at times, and Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy's outfits are...revealing. I'd give this game a 4 out of 5 stars! Nananananananana, Batman!!

Have you played Batman: Arkham Asylum? What did you think of it? Tell me in the comments!

Now I'm off to play Batman: Arkham City! I'll review it soon, I promise!