Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

OK, so we are into May now (can't believe its May already!) and I figured it was high time I did my first post of the month and the post in question will be a game this time for a change and the game in question will be Batman: Arkham Asylum. 

Now this game was first released back in 2009 on the Xbox, PS3 and PC but I am currently playing the remastered version for the PS4 (which has been labelled as Return to Arkham Asylum) so I figured this would be a great time to review, as I'm pretty sure I have done so before.  So, after 9 years from its original release, how does it fair?  Well, lets take a look....

And as I will mention a bit about the story, the usual warning is coming up....

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY 

So, the story begins with the Joker being apprehended by Batman after attacking Gotham city and as as a result, he is taken to Arkham Asylum, while escorted by Batman (who believes the Joker has allowed himself to be caught). However, its not long before the Joker manages to escape (with the help of his girlfriend Harley Quinn who overrides the security) and makes his way through the facility, having also paid off one of the guards, who kidnaps Commissioner Gordon.  The Joker soon threatens to detonate bombs around Gotham city if anyone tries to enter Arkham, which forces Batman to work alone to defeat the Joker.

Batman then tracks Quinn to the medical facility, where he is exposed to the villainous Scarecrow's toxins that make him hallucinate and see images of Bruce Wayne's dead mother and father and he is then forced to evade Scarecrow in a nightmare dreamscape, which he eventually does to come out of his hallucination. Batman then manages to rescue Gordon and then goes after the Joker again only for him to release Bane, another villain, who has tremedous physical strength due to his body being injected with a venom drug but Batman manages to subdue him.  Batman then learns that the Joker intends to create large quantities of the venom drug, so he can create an army of superhuman henchmen.

And so its up to Batman to try and put an end to the Joker's nefarious plan once and for all.....

THOUGHTS

There is little doubt that Arkham Asylum is an excellent action adventure game, which received widespread acclaim on its release and rightly so as the game's action and gameplay are both gripping and very entertaining.  And here we get perhaps one of the most faithful adaptations of Batman that we have seen in which the Dark Knight takes down his enemies without killing anyone and he doesn't have a ridiculously husky voice or use some sort of voice synthesizer to conceal his identity!  The game also features a good variety of enemies for Batman to face, which doesn't stop with the Joker or Harley Quinn but also features plenty of others such as Killer Croc, Victor Zsasz, Bane and Poison Ivy.  So, there is plenty of variety on display here with the game for sure.    

GAMEPLAY

As for the gameplay it is easily one of the game's main strengths as the gameplay is very simple intuitive to learn and the game's movement system is very fluid and allows for the player to make quick, fast movements and actions during combat.  And Batman can carry out a number of moves as he does all the usual stuff you'd do in these games such as run, jump, crouch, shimmy and with the use of his cape, he can also glide through the air from great heights. Batman can also throughout the game remove vent covers, so he can crouch and move through vents that will take him through to other rooms. Batman can either do this by wrenching them off, or if there are alot of enemies nearby, he will remove them gently and place them aside.    

Moving on to the combat side of things Batman can carry out a series of moves such as combo attacks, where Batman can string together a series of strikies against his enemies, which he can build up as he progresses and the combat is very free-flowing as Batman can move quickly between his opponents.  In addition to this Batman can also counter-attack during his combat against enemies as well as stun them into submission, which comes in handy when he takes on bad guys with melee weapons, such as knives.  Batman can also perform silent takedowns as he sneaks up behind his enemies and incapacitates them.

As for Batman's armoury and gadgets, this is easily one of the most varied aspects of the game, as Batman has a whole load of gadgets at his disposal. To start off with, there are Batman's batarangs, which, he can throw to temporarily knock down his enemies or to even hit control switches from a distance. Then there is his grapple gun, which Batman will use regularly to grapple onto higher ledges.  Another is explosive gel, which Batman can use to blow up weakly structured walls or floors to gain access to other areas. Then we have the Batclaw, which Batman can use to attach to vent covers to remove them, or he can use it to grab enemies to disarm or stun them temporarily.

As for a few more more gadgets that appear in the game there is the cryptographic sequencer, which Batman can use to hack into door panels to open doors or to disable other devices and functions within the asylum. The line launcher is another item, which Batman can use to traverse to other areas that can't reach by jumping or even by gliding.  There are are also multi-batarangs, which are available in two's and three's, which Batman can throw at once to disable two or three enemies at once.  Sonic batarangs and remote batarangs are also available, which Batman can use to take control of the prisoner's collars and also to control the direction of the batarang remotely.

Another aspects of the gameplay is Batman's experience meter, which allows him to collect points after numerous achievements such as securing a room or area by knocking out all the enemies. However Batman can collect experience points for other things also such as picking riddles left by the Riddler, breaking the Joker's mechanical teeth sets and also collecting the Arkham interview tapes of various inmates. And the more points Batman collects, it will allow him to unlock extra upgrades, which can relate to his combat and armour capabilities aswell as obtaining more gadgets and upgrading them.  

And last of all for the gameplay is the Detective Mode, which is another key aspect of the game, which involves Batman using a sort of night vision that provides him with contextual information, which highlights objects such as destructable walls and removable grates. In this mode, Batman can also use it to scan a room for how many enemies are there and if they armed or unarmed aswell as their emotional condition (e.g. calm, nervous or terrified).  Detective mode can also be used to solve puzzles and investigate footprints for clues.

GRAPHICS

As for the game's graphics, well they are excellent and in the PS4 remastered version, they look better than ever before. And the game's environments are fairly varied, even though of course you do get a mostly dreary blue colour tone for most of the game but they are nicely detailed with plenty of texture to areas right down to what the characters wear. As for the character models, well it does have to be said that they don't look that realistic and do appear a bit dated in comparison to what we have today but they still hold up fairly well.

MUSIC

Moving onto the game's music score, it was composed by Nick Arundel and Ron Fish, who both do an excellent job here in composing a score that plenty of drama, mood, tension and atmosphere and couldn't be more suited to the game itself. Arundel and Fish would then go on to score this game's sequel, Arkham Asylum, which is an even better and more richer score than this one!  So, overall this is a very impressive score and one that is perfectly suited to the tone of the game.

VOICE ACTING

As for the voice acting, its pretty much top notch as it features an excellent voice acting cast, who all give fine performances.

Starting with Kevin Conroy, who is easily one of the very best voices of Batman out there, as his Batman has none of the ridiculous raspiness of Christian Bale or the voice synthesized nonsense of Ben Affleck but instead Conroy just uses his natural voice to great effect, which perfectly exhibits Batman's commanding nature. 

Conroy usually also plays Batman as being a little bit arrogant at times, which does allow for the odd moment of humour in his portrayal at times.  And there are one or two lines that highlight this, such as the one where one of Batman's allies, Oracle asks Batman how he managed to build a secret Batcave on Arkham island and Batman replies "Hey, its me, remember?!". Although what we would really liked Batman to have said at this point was "BECAUSE I'M BATMAN!!".

Another one is when Harley Quinn evades Batman and tries to drop an elevator on him and he dodges it and after he get's a call from Oracle. And Batman tells her "I'm OK. I just met Harley and she tried to drop an elevator on me" and Oracle asks him "Did it work?" and Batman almost with a grin says "Of course not!". Then there is another line where Batman knocks out some thugs that were holding a policeman captive and the cop asks Batman if he is OK and Batman tells him "I eat punks like this for breakfast!".

Mark Hamill next up is also great in his role as the Joker and its actually hard to imagine few actors play the role better than he does here, as he sounds like he is relishing every line!

And Hamill has his share of good lines and scenes in the game but there are too many of them to mention outright here and quite a few of them are indeed even the "Game Over" cut scenes where the Joker and other villains gloat over Batman when he has died or failed to save someone. And one of my favourite lines of the Joker here is when he gloats at Batman and says "Played you like violin and cut your strings! Nighty night, bats!". 

And then there is another scene near the start where the Joker is wheeled into Arkham Asylum on an upright stretcher. And one of the cops angrily says to him "You killed 20 of my friends!" and the Joker laughs and says "Only 20?! I better tried harder next time and try and make it a hundred!" and he laughs maniacally.

This then followed by when the lights go off, Batman grabs ahold of the Joker, who laughs and says "The night is young, Bats. I still have a trick or two up my sleeve. I mean, don't you think it's a little bit funny how a fire at Blackgate caused hundreds of my crew to be moved here!". And the corrupt guard, Boles, who holds him at gunpoint shouts "I told you to be quiet!" and the Joker in a menacing voice says to him "Oh Frankie, you really should learn to keep that fat mouth of yours shut. It'll get you into trouble!".

As for the other voice cast members worth a mention are Arleen Sorkin, who is great as Harley Quinn and she is perfect for the role vocally speaking and it would hard to imagine anyone play her better here on a voice acting level. Tom Kane is also pretty good in his role as Commissioner Gordon, who is taken hostage earlier on in the game by Quinn.  And last of all is Kimberly Brooks who is very good as Oracle, who is also Commissioner Gordon's daughter, who was in the comics formerly Batgirl but she was later confined to wheelchair after she was paralysed after the Joker shot her years ago, whilst kidnapping her father.  So, in this game, Oracle is confined to a wheelchair and she provides Batman with information throughout the game via radio.

FLAWS

As for flaws....well yeah Arkham Asylum does have some.

To start, one of the issues I had was to do with the lack of variety in Batman's hand to hand combat moves, as you are limited to basically performing a series of combo attacks, takedowns, silent takedowns and counter-attacks and that's pretty much it. And it took until the game's sequel, Arkham City, for them to expand on Batman's combat moves but here it does feel a bit simplified and limited in terms of what is available.   

Another issue is to do with the whole thing of Batman using gargoyles overhead to hide from armed enemies below him, as this is an often repeated thing in the game and it actually becomes a bit too reptitive after a while and tedious. This basically forces Batman to deploy stealth tactics to sneak up and subdue his armed enemies, either that you can glide attack them by gliding down and knocking them to the ground, after this Batman has to knock them out.  But the fact remains that these sections repeats themselves just a bit too much for my liking.

I also have to say that despite Mark Hamill's excellent performance as the Joker, there are times where the Joker's constant humourous gloats and jibes at Batman do get a bit samey and tiresome after a while, as he seems to be able to follow Batman's every move around the whole of Arkham asylum and indeed the island itself!

There is also at times an awful amount of backtracking in order for Batman to reach other areas that he needs to get to. As an example there is a part in the game where Batman has to leave the Botanic gardens section of the asylum and head back to the sewers where he will face off against Killer Croc and that in itself is one BIG backtrack!  Of course, Batman will have to take down some of the Joker's men enroute in the process, which will slow you down a little and although that does provide a bit of an obsctacle of interest, you still feel there is still alot of unecessary backtracking going on.

And last of all I found there were one or two strange little graphical glitches in the game, such as when Batman beats up his enemies close to a wall and you will see leg or hand go through it (which I think is term known as clipping!).  And why also when Batman knocks out his enemies, do they always put their hands up to the side of their face???! It seems to be a pretty weird move for them to always make but when they are knocked, they always appear to do it!

Anyway that's for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, Batman Arkham Asylum is an excellent action adventure game and after nearly 10 years it is still as good as it was on its release. And the game does very well thanks to its excellent performances, graphics and music score, not to mention its great combat and movement system for Batman aswell as all the gadgets that he has available to him and the game's environments are also pretty expansive, so there is plenty to explore and look at.    

And if you are a gamer and enjoy your third person action games, then you should definitely give this one a go.

OK, so that's it for now and I will be back hopefully soon with another post.

Till then its bye fer now!