Batman: Arkham Asylum... Really That Good?

[LazyAza]

If you're not relatively knowledgable of and interested in Batman the game has alot less to offer.
Take away all the batman-ee-ness and its really just a competent stealth action game with a decent brawling mechanic so I'd say its integral to your degree of interest and enjoyment with the title. I was never a big comic reader but I was a huge fan of the 90s batman animated cartoon of which alot of the games characters and voice actors are taken from. The cartoon itself is highly beloved by anyone who was growing up in the 90s since it was one of the few cartoons back then that was dark, mature, well written and still stands up well today.

Its basically the first comic based game to be as good as it was too so that in of itself gave reviewers and gamers opinions of it a giant boost.

 

[viranimus]

I think its a combination of things that the sum is greater than all the parts.

As mentioned, the game is a technically sound and well developed game. Very polished. Even if it is not the most exciting gameplay, it certainly is good and well designed. Having good gameplay to fall back on is not a bad crutch to have.

Secondly, its a touch of Nostalgia. For the generation that was raised on Batman: The animated series as their daily bread in the afternoon after school, the game is beyond tribute to the nostalgia of that time. If you combine the voice acting of Hamil, Sorkin, and Conroy with the writing of Dini youve got the key elements from the show that basically made the show.

Putting those 2 things together, Good (not great) gameplay that is well polished in with the intangible nostalgia factor youve got a core audience that the game ends up practically being pure fan service.

The game is a better than average game that got a huge bump thanks to nostalgia. Arkham City will have much of the same effect. One other minor factor is that it also gets a bump for being a comic book based game that doesnt categorically suck. Given that it doesnt, people give it more credit than it might deserve as the cringe from memories of superman 64 race through their heads.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

I really liked it, especially solving all of the Riddler's puzzles. The fights are fun, but it's depressing to get your amazing combo ruined in a fight because you pressed punch right as a counter opportunity opened up. The stealth parts of the game were fun, and the Nightmare boss fights were good. That being said, the rest of them were pretty garbage. I thought it was a fun game.

 

[Guy32]

I thought it was very good, but it was a stretch to call it game of the year material as many people were.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I gotta say, you won't get much criticism of the game from here. I personally thought that the game was one of the best of 2009, but to each their own I guess.

 

[IncredibleMeltingMan]

Loved this game. One of the few games that was fun all the way through. Still, the boss fights were pretty lame, especially The Joker. Maybe they'll fix it in Arkham City.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

As someone who first learned about Batman via Bruce Timm's cartoons, and someone who also owns all four seasons of said animated series, I fell in love with this game.

Hmm... I think I need to track down the animated series for another watch. Haven't seen it in years.

Apart from the boss battles, I loved the game. Fluid combat, decent story, amazing stealth sections, and you're the goddamn Batman!. It's rare for such a blatantly fanboy-aimed game to actually be good, but this managed it. It was a very well-crafted game, that benefited yet more from using Batman. Oh, and the Scarecrow sections! They were amazing!

My rampant Batman fanboyism may have made the game better for me. I loved all the little references to other bits of the Batman mythos, like the character bios and Oracle's appearance.

It's just a shame that the bosses were kind of lame. Oh, and the teeth. I didn't like them either.

 

[Spectre4802]

I personally had fun with it - the boss fights were really just a bunch of henchmen with a or a couple of bigger henchman to spice things up. When I heard I was supposed to be fighting the Joker for the game's climax, and he was super 'roided up, I was like "fucking hell, this should be interesting". Then it turns out you just beat up his goons while he stads on top of something taunting the sky, clearly too stupid to realize he could just tear batman's spine out and end the problem once and for all.

Other than that, good.

 

[Neofishie]

I could understand how some people could be less enthralled with it than me.

I don't understand how anyone could not love this game.

Well, the boss battles were lackluster to say the least, and the combat, while visually appealing, lacked depth. And personally, I wish they had started disabling the gargoyles earlier, as I thought they made the stealth too forgiving.

But in terms of putting me into the Bat-boots of Timm's Batman, they nailed it, and in doing so, scratched an itch I never thought would be reached.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Compare Arkham Asylum to all the other Batman games. Yyyeeeeaaaahhh.... There's just one Batman game I actually enjoyed and that was Batman for the Game Boy.

Haha I was just thinking that. I loved the platforming one on the 16-bit Sega megadrive also, that was fantastic.

OP: I loved the game, the story, the choreographed combat that actually gets better and cooler in parallel with your skill in playing the game improves, and the stealth (or more like predator) sections are just well done, using a fresh approach to combat and stealth which is come on, pretty hard nowadays. The only games with real innovations in stealth implemented effectively are limited to Thief series, MGS, and a few more, in a whole sea that try to do it. I'm NOT talking about RPG's here because they have too many other mechanics in place that affect whether you can be seen or not.

The combat is just great i feel, and rewards you for being sharp and quick on the reflexes, and even for being creative and exploring different approaches. Grappling 3 guys down before you wade into them, chucking batarangs at foes mid-combo, plus clearing whole room spans when in max combo mode as batman gets more psycho, it just handles itself well..plus the takedowns and finishing moves are just cinematic enough, especially the wanderlei silva king hit. And he actually fights how Batman should, using moves that he would use, and that would've taken some research and rigorous animation refining.

I didn't go out of my way with the tedious things, looking for stuff, but i did make a bit more effort when I found the maps, which is actually a very nice touch to games where you can do that sort of thing, like Assassins creed, and solving riddles is a lot more satisfying then finding a feather/trophy/poster/token, covering a piece of graffiti, or a lot of other mundane tasks games have you doing these days for achievement points.

 

[icame]

I enjoyed my time with it other then the annoying camera angle. Sorry to hear you didn't like it, but at least you got it on sale and didnt spend more.

 

[Neofishie]

It's just a shame that the bosses were kind of lame. Oh, and the teeth. I didn't like them either.

Yeah, but the first time that present showed up, I was ready to just surrender rather than see what the Joker deigned to give me.

Curse you Hamill! Why is your voice so good at freaking me out?