Batman: Arkham Asylum gets a lot right and gets it's medal as being the first comic game done right.
The story is simplistic and easy to understand but it has it's moments of 'WOAH! Didn't see THAT coming' to make it stay fresh and inviting to players who enjoy a good story. The Joker is captured and brought to the Asylum and will live for pretty much all eternity, that is until the Joker's girlfriend is at the control desk and unlocking the electric gates that sealed off the Joker from escaping. Batman must now go on a mission to stop Joker but he gets side-tracked so much but still has one mission in mind. His side tracks will take him to new depths and feats such as saving the island that Arkham is built on from the Titan mutated Poison Ivy. Stopping Scarecrow from releasing his deadly fear gas into the Gotham water network. Even fighting off Killer Croc while trying to find the cure for the Titan toxin. There are many surprises and sharp turns that will take all of you by surprise, even if you don't care for the story then you will be lucky to hear my part on the action in it.
Batman is not fully equipped in a game, especially if there are armed thugs and deranged convicts running loose, or deranged villains for that matter. What he needs is a way of fighting off all the bad guys, and boy in this game he gets A LOT of equipment to yuse. The beatings the bad guys takes are great and the fluent controls make it a perfect game of control (MBL to attack, MBR to counter). The action never amazes me, even being stealthy is a treat of it's own. However, the ways the bad guys go down are repetitive, the attacks are repetitive, and sometimes when you land the final punch on the final guy something just seems glitched about it. Not to mention the enemies are also repetitive, the same tired villains with the same tired attacks. The game however does a tremendous of having varied weapons that the inmates will use making the game harder and making you develop a newer strategy than just running in full force. The boss fights unfortunately don't do the game it's justice, the simple just attack them then dodge is overly used and only one boss fight actually uses stealth. Using stealth to get to the end of the Nightmare when fighting Scarecrow is nice but gets overly used. However, due to the fast spin he has it keeps players hearts pounding as to if they can make it back into the shadows. However, fighting hand to hand combat is cool and all but we need a bit more "style" to spice things up. In stealth games you should know that when you go in no one knows you're there. This is a great thing because now you can attack someone with the bat claw and add a bit of that style that we needed. He will scream especially if he goes over a railing but due to the abundance of gargoyles and places to hide that throwing him off the balcony and hiding in a hole will be swift and easy.
The puzzles in this game aren't quite as challenging as one may expect and the overly used code hacker to hack into an electrical gate can be overly used. However, the real puzzles are the Riddler's puzzles; yes during your adventure on Arkham Asylum the Riddler will be broadcasting taunts and teases at your "attempt" to complete the challenges. This gives a high re playability to the game along with the challenges that await you in predator and combat challenges. The characters like I said are good and well drawn, but sometimes when taking a closer look they seem a bit weird, a little to bright, and even strange looking. The visuals are great and even according to some when there in simple blue. While you will be spending a lot time in detective mode it still hold a nice visual presentation all together. However, having out the detective mode can get a bit boring. When you decide that nothing is around, nothing is happening, nothing is coming, you may want to take off youre detective vision. However, something soon comes up and then you need to put it back on. There are moments when you don't need you detective vision but these are short and don't give you much look at the well detailed island that is Arkham Asylum.
The technical part brings the thing down for me, while playing the game on Vista the game ran slowly, and I do mean SLOWLY. The walk is so slow that during more than 3/4s of the game was just never letting go of the space bar so that Batman just ran. I did try setting it at it's lowest but to my surprise it was already set at the lowest it can so even when you get rid of all the fancy flashy things you may still get a slow game. However, I am a man who can look past the technical errors and see a smooth-paced game that still succeeds on multiple levels. Also, the computer may just have a lot of junk on it so maybe I could try it this on another computer, one a bit faster.
The game holds a great variety of exploration, stealth, action, and high re playabbility with challenge modes and Riddler Puzzles. All these genres are blended smoothly and successfully into a fast paced, hard tense action game that sets a standard for all Superhero games to come.
Pros
-Action is fun and in some cases heart pounding
-Story is cliched but has many twists to keep it exciting
-Art holds up and still makes an impression when standing still without detective mode on
-Voice acting shows the true Batman and Joker
-Gadgets are a fun to use and give the game more flavor
-Music is chilling but showcases the true Batman feeling
-Stealth is like strategy and can be corrected if you make a mistake
-Cut scenes are cinematic
-Challenges are exciting and fun, not to mention having it posted up on the leader board to show to everyone
-It's just oh so fun to throw a guy off a building or pull him off
Cons
-Bad technical problems
-Too slow
-Not all of the super villains are displayed here
-Visuals can look a bit stingy time to time
-The story is a bit cliched and highly guessable
-Disappointing boss fights
-Animations such as facial features look awkward and don't feel like what they are supposed to be
-Detective mode is used too much
-Puzzles are repetitive
-AI has almost no brain in stealth challenges
All in all, Batman: Arkham Asylum is Batman's biggest jump to success and begins a genre of Superhero games that others should follow. It also raises high expectations on how the other games in the comic series will be.