An original game that truly captures the spirit of the caped crusader

User Rating: 9 | Batman: Arkham Asylum X360
Now when I first heard of this game I thought it wasn't going to be good. Just from experience (superman 64) superhero games are usually not that good. Rarely does a superhero game ever correctly capture the mood of a comic series. This game captures the mood perfectly. This game truly shows what the Batman comics is about. It isn't about lame enemies, with lame names, and annoying side kick named after a bird. It is about insane people who kill for fun. It is about seeing everyone's worst fears coming alive.

When you first play this game you slowly start to realize this game is serious about being the perfect Batman game. I have seriously never seen better interpretations of Batman villans. Joker is way better than the Joker in the Dark Knight. He acts just how the Joker would act: Crazy, insane, fun, but serious, and for a moment even sad. For a brief moment you see things from the way Joker feels. Seeing Killer Croc was also a very neat, and scary moment. When you first see Killer Croc you realize just how powerful he is, and just how easily he could kill you. Scarecrow has several now famous moments in this game where you are stuck in insane worlds with some very strange things going on. This game feels a 100% right. When I play it I feel like this is right, and this is how everyone would act and look like. The characters are very well made, and the voice acting is superb. The gameplay varies depending on what you are doing. The combat is very simple, but it is very very smooth and enjoyable. The animations flow right into each other which makes everything look real and perfect. Rarely will you punch someone the same way twice. One of your moves is a turn around more where you automatically attack someone who is about to attack you. This move works usually, but during boss fights where you are swarmed by enemies it will sometimes work too slow which is pretty annoying. It is also annoying because the enemies punches seem to go farther than they really are. An enemy 10 feet away will throw a punch and hit you. This sometimes glitches your counter attack because it won't counter them.

One small gripe about this game is the boss battles. While some of the boss battles have interesting moments, they are almost all the same. There are around 6 boss battles that revolve around a bad guy on experimental drugs that makes them uber big. The main problem with these is besides them being repetitive is that the bosses themselves are easy. What makes them hard is that the game sends tons of henchmen at you while facing the boss. This is a cheap tactic to make a hard boss battle. Every single boss battle in the game is this way (not an exaggeration) in every battle there will be the main boss swarming with henchmen.

The game's plot is good, and quite memorable. The story is a big part on what makes this game so addicting. You just can't get enough of it, so you keep on playing. Graphically the game is very good, and I am surprised the unreal engine has held up this long. Though the facial expressions are a little bit weak. One of the best things about this game is its bonuses. This is one of those games where finding a 100% of everything is very satisfying and you get rewarded quite well... except if you find all of the Arkham Chronicles which was slightly disappointing. There are items, scenarios, and tablets scattered throughout the entire game. You find trophies and you just search through the game to find them. Scenarios are a lot of fun: basically in detective mode you can take a picture of what you are seeing. So the Riddler may say "Tweedledee and Tweedledum SAW it, can you SEE it?" and what you did is take a picture of a see saw that has two hats on it. Not only does this solve the puzzle, but it gives you an entire biography of the characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum from the Batman universe (they were villains). You can also find interview tapes which are very neat. When you find an interview tape it lets you listen to five interviews for each each enemy in the game. So with Killer Croc you get to hear people talking to him when he was in the asylum. The last hidden secret is the tablets of Arkham. These are messages left by Amadeus Arkham and tell about why he built the Asylum. When you find all of them you expect something really special, but it is kind of disappointing. Still worth it though.

Overall this is a very enjoyable game that fans of Batman should get, and you should get it even if you don't read the comics.