The dark atmosphere and amazing combat make Arkham Asylum the best action game of 2009.
+ Dark atmosphere and story
+ Fast and satisfying combat
+ Balanced difficulty
Negatives
- Slow start
Batman Arkham Asylum is a seriously good action game, it's based on the joker breaking in to conduct a breakout of the Arkham Asylum (and all it's assailants) and causing a lot of chaos, and obviously, you play as Batman who goes in to sort things out.
As I've mentioned in the negatives a lot of the beggening of the game is simply dialouge and walking about, which may put certainly some players of, as it's an action game, and not intended to be slow, however as soon as the action starts it becomes an immersive experience, the combat is like no other action game ever before, it feels so great as if your acctually playing as a super hero, combos are important to fighting and you can't get away with simply button mashing (unless you choose easy difficulty) but it spoils the fun!
Detective work and gadgetry also play a big role, we see the more inteligent side to Batmans character, you have the option to go into 'detective mode' which points out ways around obtacales (like where you can climb and jump to) your also equipped with a gliding cloak, grappel, explosives and much more.
Stealth is another key feature in combat, Batman never uses guns so when you have several armed henchmen to fight you can use stealth to work your way around them, it's the best stealth styled combat since Metal Gear Solid, the ai works very well and you can distract them with explosions, lure them to locations and pick them of one by one, it feels just as good as the melee combat does.
One other element of the game is solving riddles and finding riddler trophies spread out through the asylum, some are simple to find, where as others take some time to complete, riddles are given to you upon enterting a new area of the asylum, your given a one line clue as to what your looking for, and when you've found it (or think you've found it) you use the left button to see if it's correct (for example, you may have to find a certain photo or ornament) Where as the trophies you just need to pick up (and these also contribute to unlocking challenges)
The story is nothing big, but it provides a motive for all the action and individual tasks, one of my faviroute parts of the game was in the biotonical gardens in which you encounter posion ivy, great characters (and voice acting) contributes to the depth of the story, the character bios information really gives the game a lot of background as all of it's characters we have seen before in batman films/books.. and so on, classic villains like two face, the scare crow and the riddler make an appearence- altough there are not even a few side quests that break out of the main story there are challenges to be completed after you unlock them (through solving riddles and finding trophies throughout the story)
Challenges are either stealth or combat based, combat based challenges involve beating several waves of opponents in deveral location and mobs- your scored on how much damage you recieve and how many combos you can string together, where as stealth challenges are timed, and obviously they include taking out armed enemies through a stealth approach.
If you like beat em up action games with a bit of depth then Arkham Asylum is a masterpiece, in many ways, and definetely the best action game of the year 2009.