Exactly what a videogame should be: staright-forward & FUN!
THE GOOD : As I just mentioned, it was a lot of fun to don the cowl of the Batman and sleuth my way through the grime and decay of Arkham Asylum, employing all of Batman's myriad of gadgets, from Batarangs to exploding gel to gliding elegantly and soundlessly with his cape, in an effort to stop the Joker's latest maniacal scheme and beat his henchmen and fellow bad-guys down. As an added bonus the game also gave you 'Detective Mode' which enabled you to see through walls, find grapple points and discover hidden items. And when it came to fighting, the moves were fun to execute, neat to watch and the 'slowed-down / Matrix-like' bullet-time effect that culminated every fight was quite cool. But what REALLY made the game so fun was how responsive and easy the controls were. Whether you were gliding and suddenly needed to just drop to avoid detection or whether you needed to string together a chain of punches, dodges, counter-attacks and cape-stuns in a melee fight, it was all super-responsive and very easy to execute, but not so much so that it made the game a breeze. Also, as I mentioned previously, something that really caught me off-guard was the game's heavy focus on stealth. Maybe because I was so used to games like the God Of War series, or Bayonetta when it came to action adventure games, I wasn't quite prepared for all the sneaking around and having to be patient for the right time to strike. After a while though, I came to quite enjoy this approach, as it just made the beat-downs that much more fun, when you finally got the chance to unload on the baddies. Something else that ARKHAM ASYLUM had to offer was the Riddler Challenges where you are tasked with solving 240 'riddles' (or locating items) throughout the game. I'm on the fence as to whether this was really necessary for this game as it had no bearing on the overall outcome, but it was fun to complete. The other aspect of ARKHAM ASYLUM that it has going for it, are the Challenges. These are divided into two separate types : Predator, where you rely almost entirely on stealth to eliminate henchmen and achieve certain objectives, and, Freeflow which is straightforward melee fighting but done so that you have to rack up a certain amount of points to achieve 3 trophies (or bats as the case may be) for each challenge. This is basically Batman's version of the Special Ops Missions in Call Of Duty : Modern Warfare 2. As some final, menial thoughts for the good qualities about the game, the scenery and graphics are fantastic and I found myself just stopping to look around at my surroundings and environment quite often, be it from perched high atop the exterior buildings or crouched in a corner looking around some highly detailed rooms. Even the character models which you can take a good 180-degree, detailed look at are quite cool to check out. And speaking of good things to look at, Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn aren't too terribly hard on the eyes either ;-) Which brings me to the villains in the game. I thought it was somewhat of an interesting choice the ones that they did, or didn't use. But of course, with a game that's this good, you have to leave something for the sequel(s), right? I guess overall I'm fairly happy with the ones the chose and the ones they left for later. My only real gripe I guess would be how they squeezed the Riddler into the game (even though you never saw him) but we'll deall with that in……
THE BAD: Actually, I wouldn't really call anything in this game 'bad', so much as I might say I'm on the fence as to whether I thought things were necessary or could have been done a little differently. And I guess that would apply to the majority of the things I found good about the game. For instance, was it REALLY necessary to have the Riddler challenges in the game? While I did enjoy looking for them and managed to find them all, they also felt like something that was added to the game to help prolong the otherwise potentially short duration of it. Then again, considering Batman is a detective and there's not a ton of 'detecting' to do in the game itself, I guess the Riddler challenges filled that void? And tacking on to this were the challenge modes. Was it absolutely necessary to have these? Probably not at all. But were they fun? Yes. Especially the Predator challenges. The Freeflow challenges did seem to get repetitive and monotonous despite the difficulty ratcheting up with each successive one, but again, I did enjoy the Predator challenges. And unlike what I mentioned about their similarity to the Special Ops missions in COD : MW2, these can be played without having to unlock them by completing the one that came before it, so, props to the game there. Something else I found a tad problematic though, was, detective mode. As cool as it was, it was problematic in that, it was TOO helpful. So much so, that you spend most of the time in it, looking at the world around you in a bluish , x-ray tint and not looking at the fantastic scenery around you in the colors and shadowing it's meant to be seen in. Yes, I probably would have done it differently, but I don't know how because it seemed to be integral to how the game was played, since you had to know where you could grapple and where the enemies were in order to formulate a strategy. Beyond these few things, the only other minor gripes I could come up with were that for everything they allow you to do as Batman in this game (which, again, covers pretty much everything he's able to do – kudos to that!), they don't give you the opportunity to drive the Batmobile (…or Batcycle…..or Batplane……or Batboat….etc., etc.). Now THAT would have been cool! But again, I guess they have to leave something for the sequel(s), so here's to hoping! As well, it would have been cool to deal with The Penguin, Catwoman, Ra's-Al-Ghul and such, but there's that sequel thing again. I guess if I have a real gripe about any of the villains, it's the Riddler. If they're going to bother with having you track down 240 (!!!) of his riddles / objects / whatever, then they should've at least given you the opportunity to apprehend him or fight him. IMHO, a better idea would have been that, if you completed all 240 Riddler challenges, you would either be treated to a) a chance to fight and apprehend him OR at the least b) a fairly lengthy cut-scene where you're shown Batman going to fight and apprehend him. Either of these ideas could have been done as an unlockable reward and something that, in my mind, would have REALLY validated The presence of the Riddler challenges.
THE BOTTOM LINE: This is, without a doubt, a truly fantastic game and most importantly what a video game should be : a LOT of fun without being too difficult to get a grip on. It's pretty straight-forward in its' controls, has a good story, a likeable and familiar character you control (as well as familiar characters you battle), a good blend of fighting and stealth, a nice balance of things to do (even if a few feel contrived), a good array of gadgets to use and is just overall a REALLY, really solid game. This is definitely something any gamer should play if they like anything even close to this type of game and definitely one that belongs in any serious gamers' library. While it's not this particular reviewer's favorite game, it's definitely one I can highly recommend and one I like very, very much.