Hey Friends,

Let me just start off with the good news... Batman: Arkham Asylum might be the best super hero video game ever made. Spider-Man 2 held that title for a VERY long time because it really did make you feel like Spider-Man when you played it... Batman: AA does the exact same thing for Batman.

The story here is that Batman stopped the Joker one night and takes him back to Arkham Asylum. While Mister J is being processed he breaks out starts to unleash all the inmates at Arkham. Clearly he has a very evil plan in mind. As Batman it’s your mission to find out what The Joker is doing, stop it and keep the crazies of Arkham from spilling into Gotham City. To do this you have a ton of cool gadgets and of course you have your ninja like training.

I really don’t want to ruin the story too much for you, but let’s just say that it involves a lot of Batman’s rogue’s gallery running amok and one of Batman’s biggest enemies (and I mean that literally) unwillingly helping The Joker’s evil scheme. While playing you’ll run into some great classic villains, and others are there in spirit, including a The Riddler, who never makes a real appearance, but instead hides a ton of little puzzle elements all over Arkham for you to find. This adds to the exploration aspect of the game and works very well in making the player want to search around more and use the gadgets you get along the way as much as possible.

So the story is solid but without good controls it’s nothing right? The controls are like butter. You move like Batman would move. You’re agile, stealthy and strong. Fighting is a treat. You can take on upwards of 10 thugs and not feel too overwhelmed. There’s a challenge involved, yes, but at the same time it feels good to just take on that many goons and wipe the floor with them. It’s a fine line that’s handled perfectly. They’re of course a bunch of henchmen and you’re Batman... You’re going to dispatch them quickly, but it’s so much fun that you shouldn’t care.  Controlling the different gadgets is all very easy. It mostly involves the shoulder buttons and selecting the gadgets with the dpad. There are batarangs of course and thank god that you never run out. There are grapple devices, and explosive gels as well. Some help you get around, others help you defeat enemies and find secrets.

I have to stress that this game is gorgeous. But that’s one of it’s biggest problems. You can tell a lot of time and effort went into the environment, character design and the textures are all very crisp and pop well in HD. But one of the gameplay elements takes from this completely. Batman has a special vision called “Detective Mode” that allows you to see things like finger prints, walls that are crumbling and clues that are left for you by The Riddler. This vision mode also works as an X-ray vision to help you see where your enemies are in a room. Playing without it is nearly impossible. But it takes away from the visuals of the game. It turns everything slightly blue and outlines it all in a yellow or black line. This allows you to see where things are but all the textures disappear and thing start to look a little virtual. It’s shame that the game relies on this so much because chances are you’ll miss something really cool because you’ll be relying on Detective Mode so much. It is a small price to pay for such a good game though.

The main story mode took me a little under ten hours to run through, and that’s with trying to find as many of Riddler’s puzzles as possible, and really stretching out my legs in the environment to soak it all in. When I was done with the main story, I quickly moved into the Challenge Modes. Challenge Modes are different... well... challenges you can take on. Whether it’s beating so many waves of bad guys and wracking up points with combos, or doing a stealth mission as quickly as you can by clearing out the armed goons. They’re fun and a great little diversion from the main quest. There’s an online leaderboard as well, so you can see where you score with everyone, and with your friends. I got the PS3 version so I was treated to The Joker being a playable character in these rooms. He’s a blast. He doesn’t have the gadgets that Batman has, but he has his own fighting style and goofy animations. It’s not a simple character switch with the same moves. It’s very detailed and makes the game a lot of fun. If you have both the PS3 and Xbox 360, trust me, this is enough to make the PS3 version the one to pick.

So Batman Arkham Asylum has great gameplay, amazing graphics, a great story, and classic characters. It’s the best Batman game ever made, and the best comic book game ever made. But is it perfect? Not quite. I loved everything about this game up until the final conclusion. The game actually reminded me of the first time I played Metal Gear Solid. Yes it’s that good. It felt like a movie or a ride, especially the opening credits where you see certain characters and the atmosphere of the island really pulls you in. I had a smile on my face the entire time. But the finale just didn’t work for me. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say they try to make Joker a much more video game friendly end boss. It’s the same way The Wachowski’s decided to end The Path of Neo. It’s not a cerebral ending the way it normally would be. Instead it’s an over the top rumble that pulls into play everything you’ve learned in the game to that point. It works for the game, but it doesn’t feel right as a Batman fan.

So yes I mentioned this game reminded me of my first time playing Metal Gear Solid, and I will stand by that. The game actually has an homage to MGS about half way through. It’s a classic moment involving one of Batman’s better villains who shows up for a few very cool sequences in this game. Having no idea these moments were in the game made them very cool so I won’t even tell you about them. But they’re not what I expected at all.

I can’t stress to you enough how cool this game is. Batman fans haven’t had a great game to play since Batman Returns back in the days of 16-bit and even that doesn’t hold up today. This game was well worth the wait. Batman Arkham Asylum has it all and is a must own for any video game fan, comic book nerd, or even if you’re just looking for that next great action adventure game.

Batman Arkham Asylum gets a 9 out of 10.