Batman: Arkham Assylum

The general consensus is that Batman: AA is a really good game and the consensus is broadly accurate. The atmosphere is brilliant, the plot is reasonable, the combat & stealth gameplay works well...

It's not a perfect game, though, and there are some problems with it that I haven't heard voiced, at least not on the mainstream review sites.


1) There's too much back tracking.

Batman is set out like an open world game in that there are huge open areas you traverse to get to the missions. However, this ends up feeling like the open world in No More Heroes - you've got an essentially linear game with some open areas shoved on as an afterthought. This means that after every mission you have to spend a good few minutes traversing the same areas you just did but in reverse and minus the enemies. This gets annoying.


2) The Scarecrow sections are too normal

Occasionally you get gassed by the scarecrow. You then get to play through a few minutes of nightmare gameplay. The first bit of these nightmares play very like the nightmares in Max Payne 2 - they're surreal, confused and deeply atmospheric.

Annoyingly, then the designers clearly thought people would get bored of this so the injected some gameplay elements. Basically, you play as Batman in a 2.5D landscape. A giant Scarecrow figure stands in the middle, his gaze is a searchlight that probes the landscape. If he sees you, you die.

These bits are... shit. The gameplay itself isn't too bad but they kill the briliant atmosphere set up by the preceding sections. The reason for this is simple: When you introduce gameplay into a nightmare section, you impose rules upon the nightmare. Max Payne 1 found this out and suffered for it.

Nightmares can't have rules because then they're not nightmares. Rules are rational, nightmares are not. Nightmares are deeply unfair where the thing creating the nightmare - your own brain - knows exactly what you're thinking, what you're trying to do and what terrifies you. As soon as you think you've sussed it, your subconscious changes the rules.

With this in mind, it changes what could be an absolute stand out section of the game to quite a dull game of linear one hit kill hide and seek.


3) The boss fights

I've talked about boss battles before in my golden rules of gaming and Batman fucking loves them. Now, granted, there is one boss battle in this game that is very good - specifically the Killer Croc one. It's atmospheric, tense and very satisfying. Why is this you ask? Well (spoiler warning) because you never actually *fight* Killer Croc, it's all about avoiding him and stunning him when he ambushes you.

Most of the other boss fights are variations around the theme of coming across a huge opponent like Bane, waiting for him to charge at you, throwing a batarang at him so he charges into a wall then pounding on him until he recovers. Repeat until one of you ceases to move.

This is not only unrealistic, it's incredibly derivative. Pretty much every melee based third person action game has had at least one of these fights and Batman has... well. More than a few of them.

Having said that, they're all better than the poisen ivy one, which is nothing but dodge, dodge, dodge, throw batarang at her weak point, beat up a few goons, repeat.


4) The Riddler Challenges

I say "challenges", that's giving them a lot more credit than they're due. Most of them boil down to using a different corridor to progress than the one you're supposed to or taking the time to break down a wall you don't need to. These aren't exactly brain teasers. They're bullshit gameplay lengthening fetch quests. At least you don't need to collect them to proceed through the game. Although I am faintly curious as to what happens if you collect them all. You are probably just shown something like this.


5) It's all been done better

Even at its best, Batman feels like a poor imitation of both Chronicles of Riddick games. The stealth isn't as satisfying, the combat isn't as brutal, the story isn't as interesting, the atmosphere isn't as pervasive, the characters aren't as intriguing, the gameplay isn't as fun, the levels aren't as varied...

Batman: Arkham Asylum is good, for a Batman game it's absolutely fantastic, but as a game, its main problem is that it's been done before and done better. Good try, guys. Maybe you'll be able to surpass your predecessors next time.