I had wanted to finish both versions(XBOX360/PS3) of Batman Arkham Asylum for a while now and I was getting a little bogged down with all the new games coming out until after work tonight. A friend of mine wanted to have a tag team play session. She wasn't exactly thrilled with some of the tougher later parts of the game. I initially told her that it was her own fault for playing on Hard. But I acquiesced and we played for around 2 hours. Just the last few levels and as I passed the controller back to her so she could beat the crap out of Joker's party hat wearing thugs I began to review in my mind all the great moments I had playing the game.
Batman Arkham Asylum begins with Batman catching the Joker once he had managed to capture all the rest of the villains in Gotham. Everybody ends up in Arkham Asylum and as luck would have it Joker has a plan to capture Batman in the walls of Arkham surrounded by all the worst criminals that helped put there. It is a classic Batman scenario executed to perfection by the guys at Rocksteady and incredible voice talents including Mark Hamill as Joker.
The game is a wonderful mix of action platformer and brawler. Probably on the order of Metroid. Although I hate Metroid and I love Batman, who would have guessed. The combos in the game and way the fighting works are some of the main shining points in the game. The gadgets give you strategic advantages and the stealth in the game is first rate. There was never a moment in the game where I felt anything but thrilled with the way they had executed a particular section or problem. There is also a collection element where you must solve all of Joker's riddles. These riddles range from mildly amusing to kind of hidden and annoying but that's cool with me. The game throws lots of super villains at you. Unfortunately the variety of the villains isn't very wide. There certainly is some variety here and there. But it seems as if the developer was more interested in mixing up the environmental stuff than the actual boss battles. I really wasn't actually tired of the way most battles played out until near the end of the game. But for a super hero game just the sheer quality alone is a giant step forward.
Batman Arkham Asylum unlike many other titles does not occur in a static world. The areas in Arkham that you once passed through are all most never the same when you must pass through them again. All of the changes are story specific but the for some reason the very occurrences of these changes make the player feel all most as if they are playing an entirely new level rather than replaying an area. Also using new gadgets that you find and earn throughout the game drastically changes just about every part of the game including challenge missions.
There are definitely two parts of Batman Arkham Asylum. The challenge mission part and the single player part. More than most other titles these two are disconnected. They do use areas from the single player in the challenge missions. But the skill sets don't tend to cross over. I definitely feel the brawling challenge mission stuff crosses over. But the invisible predator missions are a little too complicated in the challenge missions compared to the single player campaign.
Batman Arkham Asylum is probably not only the best super hero game ever made but also one of the greatest action games ever made. If you have ANY interest in Batman you will definitely want to purchase a copy of this game.
The real deal here is less how good the game is. And more about the differences between the XBOX 360 version and the PS3 version. The XBOX 360 version controls a little tighter when dealing with the actual movement and positioning of Batman. However, the PS3 has superior handling when it comes to using batarangs and other gadgets in conjunction with movement. The graphical differences while slight are certainly slanted in the PS3's favor. However, if you have the game installed on either machine's hard drive, you won't have ANY framerate issues on either one. Certainly the PS3's Joker bonus content is worth the price of admission if you have a PS3. However, I wouldn't also discount the fact that the PS3 also got some exclusive DLC as well. So why buy the game on the XBOX 360, no idea. Unless that's all you have. Then yeah, the game is definitely still worth the purchase.
In closing I would just like to say that the PS3 version of the game is probably the best all things considered but a game this good really should be experenced from beginning to end by everyone. Even if it is just sitting on the couch next to the person finishing it.
1 comment:
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post "No teme" in your blog with the link to you?
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