D33A: September 2009

Well.. when I say "complete", I mean around 80% complete, haha! OK, here's the thing: if you haven't heard of Arkham Asylum, you seriously need to get some life, man!

So alright, let's get started.

First thing you notice about Batman: Arkham Asylum is that the graphics are mind blowing. So in case you are so numb that you don't even know what this game looks like, here it is.

Look! No nipples!

And a piece if advice, if you see this with a reasonable price tag on it, DO NOT HESITATE TO GRAB IT OFF THE SHELF! You guys know I normally wouldn't mind playing a pirated version, but for this, I'll make an exception, and I shall explain why in a bit.

So from the looks of it you might think, hmm, yeah, so this is a Batman game with a nicely designed poster, so what? Well, the amazing truth is, the poster is not far from the actual in-game graphics.

I'm not going to spoil you with details of the story, but basically the general story is that the Joker was arrested by Batman and sent to Arkham Asylum. And as predicted, the Joker was caught for a reason, much like what we see in the movie The Dark Knight. With some cleverly executed plans, the Joker and a bunch of Batman's famous villains took over Arkham Asylum, and your mission is to regain control.

GOALLLLLLL!!!!!

The good points are, this game has a lot of twists and turns, meaning many hours of gameplay, and, the story is cleverly woven so that many of the villains were involved, including Mr. Zsasz, Scarecrow, Bane, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, and of course, the Joker. For most parts, you have to act and think like Batman, constantly finding the stealthiest methods to take down your enemies because they are armed, and you're just a man in tights, jumping around and throwing batarangs at enemies.

Psstt... you there, lil' help with the grapple malfunction here?

You get many gadgets as you go along, too. But when I say many gadgets, what I mean is many types of batarangs. There are regular batarangs, sonic batarangs, and my personal favourite, the remote-control batarang! Yup, you aim and throw, then maneuver it to hit as many targets as you can. Welcome to the PSP generation! I bet even Adam West didn't have so much fun being Batman.

Besides that you also get the batclaw, and a jamming device to destroy electronic locks all over the asylum, and explosive gel to blow up holes in walls. Very cool stuff here!

Told you I hate books! Look what you've done!

There is a variety of gameplay modes, too, inside the story mode, I mean. Certain scenarios you gotta go stealth. Certain scenarios you have to take them face on and beat the crap out of those criminals, while doing combo moves to increase your experience points. And I have to say, if you manage to link all combos together, the visual experience is VERY rewarding. You don't do much, but visually it looks like you're doing all those cool moves and it's great for showing off to your friends.

Think Alan and Vincent in the same room

There are also moments where Batman is momentarily poisoned by scarecrow, and starts hallucinating. Very Max Payne-ish if you ask me, but it works. At least it's not boring. I also like that there are places where your grapple don't work, causing you the need to climb up places the old fashion way.

I'd like to come down now, please... Any day now...

Frankly up to this point it's a bit hard to think of any bad thing about this game. Perhaps the only one I can think of is that Two-Face isn't in the game. Perhaps a sequel would come up? I certainly hope so, but this brings me to another worry. If they'd included so many of the main villains in this one, who's gonna be in the next? I have to struggle to figure out who else. Two-Face... er... Dr. Freeze (hopefully not the Governator again)... and er... Penguin? Catwoman? I like the idea of that but they aren't that menacing compared to the lot in Arkham Asylum. Sadly also, you don't get to drive the batmobile, which is something I hope makes into the next game.

Hmmm... Did I lock the door of my new Myvi? Oh hell, I forgot to bring the steering lock!

So anyways, seriously, even if you're not interested, go download the demo and try it out. It's sad there's no multiplayer mode, because clearly there is only one batman. There's the challenge mode where you get to replay certain scenes in the game, with more challenging objectives. There are also fighting stages where you have to reach a certain number of points to win. Very very nice. I can spend the whole night trying to beat my previous scores.

So there you go. If it's cheap enough, like around RM60-RM80, I'd buy the original version. The reason is simple. It has replay value. Played the normal mode? Go on to the hard one! There's always something new in this game. Trust me on that.

Gotta get back to work now before my boss fires me. Bye!