Game Review: Batman Arkham Asylum

Short-n-sweet thoughts on B:AA.

It's brilliant. It's this year's Bioshock. It's probably the best comics license game ever made, and among the best of any license-based games (Jedi Knight comes to mind). It's certainly a game of the year nominee if not the hands-down winner.

Grand Text Auto summarizes it brilliantly as a game that is...

built from the gameplay up, asking what it is like to be The Bat. It’s about being a predator, swiftly moving through the darkness, instilling fear before destroying your prey. It’s about being a fist-fighter, able to level anyone who dares attack you. It’s about being The World’s Greatest Detective, using gadgets and gizmos to aid you. These are core mechanics, not bolted-on aspects to a 3D brawler or platformer. [] From that point on, everything Batman: Arkham Asylum does is flawless: the voice acting, the cape not just being a questionable sartorial choice, but as an object that defines Batman, the excellent pacing

My initial impression of the game, from just a few minutes, was that it was so.... polished.

If I have a minor complaint, its that the 'detective' element of the game really is spoon fed to you, guiding you down a story on rails. It would have been cool if you had to piece together what to do next, though I could also see that leading to frustration and breaking the nicely paced. story. Damn if you do, etc.

Anyhow. It's a must play game, IMHO.