By Daniel Rutledge
Movie tie-in games are notoriously bad but somehow just keep coming out. Iron Man and Terminator Salvation are two titles that leap to mind as recent examples that had enormous potential but simply failed to deliver. It hurts so much that there is the opportunity for a great, great game to be made for these films. They just keep getting rushed out too quickly to cash in on maximum movie hype, sacrificing quality in the process.
So I found myself somewhat relieved that The Dark Knight never saw the light of day as a video game. 2005’s Batman Begins wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been, but for a game to be worthy of the Dark Knight title it would’ve had to have been very, very special. Batman: Arkham Asylum looks to be such a game.
Part of the recipe for success here is that it is not based on a film, The Dark Knight or otherwise, although there are obvious comparisons to that movie. Due to come out later in the year on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, Batman: Arkham Asylum is one of the year's most anticipated titles. It’s based on the DC comics and specifically the darker Frank Miller and Alan Moore-style Batman. As soon as the game starts you realise that the developers have got the tone right. It’s dark, it’s grim, it’s spooky - the opposite end of the spectrum from the campy old TV show. Arkham Island is located on the outskirts of Gotham City and in the opening cinematic, which is gorgeously detailed, Batman pulls up and with armed guards escorts The Joker inside. We then cut to a kind of prologue stage which lasts around ten minutes. You can move Batman around, but not interact with anything. It’s basically a cinematic in which you control the view – think the opening sequence of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. This segment introduces the game’s standard view, which is contemporary over-the-shoulder third-person reminiscent of Dead Space. The dialogue and subtle score further enhance the mood and also emphasise that this is more of an adult’s game than a kid’s.
It’s no spoiler to say that fairly quickly things go bad for Batman, and The Joker pulls one of his nasty tricks. With the help of some of his gang, including a very sexily dressed Harley Quinn, The Joker takes over the asylum, with Batman and Commissioner Gordon trapped inside. This is where the game starts proper.
The hands-on preview I got to enjoy was two chapters long and rushing through it took around two hours. I would describe the game as something like Dead Space meets Splinter Cell meets BioShock. You’re running about the asylum trying to recapture The Joker, save the Commissioner and of course beat the crap out of a couple of hundred other bad guys along the way.
The first thing that I should mention gameplay-wise is the much hyped ‘free-flow’ combat system. It’s awesome. At first it seems to be just straight-up button mashing, such as you’d find in a hack & slash game, but it’s much more that that. I should point out here that it was the Xbox 360 version I was playing. The basics: you attack with the X button in combination with moving with the left analogue stick. The trick is, though, to line up a bunch of your enemies and hit them in a row. When you get it right, you knock them all down with a sweet as combo. You also get a visual warning when a bloke is about to attack you, at which point you push the Y button to counter. This can be used in combination as the standard X button would. The A button jumps or a double tap triggers an evasive side-roll. Some enemies require you to perform stun attacks, which are indicated with a visual sign, at which point you push the B button.
As you progress through the game you gather points, which can be spent on character upgrades. These can be fight moves, such as pushing X + A to perform a throw. The more of these you unlock, the more options you have in combat, and the more thrilling the combat becomes. Sometimes enemies will hit the floor dazed and if you don’t want them to get up again you’ll need to crouch down by holding in RT and perform a finishing move with the Y button. It’s pretty context-based which is nice and simple – the computer decides whether it’s best for you to punch, kick or grab them and do something more brutal. You just get the timing right. Another cool thing is that when you score a critical hit, it cuts to slow motion from a cool camera angle - reminiscent of the superhero fights in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen - making damn sure you get to see every bit of it. This can be problematic at times as the camera goes to a silly spot behind a wall or something and you can’t see the action, or the animation looks a bit bung and Batman’s fist will look like it’s in the wrong place. It’s still a nice function though. Despite Batman being a superhero, he is not superhuman, and this is represented by the realistic physics engine. Punches look and feel like real human punches. Excellent.
There is also stealth combat, which functions completely differently to standard combat. This is used to take down armed foes that would simply bring you down in a hail of bullets if you attacked them normally. Holding in RT to crouch, you can sneak up behind enemies and stealth-kill them so as to not alert others nearby. You can also use your grapple to gain high vantage points and look down at enemies. From these elevated positions you can spread your cape, fly down and perform a Glide Kick on an enemy to knock them down quietly, or drop down behind them and perform a stealth kill. While carrying out stealth kills, it helps to switch into Detective Mode – more on that soon.
Then there’s boss combat, which is different again from both standard combat and stealth combat. I fought a couple of different level bosses but can’t go into who they were or much about them. What I can say is that the game changed quite dramatically when playing one of them, in a very awesome way. Defeating bosses looks to be different each time. On one you may have to attack in a certain way at a certain time in order to lower their defences, then carry out a standard attack combo when they’re vulnerable. The way to defeat another boss might be to interact with the environment, evading their one-hit kills as you maneuver around to a part of the environment that contains the means to dispatch them. Think something along the lines of a combination of the level bosses from Resident Evil 5 and Heavenly Sword, but of course unique again.
You activate or deactivate Detective Mode simply by clicking LB. With this, Batman’s eyes glow and your view changes to a kind of x-ray vision. You can then see through walls and make out your enemies in skeleton form, see what weapons they carry, what their condition is and so on. This mode also highlights various clues and can scan them in a way you can’t do in normal mode. In the preview I played, this included detecting traces of Commissioner Gordon’s whiskey in order to follow his trail. In addition to Detective Mode, you do of course get to play with Batman’s wonderful toys. The two I got to use in the preview were Batarangs and a Gel Explosive gun. The Batarangs can be used to stun an enemy, which is pretty handy if you get into a tight situation and they’re packing heat. Batarangs are also used on the environment, mainly to smash a wirebox back into life and activate extraction fans which will remove The Joker’s poisonous gas. The Gel Explosive is used to blow out walls, which both creates a path and takes out baddies standing nearby. In order to see where to use these gadgets, you usually have to change to Detective Mode. These gadgets can also be upgraded with experience points instead of your armour or combat moves.
There were also some standard non-combat, exploratory parts of the game. These mainly consisted of running about, using your grapple system to get to higher areas, shimmying along ledges and pulling off grates to air-vents before moving through them. These sections were never too long and were actually quite a fun diversion from the action. There’s also a massive truckload of extra stuff and Easter Eggs and so on. The Riddler leaves riddles all over the Asylum, The Joker leaves little chattering teeth – there’s HEAPS to find, which of course means heaps to unlock. In addition to character and equipment upgrades, there’s unlockable character profiles and other fun stuff with cool artwork and info etc. There’s also some really cool nods to the comics that fanboys will delight in, which I won’t spoil here.
On top of all this there’s challenge mode, completely separate to the campaign mode. This is a kind of arcade mode where you are put in a room and have to dispatch a group of baddies in the most extravagant way, or get through a level the quickest etc. This does not look like a tacked-on bonus, but rather a massive part of the game. It’s here that you’ll be able to fine-tune your mastery and rise up the leaderboards. I didn’t play these challenge levels very much as I was focusing on the storyline mode when I played, but they are more fun than I expected, and will add a lot of value to the title in terms of replayability. It’s also here, rumour has it, that you’ll be able to play as some of the villains. As fun as the game is, I was pretty disappointed to not be able to play as The Joker which I’d seen online in a video. I was more disappointed when I learnt that this will be a PS3-only bonus. Still, the game looks to be very sound as is, and The Joker mode could be considered purely a bonus on top of an already fantastic game.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a very fun gaming experience. I have no real idea of how long the campaign mode will take to get through, but I can’t wait to find out. The gameplay is reasonably unique and is comprised of a few different things that make it all very interesting and non-repetitive. Gamers who like action-adventure titles will enjoy it and Batman comic fanboys are sure to find it the best Batman game to date. Bring it on!