I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum when it shipped, Tuesday morning. It was actually, by happenstance, the day that my new Xbox arrived from Amazon and so I was excited to play on my Xbox, but I had heard really good things about Batman and had enjoyed the demo.<\/p>\n
I got my copy from Toys \u2018R Us, which was running a promotion where I got a $30 gift card when buying it, making it only \u201ccost\u201d $30. It also meant that we could use the gift card later that day to get the new Professor Layton.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t been as immediately captured by one game in a long time. I think about the game several times a day and have played it thoroughly the past two nights, staying up against my own better judgment until past 2 in the morning.<\/p>\n
What makes Batman so good? Why do I enjoy so much?<\/p>\n
Feeling of Power<\/strong> Combat, sparingly<\/strong> Open (enough) world<\/strong> Polish<\/strong> You\u2019re Batman<\/strong> I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum when it shipped, Tuesday morning. It was actually, by happenstance, the day that my new Xbox arrived from Amazon and so I was excited to play on my Xbox, but I had heard really good things about Batman and had enjoyed the demo. I got my copy from Toys \u2018R […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-year26","tag-video-games","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scott-n-katie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The biggest thing that Batman brings to the table is giving the player a great sense of a feeling of power \u2013 of actually being a superhero \u2013 without making combat a walk in the park. The combo combat system (and Batman\u2019s extreme weakness to firearms) makes every encounter interesting and challenging, without ever making it feel like a single goon could legitimately take down Batman in hand-to-hand combat.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the level design has it such that moments of combat are used sparingly and thus retain maximum effect and enjoyment when they do occur. Most of the time, Batman is crawling through vents, using his detective skills to look for a way in or a way out, or a way to get the upper hand in an upcoming fight before the enemies even know he\u2019s there. It makes being Batman feel like being Batman; after all, it\u2019s not about beating up guys all the time<\/em>. It also makes me hold future combat encounters with extreme anticipation.<\/p>\n
The story is directed enough that you can follow it through new location after new location, with some small revisiting of the open grounds of Arkham Island. But if you take your time and try to get a good number of collectibles (cleverly masked as Riddler Challenges), the grounds are large enough to feel like you\u2019ve room to explore without being so large that you lose your bearings. Many of the events are scripted so the world isn\u2019t truly an open and living one, but the story flows quickly enough that there\u2019s always something new to discover, even in places you\u2019ve already explored.<\/p>\n
The game looks great. The voice acting is solid. The writing is decent. All of the gadgets feel powerful and useful, and playing as Batman feels badass. The entire experience feels very polished, so you spend less time finding small gripes and more time being Batman<\/em>.<\/p>\n
And the game delivers on this feeling in spades. What else would you want?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"