Batman: Arkham Asylum uxa360.com Exclusive

**Cannibal_sponge** Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:55 am

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a game that revolves around, you guessed it "Batman". The masquerade detective, that has inspired many movies, television franchises and countless comic books.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is based on the comic books, and is totally separate to all the current batman movies. Which is probably better, as the comic book legacy is rather, long and it shows more of batman character than the movies.

The most stand-out thing about Arkham Asylum is the range of gadgets at Batman disposal, that enhances the combat and basic game play, some of these gadgets include, the batarang, the batclaw (Allows you to grab objects and enemies from a distance) and many more wonderful "toys" to dispose villains with.

In addition to the gadgets the fighting style is also a rather large part of the game, as you will face many inmates of Arkham Asylum, at first the fighting system seems, to be very simple and straight forward, but as you progress through the game, you can unlock different combat abilities that really magnify the fighting styles of Batman, such as once reaching a certain streak count, having the ability to instantly knock an enemy unconscious, which can come in handy, when you are in those very tight spots.

But unfortunately not all the mission, that you undergo will allow you to just beat thugs senseless, as most of the thugs after about an hour in, will have weapons so, head on attacking is not an option. Most of the armed enemies are easy to take down by using silent take-downs and other stealthy attacks, such as my personal favourite, the inverted take-down, which allows the player to hang upside down from a gargoyle and when an enemy walk beneath them they can string them up effectively, causing them to lose consciousness.

They use of stealth is vital is some parts of Arkham Asylum, as there are multiple hostage situations through-out the game, that creates a setting that forces you to us stealth to reach a certain destination and sometimes you cannot take-down any thugs, even silently as they were heart beat monitors.

One of the most useful abilities in this game, is the detective mode, that allows Batman to see enemies through walls, certain items and objects such as vents and weak walls. This is an amazing feature to the game and has similarities to eagle vision in the Assassins Creed games, but it is still very original.

The boss battles are very intense, and thrilling, they really bring the characters to life, and they are very well portrayed.

My biggest scepticism about this game is that the so-called scary moments in the game, are just cheap, repetitive jump scares, especially while battling a certain boss(I am not saying for spoilers sake).

The riddler's riddles, also add hours onto the game, although most of them are very poorly worded and predictable, but they are not bad they just needed more effort. Another thing that I disliked about the game is that it ended very abruptly.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the first in the video game franchise that consists of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. These games are good for players that won't a third person, combat and puzzle based game. I give it a 7.9 out of 10.

~Cannibal_sponge (Jacob Johnston)

Email: jakejohnston@live.com.au

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cannibal_sponge

**SALTYxSANDWICH** Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:53 am

Arrg jake theres tomany words but was good reading.