(Nearly) Final Arkham Asylum Thoughts

After a hellish couple of weeks working far more than desirable, I carved out some time on Sunday to sit down and experience more Arkham Asylum. The pacing continued to be fantastic, and I really enjoyed the fact that, if I wanted to, I could meander through the environments after clearing them to search for the Riddler challenges. The combat, while at times aggravating if I lost my timing, was a lot of fun when I got the rhythm down, countering at the right time and keeping long combo chains alive. It was easy to appreciate the way the developers doled out the story and kept me interested in what was happening throughout the game. Overall, I can say, I've truly enjoyed it.

There is one particular aspect of the game that I wanted to highlight, and that's the sequences involving Scarecrow. Even though they were quite similar in mechanic, I enjoyed the buildup to each one (through the use of hallucinations on Batman's part), and the maneuvering through strange dreamscapes while avoiding the giant Scarecrow's gaze provided a nice break from the rest of the game's scenery and strategy. I particularly enjoyed the fake 'system glitch' and subsequent reimagining of part of the game's original intro sequence; I found it to be clever and well-done. For some reason, even though these sections of the game used the same movement mechanics as the rest of the game, I found them to be more entertaining than some of the other sections. It could be that they were just more bright and colorful than the rest of the environments, and just the aesthetic changed my perception. Regardless, I count these sections as some of my favorites...

Now, I can't say this is a game without flaws. While the Killer Croc lair section of the game was inventive and mildly entertaining, it felt a bit too strung out and overly long, and it is one of the very few areas of the entire game that felt, well, gamey to me. If Croc really is an amphibious beast, and just as comfortable under the water as above it, why did he have such a hard time finding me? I mean, I'm no part crocodile, part human homicidal maniac, but I certainly feel that I would have zeroed in on Batman a lot faster than he did, especially after getting hit in the face by batarangs every time I popped out of the water. I would have made damn sure that I was close enough to Batman to just reach up and rip his arms off before he could throw anything at me. In this game though, Croc kept popping up just far enough away to get knocked off the floating platforms by a batarang. The whole segment felt a bit too contrived and didn't fit in very well with the rest of the experience. This observation could also be clouded by the fact that the final portion of this area was incredibly anticlimatic. Maybe Batman wouldn't have stood a chance in pitched battle with Croc, but at least make it more interactive and less sudden than what does occur.

The relative lack of variety in the boss battles was also disappointing. I don't have the total count of boss battles in front of me, but it felt like the vast majority of them involved one or two Bane-type characters with or without waves of extra normal thugs to muddy the waters. Don't get me wrong, the first experiences with them were challenging and fun, but after dealing with them several times, it became rather rote and uninspiring. I haven't yet tackled the game's truly final encounter, although there is a twin Titan battle just before it, but it appears to be more of the same with possibly some slight variation.

My last criticism of the game, and I may be the only one to have this criticism, is that it really irked me how none of the game's iconic villains actually died in this game. It seemed a bit too obvious that the developers were making sure that any and all of these supervillains could (and probably will) make an appearance in the future. It aggravated me on the same level that a movie does, when it clearly wants to leave the story open for a sequel, in case the movie makes enough money to warrant one. Overly dramatic 'death' sequences abound in this title, where Batman never really sees any of his named villains perish. At first, it seemed obvious to me that because there was no real resolution with these villains that they would appear later, but after several super baddies were defeated but not eliminated it was clear that this was the order of the day. Granted, it's good to keep options open for future titles, and most likely DC didn't give the developer license to kill a major villain, but still...After the first 3 or 4 of these, it felt incredibly contrived.

Again, even with these criticisms, Arkham Asylum is the frontrunner for 'Game of the Year' right now in my book. It is a great package of action, exploration, collection and story. I may pop in with any leftover observations after I finish the last boss battle, but for all intents and purposes, I'm nearly done with Batman for a bit. I'll probably try a few of the challenge levels, just to get a feel for them, but they're not really calling out to me. I'm not good enough at the game's combat to excel at the combat sequences, and probably not resourceful enough to be able to quickly dispatch enemies in the predator levels, so the appeal isn't there, but I'll try them nonetheless.

And with that, it's off to finish my lunch and get my head back into work. Leave a comment if you have thoughts on Arkham Asylum, as I'd love to hear them.