In Batman: Arkham City, Batman can now dive from the tops of buildings onto thugs below
I was able to hunker down and beat Batman: Arkham City this past weekend, and for those wondering – it really is about an eight hour game if you avoid the sidequests. Now that I’ve gone through the primary storyline, here’s my abbreviated, yet “debatable” review.
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In Batman: Arkham City, you’ll be doing a lot of traveling – but fortunately, with some fun toys
I have so little time to game nowadays, and I’m not yet done with Gears of War 3 yet, but the combination of K-Mart offering a $30 gift card with Batman: Arkham City and reviewers going gaga over the game had me impulsively buy it. I’ve been able to sink a few hours into it so far this past weekend, and my plan was to try to beat it and trade it in quickly before switching back to Gears of War 3. But I guess it’s not going to be as quick as I thought.
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We’ve finally reached the last day of our 2009 Xbox 360 Awards & Holiday Shopping Guide, culminating in our Game of the Year. For those following the awards throughout the week, you may have a good guess as to what game will be our game of the year. Is it the same as your pick?
In any case, please remember that while we’ve chosen only one winner from each category, all games nominated within each category are all worth considering, depending on how much you enjoy that category. This week’s feature has doubled as a shopping guide as well as an awards “ceremony”. With that, let’s draw back the curtains for the finale…
In Part 4 of the Awards/Shopping Guide, Leveling Down will be tackling some of the more controversial categories: Best Story, Best Value, and Most Overrated. Admittedly, these categories are VERY subjective and are only our opinions, and on some counts even espion4ge and I don’t see *exactly* eye to eye. Nonetheless, controversy is a lot of fun, so might as well give it a shot!
One of the Xbox 360′s strongest features compared to other consoles is its multiplayer gameplay, which can probably be attributed to the Live infrastructure. It is thus not surprisingly to see strong multiplayer games on this system. For today’s awards, I will be discussing the best multiplayer games released this year, and the one better than the rest.
I will also be discussing the best new IP and best sequel of the year. It’s good to see that in 2009, there were nearly an equal number of good new IPs and sequels. The moment we begin seeing only sequels releasing and new IPs no longer developed is the moment the game industry stops advancing. It’s easy to support sequels since you know what you’re getting yourself into, but this year was perhaps the year with the largest number of development studios shutting down. Continue to take a chance by supporting new IPs – the developers need this type of support to stay in business and come up with new and exciting games to push our industry forward!
Rounding out our main categories, today we will be looking at Best Action/Adventure, Music, Real-Time Strategy and XBLA games. Looking at the list of titles from this year, there were a surprising number of good action/adventure games out this year, and even though neither of us owns a PS3, you can’t talk about action/adventure in 2009 without mentioning Uncharted 2. I’m glad I didn’t have to nominate that game though, since that would probably have made for some tough decisions. Music games, on the other hand, seemed to take a step backwards, or maybe we are just getting sick of them. Meanwhile, Live Arcade continues to put out good titles worth taking a look at.
The Joker is an awesome foe, and is used to great effect in this game
I don’t always write about games espion4ge has already reviewed, but I’m enjoying Arkham Asylum so much I had to sing its praises. A couple things up front: I do read comics in passing, though mostly Marvel stuff, but I definitely prefer Batman to anything else DC has. Secondly, I basically agree with the things espion4ge wasn’t cool on: it’s kind of annoying to run through the majority of the game in Detective Mode, the boss battles are weak sauce, and I guess the adventuring isn’t that great, though I never enjoyed games like Tomb Raider so I don’t have much to compare it to.
But yes, in a sentence, I love this game. Here are some of the reasons why:
1. You never are doing the same thing for too long. As the game moves along, you keep switching between hand to hand combat, stealth missions, “detective” missions, etc. Not only that, there are also certain sections where you have to play a certain way, whether you are sneaking around in the sewers trying not to disturb something or trying to navigate your way up a large structure without using your grappling hook. The game does a great job of mixing things up and the different gameplay styles mesh together very well.
2. Combat evolves from button mashing to surprisingly deep gameplay. Once you get used to the combat system it gets crazy, and it becomes extremely elegant and fun. As you move from enemy to enemy, stunning them, throwing your batarang, pounding them when they are on the ground, it is incredibly satisfying. I love it, and it makes use of every single face button (and one of the triggers) incredibly efficiently.
3. I also find the Riddler challenges really fun to figure out. For some reason, I’m really enjoying running around the different areas finding all the medals and solving the riddles (which I didn’t even figure out how to do until I was well into the game). I usually hate collect-a-thons, but in this game I am really enjoying it. Go figure.
4. The combat and predator challenges (outside of the main storyline) are also tons of fun. They take real skill to master (skill I don’t have yet) and are really enjoyable takes on in-game battles. I really love the predator challenges because I feel like Batman does stealth right: you aren’t invincible and you HAVE to be stealthy. In MGS4 and Splinter Cell I always felt like I could overpower my enemies, but in Batman I know I have to stay in the shadows or else I’m done.
5. Finally, what I love most about this game is that it feels so cinematic. It’s like I’m watching a Batman movie, but I’m getting to play it. I am really enjoying the story, the premise of the game is great, and everything about the presentation is top notch. Part of it is the fact that the gameplay keeps changing, each section feels fresh (I think I’m past halfway through) and has a different feel to it.
What can I say, I love the game! Pick it up if you have a chance, if you’re a fan of 3rd person games you probably will like what you find. If you’re a fan of Batman – you’ll love it.
I’ve spent a good amount of time with the retail version of the game this past weekend, and before we get into my impressions, I want to state that I’m not really a comic reader and a gamer foremost. I think it’s safe to say that at this point, any Batman or comic book fan will tell you this game is awesome. But how does it stand on its own as a video game? This is what I want to share.
The glaringly best thing about the game is that you feel like Batman. Being Batman, or any super powerful character with plenty of gadgets – licensed or otherwise, is fun when it’s done correctly and Batman: Arkham Asylum’s gameplay mechanics in this regard shine brightly. The gameplay is broken up into three main parts: beating up unarmed foes, incapacitating armed foes through stealthy means, and using detective skills to look for clues on how to proceed. The combat system is quite intuitive, and really highlight Batman’s martial arts training since he can engage several unarmed thugs at once as he melees and counters his way through the crowd. It works beautifully, and you feel like a total badass when you can clear a room without breaking a sweat.
I am actually having a hard time deciding which aspect of the game I enjoy more: the brawling with the unarmed thugs, or the stealth with the armed thugs. In the stealth mode, Batman encounters several armed thugs at once, and he takes major damage from gunfire so the best plan of attack is “Predator style”. To take out armed thugs, Batman makes use of quietly sneaking up behind enemies to silenty incapacitate them, or he can make use of floor grates or his hookshot to travel where the enemies won’t see him. Perching above enemies allows Batman to hang upside down like a bat and take out any enemy walking by, or he can go with a less stealthy method and simply fly down and knock them out. In any case, the stealth and the combat are the most enjoyable aspects of the game.
The detective skills aspect of the game is “passable”, making the adventure aspect of the game a bit mediocre. At any time, Batman can enter Detective mode, changing the way he views the environment. In this mode, the colors are practically inverted, and items or clues that should be investigated are colored in orange. The clues in general aren’t really much deeper than a breadcrumb trail to the next objective (you won’t be doing any Phoenix Wright style investigations or piecing together clues), so the whole detective aspect of the game doesn’t have any depth. Another issue I have with the Detective mode is that if you want to be aware of clues or any hidden items in the world, you pretty much have to run through the game with the Detective mode on at all times. In my several hours of play so far, I’ve spent the majority of my time in this inverted color mode, and don’t even know what the real graphics of the game world looks like. That’s just poor game design right there – I would have preferred that the colors weren’t all inverted while the important stuff is still highlighted for the player.
The Unreal Engine 3 works very well here, along with the music, sound, and vocals – providing for a very impressive presentation. I imagine that those who are fans of Batman and have desperately wanted to play a good one will giggle with glee when they play through Batman: Arkham Asylum. There’s a ton of background material and references to popular characters in the Batman universe that get unlocked throughout the game. Unfortunately for me, as I’m not really a fan of the Batman universe, they come off as simple “collectathon” stuff that adds more fluff to a game I wish had more depth than its combat system.
All in all, I think this game is enjoyable and a must-buy for Batman fans, but far from a revolutionary game such as BioShock (Game Informer calls Batman: AA this year’s BioShock). Although this is what it’s like to play a Batman game done right, would it still be as highly rated if it wasn’t a Batman game? Most likely not, as hunting for hidden packages (disguised as Riddler’s challenges in the game) are not enough to give the adventuring aspect of the game any real depth. Luckily for us, I think we’re all a little bit biased towards wanting to be Batman, so the game’s faults are easier to forgive.
The Batman Arkham Asylum demos hit the 360 and PS3 this past weekend, and I reluctantly downloaded it just to see how it was. The game has been somewhat hyped, but with it being a “licensed game” by an unknown developer and published by the morally questionable Eidos (Tomb Raider, Kane & Lynch), I was wary because that combination has many of the signs that will often end up being a garbage title.
When I first loaded up the game and saw that it was powered by the Unreal Engine 3 (the same engine behind BioShock, Gears of War, and Mass Effect), I was already pleasantly surprised. I thought, “Hmm, this game may not be so bad after all.” The 1.5 GB demo actually showcased a lot of interesting features of the game. It opened somewhat blandly as you played Batman and easily knocked out several unarmed foes. I remember playing that scene in a Best Buy weeks back and walking away unimpressed. I should have stuck around to play further.
The next parts of the demo were what made the game a lot more interesting, as it introduced enemies with firearms (so you couldn’t just rush in and beat them down), your grapple hook (to get yourself quickly above enemies to take them down from the air), stealth takedowns, and a detective mode that functions similarly to the Scan Visor in Metroid Prime, showing you aspects of things you are looking at that you wouldn’t be able to see with the naked eye. You can even see where enemies are positioned, their panic state, etc.
After the first few rooms, the demo concluded with a room where there were five patrolling guards. The objective of the room was to clear out the guards in any way you wanted. It had elements of stealth reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid, but your objective is to take out all of the guys instead of running from them. The first two guards I easily took out with stealth kills, and the third one I used my grappling hook to reach high ground and fly in from above to knock him out. Upon taking out the third guard, the other two guards came running towards the commotion so I quickly disappeared into the dark. They began to panic, and split up, allowing me to take one out when the other one turned a corner. The last guard started really going nuts and shot at anything that was making noise like the steam pipes. This was what made me think, “Wow, I’m having a lot of fun. This really feels like Batman!” I then descended upon the final guard, knocked him out, and proceeded further before the demo concluded.
I have to say, if the demo is a strong indication of the game, it’s looking excellent. And with it coming out in two weeks, it’s definitely now on my radar. And with the fact that Batman is actually an amazing detective, this game could be like BioShock, Splinter Cell, and Condemned all put together for a package full of win. The demo was probably the best one I’ve played in a while, and has practically sold me on the game if it ends up being a good length. If you have any interest in Batman, check it out if you get a chance!
