So.. Batman: Arkham Asylum

[Erkki]

The demo is surprisingly good. This could be the next Chronicles of Riddick i.e. licensed game that not only doesn't suck but is actually excellent. I'm probably displaying my ignorance here since surely there have been a few more recent games like that, not to mention Fate of Atlantis and such.

[Roderick]

I liked the demo. Although I'm still a bit apprehensive at the prospect of some of the combat scenario's (I'm generally not much of a brawler fan), the stealthy sections appeal to me.

[James]

I'm probably going to get this. I'm thinking of going for the PC version, as it's about £15 cheaper, although I think it might be suited to controllers, so that sent me back into the internal debate of whether to get a wired 360 controller. a receiver dongle for the wireless controllers I already have, or say "fuck you Microsoft and your stupid peripherals". The Games for Windows thing was meant to make using a 360 controller a simple plug-and-play affair, so why do I need extra hardware to use the controller that comes with the good versions of their console? (Possibly all versions now – does the low-end variant still come with a wired controller?) I get that the Play and Charge kit hardly transfers any data, but it seems dumb that they set it up that way. Did they not plan for this Games for Windows thing when they were designing the controller?

WOAH, sorry, a bit of a tangential rant there. Mouse and keyboard seemed OK, but I'd still probably rather go with controller. Perhaps I'll get a wired one. It doesn't support generic ones, does it? I got my PS3 controllers working OK on the PC.

As for the game itself: I liked the demo. My main complaint was that people show up as skeletons in detective mode. I imagine I'd stay in detective mode most of the time to stay aware of nearby enemies and so on, but the take-down stuff looks kind of dumb on skeletons.

[gdf]

It looks alright and the demo was surprisingly decent, but I don't know where all these (post-embargo, non-corrupt) 9s and above are coming from. It's crazy.

I'm going to get it out of curiosity more than anything else.

[Scratch]

I played the demo on PC. Considering Mouse/Keyboard controls, I preferred playing with a controller. Games like this somehow never play that well on traditional PC controls.

Oh and the game does support some of the "third party" PC gamepads out there (logitech for instance). But if you're indeed going to get a new controller, I would suggest you to stick to the 360 controller for windows. Most modern PC ports, support the MS controller out the box. Other controllers you might have to mod the files to get working properly.

Back on topic:

The only minor problem with the game, is the abundance of gargoyles. I understand that Batman has a need of something to grapple on and do his thing. But couldn't they have atleast substituted something different every once in a while?

[Patters]

It looks alright and the demo was surprisingly decent, but I don't know where all these (post-embargo, non-corrupt) 9s and above are coming from. It's crazy.

I'm going to get it out of curiosity more than anything else.

Maybe they actually like it that much. The game itself looks great as well as the trailer which shows a few extra abilities. I am likely to pick it up after I get money and the price drops.

[Chris]

I thought it played well on PC, including with mouse and keyboard. I like having mouselook for camera control.

[elmuerte]

As for the game itself: I liked the demo. My main complaint was that people show up as skeletons in detective mode. I imagine I'd stay in detective mode most of the time to stay aware of nearby enemies and so on, but the take-down stuff looks kind of dumb on skeletons.

There is one good reason to disable detective view, and that's to see which directions the enemies are facing. This isn't very clear when the enemy is far away and there's a large open area.

I played the demo on PC. Considering Mouse/Keyboard controls, I preferred playing with a controller. Games like this somehow never play that well on traditional PC controls.

Oh and the game does support some of the "third party" PC gamepads out there (logitech for instance). But if you're indeed going to get a new controller, I would suggest you to stick to the 360 controller for windows. Most modern PC ports, support the MS controller out the box. Other controllers you might have to mod the files to get working properly.

I don't agree, I hardly ever play a game using gamepads. Only for games that have the console style directional movement. In those cases an analog stick is nicer to use. But this control system isn't used by most games when you play it on the PC. The LEGO games did use it though.

I really hate the move to the non standard xbox360 controller support for games. Because they usually forget or even break support for standard gamepads/joysticks in the process. Sure, you add support for 1 type of gamepad... and break support for hundreds of others.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeesh, just watched the trailer... They obviously didn't spend too long on casting the joker, did they?

Edit: Yowzers... that was Mark Hamill?! He plays the joker very differently... more like a sinister uncle than a maniacal lunatic.

[Psych]

Mark Hamill played the Joker in Batman the Animated Series, for a good number of people (me included) he is the one true voice of the joker.

[zomboid]

I thought the demo was fantastic. I'm really really looking forward to playing this. Hopefully Gamefly doesn't take a month to send it to me.

[elmuerte]

I want a batarang, but because of stupid laws you can not import it (it's flagged as weapon or something). Then again, a more local store is selling it even cheaper than play.com .

Yes, I am a sucker for special editions (but not for retarded editions).

Although.. it is almost twice the price of the normal edition.

[James]

Oh and the game does support some of the "third party" PC gamepads out there (logitech for instance). But if you're indeed going to get a new controller, I would suggest you to stick to the 360 controller for windows. Most modern PC ports, support the MS controller out the box. Other controllers you might have to mod the files to get working properly.

The whole point is that I don't want to get a controller just for my PC, as hardly any PC games warrant it. Reusing my console controllers seems like a very neat solution to the problem. If I were to buy a new controller, I'd probably get a wired 360 one. It seems daft, though, considering I already have two wireless ones, and I hardly ever play local multiplayer any more. My frustration is that if I want to use a 360 controller I have to either buy a wired one or buy a receiver for my wireless ones, which is doubly frustrating when you consider the fact that I had to pay extra for the Play and Charge kit, which the controller is constantly plugged in to anyway because I once left it plugged in too long and that messed the battery up. The PS3 controller, on the other hand, uses a standard USB cable, and actually transfers input data down it, so all it took was a couple of very small free downloads and some admittedly frustrating fiddling around to get them working as generic PC gamepads. If someone could work out a way to disguise them as 360 controllers and make them compatible with all the Games for Windows stuff, I'd be set. As it stands, I can't really justify buying any extra stuff just to use controllers on the one or two PC games that kind of feel like they could do with it.

On the other hand, the PC ports of console games are often considerably cheaper, so it might save me money in the long run. And I'm not exactly sensible about these things, anyway. Maybe... I kind of feel like I don't want to reward Microsoft for being so dumb about it, though. I really appreciate it when manufacturers use standard interfaces and so on. On the other hand, the PS3 controller battery is non-replaceable, which might one day be a problem. But at least it doesn't disintegrate if I leave it plugged in overnight.

I thought it played well on PC, including with mouse and keyboard. I like having mouselook for camera control.

Mouselook was welcome (as always), but, as with many third-person games, I found that movement of the character when I was looking around corners in anticipation felt really clumsy and ugly. It wouldn't really matter for gameplay, but just having 8 directions bothered me. I had the same problem with Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. What really annoyed me about that was that I thought the mouse worked much better than a controller for other stuff in that game. In Batman, on the other hand, it feels like all the aiming is loose enough not to be a problem.

[Scrobbs]

Normally I avoid these types of games, but based on the EG review, it sounds pretty interesting. Reckon I will get it.

[miffy495]

As it's $30 off for the next few days, I grabbed it under the rationale that I would sooner or later anyway. Played about an hour of it. I need to run to work right now, but if I get some time on the office computer I'll post some impressions for those of you on the fence.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Mark Hamill played the Joker in Batman the Animated Series, for a good number of people (me included) he is the one true voice of the joker.

I know he's considered a bit of a legend -- I've never heard his take on the Joker before, though... I'm really surprised that that was how he plays him. Very low key.

[Chris]

I know he's considered a bit of a legend -- I've never heard his take on the Joker before, though... I'm really surprised that that was how he plays him. Very low key.

This is actually different to how he played Joker in the animated series. That character was more maniacal. In an interview he said that once he actually saw the character design and overall tone of this game, he deliberately toned it down because he didn't think the animated series Joker would fit within the game's world.

[BaronVonBulkshit]

I want a batarang, but because of stupid laws you can not import it (it's flagged as weapon or something). Then again, a more local store is selling it even cheaper than play.com .

Yes, I am a sucker for special editions (but not for retarded editions).

Although.. it is almost twice the price of the normal edition.

The batarang is attached to the base so you can't run around like an overgrown manchild throwing it around with a towel hanging behind you while singing hall of the mountain king in your head, wait what are we talking about again. Oh yeah, it also looks like a really cheaply made piece of plastic.

As for the game, it's pretty good. There's nice little references to the batman universe, I found Ra's Al Ghul's corpse in a morgue, mr freeze's cell, clayface locked up in a cell etc.

I liked what they've done with it so far

-ign.com

[miffy495]

Man, all that and they kept Clayface locked up??? I would have loved a fight with him.

So far, my hour with it was great. Hamill does a great job as the Joker, sounding enough like my memories of him from the day to cash in on that happy nostalgia. I'm loving the combat engine, although the sneaking feels kinda iffy. Maybe it's just been the scenarios I've used it in though. The grapple stuff is great and I hope it means there are some huge outdoor segments scaling the walls of the asylum and such. Seems like it would be well suited to it and a lot of fun. At any rate, I'll be booting it up when I get home and can't wait to get back to it.

[Ben X]

I know he's considered a bit of a legend -- I've never heard his take on the Joker before, though...

In which case, you've presumably never watched the Batman Animated series (from the early 90s). The spin-off movie Mask Of The Phantasm is strongly recommended as a jump-in point...

[80's Bad Guy]

I'm planning on getting this only because I was such a fan of the animated series and Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy represent the definitive B-Man & Joker™ to me.

Not a resounding endorsement, I know, but I'm still skeptical to see if all the elements we saw in the demo can be stretched out for a full length game. Also it seems to have a ridiculous amount of hype at the moment, how did it do that? Great IP, solid game, good release window? Is the formula that simple?

[Scrobbs]

Echoing Erkki, the demo is surpringly good, feels quite smooth and easy to link combos: glide down and hit, incapacitate on floor and leap away to another gargoyle.

Enjoyed the Joker being a nutter too, interjecting comments here and there. Will defo get it.

[miffy495]

As for the game, it's pretty good. There's nice little references to the batman universe, I found Ra's Al Ghul's corpse in a morgue, mr freeze's cell, clayface locked up in a cell etc.

Man, the Hush reference knocked me flat. That's some damn detail work there.

Anyway, just finished the fight with Bane, and the game tells me I'm 13% of the way through, so I'm probably a bit more qualified to comment now. Holy shit, this is excellent. The combat is brilliant, the stealth is great (if you buy into it. I'll explain...) and everything is just so perfectly Batman. Awesome.

As for the buying into the stealth, it's sort of like a Splinter Cell thing where you have to not think that the enemies are real human but some kind of alien race that can't make out a giant blob in a shadow 4 feet from them. Or, in the case of Batman, a dude in a cape hanging upside down from a gargoyle across the room. That inverted takedown, while really cool, is definitely the worst offender in the area of "Really? The guards can't see THAT?!?" Other minor things abound, but dodgy AI aside, it still really feels amazing to pick off a room full of henchmen one by one and watch them start to panic. There was one bit in a hostage situation where I got them down to the last of 6-ish guys and he started to panic and fire blindly into any shadow that looked suspicious. I fucked with him a bit by throwing batarangs into the corner near him, causing him to swivel and shoot at my discarded projectile. Then I swept down from the ceiling and kicked him in the back of the head. Fuck yes.

Anyway, I have to be up for work in 5 hours, and have already stayed up too late playing this game to spend more time writing about it. Night night.

EDIT: Can't believe I didn't mention the Scarecrow. Holy fucking shit. Don't want to spoil anything, but I hear there are multiple sections with him and if the others are anything like the first, worth buying the game for alone.

[toblix]

Quickly going from "Movie tie-in game, probably crap" to "OMFG I MUST HAVE THIS!"

[elmuerte]

As for the buying into the stealth, it's sort of like a Splinter Cell thing where you have to not think that the enemies are real human but some kind of alien race that can't make out a giant blob in a shadow 4 feet from them. Or, in the case of Batman, a dude in a cape hanging upside down from a gargoyle across the room. That inverted takedown, while really cool, is definitely the worst offender in the area of "Really? The guards can't see THAT?!?"

They probably want to keep it playable. Specially on the console where the controls have the finesse of mammoth stampede.