Gameplay consists of a mixture of hand-to-hand combat, stealth and exploration. The basic rhythm of offense and defense is a simple one to get into, and performing long strings of attacks feels like choreography rather than button mashing.
Rocksteady’s attention to detail is impressive, even now – for instance, enemies briefly highlight themselves as they prepare to attack, making counter-attacking effortless.
Characters
The cast of Arkham Asylum is as large as any in Gotham City. The criminals that reside in the psychiatric hospital represent some of the most notorious members of the Dark Knight’s rogue gallery.
The main antagonist of the story is the Joker, who is incarcerated at Arkham but escapes his restraints and takes over the facility. The Joker’s psychotic sidekick, Harley Quinn, is also loose in the asylum and aides him in his takeover.
Other prominent characters include Dr. Penelope Young (who is working on the Titan antidote), Frank Boles (a chief member of Arkham’s staff) and Waylon Jones a.k.a. Killer Croc. Detective James Gordon and the spirit of Arkham Asylum’s founder Amadeus Arkham also appear.
Victor Zsasz is another one of the game’s most notable villains. He keeps a tally of every victim he slaughters and cuts a scar into his flesh to mark the number. Scarecrow, who was contaminated with fear-inducing toxins in the Asylum, also makes an appearance and initiates Batman’s Nightmare sequences.
Story
Unlike most other games that focus on Batman as a fighter, Arkham Asylum looks at his full persona with an emphasis on his detective skills. It also features RPG elements in the form of a circular meter beneath the health bar that fills as you gain experience points to upgrade your gadgets and fighting techniques.
The game opens with Joker being escorted to Arkham Asylum after a fire at Blackgate Prison. Once there, the clown escapes his restraints and takes control of the building’s security system. Batman follows him and quickly discovers that he isn’t here to escape, but rather to wreak havoc on Gotham’s criminals.
Graphics
The visual design of Batman Arkham Asylum is a mix of hyper-realism and comic book exaggeration. The characters are big and beefy, while the lighting bathes them in noir-soaked colors and neon-soaked shadows.
For PC, Warner and NVIDIA have taken the game’s graphics to the next level with a new TXAA rendering pass that enables geometric tessellation in snow banks, increasing their realism. Combined with FXAA, which anti-aliases transparent textures and effects (leaves, chains link fences, bushes) and SMAA, which anti-aliases opaque textures and geometry (including brick walls) the result is stunning clarity and depth.
As a member of NVIDIA’s The Way It’s Meant To Be Played program, Batman: Arkham Origins also supports Stereoscopic 3D and enhanced PhysX content. The game’s system requirements scale well, with most modern DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 GPUs supporting the full game on Ultra settings at 60 fps or higher.
Combat
Unlike other Batman games, Arkham Asylum has a strong focus on both combat and stealth. The combat is a fluid, free-flow system that punishes furious button mashing and rewards players for chaining attacks together, while the stealth mechanics allow Batman to use his gadgets to silently take out enemies.
Enemies have health meters just like Batman, and the game’s fight system rewards players with experience based on their combos and variation. Becoming fluent in the combat system is crucial to progressing through the story, and it’s also a lot of fun trampling hordes of enemies at once as The Dark Knight.
One of the most interesting aspects of Arkham Asylum’s fighting is that it’s actually quite good, especially when played with a decent controller. However, the game’s camera can be infuriating at times – it often swivels in the middle of a combo and ruins Batman’s plan for taking out an enemy. This is partly attributable to an overly active camera but it’s still annoying.