Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition

When I first picked up this game, I wasn't expecting too much; after all, this IS a superhero game, and we all know how ANY superhero game turns out. Well, this sparked a new generation of *actually decent* games, which were designed not solely as a cash grab, but instead had a great amount of love and attention poured into it, with a lot of respect for the comic origins of the character. If you're a fan of Batman and/or beat-em-ups, I absolutely recommend this gem. It's not my personal favourite in the series (that would be Arkham City), but this is where it all started, and still holds up well to this day.

At first I wa trying to be ultra sneaky, but quickly realised the game is more action oriented, with a few "mandatory stealth" short sections, and to tell the truth, the combat is very fluid and controls are smooth (gamepad recommended). Most of the bosses are kind of boring, even the final boss is just a gauntlet fight against henchmen, my favorite boss fight was against Ivy. Storywise it feels very much like a Batman movie, which is great, and with such an outstanding cast is even better. My only qualm with the plot is that The Riddler somehow hacks into your ultra secure comms (fair enough), but then Batman and Oracle keep talking like if their security wasn't compromised, even using their real names (yeah, writers dropped the ball there). There is a fair amount of secrets and easter eggs to collect, but since the map is not very big, it doesn't get boring, I solved all of Nigma's puzzles and felt quite satisfied with the length of the hunt. I got a few visual glitches, but nothing major, the game runs smoothly at 60 fps with zero crashes or bugs. For me the screen flickered like crazy when I tried to view the character trophies, maybe it won't for you, but I like to share my own experiences. Overall, the game is very enjoyable, they made it small and well packed, I can't wait to see how they screwed it on subsquent entries (they always do, always).

I liked this game very much, bigest problem for me was fighting (countering atacks sucks).

Compared to the later games in the Batman Arkham series Asylum is a bit clunkier and lesser in content. If you're expecting deeper mechanics compared to City, Origins or Knight you will be left disappointed but what Asylum offers is still very fun. I'd recommend this to people who want to see how the series got started, to people who want experience the complete storyline and to people who can appreciate a spooky atmosphere. Asylum is in my opinion the spookiest game in the series due the insane asylum setting.

Played and finished it on Steam recently. Batman: Arkham Asylum is definitely showing its age when compared to the other Arkham games. It's much slower and more cutscene focused than I'd like, but the basic gameplay is the same as the rest of the franchise. The story to be had is really good until you get to the end and it does a 300 mph faceplant on itself. I won't spoil anything if you want to play it for yourself, but do be prepared that the end might leave you wondering what just happened. The game is the easiest in terms of combat in the franchise, but it's also the most frustrating in the franchise when it comes to the stealth sections as you're left with very little room for error if you make a mistake. If you never played the Arkham games, definitely start with this one, despite Origins being the prequel to the franchise. It's very jarring to go back to where it all started when you played any of the other games, so be warned if you just up and skipped this one. Stylistically it's way cooler than the other Arkham games I played(didn't play Origins). Might seem like a negative review of the game, but the game itself isn't bad, it's just not as good as any of the sequels, unless you like a more linear Batman experience.