Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

Batman Conclusions

At this point it’s fairly safe to say that we like Batman: Arkham Asylum and, since you’ve probably already let your eyes flick down to the bottom of the page, you know we’re going to give it a good score.

But...

At the same time as gushing forward about how much we love it, it’s important to clarify that while it may be The Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever (according to the Guinness Book of Records, apparently) it is not The Best Game Ever. It has flaws and some of them may be fairly significant ones depending on what you’re looking for in a game.

First off, it’s an incredibly linear game for the most part and that’s an issue which is compounded by the lack of multiplayer mode – which doesn’t matter much to us personally, but does seriously limit replay value.

The linearity of the game is a tad restrictive at parts and it’s hard not to see that the game follows a fairly obvious structure of arenas and corridors, funnelling you down set paths by making you chase the breadcrumb trail of evidence to the next boss battle or hostage situation. The structure is one which has been as elegantly put together as possible and the areas you can explore are pretty big, so you never really feel trapped, but it’s pretty noticeable nonetheless.


Second of all, this is a Games for Windows Live game. Again, you may not have a problem with that – but we ran up against some profile shenanigans because of it and we know there’s a lot of readers who staunchly object to the system. So, that’s there too and there’s not a whole lot to be done about it.

Likewise, while the PhysX content and Stereoscopic support is all good for Nvidia users, it does mean that there’s a portion of the PC market that’s being left out in the cold. We’ve spoken about the details of that before and how it can’t directly affect the score, but it is worth mentioning it again we imagine that there’s a substantial portion of the market that’s going to be pretty pissed about the whole thing – though whether they should be angry at Rocksteady, ATI, Nvidia or themselves is open to debate.

On the other hand, there are things which help to balance this all out a bit – the inclusion of the Challenge Mode lengthens what isn’t a short game a bit more and the DLC sweetens the deal too. As we’ve stressed throughout the review, there’s also the fact that there’s been no game yet which has yet let players get this close to feeling like a superhero and having a comic book adventure.


In the end, the best way to judge the game though isn’t by weighing the pros and cons of these minutiae, but by asking ourselves simply if the game is fun or not. The answer is a resounding ‘Yes’ as, even though the actual presentation of the game is dry to the point of joylessness at points, the act of playing through it is deeply gratifying and enjoyable.

Rocksteady has succeeded on nearly all fronts, knitting together genres like grandmas making socks. Batman: Arkham Asylum is frankly all that we were promised it would be – a chance to don a cape and cowl, get up there on the rooftops and feel like the caped crusader. The result is bordering on the heroic compared to how most other licensed games turn out. Trust me, I should know; I’m Batman.