a5c7b9f00b On a routine trip returning The Joker to Arkham Asylum, the Batman himself must deal with traps set within its inner sanctums, purposely set by the now escaped Joker, along with the rest of his rogues&#39; gallery that are now free within the premises. You control Batmanhe fights to subdue The Joker and his fellows when they seize control of the Arkham Island. About a year ago, my brother and I, being dissatisfied with the Nintendo Wii&#39;s childish nature, &quot;traded it in&quot; for an XBOX 360 system. &quot;Batman: Arkham Asylum&quot; was the first non-sports game we purchased for our new system, and for the first time since the heyday of the Gamecube, I was actually excited about a new adventure game. Unfortunately, this game proved to be much of the same for gamers who prefer the simplicity of older-gen adventures.<br/><br/>At face value, there doesn&#39;t seem to be anything to NOT like about this game. The graphics are excellent, the plot is interesting, and the basic movement controls (which are seemingly always an enormous problem in superhero games) are much more streamlined than in the past. The opening cutscenes are enthralling, and it seems for all the worldif this truly is going to be a game for the ages.<br/><br/>However, and I&#39;m speakinga rather old-school (growing up on the NES) here, the game never really sucks you in like some of the old classics. To be honest, I can&#39;t quite put my finger on what exactly is missing, but after those initial cut-scenes and beginner experimentation, the fun factor gradually fades away. Perhaps the fault comes in the game&#39;s trying to be too much on too many different levels. It wants to be an adventure-mystery…but nothing is ever really difficult to solve, thus no big emotional payoff due to time invested. The game also tries to be full of action…but aside from the basic kicks and punches, the other combos are too tedious to learn and don&#39;t really add anything to the plot of the game; thus you are left to just punching out all the bad guys and being spoon-fed your next strategic move.<br/><br/>Perhaps I have now turned into a &quot;gaming old fart&quot;, but this game failed to really captivate me like, say, the classic NES version of the same character (I could literally play that game for hours on end). Like I said, I can&#39;t quite pin it down, but it seemsif most of the current adventure games (present company very much included) have lost that &quot;it&quot; factor and now just use kicks and punches to try and compete with the first-person shooter genre.<br/><br/>&quot;Batman: Arkham Asylum&quot; isn&#39;t a horrible game by any means, but just be warned that it may not live up to all the hype, either. Batman has never had a great selection of video games based off of him. Most tend to range from decent to just bad. But when I heard about Arkham Asylum I was immediately sold. And thankfully, it did not disappoint. Arkham Asylum contains some of the best action, story, and characters in the Batman franchise.<br/><br/>The basic story is this; after a short battle with Joker in City Hall, Batman takes him back to Arkham Asylum. Batman suspects something is wrong since Joker surrendered almost immediately and follows him into Arkham. Batman&#39;s suspicion is confirmed when Joker makes his escape and sets his goons loose in the Asylum. Batman&#39;s goal now is to find out what Joker is up to and stop him before all of Gotham is threatened.<br/><br/>Joker isn&#39;t alone though. Since Arkham Asylum is rife with Batman&#39;s worst enemies he&#39;ll encounter a lot of them in the process. Some will join Joker&#39;s cause, but other&#39;s have plans of their own. Some of these include Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Bane, Killer Croc, and Scarecrow. Batman will have help from some of his allieswell like, Oracle, Commissioner Gordon, and guard Aaron Cash.<br/><br/>The gameplay is split into three modes. The most used one is exploration, where you walk about the Asylum grounds to get to your objective. The other two are combat and stealth. The combat in this game is easy to master and incredibly fun to use. You&#39;ll be pressing the attack button to go on the offensive against hordes of thugs and the counter button to block attacks and turn some of them against your opponent. The main problem with other Batman games is there wasn&#39;t a lot of stealth, and when there was it was really hacky. This game fixes that and actually makes you feel like Batman while doing it. You can grapple up to gargoyles and hang your enemies off them, glide kick down from a gargoyle on to an enemy, or just sneak up behind them and go for a silent takedown. The mooks are all armed and there at least 6 or 7 butthey slowly begin to get picked off they become progressively more nervous until they&#39;re terrified at even the smallest sound. This gives you a strong feeling of being Batman.<br/><br/>On top of that, there are several trophies, interviews with Batman villains, and other things hidden by The Riddler all over the island. This will keep you busy even after you&#39;ve finished the game.<br/><br/>I couldn&#39;t have asked for a better Batman game. The only flaw I can think of are the challenge areas. They&#39;re basically either fighting stages or invisible predator stages where you rank up points and get medals for accomplishing certain things(like take down three guys with a batarang, etc.). They&#39;re fun to play for awhile but then I eventually get bored. But that&#39;s just me. Either way, Batman: Arkham Asylum is one of the best superhero games I&#39;ve played. If you&#39;re a huge Batman fan, this game is for you. Even those not familiar with Batman should find great enjoyment with this game.
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364 weeks ago