When it comes to games, books, or movies; there is one fact that is always certain:  When a game, book, or movie is made based off something & are connected to each other, they either bomb real badly or do exceptionally well.  Usually (at least as far as I know), I have never played a game that “broke even” or average.  It’s either excellent or it sucks butt fungus.  Batman: Arkam Asylum is one of those titles that lands in the “exceptionally well” category.

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            Batman: Arkam Asylum is as what the title suggests: You’re Batman fighting in the Arkam Asylum, a place of where about almost all the evil villains Batman single handed captured and placed here.  The story begins with Batman capturing one of his greatest enemies, the Joker. Even though Batman captures Joker and imprisoned him in the Asylum, Joker somehow escapes and it’s up to Batman to apprehend Joker once again, this time it is on Jokers turf as he has unleashed his gang and various villains upon the cape crusader as himself.

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            This game plays similar to that of Batman Begins (from the movie/game) but with a lot of new improvements.  You can do all the interactive things just like Batman in the movie:  From taking on enemies in hand to hand combat (and very fast pace AND fun action) to ambushing them from above the shadows.  The game feels like an authentic Batman movie.  Similar to that of the movies, Batman can’t take on armed foes head on; doing so is quite deadly and it’ll pretty much take you out.  In a lot of situations, you have to be smart & cunning to outdo many of the games challenges.

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            Speaking of challenges, throughout the course of the game you’ll be presented with all kinds of ‘mini-challenges’ making it feel even more of a real Batman movie (or game in this sense).  You’ll have disarm bombs, rescue people in limited time, to successfully stealthiness pass an area without getting caught once (doing so will cause an INSTANT game over).  The games pretty forgivable about checkpoints and should you fail a certain area, you don’t have to start over too far.  In many situations, this game had my hands trembling as some of the challenges made my palms sweat.  I will say that this Batman game is very intense and it’ll be hard, should they make a sequel, will be very tough to surpass it.  I’ve played many games based off a movie or such, and not many do an exceptional good job of it.  Batman Arkam Asylum does a fantastic job as a video game.  Whether you’re a fan of Batman or like action games, this one game you do not want to pass up.

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Graphics: 1.000/1.000: Great graphics.  Facial animations of the many characters in this game are crisp and detailed.  The Asylum itself is very well detailed from inside and out.  Even the outside background gives it that “Batman movie feel”.  I felt like I was actually part of a movie.

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Sound: 1.000/1.000:  From battle music to sound effects, this game feels like a real Batman game.  Perhaps what made this game so SO excellent was the voice over actors!  In fact, one of the reasons I ended up beating this game so fast is that at least three of the key characters are the voice overs from the Batman Animated Series that was on Fox a few years ago.  I loved that cartoon and hearing the voices from this game from that show made me feel like a kid again.  Mark Hamil, who plays Joker, did a FANTASTIC job in this game.  I found myself replaying cut scenes many times over (and playing Challenge mode [even though I sucked at it] many times) just to hear his voice.  He does a fantastic job of playing Joker and he is probably one of the many few reasons why I loved this game so much.  It just sucked me in.

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Control: 0.400/1.000:  Sadly, the PC version of this game takes bad turn for the control portion of this review.  Don’t get me wrong: the control for this game overall is very well done such as response, fluidness, and such.  The control isn’t stiff, and Batman responds well to any control the player does.  What hurt this game are the lazy programmers for the OTHER controllers.  This is a “Games For Windows” type of title, which basically means that it has to work with a 360 controller and it’s also linked with your Xbox 360 (should you have one).  If you have an Xbox 360 controller, the game plays great with it and the control would be a 1.000/1.000.  However, if you have a different controller/gamepad for your PC the compatibility lowers.  For my controller I have a Logic Tech Dual Pro Gamepad.  The game DOES work with my controller with a little adjustment made.  For many players who try to play the game with this controller (and more than likely others) players may receive various “issues” with that controller.  The common problem I ran into was my control was inverted!  Up is down and down is up.  I tried many things until I had to get (and thanks to the person who made it!) an emulator to make the game “think” I had an Xbox 360 controller.  Once I found the emulator and copied it to my Batman directory the game played fine.  This is not the only “adjustment” that players will have to face.  For those who don’t have a 360 controller, the game ONLY displays controls for a 360 based setup.  An example would be like in a tutorial when the game says “Press X to punch”.  Now this works for those who have a 360 controller, but for those who don’t have one need to “train their mind” to know what control does what.  On many PC gamepads most controls are listed as buttons 1, 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9, &10 (or other similar formats).  It’s not hard to “train” yourself to know that button 3 will “grab a wall” when game says its button Y.  It’s just a nuisance and programmers could easily programmed it (making it a much better port) to tell the player what button does what.  The game does play with keyboard / mouse setup (and yes the game will say press “space” to attack etc –so the programmers I guess were only partially lazy) but plays better with a gamepad or controller.  I know many will say “just get a 360 controller” (which is nearly 50 bucks!).  But why should I be forced to get a brand new controller when I have a perfectly working one already?  I’m more of a console gamer as is so such an investment would be a waste of money.  If you have problems with your gamepad search for “Xbox 360 PC Emu drivers” on the web, their pretty easy to find, however, not all games will work this Emu driver  and I have played games on my PC that my gamepad will NOT work with it at all unless I had a 360 controller.  When in doubt, read some reviews/bugs with the game, especially if it is a “Games for Windows” type of game for the PC.  This game would have scored a 5/5 perfect IF it wasn’t for the control.  Once again the control isn’t BAD once you get past these barriers.

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Storyline: 1.000/1.000:  Fantastic storyline.  Felt like I was in a real Batman movie!!  Only difference here was that I had to fill in the parts as the player.  The storyline, just like the voice over acting, just sucks you in till the end.

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Gameplay: 1.000/1.000:  Great game play for a Batman game, and not many games based off something can usually top it off.  You get to do so much as Batman such as planting bombs on walls, knowing your enemies pulse rate and if their terrified of Batman or not, as well as X-ray vision.  Sometimes the X-ray vision (or detective mode as the game calls it) feels like the game is spoiling you feeling it may be “too easy” it doesn’t really hurt the game overall, though you may have the “habit” to be in this mode the entire time as it serves a lot of uses.  There are times though you won’t want to use this mode so it still balances out fairly. 

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