61 Frames Per Second

Batman is awesome. I would never say that Batman wasn’t awesome. Batman is only a tool though. A conceit, a platform, a set of rules to tell entertaining stories with. There’s something people tend to forget every time a new Batman game gets announced. Bats hasn’t had a very good videogame career, but everyone seems to think it has to do with the medium. It isn’t that videogames starring Batman are usually bad. It’s that everything starring Batman is usually bad. There are three good Batman movies to four terrible ones. There is one good Batman cartoon, and four others that can physically damage three out of five human senses. There are a number of very good Batman comics. There also happens to be over one thousand Batman comics that suck.

As of 2009, there is one excellent Batman videogame (NES), a handful of okay Batman games, and close to twenty that are trash. Not trashy. I mean the sort of thing you put in the garbage. After watching a playthrough of Batman: Arkham Asylum’s first twenty minutes, I’m willing to say that Rocksteady Studios has the potential to make the first great Batman game. No fanboy hyperbole here. It actually looks that good.



The demoed chunk of Arkham Asylum’s first chapter expands on the trailer released this past January. Batman has arrested the Joker and is delivering him to the titular sanitarium. Outside of the brief cinema of Batman’s late night drive, the narrative heavy opening minutes mercifully give the player control, letting you walk alongside the guards and doctors as they escort the Joker in. It’s nice to not have to passively sit through the story and it lets you get sense of your surroundings. Rocksteady’s asylum is an amalgamation of previous incarnations (the game doesn’t adhere to any specific continuity, comic or otherwise.) Here, it takes up an entire island on the river near Gotham City, and is made up of founder Amadeus Arkham’s mansion and an industrialized facility. The hospital looks, appropriately enough, like a videogame setting. With its grimy metal hallways and shadowed vents, it looks like a place to keep the super-powered criminally insane. Purists might scoff at the design, but it’s tonally consistent with this version of Batman’s world. It all looks quite nice to boot. It has that wet look games built on Unreal Engine 3 tend to, but doesn’t suffer from any of the texturing troubles (see: environments loading sans textures) that plague games like Mass Effect. The character designs also seem familiar inside UE3, but that’s thanks to their Epic-ness; these thick-looking versions of Batman, Commissioner Gordon, the Joker, and Harley Quinn would look right at home in Gears of War. These also might get fans in a huff, especially the American McGee-ified Quinn, but they work in Arkham Asylum.

After the Joker escapes, you get your first taste of Arkham’s combat. Since I didn’t get to actually play the game, it’s impossible to say how the brawling feels, but it gives the best impression possible. Fighting recalls nothing if not Sega’s Yakuza. Thugs surround Batman and you dash back and forth between them, combo meter filling as you contantly move between them. The game intelligently interprets who you want to attack; press the analog stick in their direction along with X or Y (light and heavy strikes respectively), and you smoothly draw in for the hit. Like in Yakuza, finishing and strong moves also go into stylish slow-motion. (I was told that some of these moves are only in slow-motion the first few times they’re used, a smart choice that should keep the game fast.)You unlock new moves and upgrade Batman’s skills and equipment by gaining experience. It may damage some of the Batman persona – you are supposed to be the world’s greatest detective and an accomplished martial artist from the outset, after all – but it’s a welcome concession to the medium. Arkham Asylum needs to be a good game first, and making the combat an evolving set of rules will help it be just that. The game’s investigation and stealth play don’t hurt either.



At any point while playing, you can activate investigative mode. A colored filter covers the screen, highlighting interactive parts of the environment (concealed paths, grapple points) as well as scan-able information (characters, writing on walls.) In the demo, the extent of puzzle solving through investigation was limited to find-the-path and hit-the-switch problems, but producer Nathan Whitman said the game goes deeper as it progresses. (He mentioned crime scene investigations, which have popped up in other previews, but sadly I didn’t see any here.) If it all sounds a bit like Metroid Prime’s scan visor, that’s because it is. Whitman dropped exactly that name in describing the game’s investigation and seamless-world exploration. The investigation filter also informs Arkham’s “Silent Predator” play. Terrible name aside, these stealth features look solid and integral to nailing the character in a game. Many of the asylum’s rooms are large and allow for creative dispatching of enemies. Sneak through the shadows, activate investigation mode, grapple to the ceiling, drop down on a thug and zip him back up. When there’s only one baddie left, glide down with your cape wide and kick him in the head before he knows what’s coming. It all looks smooth and active as well, hardly a collection of cutscene triggers or QTEs.

I know. This is a lot of referencing classic games to paint a portrait of Arkham Asylum. Metroid Prime, Yakuza, Gears of War. I don’t think Rocksteady Games is trying to hide where they get their inspiration though. Even the game’s Batman: The Animated Series pedigree – Harley, Joker, and Bats are all voiced by their actors from that series, and Arkham’s written by alum and Detective Comics scribe Paul Dini – shows their willingness to pull from the best sources to make sure their Batman videogame is actually worth playing. It looks great. We’ll see how it feels to play when it comes out this summer.

Fanboy note: No, Batman’s eyes are not white. They won’t be. They are, however, white when he’s in investigation mode. Whitman said that’s the compromise to appease y’all. Ah well. Better than nothing.

Related links:

At Least Batman: Arkham Asylum's Story Will Be Good
Batman Can't Even Land a Punch on Superman in a Video Game
A Silver Lining to The Dark Knight
NYCC 2009 - DC Universe Online