Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (PC) Review

Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition (PC) Review

Medium: Video game

Platform: Steam

Release date: 8/25/2009

Review date: 10/14/2024

Score: 7/10

“Batman: Arkham Asylum” kind of broke gamer’s brains when it released back in 2009 by not being awful; a bizarre compliment, right? But that was the discourse around the game at launch, that’s what players were astonished over - not that it was very good (which people did think, don’t get me wrong), but that it wasn’t utter piss like the vast majority of video game superhero projects had been up until that point. Sure, there had been well received superhero games before “Arkham Asylum” (2006’s “Marvel Ultimate Alliance” and 2004’s “Spider-Man 2” adaptation were probably the most recent high profile successes at the time), but the vast majority of superhero fare released on home consoles weren’t worth the discs they were printed on (not the fighting games, please don’t take me for a ride “Marvel vs. Capcom 2” fans), with publishers often choosing to put out minimal viable projects whenever they’d score the DC or Marvel license, as in their eyes, said license was what the players were buying the games for, not the actual gameplay and design. So for Rocksteady to release a superhero game that’s not some movie tie in, wasn’t made in the least amount of time possible for the lowest budget the studio could manage, and actually was innovative and groundbreaking for all of video games, not just superhero video games, it felt almost like a mistake - didn’t Rocksteady know they didn’t have to try so hard on these types of projects? But the medium is better for their work, and even if I am a little sick of games since directly lifting “Arkham Asylum’s” mechanics and just plopping them in whatever project needs a melee combat system or “Detective vision,” that doesn’t make this game any less of an achievement.

“Arkham Asylum’s” (the game) setup feels like a traditional Batman story (just not a classic one): the Joker’s been captured by Batman who is on his way to lock him up in Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum (the location), but oh no! The whole thing was just a trap as the Joker turns the tables on Batman and the asylum’s staff and locks them down on the island with him and his goons, with it being left to the Dark Knight to figure out what exactly the Crown Prince of Crime is up to, and to put a stop to it. It's a solid enough premise, with the various other super villain inmates taking control of certain parts of the island, leading to Batman having to move to and from the various parts of the asylum as he unlocks new gadgets that help him advance further in the game. A trap of 2024 games writing, I think, would be to describe “Arkham Asylum’s” map as “Metroidvania-esque” or “Souls-like” because the player revisits certain areas with new unlocks that allow further access into the levels, or the player will unlock a shortcut to make traveling back and forth through certain areas quicker - but I’d rather describe that all as just good game design. I do think a lot of the areas feel a bit similar graphically, particularly the game interiors, but I’m also willing to chalk a lot of that up to “Arkham” just being an earlier high definition title and the team not quite having the manpower to design every location uniquely.

Starting with the game’s mechanics, “Arkham Asylum” is split into two gameplay sections, the sneaky exploration part and the melee combat part. For the stealth, players creep around the island, avoiding being spotted by floodlights and the now released and armed Joker inmates, making use of the shadows and the game’s signature “Detective Vision” to make their way from mission to mission. That aforementioned detective mode is a good example of one of “Arkham Asylum's” innovations that ended up being a little too influential, and subsequently appeared in every open world game released after it. At any time in the game the player can switch to Batman’s “Detective Vision,” a visual filter that goes over the games’ graphics outlining everything in a blue x-ray like silhouette, with actual people and enemies being highlighted and now visible through walls and floors. It's a fun little system in isolation, and helps tackle some of the game’s issues around stealth in 3D high definition environments - clearly identifying where enemies are on the map to players, as well as what objects are interactable versus just scenery detail. The issues with the system do quickly become apparent though, as the utility of being able to see all your environmental objects and enemy silhouettes at all times frequently outweighs the cost of having an annoying visual graphic filter on constantly. It's kind of a misstep on the game’s part, and I don’t think it does enough to encourage the player to just look around in the regular player view, especially with the “Detective Vision '' tracking segments. At these moments in the game the player has to switch to the “Detective Vision” mode and just follow a straight line of some sort of detectable footprint, and besides the fact that the actual gameplay in these sections is basically nonexistent, having to spend the entire section walking through the game’s HD environments with the “Super Hot” filter over everything is a real miss. And while I don’t see these game moments ever being particularly interesting or fun, the game could at least have let you track those clues in your “Normal Vision” at the very minimum.

Another aspect of the exploration side of the game is hunting down the in-game collectable Riddler trophies, which are hidden around the island by, well, the Riddler. I rather enjoyed “Arkham Asylum's” portrayal of the Riddler - I remember from some of the reviews at release that his portrayal got a bit of a mixed reaction, but I thought the kind of petulant younger sibling vibe was a good use of the character. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been the biggest Riddler fan; I don't really have an issue with the character but I’ve also never particularly lit up when I’ve learned he was in a Batman story either. But with the modern live action films now trying to make him some sort of Q-Anon incel ringleader figure (which I don’t hate, it is a more interesting direction to take the Riddler in the last couple years than, say, the Jim Carrey portrayal of the character, but his characterization isn’t particularly comic-y), it is nice to see a more classic portrayal in this older game. His “Riddler Challenges” aren’t particularly challenging, mostly consisting of finding collectables and little Riddler Trophies, and all of them can pretty much be completed by just poking around the game’s environments a bit, especially once you find the hidden maps that show the secrets for each Arkham island section. The Riddler’s game dialogue becomes angrier the closer you get to finding all of the 240 Riddler Challenges throughout the game, but that dialogue is mapped to the total challenge percentage completion rather than the completion of particularly head scratching puzzles, so it's funny to have the Riddler blows his cool at Batman over the Dark Knight just finding one of his Riddler trophies behind, like, a rock. The most engaging of the Riddler Challenges are the actual riddles, where the Riddler gives the player a clue to look for in the game’s environmental details to “scan” with Detective Mode and complete said riddle; most of these are related to some sort of Batman character, whether the character actually appear in the game or not, and on completion usually results in unlocking that character’s biography and details in Batman’s character codex (which is also by far the best unlockable in the game). The main issue with the riddles actually comes from how early of a high definition game release “Arkham Asylum” was: the riddle answers, as in the environmental details the player scans in game to complete the challenge, stand out clearly from the rest of the game environment to scan because they’re usually the only non generic environmental details in whatever room the player is currently in. It's charmingly the opposite problem of a lot of today’s AAA 4k Ultra High Definition releases; in modern games, there is often so much environmental detail and visual set dressing that game developers often have to lather yellow paint in-game on interactable parts of the scenery so the player understands how to even proceed. But in “Arkham Asylum,” if it doesn’t seem like a copy pasted part of environmental detail, it's probably something you need to scan for a Riddler riddle, which does make what you need to scan clear, but takes away a bit of the fun of the riddle scavenger hunt.

Back to “Arkham Asylum’s” mechanics though, I think the game suffers in a couple areas of gameplay, but some of that criticism isn’t entirely fair so I’ll try and explain. Most of the game seems to operate between Batman being in moving/skulking/gliding “mode,” where there's one set of controls, to the combat “mode,” which has more specific controls for throwing down. For the most part the non combat controls work well enough, but in 2024 they do show their age a bit. Much like a lot of games from circa 2010 (think your “Assassin’s Creeds”), Batman can sometimes struggle to climb over things and grab onto the correct ledge, with so many different control inputs being mapped to the A Button probably explaining some of the difficulties. It's not game ruining-ly frustrating, but it is noticeably annoying when you’re trying to pick off guys on the periphery before jumping into a combat encounter, only to have Batman jump directly into the center of a crowd of thugs because the game misinterpreted your button press. But the sections are ultimately fine, with the game providing a decent jungle gym of high up vantage points and sneaky hiding spots on the ground to feel like the player has options for moving around through levels unseen. However, the combat mode is another beast entirely, though it's here where I feel like my criticism is also the least fair. Combat in “Arkham Asylum” is a fisticuffs affair, with Batman usually finding himself in a big crowd of Joker thugs who he needs to punch until every goon is unconscious (Batman doesn’t kill people, but he will give them extensive brain damage). Combat in “Arkham Asylum” works on an almost rhythm game-like feel, as the player mixes a combination of dodges, counters, and attacks, hit to the rhythm of the fight, to complete the encounter. This has the result of, for an observer, looking really cool, as the game has Batman’s animations flow right into each other so it looks like the Caped Crusader is flipping around and dispatching bad guys with ease. But actually playing the combat got a little repetitive to me, as it's hard to argue that the most effective strategy for each fight isn’t just to hit the attacks to the noticeable combat rhythm, which feels kind of lame in the moment, and gets rather monotonous by the narrative’s end. However, my frustration with the system isn’t really “Arkham’s” fault - it's more with the fact that too many other games since its release decided to just rip off “Arkham Asylum’s” combat for their own games, meaning that in the year 2024, I have played so many different variations of this rhythm melee combat game (sometimes in an “Arkham” sequel but mostly not) that I am now completely over the entire system. To understand how bad the problem is, in 2018, nine years after the release of “Arkham Asylum,” Sony released their own big budget superhero video game adaptation of Spider-Man, a game that was supposed to do for Marvel superhero video games what “Arkham Asylum” did for DC video games, and the combat system was still just the “Arkham” combat system! I have been playing this exact same rhythm game beat ‘em up for the past 15 years, please somebody, anybody, free me from this monotony! But I struggle to dump that all on “Arkham Asylum’s” feet, as I think the other game designers who ripped off Rocksteady’s design whole-cloth and just inserted it into their own games are the ones who are really culpable for this mess.

I also found the game’s gadget system to be a little forgettable - Batman unlocks various gizmos and doodads throughout “Arkham Asylum” to help him progress past certain obstacles and to assist in combat encounters, but as the player I never felt super pressed to engage with them outside of mandatory game moments. Using the clawshot or the explosive gel to bypass a wall is harmless enough during the game’s exploration moments, but I found any need to break out the gadgets in combat annoying more than anything. If you’re gonna make me play a rhythm game melee combat system, don’t throw enemies in them that I then have to use my gadgets on and break said rhythm; I’m usually just trying to get through those encounters as quickly as possible and don’t enjoy having to slow down and awkwardly target the stun baton goons with my clawshot in the middle of melees. And so along those lines, I didn’t really find the game’s upgrade system all that engaging either, as the main things you really upgrade are those said gadgets I tried to avoid using (the health increases and the gate hacker tool range extension were the only upgrades that felt legitimately useful).

As for the various other Asylum inmates and bosses, much like every other player at “Arkham Asylum’s” release, I did not care for the game’s Scarecrow parts; periodically throughout the game Batman will get ambushed by the Scarecrow and his fear gas, which “transports” the hero to forced cinematic walking segments and 2D instant fail stealth sequences, neither of which are fun and both which majorly kill the pace of the game for me. I could see how, from a designer’s perspective, these sections could be used to break up the maybe repetitive exploration and combat of the main game sequences, but in implementation they felt closer to a stupid minigame that hadn’t been play tested enough rather than an inventive gameplay intermission. And while this complaint isn’t limited to Scarecrow, I did find his kind of Hot Topic-ified character design funny, though I’m not sure I was supposed to.

In fact, I didn’t really care for most of the villains characterization in the game, if I’m being honest. Bane just ended up being used as a stupid brute, which was a little annoying only because there are countless other Batman villains Rocksteady could have used instead that do match that characterization, but just aren’t as well known. His boss fight was ultimately alright, definitely not the worst in the game, but the first to demonstrate how limited in fun those game encounters were going to be. Killer Croc gets similar characterization as just a simple savage, with the game referring to him at multiple points as “an animal,” but I think Croc comes off better than Bane because Croc’s backstory and character history isn’t nearly as complex or well known - it's easier to portray Killer Croc as just a bloodthirsty ‘roided up monster than to do that to the genius who broke Batman’s back. It also helps that Killer Croc’s level and boss fight is probably the most interesting in the game; instead of just punching the guy in the face over and over, the player has to use the game’s sewer environments and Batman’s various tools to overcome the cayman killer. But coming off as the best character in a game only because most players don’t know anything about said character isn’t the biggest of compliments either.

Graphically these characters represent another weak aspect of production, but that might be more apparent in 2024 than at the game’s release. I don’t really care for the character designs or models of anybody in “Arkham Asylum,” as while they’re not bad, they’re not good either. All the male character models feel like they were hit with the “Gears of War” hammer - everybody looks like a walking refrigerator. Commissioner Gordon is so buff in the game it looks like he’s going to bust out of his shirt, which don’t get me wrong, is definitely funny, but like with Scarecrow, I don’t know if that was supposed to be my reaction. Again, there’s a decent part of me that’s willing to chalk that up once more to “Arkham Asylum” just being an early HD title and the developers not having a ton of practice modeling characters at high definition (the “Gears of War” comment wasn’t just a throwaway comparison; “Batman: Arkham Asylum” was made in the Unreal Engine 3 game engine with development starting in 2008, and “Gears of War” was the first Unreal Engine 3 game released in 2006 so it was almost certainly a point of reference), but in 2024 I do think a number of these designs just look plain bad, especially the game’s most eye-rolling miss, the supervillain Poison Ivy; whereas the male inmates get designed under the philosophy of “what if everybody in the Asylum was a linebacker,” Poison Ivy gets her own unique design, unique in the sense that the “Arkham” artists modelled it one handed.

The final level and showdown with the Joker is also a bit of a letdown. The level itself initially just consists of a pretty mindless combat arena of generic thugs and Titan enhanced thugs (Titan is this chemical concoction Batman eventually realized the Joker is trying to produce that’s a mix of Bane’s Venom serum, Scarecrow’s fear gas, and Poison Ivy’s plant enhancements that makes bad guys extra large and super strong when injected with it), which is a bit of a let down from a gameplay perspective but is at least in line with how these middling types of Batman stories usually end. This changes though when the game decides to have the Joker, a rail thin foppish clown, inject himself with the Titan serum, turning him into some sort of huge steroid Joker, who then Batman also needs to beat up. I don’t want to harp on this too much, like I get from a mechanical standpoint most games have big final boss fights, but the characterization of having the Joker inject this unfinished super steroid that he’s been watching deform his men the whole game into himself so he can get super buff to beat up Batman feels weak - it feels like a plot point you include for mechanical and narrative clarity, not because it makes sense for the character. The Joker has other henchmen he sends to beat up Bruce, why would he risk himself like that? It also doesn’t help that the boss fight is pretty forgettable, another example of where the gameplay mechanic for the fight seems to just be to mash the A button as fast as possible after clawshotting the clown, which isn’t particularly innovative or enjoyable. I guess I should just be thankful that it wasn’t all that hard.

Overall, I enjoyed “Batman: Arkham Asylum;” I think it's an example of a work that is greater than the sum of its various parts. Yeah, in isolation a lot of the game’s aspects are kind of annoying, but when synthesized together into a complete package, it works pretty well, all things considered. Before I replayed “Arkham Asylum,” in the big stew that is my memories of playing it and its sequels, “Arkham City” and “Arkham Knight,” I had remembered “Arkham Asylum” being my favorite of the three purely because I thought mechanically and setting wise, it was the tightest production in the series. And now after replaying” Asylum,” I realized that the sequel iterated more on this first game than I had initially thought, as there were mechanics I had thought first appeared here that actually must have first shown up in “Arkham City.” That doesn’t make “Arkham Asylum” bad by any measure, but it does remove a bit of its shine from my memories.

Funnily enough, a joke criticism of video game critics themselves actually first started showing up with this game’s release, as people (well, gamers, so not really people) had a good chuckle pointing out just how many reviews of “Arkham Asylum” complimented the game for making players “feel like Batman,” but that remark is true - if being Batman is feeling like a super smart detective who solves crimes, beats up bad guys, and saves the day, than yeah, “Arkham Asylum” succeeds in making the player “feel like Batman.” You swoop around high towers with your cape, sneak through ventilation shafts to take out goons, make use of various gadgets to get out of life threatening puzzles, and you beat up the crazy super villains threatening the innocent people of Gotham City; yeah, some of the individual elements could have been tighter and the game is showing its age a bit in 2024, but “Arkham Asylum” does deliver that genuine Batman experience, and it's easy to see why the game has become so beloved and copied since.