Batman - Arkham Asylum is quite a surprise. There's not a particularly good track record (in my opinion, at least) where comic book tie-ins are concerned, especially when the developers decide to go down the 'Beat-em up' route... just take a look at the Watchmen game for a bland and repetitive example. I'm not saying they're all crap... but you're definitely fighting against the current.

The first thing you notice when playing for the first time is just how fluid the game is. The way Batman moves and fights is incredible. Especially considering that, at the beginning, you're only using two buttons: attack and counter. Each hit or counter is animated based on a number of factors, mostly on what you were just doing and what your target is currently doing. Thug running at you with a metal pipe? Catch the pipe and smack him in the chest with it. Attacking you from behind? A swift elbow to the face should fix that. Then add the great slow-motion finishing moves and you feel like you are the BEST beat-em up player ever!

Of course, if that was all that the game had it would get repetitive and dull quite quickly... and to be fair, the game IS fairly repetitive. Fortunately, that's not all it's got. For example, once you start moving around the Asylum, it's not long until you find yourself up against a couple of heavily armed foes. Batman, it would appear, is extremely vulnerable to bullets and one or two machine gun wielding thugs can easily take him out if he's not careful. This is where the game really starts to feel like Batman... gadgets. Flicking into 'Detective Mode' allows you so see thugs through walls, checking their stress/awareness levels, what weapons they're carrying and pick out any features of the environment you can use to your advantage. You can then use Batman's grappling hook to move around above the thugs and take them out stealthily. If you want to be picky, you could question how the bad guys never take a moment to look up (knowing that they are up against Batman, after all) but the stealth takedowns and sneaking about really works well.

As the game progresses, your array of gadgets grows until you're blowing holes in walls (and thugs) with explosive gel; taking out several thugs at once with multiple Batrangs; Or just hanging thugs from the frequent gargoyles around the asylum.

The game isn't, however, perfect. Some of the boss battles, for example, can be quite painful repetitive tasks sometimes. I understand that it's going to be quite hard to make all of them different but when they get it so right for some of them, it seems a shame that they resort to some sloppy old school 'hit the vulnerable spot when it is visible' battles. There are other smaller niggles, but none of prevent this game from being quite special.

Also, having played both the Xbox 360 and the PC versions, it's nice to see that they have taken the time to alter the control scheme to work on the PC, and taken advantage of higher resolutions. It's still fairly obvious that this was written with a Xbox 360 controller in mind, but it doesn't distract from the game.

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~ Naiboss