I played Batman: Arkham Asylum · 10:33pm Feb 26th, 2021

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I grew up with the old beat'em up batman games on the Genesis. And while those weren't bad, they were actually kind of fun. They were only Batman games because that was the character pallet.

There are a lot of things that really make this a good Batman game, it starts with Batman bringing the Joker back to Arkham. And it's not just any Joker, it's Mark Hamill. His portrayal of the Joker has always been spot on in my opinion. The comedy and the serious aspects. The range he displays is always impressive, and I for one always welcome Hamill Joker.

Okay, so Batman is taking Joker in. Everything seems to be going by the books, but Batman insists on coming along. To be fair, this is the Joker so breaking into Arkham as part of his scheme is certainly in the cards.

Of course there are artistic choices made here for the game, and honestly I didn't find any problem with any of them. I don't know anyone who did, but there's always some complaints to be made. I really felt that, artistically, this was more like the comics, even though the designs were very different.

The mechanics of the game aren't really intuitive, but the game does a decent job familiarizing you with the controls and training you as you go. There's a freedom in how you do things, I've seen people play running in and fighting head to head, only being stealthy when you have to. I prefer to be stealthy the whole time.

And there's options with how you do either. Explosives can be used for both scenarios, even combat can be done stealthy. Actually one of my favorite things was when I managed to lure every enemy in a large room to the same gargoyle and kept hanging them up from it. I'd have to cut them down before I could get the next one up, but it was both hilarious and not to out there for Batman.

I mean, he probably wouldn't make a point of it, but if it was a viable solution I could see that happening.

One of the best things in this game was how they portrayed the characters. The main villains were (for the most part) handled well, and played their characters as over the top as they were shown to be over the years. And there were times that I had to pause because the Joker had me laughing to hard to concentrate.

But there comes a low point. It's also with the joker. I'm sure by now, so many years later, that it's common knowledge what they did to the Joker at the end of the game. I really didn't like this either, though I wouldn't exactly say it's entirely out of character. Joker is no stranger to destroying his own body, even just for kicks, and I can even see an argument that he was preparing for the inevitable fist fight that all of his interactions with Batman eventually end with.

But what I always liked about the Joker is that he was smart. And his plans often revolved around manipulating Batman, or others, into what he wanted to happen. And you even got a bit of that in this game. He was a king on the chess board trying to get Batman in check.

One of my favorite alternate universe comics has Batman as a vampire, and Joker's ultimate goal is to manipulate Batman into a church douse him with holy water, and kill him like any other vampire. But the one thing he didn't count on was Batman not drinking human blood so somehow that meant all the typical vampire weaknesses didn't apply to him. But even then Joker didn't just give up, ultimately sacrificing himself to beat Batman. Joker won in that comic.

But, that's neither here nor there.

One last thing with this game is that there's a ton of hidden stuff to find. And not just the Riddler side quest. There's Batman tidbits sprinkled everywhere if you take the time to look. It's actually pretty fun in and of itself.

I guess the game's a bit older by now, and maybe not as popular with Arkham City to play. But this was certainly a game worth playing again.

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