Batman has enjoyed a great deal of critical and commercial success on the silver screen (Joel Schumacher’s tenure notwithstanding), but video games featuring the Caped Crusader have never played well with critics or fans. Most of them failed on a very fundamental level, and were simply poorly constructed, but even the ones that weren’t essentially broken never managed to capture the gothic essence of the darkly iconic hero and his manic Rogues Gallery.
Batman: Arkam Asylum for the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 breaks that paradigm. It gets the Dark Knight just right; and, despite some minor flaws, this is Batman’s best video game foray to date, and, indeed, one of the best games of the year. It’s streamlined, accessible, rewarding, and just plain fun. For a Batman fan or a comic book geek, it’s a dream come true.
It all starts on a dark and stormy night. Batman has just captured his archenemy, the Joker, and is delivering him to the maximum security wing of Arkam Asylum. While nothing is visibly amiss, nagging doubts still peck away at the Dark Knight’s troubled psyche. The capture was too easy, almost as if Joker wanted to be caught.
Batman’s suspicions are well-founded. Before long the Clown Prince of Crime escapes his guards and leads the masked vigilante ever deeper into his insane traps. The inmates are running the Asylum, and Joker’s calling the shots. Scarecrow haunts the dilapidated halls, Poison Ivy is up to no good in the gardens, Harley Quinn merrily commands a team of ruthless convicts, and Killer Croc hungrily prowls the sewers and aqueducts. If Gotham is to survive the night, Batman must restore order, defeat Joker’s goons, and decode his plans for the city’s ultimate destruction.
Batman: Arkam Asylum is a curious meddling of many different styles and influences that have shaped the superhero’s history and narrative over the past 70 years. The game’s inspired look mixes the gothic lines and shadows of Tim Burton’s vision, the naturalistic retro-styling of Alex Ross, and the more modern realism of Christopher Nolan’s Gotham.
The title’s tone and narrative is also fresh and unique. The script, penned by Batman: The Animated Series veteran Paul Dini, finds that same magic balance of fun and fear; grim violence and welcome levity. Like in the Animated Series, extreme violence and horror are never shown and only hinted at, but the game exercises a freer reign, featuring more explicit discussions of serial murders, cannibalism, mob violence, thuggery, and even the black market sale of vital organs.
And yet, despite such starkly grim trappings and the inherent darkness of Batman’s narrative, Dini still manages to infuse a certain amount of fun and humor into the story. It’s a dark humor, a gleeful and intelligence sort of self-aware madhouse comedy. In a way, the whole game itself is a manifestation of Mark Hamill’s wonderful performance as the Joker.
I once read that what made Mark Hamill’s Joker so captivating in the Animated Series was that you never knew if “he was going to crack a joke or stab you”. That’s a perfect description for this intriguing central paradox. Here, Joker and his goons are equal parts Chevy Chase and Charles Mason, and the game itself, though it may delve into darker territory, never removes itself from its comic book roots.
Not to say that’s altogether a good thing. I’ve always preferred my Batman stories to be a little more realistic, and this one definitely falls more on the fantastical side of the spectrum. That said, we are talking about a game in which you play “a man dressed up like a bat and armed to the teeth” tasked with taking down a demented clown – so I guess a certain suspension of disbelief comes with the territory. In any case, the narrative is engaging, it’s tight and measured, and, despite a rather abrupt and lackluster ending, it’s largely a success.
Of course you can’t tell a good story without good actors, and in this area, Batman: Arkam Asylum truly shines. Kevin Conray and Mark Hamill reprise their roles from the Animated Series to once again face off as Batman and the Joker. Though they both sound a touch older than they did 15 years ago (naturally), they each deliver a captivating and completely convincing performance. Arleen Sorkin also returns as Joker’s demented henchwoman and dysfunctional partner, Harley Quinn. Sorkin made this role, and it’s hard to think of anyone else filling those clown shoes and that charmingly grating accent.
A host of talented and experienced voice actors rounds out the rest of the stellar cast. There isn’t much distinction in the voices of Joker’s army of convicts and psychopaths, but they are often carrying on humorous or disturbing conversations as you sneak up behind them from the shadows or grab one as he paces under a ledge or gargoyle. It’s a nice touch that helps keep each encounter fresh.
Unfortunately, the game’s music doesn’t measure up. The score by Ron Fish isn’t exactly terrible; it’s just bland, pedestrian, and innocuous. Like the scores for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Fish’s music is heavy on the electronics, but it lacks the raw intensity and visceral quality of Hans Zimmer’s and Thomas Newton Howard’s work.
The quality is sub-par, somewhere in the same vein as the music you’d expect to find in a movie-of-the-week or a syndicated Canadian television show. But worse still, there’s no character, no soul to the score. It leaves no impression – it’s just there. You could have used this music on any number of games or films and it would work equally as well. And that’s a shame, considering Batman’s distinguished and unique musical pedigree. I really wish they had simply looped bits of Shirley Walker’s excellent work for the Animated Series. Now, that would have been perfect.
Thankfully, the game’s graphics and control are as close to perfect as seems humanly possible. The textures are razor sharp, the character animations are rudimentary, but fluid, and the design palate is positively inspired. There are few failings here and there (for instance, Poison Ivy is a clearly under-realized and you could probably argue that the level design is pretty basic and repetitive), but wonderfully ingenious bits like the whacked-out Scarecrow sections more than make up for these minor fumbles. Simply put: this is one of the best looking games I have ever seen on any console. Period.
If I could choose one word to describe Batman: Arkam Asylum’s controls and gameplay, I would have to go with streamlined. It’s that splendid simplicity that drives this game like a jet engine strapped to bicycle.
The combat system uses only one attack button. You can’t get any more simplistic. But when you combine that with a time-based ability to counter enemy attacks, throw Batarangs, and deliver punishing throws and finishing moves, then you’ve opened a surprisingly deep and, most importantly, entertaining, combat arsenal that truly allows you to engage up to two dozen enemies at once. It’s a wise design decision. The developers could have forced the player to devote time and energy to memorizing a bunch of complicated combos and counters, but instead, they decided to streamline the process and keep the focus squarely on the experience of being Batman.
And it works. As you fly into a gaggle of thugs, spreading fear and righteous menace as you quickly and single-mindedly deliver the fist of justice to all that oppose you - in that moment, you are the Dark Knight. As you utilize Batman’s decidedly simple and limited arsenal of gadgets (which I would rather call retro and utilitarian), as you zip over chasms, grab screaming maniacs off of ledges, brain convicts with remote controlled Batarangs, or fry security gates – in those moments, you are the Terror of Gotham. No one can tell you any different.
So, should you and your kids suit up to do battle with the scum of Gotham City ? On the whole, I’d say swing away, but there are a few bad neighborhoods that might give you pause. This is a “Teen” rated game, and while there is no blood in sight, a few inmates go through graphic and painful transformations under the influence of a dangerous toxin and Batman can get stabbed or drilled by high-powered rifles if you miss your marks. Some characters can meet a violent end if you don’t rescue them in time. The Caped Crusader himself delivers a very brutal brand of justice, dealing out blistering blows and even snapping arms and legs to incapacitate his enemies. This Batman may not kill, but he has no qualms about sending evil doers to the hospital.
Some players may find Scarecrow and his hypodermic needle-tipped fingers quite frightening. When Batman is under the influence of his fear-inducing drugs, he encounters a number of disturbing and unsettling sights. Harley Quinn and, in particular Poison Ivy, wear provocative clothing (in Ivy’s case, little more than a button-down shirt and a barely-there vine bikini). Finally, there is a little profanity in the game, but it is relatively minor and infrequent.
Ultimately, and as always, parents will have to decide what is appropriate for them and their families, but as video games go, this is just about as good as it gets. Video games are special. They promise a new world of possibilities, and while some of these possibilities may be dark and inappropriate, on their most basic level, these games are all about escapism and the ability to do things you could never do (or do safely and legally) in real life.
By any measure then, Batman: Arkam Asylum delivers on that sacred promise.
Caution Rating: 6
