Batman: Arkham Asylum - Preview

I've been excited about Batman: Arkham Asylum since I first saw screenshots on Gamespot. That was maybe a year ago. The treatment of the characters and the environment looked awesome. A few days ago I got my usual fairly spammy email from Playstation telling me about the new things at the Playstation Store. When I saw a playable demo for B:AA I got excited. Unfortunately, no matter how excited I am about a new game I still have to go to class and this week has been brutal.

Anyway, tonight I finally got a chance to download it and check it out. Uhm, wow. This may be the first PS3 game I buy new - it's that good. I'm anticipating at least an 8.6 rating from Gamespot and probably something in the 8.8 from IGN. Wait that looks backwards, IGN's numbers are usually lower. Whatever, I'm not going back to erase the sentence. Onward with my review.

The combat system looks beautiful - the moves that Batman pulls off are insane - and is incredibly user friendly - point the Bat in the direction of the guy you want to kick the shit out of and hit square. Someone coming up behind you? Back and square. Guy to the right? Right and square. And if some poor bastard tries to sneak up behind you while you're beating one of his friends - hit triangle to unleash a counter attack. Occasionally the camera will zoom in to give you movie quality close up of Batman being more badass than Val Kilmer was (George Clooney was too easy).

Not only is the combat fun but there's a not too forced (at least in the demo) stealth mechanism. It mostly relies on grappling around from parts of the ceiling and using "Detective Mode" to see infrared images of bad guys, wait for them to separate from each other and then take them out one by one. I died a few times during the demo for the same reasons I failed a bunch of times in Metal Gear Solid4, because there are so many options you want to experiment and push your luck. It was fun.

Other things in the demo. Apparently there are "Riddler Trophies" hidden through Arkham. I found 2 in the demo but wasn't enlightened as to what they do. In addition to those trophies you can unlock profiles of all the characters. They're pretty cool and some of the inmates have audio tracks of them being interviewed by the asylum's shrink. I suppose at this point I should mention that the voices are done by the cast of Batman the Animated Series, score!

My only complaint about the demo is that it ends just before the first boss fight. I'm curious to see how boss fights are handled. I'm thinking it may be a bit like how God of War does them, which would be awesome. But that's possibly a bit nit picky.

Batman: Arkham Asylum comes out on August 25th, so a little less than 2 weeks from now. If you've got the disposable income I would pick it up. I don't, and I still might. Marathon game session a few days to beat it and then turn it in. Although I'm sure unlocking all of the character profiles, interviews and extras will take some effort (which I won't initially put into the game) and cause me to hold on to it long past the time when it has any trade-in value. Maybe I can use some birthday money to invest in it. I haven't treated myself to a new game in a while.