Batman Arkham Asylum - Review - Can You Piece Together The Joker's Mysteries?

Batman: Arkham Asylum the hospital where all of Gotham City's criminally insane are held on an island. You won't need sunscreen, sunglasses or a bathing suit for your journey on this island. No, this island isn't anything close to being a desirable destination. That is, unless of course you happen to be Batman, the Caped Crusader.

At Arkham Asylum you'll find quite a cast of characters including legendary supervillains, Killer Croc, Victor Zsasz, and Dr. Harleen "Harley Quinn" Quinzel. You'll plunge into this den of insanity to combat the Joker and his nefarious schemes. Plumb the deepest, creepy depths of Arkham Asylum while you piece together the Joker's mysteries, and dish out justice, Batman-style.

A full range of high-tech weapons and toys like the sonar resonator, fingerprint scanners and Batarangs are used to knock out the bad guys and collect clues. Unfortunately, you'll leave the Batmobile in the Batcave for this one.

Available: Xbox 360, PS3

Everyone knows about Batman, but if you're not an avid reader of comic books, the idea of Arkham Asylum might be unfamiliar to you. Essentially, Arkham Asylum is Gotham's scary and symbolic hospital, housing nearly every insane bad guy that Batman has ever taken out. This is the location for this awesome third-person game, and when these criminals overrun Arkham, it's up to you to take action and foil their intentions.

In the role of Batman, you'll go hand-to-hand with hard nosed thugs - but you'll also use plenty of bat-like stealth maneuvers, employ neat crime fighting tools, think your way through riddles, and true to Batman's nature, do plenty of thought provoking detective work. Basically, this game completely encompasses every single thing you know and love about Batman and expect from an immersive, complete Batman game - except for driving the Batmobile.

Much of the story and aspects of the game are unlocked as you play, so your first adventures into Batman: Arkham Asylum will start by traversing the 'Story Mode'. The introduction reveals that Batman has once again caught the Joker, and thoughout the prolonged game cinematics, you'll witness the Joker being delivered back to Arkham by Batman.

The Joker doesn't really seem phased by this, and you will come to learn that oddly enough, the Joker's machinations have put him exactly where he wants to be. His master plan allows him to gain dominion over all of Arkham, and he's quick to draw Batman into the fray. Obviously, this is a trap - but Batman can never walk away from a challenge and the pursuit of justice.

After this stimulating introduction, the game tosses you directly into fascinating action. You're quickly attacked by some of the Joker's henchmen, as the game guides you in how to take them down by using counters and simple attacks. With the use of only two buttons, you're able to perform a vast array of effective, beautifully animated fighting moves.

Elaborate combos are just as easy to execute. For a vast part of the early stages of the game, the combat system allows you to press the attack buttons at random, and press your counter button when you see an enemy about to attack, which is clearly indicated by a symbol above their head. As individuals, these thugs are relatively innocuous, but they come in droves. You'll typically run into groups of at least six thugs that you must defeat at once.

These generic minions are eventually joined by more difficult enemies who carry a range of weapons. These dangerous enemies force you to employ strategy and more complex moves to evade damage and stun the bad guys. The game's boss fights are some of the best portions of the game, so it's shame that there are only a few big battles against the likes of Harley Quinn and the Scarecrow.

Batman : Arkham Asylum never makes your combat experiences too difficult to conduct, but as you make your way through Story Mode, you'll earn more attacks and actions through experience points.

You can spend experience points to learn additional moves and purchase improved gadgets. Your combos can even be augmented to include Batarangs, takedowns and throws, but you'll still never be required to use more than two buttons at once, allowing some leeway when you're timing your attacks. It's remarkable fun to do battle against groups of twelve or more thugs.

They're smart enough to space out their attacks on you, but not smart enough to outsmart Batman. They're definitely smart enough to use what they find around them to attack Batman with, from boxes to pipes, and even weapons that their fellow thugs drop. To your advantage, these hordes of thugs never pick up on the fact that Batman's greatest weapon is the environment around him.

While the environment doesn't come into play with every fight, many battles actually require that you understand your surroundings to emerge victorious. Turn on Challenge Mode to face these puzzles while you also race against a clock!

Imagine this scenario : you're suddenly in a room with eight thugs gunning for you. You're trapped in this room until you've taken out every one of these enemies. Obviously, you can't leap into the room and fight hand-to-hand with the thugs, because while Batman is powerful, he's still very vulnerable to gunfire. So, how do you get through this?

First, as Batman, you know to remain hidden. Hide behind features in the room, like gargoyles. Sure, these might seem like odd additions to an asylum, but that doesn't stop Batman from hiding behind them and scanning the room with his wonderful toys. Batman can swoop down on his enemies and glide kick them to the floor, or you can perform an 'inverted takedown', snatching up thugs as they pass under you and wrapping them up in ropes and hanging from the ceiling.

You can also throw silent Batarangs to take out the thugs. To move around, your grapnel gun will carry you from one place to another. Theoretically, Batman is stealthy enough to remain undetectable while you're zipping from one place to another, so the thugs won't catch you.

When the other thugs start to realize that their buddies are disappearing and being mysteriously knocked out, their reactions only add to the satisfaction and make you feel like a real comic book hero. As the number of thugs further and further depletes, they start to get frightened. They team up instead of stalk around alone, and their behavior becomes more careful - looking around corners and slinking against walls.

Eventually, they'll just start shooting anytime they hear a sound! You can also listen in on what they're saying to get a better idea of how they feel and what they'll do. Of course, this is different from their initial conversations - boldly bragging about how they're going to kill Batman and become famous.

As Batman progresses though these battles, the Joker starts to tease his own thugs, belittling them to the point where they almost give up and allow Batman to have his way with them.

You'll need to be focused and listen to the words of Edward 'The Riddler' Nygma very carefully. Arkham Asylum has at least 240 different riddles that you can solve, all of which will boost your experience points, unlock biographies for various characters, unlock trophies and character models which you can explore in a separate part of the game, and additional maps for Challenge Mode. These 'riddles' span a wide variety of styles, and technically, many aren't truly riddles. Either way, it's a great feeling to solve each and every one.

Even if you're not trying to solve these riddles, your detective vision will get a ton of use as you traverse the halls of Arkham Asylum. When detective vision is turned off, you'll see the game as it is - with beautiful graphics, emotive lighting, and solid animation.

When you activate Batman's detective vision, a whole new world is revealed, which includes surfaces that you can break through, items which would be hidden otherwise, and enemies that are located behind walls. Detective vision will also reveal how heavily armed your enemies are, as those with guns appear in a different hue.

If you like Batman as a comic character, Arkham Asylum will make you feel right at home. You'll find many comic book references, even for elements and characters that aren't directly used in this game. What you will find is a real faithfulness to the stories told in the comics - even the stories of the minor characters.

Even if you're not a comic book reader, Batman : Arkham Asylum gives you absolutely everything you need to understand and enjoy your entire gaming experience.

There's even more content that you can unlock, including 8 different Challenge maps in two difficulty modes each, totaling 16 extra game experiences. This number is boosted to 24 more mini-games if you own Batman : Arkham Asylum on the PS3, where you can download free additions, such as the ability to play as the Joker.

The Challenge maps are similar to areas that you experience in Story Mode, and are evenly divided between stealth missions and pure enemy battles. When it comes to Challenge fighting, you must battle your way through four waves of bad guys, each of which is tougher than the last. You earn points for the combination you perform, for avoiding harm, for tossing enemies out of the ring, and for the moves you employ.

For the stealth missions, you're placed in an environment where your enemies all carry firearms, and you need to conquer them all as fast as you can. These Challenge Modes are augmented by the fact that you can earn positions on a worldwide leaderboard, as well as gain medals for your performances, dependent upon exactly how you dispatch your enemies.

When you're in Extreme Challenge mode tasks become very difficult, requiring you to take out bad guys by careening through windows, knocking groups of enemies through the floor, and taking out multiple enemies with multiple collapsing walls - all at once! For the typical stealth missions, you depend on gargoyles to conceal you.

For Extreme stealth missions, these gargoyles explode soon after you touch them. Without these places to hide and spy on your enemies, you'll need to use the ground a lot more. You'll use detective vision a lot more heavily now, as you enemies will be much more visible when it's turned on. You've never experienced stealth gameplay like this before. It's more fun, fast and full of action than you've ever seen.

Whether you fall in love with Story Mode, or love working towards higher and higher scores with Challenge Mode, no video game has even embodied being Batman like Batman : Arkham Asylum does. The entire game, from the amazing graphics, to the amazing soundtrack, the smart voice acting, devilishly clever puzzles, to the powerful combat, has all be expertly created by the dedicated, passionate development team.

This much is very apparent Batman : Arkham Asylum may very will be the highest reviewed game ever, you'd be foolish to miss out.

I'd like to know your thoughts, so after you check it out, stop by and leave me a comment.

Enjoy!