I’m about…85% through Batman: Arkham Asylum. Yes, I am very late to the party. But I really do love Aslyum…it’s creepy but not scary, the combat system is AMAZING, and while the Joker is off doing something with Titan that is no doubt very important, there are more riddles to be found! Batman is amazingly cool.
Should I go ahead and buy Akham City? It is better? Is it similar? More fun?
Moved Cafe Society --> the Game Room.
Yes, buy Arkham City. Keeps most of the good stuff, adds more good stuff. You start with a lot more gadgets as well, so you don’t get the same “Why doesn’t Batman carry ALL this stuff in his belt” feeling.
The combat system is, if anything IMHO improved - there are more gadgets you can use during combat, and they’re all fun.
Make sure you buy a version that lets you play as Catwoman too. I don’t know if there are versions where you can’t, but her story is fun, as well as having a different combat style than Batman.
Very minor story spoiler regarding a returning character:
Joker is again a main villain, and if anything Mark Hamill outdoes his Arkham Asylum performance voicing him.
Yes.
Buy the GOTY edition. It comes with all of the extra DLC stuff.
There’s much more freedom to move around, it’s definitely a much less linear experience. There’s so much more to do and see. In fact, at one point I forgot all about the main story because I was doing side missions and just running around the city beating up thugs (this is not a terrible idea either, as it will hone your fighting and stealth skills, not to mention letting you gain EXP, level up, and unlock a bunch of WayneTech stuff, which will be very important as you progress through the main story).
Yes, buy it. It doesn’t have as much creepy claustrophobic crazy as Asylum, but it’s still insane in a new urban wasteland way. When you get it, explore everywhere, and listen to all of the conversations-some of them are hilarious.
I will definitely do so then! I didn’t read the spoiler for muldoonthief (although I mind spoilers a little less in video games).
But first…I have more riddles to solve!
I prefer Asylum, though it was smaller and less diverse, I felt overall it just worked better and because City was more like Asylum 1.5, it lost a lot of the novelty factor. City is definitely worth a play though.
Eh, go ahead and read it. Nothing you don’t learn from the box art anyway.
Yes. Next question.
No, but seriously - if you enjoy *Asylum *even a little bit, *City *is everything it is and can be, only more betterer on every level. The combat, the boss fights, the riddles, the stealth, the futzing around just being The Goddamned Batman. There isn’t one aspect of the game where I went “eh, I liked that better in the original” or “meh, I ain’t impressed, that could have been handled better”. And the story itself is very good, too.
I know sequels often disappoint, but Arkham City is damn close to being a perfect game - the only thing missing from it is replayability (and even then, playing through without the attack warnings is quite a different experience). The boss fights could also have been a little bit more Devil May Cry-ish, but they’re still leagues ahead of those in Asylum… and then there’s that one boss fight, which is on par with the The End boss fight of *MGS3 *as far as I’m concerned. Especially on Hard difficulty.
I’m going to go against the consensus and say that you should consider picking it up. It’s very enjoyable.
The only bad thing I can honestly remember about the game is the following phrase:
“Augmented Reality Training Failed”
You may hear it. A lot.
I read it…it was a really minor spoiler, and I’m glad, because it’s a very very good thing.
Lemme finish up Asylum and then…
I suppose I should 'fess up that I almost never play games on “Hard” difficulty. I’m not really in it for the fighting*, but the story and the playing and the exploring.
*Although I admit, if I WAS going to be in it for the fighting, Batman is probably the best game to do so. POW! BAM! WHAP!
Twitch.
Which boss fight, in spoilers, is the one you’re talking about, Kobal2? I remember liking the boss fights a whole lot.
I’m with the consensus as well: it’s a wonderful game, the kind of game that reminds me why I’m a gamer. There are plenty of games that get the jump-around-and-be-acrobatic part right, there are plenty of games that get the twisty puzzle part right, there are plenty of games that get combat right, but I can’t think of any other game that gets all three of them right (for example, I’m playing Assassin’s Creed 2 now, and while I love the acrobatics, I find the combat to be pretty unsatisfying).
Plus Batman can fly!
I will say that the tutorials, at least on a PC, for how to dive and soar were pretty confusing. At a certain point, I couldn’t progress in the game until I read several forum posts that explained what buttons to mash in what order.
And the “augmented reality” message drove me batshit.
But this game and its prequel have become, for me, the definitive Batman artwork. They’re nearly perfect.
i play on the console
I know that makes me practically anathema amongst PC gamers. My SO plays on the PC, but honestly my PC is just too old at this point to really handle 99% of modern games.
That’s okay. This is the kind of game where consoles shine; it’s not very well suited to keyboard-and-mouse control, not the way first-person shooters are. I have this on both my computer and Xbox 360, and keyboard control is pretty clunky whereas it’s fairly intuitive on the 360 controller.
Meh. There are certainly (checks the forum) high-strung PC gamers who give a crap about how someone else plays a game, but then there are the rest of us who don’t. I play on a PC because I’ve always done so, and also because I can justify the cost better, even if not necessarily rationally (and that’s NOT an invitation to open a debate about the cost!), but mostly out of sheer inertia. Folks that play on a console? Awesome.
Mouse and keyboard is superior -IMHO for Asylum. You will pwn in combat with it. nothing beats the speed and precision of the mouse.
On Arkham City, however, there is a LOT of flying/gliding about, including some special combat maneuvers that require you start flying/gliding about, and mouse and keyboard sucks for that.
Luckily you can play with a gamepad on the PC, so you don’t have to forgo the impressive visuals for good controls, or vice versa.
I’ve found that games that require or benefit from speed and precision in terms of locations on the screen or the game world, typically play better with mouse and keyboard, while games that require nuance and accuracy in terms of vectors typically play better on a gamepad (or another analogue device depending on the game, like a wheel for a racing game).
As for Arkham City, yep, an incredible game. One of my favorites of this generation. The semi open world hits just the right balance between things to do, scripted events and free exploration. Pick it up on whatever platform you’ve got!
Trying to avoid spoiler tags here…
Asylum is very good. The atmosphere and style were fantastic, and the gameplay was solid (although not amazing).
Arkham city is outstanding. The atmosphere and style are still top of the line, gameplay is improved…but this time, there’s some very deep, powerful characterization. There are actually a couple of moments that are emotionally moving.
There is nothing I’ve seen in the whole genre (which I’d say encompasses all the story-driven first-person single player games) that reaches the level of awesome found in Arkham City. And I play a lot of games.
Mr. Freeze. Just awesome all around.
Not that I disliked the others buuuuut… well, they’re more or less all “figure which gadget works, spam it, dodge counter-attack, repeat”, with possible “beat up 20 henchmen” breaks in-between the gadget-spamming. That one fight I was talking about is not only its own masterpiece, it also completely subverts that dynamic, which makes it all the more notable in retrospect.
Also, in addition to what the others said, it uses the Games for Windows Live copy protection which seriously sucks, especially if you’re also using Steam. I had a blast the first 12 hours or so into it (which is barely scraping the surface) until GFWL decided to delete my saves. Then trying over, it did the same damn thing about 6 hours in. There’s supposedly some way to avoid this, but I haven’t risked it again yet.