Plus XP

As superheros go I never really got into Batman until the movies really. His pointy ears look pretty ridiculous to me, but in all fairness when I saw Tim Burtons; Batman Returns I really started to like him. The film Dark Night of course is THE awesome and from then on the Bat has gone up in my estimation.

So when the Arkham Aslyum demo came out on Friday I needed to get my hands on it. That I did and my first overall impression of the demo is. This game lives up to the Hype!

Starting a new game you get a nice cinematic sequence of the Dark Night taking The Joker to the asylum then The Joker escaping and taking over the building and its inmates. Watching this, the graphics were amazing, the shadows were pretty much perfect. Looked very much like a sort of tuned up Man Hunt and the Joker looking I must say, deliciously evil.The graphics are very good in game also. The shadows and low level lighting set the mood pretty much perfectly.

The voice acting is great, using original voices from the cartoons. Such as Mark Hamill for The Joker. No one sounds out of place.

Now onto the important bit, the game play! What the demo does is throw you head first into combat. This acts as a combat tutorial with commands showing up on the screen. Now watching the previews of the game, the combat to me sounded a bit like it wasn’t going to work. The whole lets make up your own combos etc stank of the combat system just going to be (what I like to call) a filler element to the game, an element that was made up in a couple of days and brushed aside. Man I was wrong, the combat system very simple but hell does it look cool! Y to counter, X to strike and B to stun. You can string these in any order and the amount of moves you can get out of it is amazing. It all looks seamless on screen, every now an then I saw myself taking a double take at how cool the combo I did just looked. So the combat gets a big thumbs up from me!

Now as this is a 3rd person game the designers have taken into account the placing of the main character on the screen. Like in Dead Space he is just off to the left hand side of the screen, meaning you have a great view of whats in front of you. This is even more convenient when characters such as The Joker or the Commissioner talk to you on a telly screen some where Batman is not standing straight in front of the screen. This also helps the use of your Bat-arang. You need to kill chattering teeth on the floor from time to time using it, so holding down LT to aim then throwing it by pressing RT will throw your Bat-arang at yor desired target…Convenient!

So after a couple more fights and talking bits I get a taste of what is possibly the best thing in the game. Detective mode! Hitting LB activates it, this mode shows you which guards are armed, what their health is like and what objects are interactive with in the area you are in. Even though this is simple it is a very effective tool. Especially if your in a room with about 10 armed inmates.

The game then introduces you to the grappling hook. From up high Batman can then take out his enemies in a variety of ways. Such as gliding down and kicking them in te face, or silently dangle behind them with his grappling hook, snatch them then drop them from a height. Seriously cool to look at, always brings a smile to my face every time I watch them.

I’m not a great big fan of stealth games really. When I play them I never seem to do well at all. But some how Batman’s stealth element works a treat and I can get on with it really well. I love sneaking round a room an silently taking out enemies using the Y button.Which is funny because I am usually an ‘all guns blazing’ kinda guy.

So all in all the Batman: Arkham Aslyum demo is a must get for people looking forward to the game. For me this demo has put this game up to the top end of my to buy/get hold of some how list!

Batman: Arkham Asylum comes out on the 25th of August on the US and the 28th of  August in the UK

Garv!