Eidos Announces Batman: Arkham Asylum

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Eidos Announces Batman: Arkham Asylum


Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment [http://www.eidos.com] are hopping aboard the Batman train with the announcement of Batman: Arkham Asylum, a "dark, action-packed" game that actually has nothing to do with the movie.

Players will don the cape and cowl of the World's Greatest Detective as he once again delivers the Joker to the Arkham Asylum, Gotham's famed, sieve-like institution for the criminally insane. But inside, the imprisoned super-villains have taken over and set a trap for the Caped Crusader, forcing him to battle the city's worst criminals not only for survival, but also to ensure their fiendish rampage does not spread beyond the walls of Arkham.

According to an upcoming preview of the game by BioShock [http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200808/N08.0812.1226.23309.htm]," and will present a "true-to-character Batman game" set in Gotham City's darkest location. The game's story is co-written by Emmy-award winner Paul Dini, who has written scripts for Batman: The Animated Series and many other DC animated properties, as well as Tiny Toon Adventures, Duck Dodgers and Animaniacs.

The game that was intended as a movie tie-in, meanwhile, apparently won't be hitting the shelves at all. An EA [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/ap_en_mo/games_no_dark_knight_8] executives by surprise.

"I think publishers have concluded the only games that work are the surefire $500 million box office kind of games like Spider-Man and Shrek," Pachter said. "The Transformers game really surprised people how well it did, but the movie was big. I don't think they expected The Dark Knight movie to be this big."

While it may seem unusual for Eidos and WBIE to dive into a Batman game that's not a movie translation, it could work out very well for everyone involved: The publishers get to take advantage of the summer Bat-mania, and gamers can take hope from the knowledge that it's not the slapdash garbage usually associated with movie-based videogames, and therefore might actually not suck. Batman: Arkham Asylum is in development for the PlayStation 3 [http://www.xbox.com] and PC, and will hit the shelves sometime in 2009.


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HobbesMkii

Hold Me Closer Tony Danza
Jun 7, 2008
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No way. A movie-tie in game was actually canceled over "quality concerns"? By EA? Hrm... Maybe they're no so evil.
 

PedroSteckecilo

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Feb 7, 2008
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This sounds Pretty Good, especially if they make Batman a sort of MGS/Spliter Cell stealthy game where you can pop out of the shadows and scare the piss out of criminals.
 

maxusy3k

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May 17, 2008
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Hope it pans out well. The last Batman game I played was Batman Forever on the SNES. I try to forget about it but sometimes the nightmares just resurface, y'know?

Also I'm still keeping hope alive for a Batman game based off the Assassin's Creed engine.
 

PedroSteckecilo

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Feb 7, 2008
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j-e-f-f-e-r-s post=7.68324.625111 said:
Hang on, does this have anything to do with the 'Arkham Asylum' graphic novel? The plotline sounds more or less the same, but was a Grant Morrison story, not Paul Dini. And it'd be quite a challenge to translate Dave McKean's artwork from comicform to videogame.
They'll probably just use the premise, that story is much more a psych drama/horror, much less an action game, even like bioshock. Besides, it is IMPOSSIBLE to translate Dave McKean into videogames.
 

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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For the record, I'd like to say that there's only one true Duck Dodgers and he showed up in the 50s.
 

bkd69

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Paul Dini's presence is promising, though I don't know of any game writing experience on his resume (and I'm pretty sure he had nothing to do with the earlier SNES/GB/N64 videogame incarnations of Duck Dodgers). Though it should at least guarantee that nobody should have any issues with the depiction of Batman in this game. Whether he can produce a gameable script, or if he'll be teamed with more experienced game writer remains to be seen, but as long as he has any degree of involvement, this should actually be a proper Batman, though I should like to see a Batman game that relies more on detective work than action.