Public enemy once warned against the believing of hype and so as an avid batman fan I've managed to limit my excitement mostly to the voice work of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil, Mostly.
Batman Arkham Asylum has made a lot of big promises during its frenzied promotion campaign and the demo pretends to be a crystal ball into whether the game will live up to the wild claims of designers. So, the promises:
Free flowing cutting edge Combat:
The Demo was pretty clear on how this is going to work out. You mash attack and point batman in the right direction. Enemies are pretty non-threatening, even to the point where they flash little cartoon lightning above their head when they?re about to attack. The only time you have to worry about while mashing attack like a drink drinky bird on its eighth red bull is if enemies have got behind you. But thanks to the counter attack move all you'll ever need to do is push secondary attack every so often. Combat could be reliably duplicated by the enemies dying if batman touched them Mario style, only with less exciting finishing animations.
That is of course until the enemies have guns at which point you either win or you don't, due to bullets and Batman's weakness to them. Though this is not so much an issue with the combat but the stealth, which brings me to
Stealth Predator game play
I'll give the game credit here, or at least the demo credit, the stealth works. Stealth is achieved through being in places where the enemies won't see you rather than the old fashioned sit in the shadows to avoid an army of cataract victims and you're given a lovely selection of gadgets to help you. You swing from objects and climb or fall off them to get around hoping to end up standing behind an enemy so that you can do an auto take out before they see you. It works as a challenging puzzle mechanic but not without fault. The system works on interacting objects, and while I'm not saying this is inherently a bad thing, if this turns out to be a bugger in the full game I want it on record that I called it! The other issue is of course the price of failure is pretty much instant death. If enemies spot you grappling onto the nearest roof won't help nor will trying to fight your way out. It?s pretty much do or die if you get spotted which is really annoying, not to mention not very batman. It?s not so much that the stealth doesn?t work well as the fact that you?re forced into it that bothers me. I can?t help but feel that it could be a little more forgiving meaning the game could include more combat to mix up play modes. That is until I remember that the combat is so bad I?d probably long for death.
The Demo hasn?t sold me on Batman Arkham Asylum, but it?s not put me off either. If I do part with money for the game, the primary reason will still be because I?m a Batman fan more than anything else. The game play isn?t flawless, in fact only the stealth actually excelled, but the demo was good enough for me to at least consider it.
Batman Arkham Asylum has made a lot of big promises during its frenzied promotion campaign and the demo pretends to be a crystal ball into whether the game will live up to the wild claims of designers. So, the promises:
Free flowing cutting edge Combat:
The Demo was pretty clear on how this is going to work out. You mash attack and point batman in the right direction. Enemies are pretty non-threatening, even to the point where they flash little cartoon lightning above their head when they?re about to attack. The only time you have to worry about while mashing attack like a drink drinky bird on its eighth red bull is if enemies have got behind you. But thanks to the counter attack move all you'll ever need to do is push secondary attack every so often. Combat could be reliably duplicated by the enemies dying if batman touched them Mario style, only with less exciting finishing animations.
That is of course until the enemies have guns at which point you either win or you don't, due to bullets and Batman's weakness to them. Though this is not so much an issue with the combat but the stealth, which brings me to
Stealth Predator game play
I'll give the game credit here, or at least the demo credit, the stealth works. Stealth is achieved through being in places where the enemies won't see you rather than the old fashioned sit in the shadows to avoid an army of cataract victims and you're given a lovely selection of gadgets to help you. You swing from objects and climb or fall off them to get around hoping to end up standing behind an enemy so that you can do an auto take out before they see you. It works as a challenging puzzle mechanic but not without fault. The system works on interacting objects, and while I'm not saying this is inherently a bad thing, if this turns out to be a bugger in the full game I want it on record that I called it! The other issue is of course the price of failure is pretty much instant death. If enemies spot you grappling onto the nearest roof won't help nor will trying to fight your way out. It?s pretty much do or die if you get spotted which is really annoying, not to mention not very batman. It?s not so much that the stealth doesn?t work well as the fact that you?re forced into it that bothers me. I can?t help but feel that it could be a little more forgiving meaning the game could include more combat to mix up play modes. That is until I remember that the combat is so bad I?d probably long for death.
The Demo hasn?t sold me on Batman Arkham Asylum, but it?s not put me off either. If I do part with money for the game, the primary reason will still be because I?m a Batman fan more than anything else. The game play isn?t flawless, in fact only the stealth actually excelled, but the demo was good enough for me to at least consider it.
