Well gamestation this morning: 'Have you got Batman Arkham Asylum' yes mate £14.99.  So I ask about the GOTY edition, and he say's no. So I'm off to game, and find BAA for 17.99, so I ask him can you do this for 14.99 as it is round the corner, no it went up £3 this morning, they should be selling it there for 17.99 as well. 

I go back to gamestation, and take the 14.99 copy, and he says yes I've just been phoned by the manager of game and asked why its not been hiked in price yet.  So good luck at getting it for under £8.

I had it on PC, so I bought a wired 360 controller as I will be away a lot this month and will be unable to give the PS3 the love it deserves.  I'll let you know how it goes, first playthrough will be PS3.

Otto

It took me about a days worth of playing to get the 9 move kill streak but my God it felt Class! Loved this game. I loved…..

1. Perching Batman up on a ledge, putting the controller down, picking up a bacon roll,

2. Taking a good bite and whilst chewing contemplating the drop kick 

3. grab a cup and take a swig of tae and wonder if dropping down a grabbing the guy ad stringing him up is preferable

4. Make an aaaah sound after the tea and go for the bat-a-rang to spook him out then drop behind him and knock him out.

Bloody love this game

For all you PC players out there, Arkham Asylum is going for £4.99 on Steam at the moment.

Well I was dubious.  We broke the £8 rule and the choice of Batman seemed to be little more than a populist choice timed to coincide with Arkham Cities release on Friday.  I had read the review and never really followed it up.   I now am eating my words.

I just had my arse handed to me by Kane and just had to let you know how its going.  The game reminds me of Metroid Prime, with the way that as I explore I find more and more areas that are locked, and I know I will be able to go back when I have better powers.  Combat is a bit of a mash fest, but that isnt getting the combo metre high enough.  The challenges give you a chance to improve your battle tactics.

The riddler challenges are a nice touch, but sometimes the detective mode does not seem to want to lock on.  i am looking at the radio, I am zooming at the radio, I am kicking the radio – its the fucking radio.  Eventually it unlocks, but I dont know why.  I have upgraded my armour and have a silent takedown ability, sitting on the gargoyle waiting for the bad guys to walk underneath me.  The stealth bits, and I dont like stealth games in genral hit the right balance, the bad guys aren't stupid but they're not in the MGS league either.  It would have been nice to be able to hide bodies, I had a bit where I took a guy down and I wanted to hide the body, before anybody else could find it but there wasnt an option. 

I like the new batman films, and this game catches the atmosphere perfectly.  The Spiderman games have normally been the best superhero games, but this one knocks them out of the park.  The voice acting is phenomenal (this somebody say it was Mark Hamil), the chatter on the radio and the TV  station with messages from the Joker.  Its like playing a movie at times.  The game has skipped to a 2D platformer at one stage, and along with beat em up, I only wonder do I get to drive the batmobile, and why dont I have those plugs you put up your nose to stop gas attack  (a la 60s TV show).

So thank you guys, its going great, the only down side is that Arkham City is now looking like a Day 1 – and I rarely bye games new.

Awesome

Otto

Well I'm 36% in now, and I've got the radio decoder and grappling hook which is making finding the riddlers trophies easier (oh and the maps he leaves behind- ddduuurrr). Its still got me and I've hardly touched the challenges yet.

Swooping down on thugs and taking them out – yeah I'm BATMAN!!

The unlockables are coming too fast and you can see the care that has gone into this licence, every single character bio has a full history, and the secrets of Arkham Asylum are telling a dark story.  The interview tapes are well put together and fill holes in the story – was this actually written by the guys who write the comics?? It sticks so much to the lore, and feels so right I think it must be.The old favourites are popping up, but there are also cameo appearances from some of the less well known characters.The freedom is great, but I am just wishing for some kind of explosive batarang for the out of reach areas – no doubt I'll get that later.  theres an ublockable there, i can see it but the glass is five foot above my hand and I can't blow it up.  the storlyline is really mature and the bad guys suitably evil.  I've now got loonies who run at me and bite my head off who are a bit of a pain, and the shock stick guys are worse than the gun guys – at least you can counter and disarm guys. I've also had a few suitably unnerving visits by scarecrow and even though i had hims as a bit of a joke – he is really unnerving the way he messes with yur mind. I am learning that there is a style to it, and it is easier than mashing if you use the right combos.

Atmosphere is fantastic, and there are a few change my pants moments.  The more you learn about the place, the more you find new cubby holes, what about going under the floor and emerging out of a duct as a bad guy walks above you – or just swoop down and kick them.  What if I string up a thug and drop him on his mate when he comes to investigate him.  the ordinary baddies are getting tougher now, so I think it must scale the difficulty as you progress.  I am playing it on PS3 so I have the rumble as I decode a radio signal, but there are still some I cannot hack – mainly because the control points are not accessible.

I am clearing up the trophies as I go, so I'll clear the trophies on normal and then go again on hard. then it might be challenge time, but I really need to work on those combos.

Otto

Hi,

Good to see others stopping me from hogging the thread!! I am 58% complete now, met killer croc (easy) and those bloody scarecrow levels.  There was a great level with 7 armed thugs patrolling an area and I couldnt use my normal tactics – that was a tester, took a couple of hours to get passed that (maybe because I have no patience and I'm bobbins at games).  I now have a supergrapple and the riddlers trophies are falling thick and fast, I'm kicking mself for trying so hard earleir on to get trophies that if I had waited would have been easy.  I have also noticed that not only are the hoods getting more numerous they are also tougher – more shockers, more crazed lunes who you need to stun before damaging - and one armed thug with a gun will kill you if your not careful.  I got complacent and took 5 out of the 7 killed on the aformentioned level, I thought I can take 2 hand to hand, wrong – one dead bat!!  You need to respect even the basic hoods. 

I have dabbled on one of the challenges and didnt get a grade, so I can see the replayability – maybe post some scores on here and have a club competition??  This has really whet my appetite for Gotham City, but I will now have a break from my PS3 (and posting in this for a week) because of work. 

I didnt sllep the night before last, and last night was a 4am finish.  I was in bed at 4am thinking about how to get the next trophies and how I could defeat some of the baddies without a batarang.  When a game gets you like this, it speaks volume!! Both of the game, and your OCD!!

Cheers

Otto

Spent the weekend playing this after picking up the GOTY edition for a measly $15 brand new. About 10hrs in and i've done the story and got all the riddler trophies/riddles etc., and i'm just starting on my favorite bit from the demo – the predator challenges.

This game really got its hooks into me and it's not often a game does that. I'm a picky bastard really. But i think it's the way they have blended gameplay styles and character abilities to make players feel what it's like to be batman.

Firstly, the fighting is simple enough that you don't feel overwhelmed with controls, but the counter, combo and multiplier attacks provide enough variation to make it satisfying. It seems appropriate to batmans character that when faced with 20 thugs, the combat channels you into out-maneuvering your enemies rather than charging in. And when you do get hit you don't feel cheated, even if you're massively outnumbered.

The visceral feel is also satisfying in a gruesome way. The slow-mo critical hits remind me of mortal combat the way you sense bones breaking and teeth flying out on impact. Then at the end of each fight there's a feeling of dishing out gotham justice as batman adjusts his gloves, bats swirl around and the camera pans to show a roomful of broken bodies. Job done.

Then there are the gadgets. These make for some cool game mechanics and navigation around the game. The grapple, explosive gel, decoder, batarangs, line launcher etc. are all embedded into the game rather than one-off gimmicks serving one mission. And the world is littered with opportunities to use them however you like.

For instance, a sniper on a tower – will I batarang then incapacitate, linelaunch in and attack, grapple up and pull over the ledge, glide on the roof and lay some explosive gel, lure out with sonic batarang and grapple hook down the stairs…Pulling off mad shit like this made me think of jokers line in Burton's movie: "where does he get those wonderful toys?"

Finally, the detective mode. This really makes you feel like a dangerous (and possibly demented) superhero stalking from above. At first it feels unfair as you dispatch unarmed henchmen one-by-one. Your stealthy observation and plotting not matched by any sense of vulnerability. But then the armed guards and exploding gargoyles appear, and it becomes a beautifully pitched fight. Not experienced anything like this since Thief on the PC.

And this is where i'm at now, playing the predator challenge rooms and throwing different tactics at the goons. Terrorize them with batarangs, rip them from landings, explode them across the room, create grotesque landscapes with rows of hanging henchmen, or simply survive! All accompanied by the jokers commentary. Just like in the main game, these predator rooms seem to distill the appeal of being batman – outnumbered and outgunned but invisible, resourceful and scary as fuck.

There's still stuff wrong with it. My wife asked "where is gotham?" and i had to agree, for lots of the campaign it's more like jurassic park than gotham city. There's a lot of narrow, winding corridors which don't help when your character is 4ft wide, the map isn't that intuitive, and the final boss fight is bollocks.

But those problems aside, it's such an amazing game i feel guilty paying only $15.

Lucien21 said:

clever use of the Riddler to get you finding the 240 riddles and clues he has spread across the levels (unlike the stupid flags in assassins Creed you really want to find all the Riddler tokens and solve all the puzzles) it's all great.

ditto on that. ACII is the only game i've platinumed and even though the flags appeal to my ocd and preference for exploration over actual skill, they were a nightmare compared to the riddler trohpies.