How many Batman Games do you remember playing? I can remember one on the Sega Game Gear years ago and possibly one on the Atari, but other than that, I got nothing. Imagine my surprise to find out there’s been 22 different batman video game titles. It's unbelievable that there are not many memorable ones, out of all those. The only conclusion is that they were all poor games. This is about to change, with the upcoming release of Batman: Arkham Asylum. There are a few videos and screenshots knocking around the internet and based on first impressions it looks excellent. The style of the characters, especially Batman himself looks plain awesome. It’s the kind of dark, menacing Batman that everyone wants to be in control of. The Asylum environments looks dark and atmospheric, all in all very detailed. It reminds me of a less colorful Rapture from Bioshock.
Emmy Award-winning Batman writer Paul Dini penned the story, and the character voices are those of the Animated Batman series. Mark 'Skywalker' Hamill, who is no stranger to voice acting in games (call of duty 2, The Legend of Spyro, etc) voices the Joker and Batman voice veteran Kevin Conroy returns as The Dark Knight. The plot goes like this. Batman captures the Joker and escorts him to Arkham Asylum. The Joker escapes and we find out his goons have taken over the asylum and the whole thing is a trap. Harley Quinn unlocks all the cells and the criminally insane are free to roam the asylum. Batman then attempts to regain the status quo of the asylum by pummeling everyone in sight.
To progress through the story line, you will need a mix of skills. First thing you will have to get to grips with is the 'Free Flow' combat. Looks like you will be able to button bash to your hearts content to perform a range of combat moves. You will be able to attack, stun, takedown and counter attack in various combos. This sounds a lot like the combat in Assassin’s Creed to me, which I’m sure everyone will agree, got a little repetitive. Even so, Batman will be dealing with significantly more enemies than our friend Altair, up to fifteen at any one time. With each enemy you dispatch, you will gain a valuable health bonus and XP. XP can then unlock different moves for Bats to perform
