BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Rocksteady Studios

Publisher : Eidos Interactive, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Engine : Unreal Engine 3.5 with PhysX

Genre : Fantasy Action Adventure

Release Date : September 15 , 2009

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ / Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor

Memory (RAM) : 2 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compliant Card with 512 MB Ram

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7900 Series
ATI : Radeon X1300 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 9 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The Joker attacks Gotham City's Mayor's office, but is foiled by Batman, who escorts him for incarceration at Arkham Asylum. The same night, a mysterious fire at Gotham City's Blackgate Prison has caused several hundred prisoners to be temporarily relocated to Arkham, many of whom were among the Joker's most recent crew. As Batman escorts the guards taking the Joker inside, the asylum's security is overridden by Harley Quinn and the Joker is able to escape and take control of the facility, enlisting the Blackgate prisoners in addition to other rogue characters imprisoned at the asylum. Batman quickly realizes that this has been part of Joker's plan including the Blackgate fire, having double-crossed a security guard to help him escape. The Joker threatens to blow up bombs scattered around Gotham City should anyone attempt to enter Arkham, forcing Batman to work alone; however, Batman is able to rely on Commissioner Gordon and other loyal guards, after Batman is able to free them, to help secure prisoners he has defeated, and Oracle is able to guide him through the Asylum over the radio. Batman is able to gain access to an adjunct of the Batcave he had set up years ago on the island, and is able to use his sleuthing skills to learn of Joker's plan. It is eventually revealed that the Joker is seeking a chemical called Titan that is produced in the asylum, which is based on the same chemical that Bane uses to become super-powerful, though the Titan formula is much more potent. Not only does the Joker plan to use it on the various Blackgate inmates to create an unstoppable army, he plans to dump the waste product into Gotham's water supply, which could have disastrous effects on the city. This also has the side effect of causing Poison Ivy's plants to mutate and take over the island. Batman, after defeating several of his archenemies, is able to return to the Batcave to create an antidote to Titan, and uses it to destroy the mutated plant life and put a stop to Joker's army. With all of his henchmen defeated, the Joker invites Batman to his "party", where Batman sees Joker holding and manipulating Scarface and sitting upon a throne of mannequins. Joker then reveals that he has recaptured Gordon and attempts to shoot Gordon with a Titan-filled dart. Batman jumps in front of it, taking the injection himself. With Batman attempting to resist the change, Joker feels defeated. He shoots himself with the Titan gun and becomes a massive monster. Joker proudly displays himself to news choppers before Batman defeats him in a final battle. As he transforms back to normal and is taken back to his cell, the staff regains control of the asylum. Batman then hears that Two-Face is robbing the Second National Bank of Gotham. Batman summons the Batwing, and flies away towards Gotham. Following the credits a box stamped with the word Titan is seen floating in the water, upon which a hand rises from the water and grabs the box.

The combat in Arkham Asylum never gets overly complicated, though the number of moves and attacks at your disposal increases quite dramatically as you progress through the Story mode, earn experience points, and subsequently spend those points on acquiring new combo moves and gadgets. Throws, takedowns, and even batarang attacks can be incorporated into your combos this way, but you never need to press more than two buttons simultaneously, and the timing of your moves doesn't have to be particularly precise. Fighting against mobs of up to a dozen enemies or so is a blast, and while they're not smart enough to all just jump on you at once, they're not stupid either. Given half a chance, thugs will pull pipes from walls to attack you with, pick up boxes to throw at you, and recover weapons from fallen colleagues. One character that you definitely want to listen to carefully is Edward Nigma, also known as Riddler. That's because there are no fewer than 240 "riddles" for you to solve on Arkham Island, and doing so not only earns you a good number of experience points but is also the only way to unlock character bios, character trophies, and Challenge mode maps. The riddles come in a number of different flavors, many of which don't involve riddles at all, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they're rewarding to solve. The best of the proper riddles are those that lead you to photograph question marks painted around the island, which doesn't sound very interesting until you realize that these question marks can only be seen using detective vision from very specific locations. That's because these elusive punctuation marks are painted in two parts at different locations that are often quite far apart, so the solution requires you to find both parts and then figure out where to take the photo from so that they line up perfectly. It's clever and compelling stuff, though it does encourage you to spend more time than you'd probably like in detective vision mode.

More significant unlockable content comes in the form of eight challenge maps, which come in regular and extreme difficulties for a total of 16. The maps are based on areas that you visit in the Story mode, and the challenges are split 50/50 between purely combat-oriented sequences and stealth-based "Predator" gameplay. In the former, you're pitted against four increasingly tough waves of enemies and score points for performing combos, avoiding taking damage, executing ring outs, and using a variety of different moves. In the latter, you're dropped into a level where every enemy has a gun and your goal is to take them all down as quickly as possible. The twist is that to earn a respectable position on the online leaderboards in the Challenge mode, you also have to earn medals, and in order to do that, you have to deal with some of your enemies in very specific ways. Regardless of whether you're getting sucked into the Story mode or competing for high scores in the Challenge mode, Batman: Arkham Asylum does an outstanding job of letting you be Batman. Everything about this game--the impressive visuals, stirring soundtrack, superb voice acting, fiendish puzzles, hard-hitting combat--feels like it has been lovingly crafted by a development team that's both knowledgeable and passionate about the source material. Miss out on this one and the joke's on you and you don't need to be a fan of Batman to enjoy this excellent third-person action game.

GAME REVIEW :-

9/10

Batman: Arkham Asylum Trailer :-