3.5/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Batman: Arkham Asylum.

THIS GAME REALLY MAKES ME FEEL LIKE BATMAN, yeah I know, but it's true. Batman Arkham Asylum is an all time classic, some people might even consider this one of the best games from the Xbox 360 era. Superhero games were a whole different beast before this game released and to downplay this game's significance on the industry would be close to sacrilege. While I do find it be a great game, it hasn't aged like fine wine and a lot of its problems hold it back, especially compared to the other installments in the same series. Arkham Asylum has such a great premise that it's hard not to immediately fall in love with it, especially with how it opens. You take a slow walk through this creepy facility where you can just feel the horrible things that have happened there as the Joker mocks you with every step. If Arkham Asylum nails anything it's the atmosphere and tone, most of this game has this aura that's incredibly hard for even some modern games to replicate. Whether it be through its grimy visuals or orchestral soundtrack to it's gothic-inspired architecture, it all just works. The story itself is great for the most part, even if I do find the third act especially falls apart. This game has a genuinely great build up to the Joker escaping and then the game just feels somewhat directionless in the middle chunk as you're just taking out bad guys that you just happen to run into. Sure, a lot of the time the Joker sent these other characters to attack you, but sometimes it just feels like side content or padding until the big finale. The big finale in of itself is fine, but it feels so short lived and so similar to every other boss you've encountered. This all brings me to one of my bigger complaints which is the lack of enemy variety. For the most part you fight the normal prison goons, guys with knives, guys with guns, enemies with tasers and then the occasional mutated big boys. The latter being most of the boss fights you face. For some reason you fight the same enemies over and over again with the only exceptions being the Scarecrow segments, the Poison Ivy fight and Killer Croc, everything else is either a big boy or a slight variation on the big boys. Not to say any of these enemies are bad or poorly designed, but the fact that's there's almost no variation when it comes to them is slightly frustrating, especially when the final Joker fight is basically yet another mutated big boy. Another huge issue I have with this game is it's stealth mechanics, it's so easy to get spotted by accident with how inconsistent the controls and cover mechanics can be at points. Sometimes you'll be thrown in really tight areas with no real means of separating enemies, so you just kind of have to wait until an enemy moves away for you to eventually attack. Eventually when you get spotted you play this weird grapple away and running thing that just doesn't feel great to experience. You just kind of spam buttons until eventually the game lets you grapple where you want and the enemies just stop looking at you for some reason. Keep in mind this could just be a skill issue, but I could never get used to these mechanics and controls. I know I just spent this entire review focusing on the negatives, but I did really enjoy this game and it's one of those games that deserves to be placed in the all time classics category, even if it's sequels did it better. Check it out if you haven't already, especially if you're a fan of Batman.