Details zum Spiel: Batman- Arkham Asylum (PC DVD)

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC DVD)

Not since bounding around in Lego Star Wars have I had as much simple fun and frolics. Beating badguys up, gliding through the air, climbing, jumping, exploring and trying to find the hundreds of Riddler based clues...plenty to keep you active and entertained. On top of this strap an excellent rendition of an Intellectual Property, some of the best voice actors in the business, a strong story and script, a suitable environment, and a plethora of hoodlums and marquee characters to test your mettle against.

The unfortunate parts are its relative ease (one play through took me to 85% completion, which includes practically all the Riddler Clues) and the fact that despite (or more likely because of) its simple pleasures the game remains pretty shallow. For a hardcore gamer you're looking at no more than a weekend of entertainment to complete the fundamentals - after which it's really a matter of how much you care about XBox Live Gamer Points and defeating the extra challenges set (I achieved 99% prior to my save corrupting after only 4 days and about 10 hours play).

Hoodlums are 1 of 5 varieties, bosses are not much more than learning a pattern of behaviour, puzzles aren't particularly taxing, and there's very little actual detective work that isn't served on a plate. The whole process of taking down baddies is like a poor mans Splinter Cell in terms of stealth, but it tops Fisher in brutality and flair.

In all it's well worth buying, playing, enjoying, however there's no longterm charm - as such the game harks back to games of the mid90's with its story arc - just plenty of exceptionally fun and challenging situations against which to pit your reflexes and (occasionally) just expend a little aggression in a creative manner until the sequel comes along.

Pro:

1 - Great gameplay, easy to pick up, difficult to master (particularly on the higher difficulty settings when you get fewer prompts).

2 - Great graphics, plenty of attention to detail and dedication to the source material.

3 - Brilliant script and voice acting completely sells the action on screen.

4 - Best use of Intellectual Property in a game I think I've ever seen.

Con:

1 - Probably too short and too easy to complete the main campaign for dedicated gamers.

2 - A lot of returning to places you have just been, a very limited number of total maps to explore. A touch repetitive (particularly if you have difficulty with some particular element).

3 - Gameplay, whilst fantastic, doesn't tick any one single box confidently enough - game is sometimes caught trying to balance adventure / action / puzzle and fails.

Wertung; 4 Sterne Datum; 24.04.2010

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC DVD)

This is one of the best games I've ever played but is marred by one really annoying feature which I'll mention later. The storyline is intriguing, the voice acting excellent, the pace just right and its not too long or too short. There are 240 riddles to solve which makes it quite a challenge if you want to find/solve all of these.

I'm very impressed with the graphics after a couple of recent disappointments from Bioware in Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2. Rocksteady have placed a lot of emphasis on how the game looks. Textures and character models are generally good although this is helped by the game having mainly a dark gothic corridor style setting. I can't remember one instance of pop-in which really helps the immersion. I can only remember about two times it felt like the game stuttered slightly which is very good. The game uses Nvidia's PhysX which if your system can handle its high settings looks greats - lots of interactive smoke and cobwebs to add to the realism. I use a cheap 220 GT series graphics card for dedicated PhysX processing to leave my GTX 285 free for normal processing and the result is a very stable framerate which averages around 58 fps with vsync enabled and 4x AA. As I've already said the game runs really smoothly.

The gameplay is great - you can use special fighting moves after you unlock them and gather an arsenal of special weapons and tools throughout the game to allow you to grapple up walls, slide across gaps and pull weak walls down etc. There is an element of rpg about Batman AA as solving puzzles and defeating enemies gives xp that improves batman's skills. The game is fairly linear but that didn't detract from my enjoyment at all.

There is one problem though that means I can't finish it - I'm not prepared to learn a new way of controlling my character for the final boss fight. In several but not all of the boss fights the mouse cannot control the camera and you must use the WASD keys to move your character and change the direction of your attacks. Considering the boss fights are by definition the most difficult this is ridiculous and means I can't finish it. This is a real pity as the fighting is great apart from these few battles. All I can think of is that when the game was ported over from the console they forgot to change all of the boss battles, only some. This is the reason why I can only give the game four stars rather than five. If you are ok with using an Xbox controller for Windows you might be fine but I personally can't stand them - why pay £50 for a decent gaming mouse and use a cheap piece of console technology instead - seems silly to me.

I hope Rocksteady address this issue for the sequel which I'm really looking forward to.

Hope this helps.

Wertung; 4 Sterne Datum; 02.05.2010