Batman : Arham Assylum

Considering all the hype around this game when it was announced I am rather surprised there's no thread here for it yet from the demo which has been out for almost a month. Anyways I suggest that everyone that can get the Demo, get it ASAP. Screenshots can't do this game or it's gameplay justice (especially as there's a lot of cinematics/motion blur in the game which just looks really bad and blurry in a single screenshot).

The combat is a little button mashy but very fluid (just like they say) and fun so much so that I am forgot I was playing a game now and then and was wondering what my hands were doing on keyboard and mouse whilst I was watching a movie.
I was worried about the stealth element and trying to do special moves but it's actually implemented really well and easy to do and incredibly fun.
Camera angles can be a little strange as when just walking around normally you are sort of next to Batman at shoulder level, but when action is required they are spot on perfect. However due to this strange 3rd Person hybrid view you can miss the Joker rants and other visuals that pop up on the all the screens around the Assylum (obviously you hear the audio but I just feel I miss something if I don't see the screen during the entire broadcast) as many are in realtime, although there are plenty of screens so this should not happen too often.
Now I grew up with the 90s Animated Batman so having Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy as the voices of Batman and Joker is a special game experience boosting delight for me so I might be a little biased if say that the voice is perfect. Although it seems the smooth clean Joker and Harely Quinn were exchanged for more dirty depraved almost zombified looking versions ala The Dark Knight and most other villians have also gotten a monstermakeover with your average grunts not being the common henchmen of the animated series but rather lunatic musclebound druggy street thugs and Poison Ivy looking like she belongs in Devil May Cry rather the Batman Universe. I am very happy to say though the Bat Mobile is actually the iconic sleek Bat Mobile again rather than the clumsy Tankmobile of the new movies (not that you ever get to use it as far as I know but I just had to mention that). And on that topic it seems this game takes place towards the end of Bruce's reign as the Batman as Barbara Gordon as already abandoned her Batgirl cape and instead assists you as the Communcations and Computer specialist the Oracle. The game offers numerous other character bios and hidden items along the way to ensure you're not just on the lookout for enemies and to allow yourself to be further immersed in the Batman Universe.

The Demo is on the very short side not even quite offering you the full first level as far as I can tell but is still enough game to give you a taste of the what the real deal should be like.


Screenshots taken maxed out but without AA at 1680x1050. The world is very detailed so it does take quite a beefy machine to run at full detail and systems lesser than mine may find themselves with a much barer Assylum with detail being the only downgradebale option as all others are just on or off (it does however feature the performance killer Ambient Occlusion which may offer offer up a fair bit of performance when turned off). The game also uses a lot of PhysX and even has a setting for it with the recommend setting being a GTX2XX class card and 9800GTX working together on the PhysX so ATi users may find themselves also losing a little of the extra movement in the world.


Later today I will perhaps try the game with much lower settings and try and get similar screenshots so you can see the detail change.