That's it?

"I want everyone to know that I really appreciate all the hard work. You know, watching you guys is like a night in, watching my favorite movie. What was the name of that movie again? Oh, yes. Attack of the stupid bungling idiots who can't find an bigger idiot running around dressed like a bat! Now get to it! 

[Yawns]  

I'm getting bored."

The Joker, Batman: Arkham Asylum

I recently purchased a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the critically acclaimed award-winning 2009 PC game in which the Joker orchestrates a takeover of the asylum with the eventual goal of modifying the serum which gives Bane his strength, using the resulting Titan formula to create an army of monstrous henchmen, and then dumping the leftovers into Gotham's water supply: result, chaos.

Batman, who has just delivered the Joker to the Asylum when the action begins, has a challenging night ahead of him.  He must fight off an army of inmates from Blackgate Penitentiary who are temporarily at Arkham as part of the Joker's plot, subdue escaped Arkham patients, go mano e mano with Bane, recapture the Joker's equally twisted girlfriend Harley Quinn, deal with an infestation of mutated plants created by Poison Ivy, overcome the effects of the Scarecrow's fear potion - oh, yes, and defeat the Joker, too.

As you might imagine based on Batman's approach to crime fighting, Arkham Asylum is primarily a hand to hand combat game, which kept me from purchasing a copy for a long time (well, three years anyway).  I have a substantial background in first-person shooter games, with the accent on the word "shooter", but as a PC rather than console gamer I haven't been terribly interested in mastering the multitude of keyboard commands that are involved in punching, blocking, dodging and kicking.  However, with the Mac version of the game on sale for $20, I decided that it was worth the investment just to see what all the fuss was about.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed playing Arkham Asylum. In spite of my doubts about the fighting system, I was able to hold my own against all comers, but the game doesn't simply require that a player memorize complicated keyboard combinations in order to knock out evildoers.  Batman is outnumbered and alone, surrounded by armed criminals. He levels the playing field by concealing himself and picking off his opponents one by one, swinging from the rafters or making his way through air ducts and hidden tunnels, a strategy which requires careful thinking as much as actual combat skill.

In order to help him accomplish his goals, Batman's utility belt is equipped with the usual array of helpful items:  batarang, grappling gun, explosive spray-on gel, a decoder for electronic locks, and so on.  He also has the option of viewing the environment in "detective mode", which activates scanners in his cowl and allows the player to see hidden elements and scan the capabilities and locations of opponents. The integration of the grappling gun to make the game a three dimensional experience is brilliantly done, and in fact the entire interface - fighting, moving, hiding and investigating - is simple and elegant.

But in spite of all that, I was ultimately disappointed by the game, for a very simple reason.  As I mentioned above, I've spent a lot of time playing first person shooters, and that experience has taught me to expect a certain pattern in gameplay: increasingly difficult scenarios punctuated by boss fights, culminating in a final boss fight which is the most challenging part of the game and which very likely requires multiple attempts to achieve victory.

In Arkham Asylum, I was more aware of the villains that I didn't fight than the villains that I did.  There's no sign of the Penguin, no Catwoman (although, come to think of it, Selena Kyle may not end up at Arkham when she gets caught), Clayface remains behind bars, the Riddler is a constant voice-over presence but never physically appears in the game, and Two-face is just briefly mentioned at the end of the game in a radio call from Gotham.  Batman never actually fights Killer Croc, he just runs away from him, and although the Scarecrow appears several times, his role is more psychological than physical.

When I reached what turned out to be the end of the game, with Batman confronting a Titanic Joker in a makeshift arena, I was actually a bit puzzled and wondering what was going to happen - how the Joker would escape, where the game would go next, how the plot would deal with the Joker's sudden physical dominance, where and how he'd change back. When Batman defeated the Joker and the credits began to roll, I was completely surprised to discover that I was finished, without even really breaking a sweat in the final confrontation.

I can make a case for wanting to avoid following the mainstream, and overall I enjoyed the game, but ultimately I ended up feeling like the Joker:  I appreciated all the hard work, but at the end, I was bored.

- Sid