I’m Batman. (Well, I Was, for 15 Minutes…)

As an unabashed comic fan, I’ve been literally drooling at the video previews of Batman: Arkham Asylum. At E3 I got a chance to don the cowl and go hands-on with the game, which is now slated to ship in late August.

As you’ve probably heard, the game is a combination of stealthy, detective-style skulking in the shadows and fast-action superhero combat. As I picked up in the game, a group of heavily armed henchmen had blocked off a corridor. A frontal assault would have resulted in an ex-Batman. Instead, I used a batrope to swing up to the rafters so that I could approach them from behind. Then I crouch-sneaked up from the rear and did a silent takedown. Then I ended up above a large room filled with cronies. I had to keep jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle, setting up individual batarang throws or swoop-down-and-kick attacks, and then return to the shadows. As I took down more baddies, their heart rates accelerated and their reactions became jumpier.

The portion I played was fairly early in the game, but Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment promises that later in the game even more detective skills will come into use, with fingerprint scanning, a pheremone tracker, Amido Black spray, and other Bat-tools. When things do devolve into out-and-out combat, the “FreeFlow” combat system lets you chain together brutal combos to take down a Jokervan-load of villians in no time flat.

One of the coolest touches, though, is that the game is written by Paul Dini, of Batman animated series fame, and voiced by many folks from the show: Kevin Conroy, the definitive Batman; Mark Hamill returns as the Joker; and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn. The quality writing and acting really comes across. I was skeptical going in, given the quality of most previous DC superhero games, but it looks like WBIE is going to unlock the “Awesome Batman Game” achievement here.

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• Anonymous
  June 08, 2009
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