Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Eidos Interactive, Rocksteady Studios
Available for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Greetings The Girl Gamer readers! Joker here. I bet your wondering what I, the Clown Prince of Crime is doing writing an article for the good old Girl Gamer here, well sit a spell and I’ll tell ya. See Harley and I were in Canada picking up some lovely new chemicals to use on Gotham City and I just happen to hear about this new game starring my favourite target, Batman.

Of course, being a huge fan of the Dork Knight, I just had to steal me a copy of this Batman: Arkham Asylum, so I headed down to the local St. Catharines videogame store, EB Games and tortured the employees until they found me a copy. Apparently those guys really love their videogames but not so much when they become the disc slot. HAAAAA!

Anyway, I was already to send a bunch of exploding Joker gas bombs disguised as whoopee cushions to the jerks at Rocksteady for creating another homage to that flying rodent but instead I decided to let those maroons live when I saw they created a Joker Edition for the Playstation 3. “Jumping Jiminy Christmas,” I thought to myself, “I need to find me a local website to take over and get the word out about this amazing game.” And so I did and here we are. Oh and don’t expect to find Faith up and about any time soon, kids. She wasn’t exactly happy about my arrival, so I had to change her view – Joker style. *evil laugh*


So like I was saying, those wonderful developers were smart enough to make a game edition featuring me. How fantastic! Of course, the game still centers on old Batsie but the plot has him chasing me through Arkham Asylum after I escape the guards. I have him running through Arkham like a rat in a maze, so the game isn’t a total loss. Of course, my henchmen and I aren’t the only ones who get to beat up on old Fatman as there are tons of my fellow wackos in crime around to help throw a few punches like my sweet Harley Quinn and the Scarecrow. I would have appreciated a few more faces from Gotham's most wanted in the game to beat up on Bats, but I guess you take what you can get.

Though for all the henchmen I throw at that annoying freak, the developers felt it necessary to give all the perks to Batman in order to help him stay alive throughout the game. I really hate that about him. From his cool Bat gadgets to his easy to master fighting controls, Batman has everything he needs to take out all my henchmen and survive the big boss battles. It sucks. Though I have to say I even I liked the inverted takedown move and he was taking out my henchmen. :P

The game offered up combat challenges where Batman must either fighting a series of henchmen for points or take out the henchmen with a series of special moves, all for points. In the Joker Edition, they gave me my own challenge rooms and those were a blast. Nothing like sneaking up on an Arkham guard, shooting him, and then waiting to take out all his buddies with a Joker denotation toy when they come to check out him. KABOOM! HAAAAAA! Classic.

Along with the in-game plot, Batman also has a few side quests to distract him from catching me like solving a bunch of riddles around Arkham Island which were placed there by the Riddler. Attention stealer. And then Batman also has the Spirit of Arkham story to find and decipher – now there was a real ham. For the slower people of there, the Riddler does leave a map in each area to help you find all his items.


I must say those doodlers at Rocksteady did a fabulous job at making Arkham Asylum look and feel like home. From the creepy medical equipment to the padded cells, they almost made me wish I locked up again and scheduled for some shock therapy. Ah, memories. Too bad Batman gets the run of the place though. How dare they let him hide on gargoyles and crash through glass ceilings in order to take us out when he should be in one of those padded cells with us.

At least, they got my voice right in the game with that amazing Joker impersonator, Mark Hamill. Now that’s a guy I could listen to for hours. And Batman’s voice-over guy, Kevin Conroy, talk about dead on with his voice. I never thought anyone could sound that perfectly boring and dismal, but Kevin seems to pull it off wonderfully. You can even hear that lack of sense of humour that Batsie has in his voice too.

Well kiddies, I was all set to cause mirth and mayhem over this new Batman game but when the cards are down, the Joker is the real winner here. True, the game does make Batman look all shiny and new, but how could I hate something that focuses so much on me. So here’s my proposal to the puppets at Rocksteady: change the name from Batman: Arkham Asylum to Joker: Arkham Asylum because we all know who the real draw of this game is anyway. Do that and I’ll see fit to give this game a wonderful review. Don’t and I’ll bomb your studios.... and I will too. HAAAAA!

Rating: 9 out of 10
Buy it