A week has passed (almost) since Kris asked you to give us your opinions on Rocksteady’s action stealth masterpiece. Well, I say it’s a masterpiece because I thought it was one of the best games of 2009. That’s jumping the gun a little bit though, what we’re looking for are your opinions. So, without further ado, let’s see what you thought of Batman’s assault on the asylum.
First to respond was mundham who agreed totally with our review.
Fantastic game… I agree the AI was a bit squiffy at times, and my only other criticism would be that it was too easy to spend all one’s time in “Detective Vision” mode.
EldaveO said that it was a “Fantastic game overall” although, they also point out that “the AI was shockingly bad” and he wasn’t a fan of the Killer Croc sections. He advised that it was only worth a rent due to its limited replayability.
New forumite, Unterred put forth his opinion, saying that he “couldn’t put it down once [he] started playing it.” (S)he was also keen to point out that the Riddler challenges, character bios and collectible tapes do a great job of binding the story together. That’s certainly a sentiment that another newcomer to the forums, LunaticSoul, agreed with wholeheartedly.
The whole universe of Gotham was well explained too, with all those diaries and informations even on enemies you won’t see in the game even if they made six sequels.
We expected a little more of a split opinion on this game when we asked for your ratings but we didn’t see a single negative response in the forum thread.
Overall, you said that Batman: Arkham Asylum was so great that you would urge everyone to Buy It but in amongst the 10 weview submissions urging a purchase were two that said it was perhaps only worth renting due to its single player focus and the limited opportunity to replay it multiple times.
Finally, as pointed out by XisTG, even a rating of Buy It roughly translates to a recommendation to Bargain Bin it these days as the game is about to receive a sequel, making its place in the bargain bins a relative certainty.
We’ll be back tomorrow with another game for you to ponder.
R4U Eldave0
One of my favourite TSA features. GTA4 would be a good one to go for as there is a definate divide with that one.
Roynaldo
Ooops. Should have put my opinion in the thread. Its one of the most monotonous things ive ever had the misfortune of wasting my money on.
+1 for Bin it, not bargain bin…..an actual waste bin.
tonycawley
I don’t really see how its any more monotonous than any other game really, its certainly much less monotonous than nearly every fps or racing game. I’m not saying its amazing, just that monotonous has to be the wrong word.
teflon
All games have repetition of gameplay, but I found Batman’s to be quite nice and varied within that. You had the detective mode, the hunting of goons in closed of rooms, the Riddler puzzles, and the gradual evolution of your abilities that gradually stepped up the complexity of the brawling.
Yes, there was repetition, but it was handled quite well. Certainly I found it less obviously repetitious than AC1, and the plot, art style and voice acting had it right up there for me.
Roynaldo
probably because the AI was so poor it made it more of a chore to play.
Origami Killer
Agreeing with you Roynaldo. Surprised my review wasn’t mentioned as all I had was negatives. Biased article to be honest (sorry Kris) ;) I would have said Avoid it but I didn’t wan’t to be too harsh.
Origami Killer
Sorry Peter* thought Kris usually did this.
tactical20
I expected it to be a bit shit, and it was actually wicked. A surprise I very rarely have in gaming.
teflon
I had a go with the sequel at EGX. Came home and pre-ordered it. They’ve taken B:AA, and just expanded every aspect of it, if that demo is anything to go by. So if you liked B:AA you’ll love B:AC.
Forrest_01
Couldn’t have put it better myself. So i won’t. :)
colossalblue
Yes… this.
It looks decent, although very “Unreal Engine” and it played superbly. That plus all the extra game elements made it one of my favourites at the show.
Forrest_01
Don’t want to risk any spoilers here on content or whatever, but it’s safe to say that i am absoluetely dribbling at the thought of getting my hands on a copy of Arkham City.
Rocket_345
Oh don’t say that. Now i’m unsure at whether to wait for Batman:AC or get FIFA this week. Batman was going to be xmas for me along with other things.
Forrest_01
Put it this way, Battlefield 3 & Batman Arkham City stole the show for me. Nothing else came close.
StevenHibs
Batman Arkham Asylum was a brilliant game, the sequel looks even better
KeRaSh
What really bugged me in AA was the fact that you constantly saw secrets that you couldn’t reach because you lacked the appropriate ability to get to it. I don’t want to be reminded that I have to go through the whole damn thing again to find the secrets. I explore levels as I go through them so if I find a collectible, I want to be able to reach it.
Probably one of the reasons I never finished the game.
It was kind of frustrating that I couldn’t get to the secrets I saw while the game is not good enough in my opinion to deserve a second run through to collect all the stuff I couldn’t get before.
I guess I’ll have to drop a comment for the next WeView. This WeView should have had at least a few negative comments. There are enough people around here who had their problems with this game.
colossalblue
that’s what we thought when we suggested it but it seems that only the positive people took part.
Origami Killer
CB read mine and I mention not a single positive for the game, utterly hated it.
colossalblue
I wouldn’t have said anything, Origami, but you seem to imply that I’ve got some nefarious reason for excluding your paragraph so I feel I should explain:
It was very difficult to justify what your verdict was with anything from your text so I thought that including it would make you look a bit silly. “I hate this game and everything about it but you should spend money renting it” just wouldn’t have reflected well on you, or so I thought. As it turns out, trying to be considerate has somehow been turned into me being biased?
Origami Killer
Apologies, when you say it like that It does make me look stupid. I really should have given it an AVOID It rating. Reason why I never is that I’ve had problems before with reviewing the game. Particularly on Amazon where I seemed to have a hate crowd towards me. Anyway ignore my attacks at the article.
Forrest_01
But the secrets you refer to were one of the best aspects of the game – Can’t do it right now? You can be sure that you can come back once you have the right bit of kit to get the job done. Kept it interesting & gave you an excuse to come back to the area at some point.
I could understand the frustration if it were a totally linear affair & once it was gone it was gone, but it wasn’t. I really enjoyed finally coming back to get that puzzle solved that had bugged me earlier in the game. Veh satisfying.
E8_BALL_
Bar the occasional absence of muth movement in dialogue from batman & the health bar placed directly over his head at imes, I loved it.
E8_BALL_
muth – mouth
The Lone Steven
I enjoyed Batman:AA although once you completed the main story there is barely anything enemies left which makes it boring as I’M THE GODDAM BATMAN and i want to explore the levels and taking out any bad guy i see.
I hope Batman:AC doesn’t have this problem once the main story is done. In fact, if i can’t fight crime as Bats after the main story, i will tell the game that i’m batman and throw it onto my shelf. :)
Also can we have DAO Kris for the next weview? as i can just copy and paste this review which i did a few weeks ago. ^-^ http://www.thesixthaxis.com/forum/tsas-verdict/thelonesteven-reviews-dragon-age-origins/ What? Don’t judge me!
Unterred
Excellent I’m on weview. I’m a he by the way. Must update profile so it’s not blank!