I'm the goddamn BATMAN - "Arkham Asylum" demo impressions

The demo starts with a cutscene of the classic Batmobile (none of that fancy Army-grade Humvee/Tank hybrid) racing through Gotham with Batman driving, and the Joker gibbering away in the passenger seat. Batman screams past a sign that says "Hitchhikers may be escaping patients" on his way to Arkham Asylum - this is a good indication of how much fun this demo was.

Joker (voiced by the great Mark Hamill) allows himself to be captured, and once inside Arkham, manages to escape and wreaks havoc on the guards and staff. Batman chases after him, and has to deal with the patients who have been let loose, and the cadre of super-villains that Batman himself put away - a quick IMDB check at the voice cast shows that this list includes Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, The Riddler, Bane, and the Penguin!

Well, let's get down to demo impressions - firstly, the visuals are top notch. The game implements the Unreal Engine 3 (something that I make fun of often) but utilizes it well - character models are top notch, and the environments are really detailed. The voice acting is also well done, as expected - most of the actors have portrayed their respective characters for many years. The dialogue doesn't seem at all clunky - perhaps this crazy idea of hiring actual professional writers might become common practice.

The gameplay is a lot of fun. The game is a combination of a brawler and adventure/puzzle game; at times you are beating the snot out of Arkham's worst denizens, and other times, you are solving mysteries, as Batman has to protect his reputation as the world's greatest detective. In conjunction with Commissioner Gordon and Oracle (Batman's version of Chloe O'Brien) Batman tries to track down the Joker through the massive Arkham complex.
You use a combination of counters and strikes to take down the various baddies, and they are brutal and efficient - there is a plethora of animations and moves so it doesn't seem like you're playing the same God of War-esque battle over and over again. Batman grabs the legs of the man kicking him and punches him in the face, somersaults over his enemy and kicks him in the back, knocks his enemies to the ground with a slap of his cape and punches them in the back of the skull for a ground takedown.

In detective mode, you get a sort of thermal view of your area, in which enemies are lit up in red, and all the pertinent information about them is displayed in your HUD - what kind of weapon they are carrying, what their heartrate is and how scared they are of you. It may seem like useless info, but game's dynamic AI will make sure that you don't have the same encounter twice, and this helps to decipher the enemy's actions. For example, an enemy with a shotgun won't fire blindly from a distance at Batman, he'll try to close the gap while his buddies cover him with assault rifles - and these enemies are unbelievably accurate with their guns. Even Batman can only take so many bullets.
The more terrified your enemies are, the more erratic their actions become - they'll start to bunch up, negating the benefits of their guns, allowing you to drop in their midst and take them down, or they'll start to fire wildly at the slightest sound near them, making it easier to sneak up on them in the other direction.
There are a variety of ways you can take enemies down as well, whether you want to glide in and kick them in the head, or suspend them up in the air, fall through some glass and collapse on top of them, pull them off a ledge as you hang below, or just quietly take them down with a choke-hold. The combat is really fun, and I found myself reloading the big fight at the end of the demo (with 5 baddies in an open room) over and over to try different strategies to take them down.

This game has definitely become a must-buy for me, and I would recommend that everyone check out the demo. Word of advice - the PC version of the game is 20 dollars cheaper, and also has achievements and gamepad support, but it's been delayed til late September so that they can add Physx support. Unfortunate, but for some, it might be worth waiting for.
Arkham Asylum arrives on XBOX 360, and PS3 August 25th.

- Baljot