Just Sinan and Joe in the Batpod for this week’s Batcast, which is all about Batman: Arkham Asylum - how did you guess? Arkham Asylum has been the subject of some summertime hype, but does the dark knight’s latest video game adventure stand up against the mixed bag of his previous outings? The dynamic duo discuss how Arkham Asylum uses the Batman license, its striking presentation, its odd blend of genres, and in particular how it resembles/apes a certain, memorable title from gaming past - and much, much more in an in-depth (but spoiler-free) look at the summer’s biggest title. All this, and Joe’s secret identity revealed, in this week’s BRP Co-op Mode. KAPLOW! NB: Thanks to Dits from The Gamer Scene for his assistance behind the scenes with this episode.
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The Regulars
Big Red Potion: http://bigredpotion.com
TheGameReviews: http://thegamereviews.com
Unified Gamers Network: http://unifiedgamersnetwork.com
Sinan’s blog, You Have Lost!: http://shoinan.com
Joe’s blog, Pixelated-Glee: http://pixelatedglee.wordpress.com
Show Links
VS Node #7: The Resolution Revolution: http://gamernode.com/columns/77-vs-node/index.html
WiiDS Episode 11: Professor Layton & the Audio-ruining Train: http://thewiids.co.uk/blog/?p=667
Comments
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Gerren Fisher on 09.03.2009
I nearly wanted to shed a tear when the old 360 red ringed this week in the midst of getting deep into this experience. It’s been a lot of fun and one of my favorites games of the year. Combat I do feel is too easy, but I do appreciate the freedom to be creative in tackling many of the challenges. The gadget list is small but there’s so much I’ve been able to pull off with them. And I concur it’s one of the most beautifully (for as anything this dark can be described in those terms) presented games in a while.
Speaking as a person that really only has the most mainstream of Batman knowledge and no knowledge (nor care for comic and that form of media), I will say there is some degree of knowledge of the universe I think is needed to truly appreciate a lot of what’s gone into the game. I think that’s a bit of a shame. There’s a lot of detail and character that went into the game that I honestly don’t care for which I find an absolute shame. The Riddler Challenges for example: if I come across a trophy that’s great, but I I’m never seeking any of that stuff because outside of the truly main characters of the series, I don’t really care about many of the actually people in the game. I honestly wish I did more because with all of the comparisons to Bioshock (which I find dead on) I kinda wish I cared for the people in the universe the same way.
Sinan Kubba on 09.10.2009
I think the tieing of the Riddler Challenges to achievements/trophies is a nice step of providing another incentive to doing this, and if by proxy you learn about Batman’s ancilliary characters, good for you, right? But I do take on your point re: caring about the other characters - I think the game did a better job of fleshing out some of its characters (Harley Quinn, the female researcher - kinda disproves my point given that I forgot her name) than it does others (Poison Ivy, King Croc). The interview tapes go some way to helping with that, but maybe more could’ve been done. It’s difficult for me to judge totally as someone who’s familiar with the comic and the cartoon.