I haven't updated this journal in a while, so here's a Batman: Arkham Asylum review.

I recall a gaming magazine, its name escapes me at the moment, giving a rather unfavorable review of Batman: Dark Tomorrow, which ended with a desperate begging for someone to make a GOOD Batman game. Batman has become such a big part of our popular culture that we compare politicans to the Penguin, and yet his video game record hasn't done much to properly serve his impact. Well, the beggings of that review's writer, and many fans, has been answered, as Batman: Arkham Asylum is a game that does the caped crusader, his history and his fans proud.

When playing, one can tell this is a game made by Batman fans, for Batman fans, made to give these fans a chance to explore an important place of the series' mythos rather than exploit the popularity of the dark knight to make a quick buck. Batman and the Joker are voiced by, respectively, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, from the 90's animated series based on the comics. A wise move, as for the fans who saw that series, those voices are want they mentally hear as they read the comics. Some of those comics influence the feel of the game, 'Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth' and 'Arkham Asylum: Living Hell' in particular.

Another place where this game excels is the atmosphere. Arkham has quite the reputation for being the scariest place in Batman lore, and the game reflects that, creating an eerie, unhealthy feel as you walk down the corridors. The game really shows its stuff during three Scarecrow levels, where the haggard villain, with a new design resembling the Grim Reaper, has the hero infected with a hallucinogenic toxin, and those truly feel like you're trapped in a nightmare. The soundtrack, while not at the level of Sega CD's Batman Returns game, helps give battles their appropriate rush, and make the Scarecrow levels all the more disturbing.

While atmosphere is all well and good, what people really like to see Batman do is beat the shit out of people, and the game doesn't disappoint in that area either, with an array of easy-to-master controls and upgrades. There certainly is a lot of butt kicking involved, as even the main plot revolves around Joker scheming to create an army of extremely muscular creatures to wreak havoc on Gotham. It isn't all fighting though, as many scenarios require you to use your brainpower to get out alive...well, perhaps with a bit of buttkicking. Another chance to test out your powers of deduction arise in a series of optional challenges created by the Riddler. Solving these can be fun and satisfying, but constantly hearing Riddler's 'I'm better than you' remarks can get on one's nerves.

Another minor niggle is that sometimes you find yourself tussling with the Joker's henchmen a little too much. Sometimes these battles can add more excitement and amusement to the game, but at other times, they are merely a nuisance. Maybe I'm alone, but after escaping Killer Croc by the skin of my teeth, the last thing I would want to do before finishing my current goal is to encounter more violent muscleheads. In terms of other niggles, I can't really say I enjoyed Poison Ivy's boss battle, and the ending was rather predictable.

Despite those minor complaints, Batman: Arkham Asylum does as much to honour Batman and his admirers as The Dark Knight did last year. Fun, addictive, and more often than not a little creepy, this is pure heaven for both comic geeks and...non-comic geeks.