The problem with licensed games in general, and games based on comic books
in particular, is that in average they tend to range from mediocre to really
horrible pieces of crap (Superman 64 being probably the quintessential
example).

  Games developed alongside movies tend to suffer from rushed deadlines,
making them often very unpolished. Also their storylines and playability
usually suffers from being tied to a movie: Trying to follow a movie tends
to limit what the game can offer in terms of gameplay and story.

  It's not surprising that most of the best licensed games are those which
are *not* tied to a specific movie nor its publication deadlines, but are
completely independent works just belonging to the same franchise or the
same fictional universe.

  Games based on comic books tend to fall into this latter category for
rather obvious reasons. However, unlike games based on movie franchises,
comic book games have always had a history of poor quality regardless of
the lack of deadline pressure and more freedom of creativity. One reason
for this might be that most game developers have a mentality of "anything
will sell as long as it has a name like 'Superman' or 'Batman' attached
to it". These games often end up being only very loosely based on their
source material, are often not very faithful, lack the depth of the story
writing of the comics, and even on the gameplay side tend to be uninspired.
Often they feel more like "let's get some quick buck from this license and
move on to other more interesting projects".

  So I was curious about this new game called "Batman: Arkham Asylum", as
it has received tons of praise from critics all over, even to the point of
getting into the Guinness World Records for "Most Critically Acclaimed
Superhero Game".

  This game is indeed different. The developers made many things just right:
Rather than going with the typical "anything with the name 'Batman' in it
will sell" mentality, they actually hired a professional Batman comics writer
to create the story, as well as hiring several voice actors from the DC
animated universe. In other words, rather than doing yet another half-assed
attempt at a game based on a comic book, they went and hired some veteran
professionals of the source material.

  Also, this really feels like the Batman from the comics (rather than the
buffoon in the Batman movies). The Joker feels like the Joker from the comics
(no offence to either Nicholson or Ledger, but they just aren't, even though
they are good in their own way). Same goes for all the other characters.
This really *is* a game based on the comic books, not a half-ass adaptation
with needless "corrections" to the franchise.

  In most comic book superhero videogames the protagonist goes from one
villain to the next in a sequence of more or less disconnected stories,
like you were playing a half dozen stories instead of one. In this game,
however, having to fight many of Batman's archenemies is a natural part
of one contiguous story, made clear by the very premise (which I won't
spoil, even though it isn't really such a big spoiler).

  The developers also did things right technically. This game goes to show
that you *can* still make a game using completely state-of-art graphics while
not requiring a 64-bit dual-core monster computer with the latest graphics
hardware. Even an older single-core computer with a relatively recent but
cheap graphics card (in my case a 3.4GHz P4 with a Radeon HD 3850) was enough
to get pretty decent framerates with most graphical settings set to maximum
(the game's own benchmark clocked an average of about 40 frames per second
on my computer, which to my standards is more than enough).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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