na na na na naa...BATMAN (Arkham Asylum)

[rey-o]

It is out. It is great.

Who's playing?

Initial Impressions:

Awesome atmosphere, game is going for the fanboy jugular by not only nailing Batman but also including (not a spoiler) other characters like Oracle and Harley Quinn.

First 10 minutes feels like a Disney/Epcot style ride, enveloped into a completely realized world.

Who knew the perfect Batman game would be equal parts Metal Gear Solid, and Bioshock? With a little dash of Assassin's Creed and Half-Life 2 on the side.

[Rituro]

Only played the demo for PC so far; can't wait for the full thing to arrive in September.

First impressions: agree with the atmosphere comment and love that the free-flow combat works. It's like VATS for a brawler -- heavenly.

Only complaint is the stealth. Maybe I've been spoiled by Splinter Cell (likely), but found it tough to believe that Bats could just "silent takedown" a goon within spitting distance of his buddy and not raise even the hint of an alarm, or that he could whip from gargoyle to gargoyle and not be heard/spotted. Not a deal-breaker, though -- not by a longshot.

[Shaun Hatton]

I'm playing Rise of Sin Tzu for GameCube. It's radical!

[rey-o]

Rituro : On both the combat and the stealth, it's taking me some time to get used to. I'm terrible at stealth games, and the combat in Batman feels a little different compared to something like, God of War or Devil May Cry. Luckily the challenge rooms allow you to revisit certain areas of the game and play with the mechanics. It's pretty fun trying out different attacks and coordinating your efforts to efficiently take down your enemies, total Batman styles.

I understand that the harder setting heightens the enemy awareness (they look up every so often), but for now, Normal difficulty is spicy enough for me.

Shaun: NICE. I remember the ads for that game made a big deal out of Sin Tzu being designed by Jim Lee. Honestly though, is that a design you'd be proud of? He's the most generic "evil asian" I've since The Mandarin!

[Jorge]

I'm certainly enjoying the demo.  Definitely fanboy catering in this sucker.

I love it.

rey-o - Don't mess with the Mandarin.  His Canadian-friendly chinese buffet makes it easy to cross over into another culinary culture!

[Shaun Hatton]

Shaun: NICE. I remember the ads for that game made a big deal out of Sin Tzu being designed by Jim Lee. Honestly though, is that a design you'd be proud of? He's the most generic "evil asian" I've since The Mandarin!

Yeah. Jim Lee is overrated. Plus the design doesn't fit in with the world of the animated series - letdown!

[Jorge]

Jim Lee is definitely over-rated.  I hated that era of comic-dom.  The Lee/McFarlane/Liefeld era.

I enjoy the game though.

[rey-o]

For the record I have to say that back in the day, I enjoyed Jim Lee's work immensely. His work on X-Men still feels like the definitive look for those characters. You guys are right though, a tad overrated, especially in this day and age of Alex Maleev and J.H Williams III.

Back to Batman though...

I'm about 30% complete, and at this point I find myself considering Batman: AA not a great comic book video game, but more than that, a great video game, period. I don't know about you guys, but I just assumed that we were going to get an enjoyable brawler set in Arkham Asylum. That enough would have been fine, but Batman: AA seems to strive for something more.

Just about everything, from the game mechanics, to the emotional content in this game exceeds my expectations.

Here's hoping that the next 70% will be just as fantastic.

[Jorge]

I did like his work on X-Men, but got tired of the generic nature of all of the characters after a while.

My current dilemna, though, is a note from Future Shop telling me that my copy of Batman: AA doesn't seem to exist, due to them being out of stock.

Pre-order WHA?!?!

[Kigh_all]

Been down that road Jorge. I guess Future Shop still doesn't understand that pre-order means they RESERVE you a copy of the game. Maybe our primitive ideas of buying things in advance just don't make sense to people from... THE FUTURE!!

This thread has me intrigued by the Bats. Just the thought of silently bungeeing down on suckers and hauling them away to their doom makes me smile.

"... yeah I tells ya Bob the boss always picks on me y'know? Bob? Bob?!"

[Jorge]

Still no news.

*sigh*

[rey-o]

Kigh_all - go for it! You're right, it really is awesome to mess around with criminal scum.

Jorge - that sucks! Is there a way you carry over your pre-order to another Futureshop location, one that does carry the game?

[Jorge]

Hey rey-o.

I ordered it ONLINE, not from any store.

[Shaun Hatton]

There was a cool exhibitor at FanExpo. It was a company that made licensed replicas of movie props. They have the license for The Dark Knight and had a cool motorcycle suit that looked like the bat outift - but they also had purple leather jackets like the goons in the Tim Burton Batman flick wear. To get around licensing, the joker face on the jacket is the one from TDK. Cool stuff:

http://universaldesigns.ca/

[Jorge]

Still waiting...