I’m mainly interested in the Spec Ops mode, so hopefully that redeems it.

And why do these games think it’s so fun to have the AI throw grenades at you every 3 seconds?

Oh, and I did buy that Civ IV pack.

Anyway, I’m not dead.

In 4 days I’ll finally get to play Borderlands, thanks to PC users being forced to wait 6 days after the console release. Despite whatever marketing explanation was given, the general consensus is that this is some sort of anti-piracy act.

Yeah….that’ll work. Anyway, the game is preloading in Steam for me right now. I’m really looking forward to it.

I also noticed they are selling Joint Ops : Combined Arms GOLD, whatever the hell that is. Combined Arms came out a long time ago, and as far as I can tell, GOLD means nothing at all. I love that game, but come on, make a sequel!

Platform Reviewed: Xbox 360. Also available for PC and PS3

In Short:

Batman kicks ass during a long night at Arkham Asylum. You are missing out if you don’t help.

In much more detail:

I haven’t played every comic book game out there. That said, I still feel pretty safe saying that Batman: Arkham Asylum is the greatest comic book game ever made. Even if you want to argue that point, it’s much tougher to argue that this is the greatest Batman game ever created…oh wait… all the others sucked.

Just in case you have recently emerged from your cave, I’ll give you a brief synopsis. Batman has brought the Joker to Arkham Asylum to be locked up with the other raving lunatics. The Joker has other plans, and manages to take over the island. That gets us past the first 10 minutes of the game, and from that point on it’s Batman’s job to take out thugs, explore the island, rescue various individuals, and otherwise put a stop to the Joker’s nefarious plans, not to mention actually finding out what those plans are.

There are a few general activities that you will undertake as the Dark Knight. Combat is fun, and doesn’t happen so much that you get sick of it. Batman generally has no trouble wiping the floor with over a dozen henchmen at the same time. Over the course of the game you’ll run into a couple of upgraded henchmen that can be a bit of a pain, but even they will go down with a few swipes of your cape (this stuns them) followed up by a heavy dose of boot to the jaw. Things change dramatically, however, when Batman is dealing with armed thugs. Bullets are not kind to Batman, so the best tactic is to separate the group and take each guy out individually. This is generally done by using your bat hook to grapple up to the ceiling and perch on conveniently placed gargoyles. When a henchman comes by, you can do an inverted takedown, leaving him hanging and screaming until he passes out. It’s always good for a laugh. You can also do a glide kick, swooping down and laying a guy out cold. One annoying problem with this tactic is that sometimes the henchman being targeted will shift unexpectedly (this happened to me a LOT, actually), leaving you glide kicking an unintended target that can leave you open for gunfire from nearby thugs. Many areas also have ventilation shafts (you spend a lot of time in these) that allow you to get behind thugs and take them down silently.

As you take down the henchmen in a room, the remaining guys will get more and more nervous, eventually firing into the shadows. Joker taunts them as well. Unfortunately he tends to repeat his taunts, so it won’t be long before you hear the same comments over and over.

In addition to combat, you can complete various challenges left around the island by the Riddler. Considering how difficult it is for Batman to get at some of these, I really have to wonder how the Riddler put them there in the first place. Some of these are simple trophies that need collecting. These can unlock challenge rooms (mini-levels where you fight waves of thugs or perform stealth takedowns) and character trophies (like Resident Evil or Smash Bros.). Other times there are actual riddles that require you to use your “Detective mode” vision to solve them. This mode is an x-ray like vision that you will use quite often. By holding the left bumper while looking at something, you ’scan’ it. If it is the answer to the riddle, you are credited with the solution. In case you were wondering, the Riddler has hacked into your communications, so he can talk to you, taunting you and growing increasingly annoyed as you solve more and more his riddles. Apparently he can only talk to you, and not hear you. That’s a good thing since Oracle calls Batman “Bruce” at least once. It deserves mention that many of these hidden challenges really delve deep into Batman lore. It’s obvious that the designers are big fans.

The game also features several boss “battles”. I put that in quotes because some of these are not true battles. For example, encounters with the Scarecrow are actually stealth sequences (with some combat, but not against Scarecrow directly) in which you have to avoid the gaze of a 150 foot tall Scarecrow. I found these fun and not annoying. Another non-battle is against Killer Croc. You essentially have to run from him until you can trap him. Overall this sequence was not overly thrilling. The other boss battles are pretty good, particularly sequences where you actually control one of the bosses. I won’t spoil exactly how that happens, but it’s fun and you can get an achievement for it, if you care about that sort of thing.

I won’t spoil the last battle, but it’s not great either. With so much build-up, it would have been nice to have a better pay off.

All of these activities grant you experience points which can be used to purchase several upgrades to Batman’s moves or equipment. It’s a great system since it gives you an actual game benefit to hunting down ridiculous trophies. Some of the upgrades themselves are not amazing. Over the course of my game I obtained 17 of the 20 upgrades, and some of those I never even used.

It’s also going to be on XBLA next year!

One thing I’ve noticed… they took a cue from Oblivion and hired 3 voice actors to play 30 characters. It would bother me more if one of them wasn’t Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, my favorite anime of all time.