REVIEW :: Batman: Arkham Asylum

When I hear that Batman: Arkham Asylum is a 'good' game--and while agreeing with that sentiment--it makes me wonder what the definition of a 'good' game really is. It certainly means fun and entertaining, but it is not necessarily synonymous with original or innovative. With that in mind, I agree that Arkham Asylum is a 'good,' fun game, but it is also an unoriginal, and sometimes apathetic game.
It's fun because it does what it attempts to do, and does it right--it successfully melds combat, stealth, exploration, and puzzle-solving together while inadvertently ripping off Assassin's Creed and Zelda in order to do so. That being said, Arkham Asylum is unoriginal in that everything it tries to do has already been proven.

Although Arkham Asylum is fun and tries proven methods, there is still room for improvement. I am going to put out 3 suggestions that I think could make Arkham Asylum a better game.

3 Things that Could be Fixed in Arkham Asylum
1. Addition of a Mini-Map
There is a consistent problem in Arkham Asylum in that you can't really tell where you're going all the time. Part of this is caused by the fact that the camera is narrowly zoomed into Batman's cape, and part of it is attributed by the fact that the scenery recurrently blends together with or without Detective Vision™.
What this leads to is a constant re-checking of the map screen by the player in order to figure out where he/she is and where he/she needs to go. This constitutes pressing the 'select' button, pausing the game, letting the map screen load up for several seconds, and then pushing 'select' again to return to the game--an entire process which takes several seconds and must be perpetually repeated.
It really wouldn't hurt to have some sort of mini-map or radar always available on-screen to the player. Adding a simple mini-map in the corner of the screen (Ala Zelda style) would alleviate much of this problem and prevent the player from getting irritated by re-pressing the map screen button so many times in one arena.

Twilight Princess and its mini-map.

2. Arbitrary Gameplay Rewards

Another thing that could be fixed in Arkham Asylum is the arbitrary handing out of gameplay rewards. Currently, in the game there is no definite reason as to why the rewards you get (new items, gadgets, or keycards) don't come earlier or later in the context of the narrative. For example, when you decide you need a new bat claw you haphazardly hop back to the Bat Cave and decide to improve your arsenal only at that specific time, when you could have done it much earlier in the game, if only the game let you. Another example is when the Warden of the asylum conveniently decides to give you a card which magically unlocks a large portion of the inaccessible areas in the game, only after you find him after an indeterminate period of time. Furthermore, Batman only decides to retrieve his handy zip line the second he needs it from his Bat plane by phoning it into a remote part of the island, when he could have easily called it in at any other time in the game.
By giving the rewards out to the player in this way, the game prevents the player from feeling like he or she has actually earned the rewards. In contrast, this puts the player at the game's mercy of giving out new items not when the player has accomplished a certain feat or defeated a certain boss, but instead when the game 'feels' like giving out these rewards.
This is in opposition to other games such as Zelda, in which the gameplay rewards are situated within the context of the game world and story. For example, in a Zelda game the player is rewarded with new items not when Link feels like pulling them out of his backpack, but instead when the player discovers them in a subterranean dungeon or when defeating an evil leviathan.
If the gameplay rewards in Arkhum Asylum actually depended on the player's progress and victories instead of arbitrary backpack pulling, then the game would provide a much more gratifying gameplay experience.

3. Status-Quo Storyline
Arkham Asylum's story leaves much to be desired in terms of clasping onto the player and never letting go. This is because in a comic-book world, everything revolves around returning things to a state of normalcy, back to the status quo.
No matter how much I loved Spider-Man and Batman as a kid, I always despised the fact that things would never change. At the end of every episode, Batman would arrest the villain, Spider-Man would revert to his normal self, and everything would return to the status quo, the same as it was before.
This is the exact reason why it's so hard to get involved with the storyline in Arkham Asylum when it starts out by saying: 'The Joker's escaped and set all the inmates free! What should we do?!' And then ends by saying something like: 'Good job Batman, you returned the Joker to his cell and put all the inmates back. Nothing's changed!'

Guess where he's going by the game's end.

Despite the game needing a story to motivate the player's goals, this is about as one-dimensional as the narrative can get. Playing through the game, I'm not compelled to pursue each goal, because I don't care about the inevitable outcome of the story. What I want from a story is change, tension, things to go wrong, mystery, suspense--things that the film 'The Dark Knight' all did admirably, but fail to apply to Batman's video game counterpart.
If Arkham Asylum attempted to create a more challenging, multidimensional story, it would provide an incentive for the player to keep playing the game and it would create a more satisfying experience in the end instead of containing the detached and apathetic feel it currently has.

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In conclusion, Arkham Asylum is a fun game, but it's too safe. It doesn't offer anything new, challenging, or unique. Even though Mirror's Edge is a game that has remarkably more frustrations, I would say Mirror's Edge is still more fun than Arkham Asylum because it offers something that Arkham Asylum does not have: an original, exhilarating experience. When it comes down to what I want in a video game, it is all about providing a unique 'experience'; the feel of being able to do something in another world, to journey through a compelling story, to challenge myself in new ways. Arkham Asylum doesn't fully offer an original experience such as that, and so, despite its accomplished design, the game eventually remains more to be desired after its completion.