Buy Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY

(Pros/Cons down below if you don't feel like reading it all)

I was one, of many, who preordered the, rather dissapointing, Arkham Knight (I got it cheap from a friend, don’t blame me). However, Warner Brothers decided to be a bit empathic and give us all the older Arkham-games, which, to a certain extent, made me forgive them.
Enough about that, let’s get to the review.

Gameplay
The gameplay is really good, flying using the grapping hook is surpringly fun and the combat, while in reality not too advanced and arguably a bit too automated, feels great and is really fun. Batman has a vast arsenal of moves and gadgets to use, many of which need to be unlocked through leveling up, hence keeping the combat fresh and interesting.
The game also contains a lot of puzzles, none which are too advanced nor time-consuming to complete, but they do add to the gameplay. Kind of reminds me of the “The Legend of Zelda” games. You might find this comparasion a bit bizarre, and I can’t blame you really.
Collectibles are plenty in the game, and while I know that everyone isn’t a fan of them, I find them quite fun to find here, having The Riddler mock you about not having found the rest hardly gets old. That, and the fact many of them require some creativity and/or puzzle solving keeps it interesting. You also get XP from finding them.
About XP, as mentioned, the game features a leveling system.
It’s quite basic, you gain XP from combat (amount depends on how many moves you managed to do in succession and how varied they were), solving riddles and finding The Riddler’s throphys, plus a few other things.
During my playthough I neverfelt like I was under nor overleveled, the game went on at a good pace without any moments were I got stuck.
Coming to the controls, I’ve only been albe to try the keyboard/mouse ones, and they work well, could be better, but far from bad. I never felt like they caused any problems, to put it that way.

Story/Characters
The story is good. Not too advanced so that it gets in the way, nor too mediocre so that everything feels unmotivated. Because it doesn’t, not at all. I’ve played a few games (*cough* Borderlands (1)) where everything simply felt unmotivated and forced, simply because I had no idea on why I was doing this. Before you tell me that I should’ve read the text boxes on the quests, this was co-op. But, enough about that.
Where the game really shines is its charatcters, especially the villans.
Sure, none of them are original, but they all fit well together in the game, and manages to feel unique, even though they’re high in quantity. While the normal thugs you’ll encounter mostly stay the same, some carry different weapons and/or have armour, which does shake things up a little bit. It’s nothing that ever bothered me playing through the game though.

Graphics/Opimisation
Runs great on my hardware (specs can be found on profile), for the most part. It does stutter a bit while loading things off the harddrive and one particular scene utilises PhysX a bit too much, leading to a framerate cut in half (from a near constant 62 FPS, which is the cap, to a unstable 30 FPS), and even after the fight it dropped even lower (4-5 FPS). Restarting fixed this though.
The graphics hold up well despite their age, and the artstyle is nice. I found no obvious pixelation on any textuers, though you’ll probably be able to find some if you actually look around. The lack of any anti-aliasing aside from MSAA is a bit dissapoining, but not really a problem with today’s hardware.

Sound/Audio
The soundtrack is good, nothing memorable, but it sets the mood well and does well in the background without disturbing you.
Same goes for the voice acting, though perhaps a bit better than the soundtrack, so perhaps I'd go as far as to call it great. No complaints here really.
Sounds for actions, such as Batman hitting someone or him grappling up to a ledge are excellent, no complaints here either, not that I'd expect otherwise.

Conclusion
Great game, definetly worth playing and buying, even if you aren’t a Batman fan (I wasn’t one before I played this game, to put it that way).

8/10

Pros
• Good story
  
• Nice graphics, which still hold up well
  
• Good keyboard controlls, haven't tried controller
  
• Well optimised
  
• The villans are interesting
  
• Satisfying combat

Cons
• Some PhysX effects kill the framerate
  
• May stutter when loading things off the harddrive
  
• Capped at 62 FPS
  
• Only anti-aliasing avaible is MSAA

I think the ventilation system in this game is possibly the worst. The covers are made with cardboard, no wonder joker controlled the entire asylum so easily.

I reccomend this game it has a good story line and you can change controls through the loading screen before you click play

I had fond memories of this game from back in 2009. Unfortunately, it has not aged well at all. While the story and setting still holds up, the gameplay is very repetetive. As in "punch the exact same ten dudes over and over" kind of repetetive. The gamplay ends up being an annoyance in the way of the interesting story.

Even if you can stand that drawback, there's more problems to come. When "different" enemies are introduced (different as in "takes more punches") they're basically just the first boss battle over and over. This escalates through the game until multible "tough" enemies are introduced at the same time as ~10 regular ones. This would be fine if it didn't mess up the auto-aim in the combat. You try to hit the tougher enemies and Batman flies across the room to a regular dude instead.

No, as previously stated I would not recommend this game anymore. Watch the story bits on YouTube instead and save whatever they want for it. This is the opposite of entertaining.

One of the best games I have ever played!

SPOILER!!
SPOILER!!
SPOILER!!

Please continue reading with caution, although it's not very important, i'ts not wellknown, so i can't take any blame for this, note: if you are white, disabled and/or have lungs, please sit down before continuing to read due to potential stress and shock may occur.

Bruce Wayne is Batman

Good game. The narrative is great, and the fighting is pretty satisfying. As a Batman fan, I loved it.

Not just a fantastic conversion of Metroid's design principles into a 3D space but also a flawless adaptation of The Animated Series' tone. Arkham Asylum stands as one of the best video game translations of Batman, which makes the lackluster sequels even more disappointing.

Back when this came out, it was considered to be the best superhero game of all time, and for good reason. And though the mechanics are a bit dated and it's now been far surpassed by it's sequel, Arkham City, it's still a fantastic game that I wouldn't hesistate to recommend, whether you're a fan of Batman or not.

Pros:
-You are the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Batman
-Easy to learn, difficult to master combat system
-Combat is incredibly satisfying
-You can hang people upside down from gargoyles
-Great story with a good-sized cast of villains
-Amazing voice acting
-Lots of references that comic book fans will appreciate
-Pays homage to the Animated Series in many great ways

Cons:
-There's only one decent boss fight, the rest are a bit lame
-The gameplay feels slightly dated compared to the rest of the series
-Getting all of the collectibles is tedious

Once again, 2 hours in, this game has changed me.... for the better of course :)