If you listen to our podcast, then you have heard my many thoughts on this game.  I have not written a review as I felt that I could not give it a proper review due to some frustation I had while playing.  But now that some time has past, I feel that I can give this game a fair review.  So here it is.  If you agree or disagree, please share your comments with us.
Game Summary: The Dark Knight takes on his greatest challenge yet when he becomes trapped with all of his most dangerous villains inside the insane asylum of Gotham City – Arkham Asylum! Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes you to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes you to the depths of Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.
Move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst your enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City’s most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum. Using a wide range of Batman’s gadgets and abilities, become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker’s demented scheme. Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner, Paul Dini, whose credits include LOST season one and Batman: The Animated Series.
With amazing graphics and a moody, immersive setting, Batman: Arkham Asylum offers diverse gameplay options that push the envelope for all action, adventure, and superhero games.
Audio: The game has some great sound.  There are lots of environmental noises that really add to the enjoyment of this game.  When you listen to the audio recordings of interviews with the criminals, it really does sound like you are listening to an old tape.  It snaps and crackles as you would expect it to.  Very nice little touches.
I can’t say enough about how well Mark Hamill did as the voice of The Joker.  I was blown away by the awesome job he did.  I never would have guessed it was him doing the voice.  I really believed in his character.  I think this is one of, if not the best voice acting I have yet to witness.
Visuals: The imagery and settings in this game are amazing.  The artists have done an amazing job of creating some awesome looking levels.  The only bad part is that you will end up spending most of the game in “Detective Mode” which means you will miss a lot of the gorgeous scenery.  That is a shame.
Gameplay: At the start of the game, I really enjoyed the gameplay.  You could repel up to high points, glide down from high points, find hidden items, fight the bad guys, hand from gargoles, hide, etc.  You could run in with fists ready, or take the stealth option.  It was fun…for about 6 hours.  By then, I felt that the game was just an exercise in repetition.  And I had another 6 hours of game still in front of me.
Combat is not that extensive.  You have a few buttons and that is it.  On one particular level, there are three floors that will at times become electrified.  You must fight hand to hand at this time and the camera will hose you some times as well as location detection.  You will try to move to another floor but if you don’t stand exactly in the right spot, facing the right direction, you will not get the option to move to the other floor and will end up getting zapped.
Other times you are forced to go the stealth route, but not only that, you are foced to take a deep breath, and take a ton of time to clear out the room as you must wait for guards to get by themselves and in the right spot before you can take them out.  Then, you better move fast and hide while the other guards come to see what happened.  If they see you, you will get shot quickly.  So hide and wait another 5 minutes for someone else to get alone.  Rinse, wash, repeat.  Not my idea of fun.
For the most part, the game was fun and intersting.  The boss battles were challenging and fun to figure out.  I often felt that the mini boss battles were harder than the actual boss battles.  The easiest battle in the game was the final battle which seemed odd to me.
There are lots of tools that Batman gets to use which can be fun to play with.  I do wish the Batarang would actually knock guys out permanently.  But instead, it would just stun them and in a room with lots of guys, it really did not help much.
My biggest complaint is that I feel the game is harder than it should be.  I played through on Normal and died often.  I do expect to die from time to time, but I would expect to die during boss battles.  Most of my deaths happened while taking on the henchmen.  I would never play this on Hard considering how hard the normal level was.  But this is most likely just a personal thing as everyone plays differently and is at a different skill level.  But I feel that Normal should not be as hard as it was.  It was unexpected and disappointing.
Replay Value: I had no desire to replay this game.  By the time I finished, I was so frustrated with it that the challenges and collectibles were of no interest. Had it not been for that, I would have enjoyed replaying the game to get all the Riddlers and Audio comments picked up.  I would also have enjoyed trying to play the game without Detective Mode to see how well I could play.
Final Score: B
If I take out the frustration from the overly difficult Normal setting, then this game gets an A.  I can handle repetition even after 12 hours, but the overly hard gameplay is what dropped the score for me.
Without a doubt, this is the best Batman game ever made.  There is no doubt that this game will be a huge success and we will see a sequal.  I will play the sequal, but I will play on the easiest level next time.
-Wingman709

If you listen to our podcast, then you have heard my many thoughts on this game.  I have not written a review as I felt that I could not give it a proper review due to some frustration I had while playing.  But now that some time has past, I feel that I can give this game a fair review.  So here it is.  If you agree or disagree, please share your comments with us.

Game Summary: The Dark Knight takes on his greatest challenge yet when he becomes trapped with all of his most dangerous villains inside the insane asylum of Gotham City – Arkham Asylum! Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes you to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes you to the depths of Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.

Move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst your enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City’s most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum. Using a wide range of Batman’s gadgets and abilities, become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker’s demented scheme. Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner, Paul Dini, whose credits include LOST season one and Batman: The Animated Series.

With amazing graphics and a moody, immersive setting, Batman: Arkham Asylum offers diverse gameplay options that push the envelope for all action, adventure, and superhero games.

Audio: The game has some great sound.  There are lots of environmental noises that really add to the enjoyment of this game.  When you listen to the audio recordings of interviews with the criminals, it really does sound like you are listening to an old tape.  It snaps and crackles as you would expect it to.  Very nice little touches.

I can’t say enough about how well Mark Hamill did as the voice of The Joker.  I was blown away by the awesome job he did.  I never would have guessed it was him doing the voice.  I really believed in his character.  I think this is one of, if not the best voice acting I have yet to witness.

Visuals: The imagery and settings in this game are amazing.  The artists have done an amazing job of creating some awesome looking levels.  The only bad part is that you will end up spending most of the game in “Detective Mode” which means you will miss a lot of the gorgeous scenery.  That is a shame.

Gameplay: At the start of the game, I really enjoyed the gameplay.  You could repel up to high points, glide down from high points, find hidden items, fight the bad guys, hand from gargoyles, hide, etc.  You could run in with fists ready, or take the stealth option.  It was fun…for about 6 hours.  By then, I felt that the game was just an exercise in repetition.  And I had another 6 hours of game still in front of me.

Combat is not that extensive.  You have a few buttons and that is it.  On one particular level, there are three floors that will at times become electrified.  You must fight hand to hand at this time and the camera will hose you some times as well as location detection.  You will try to move to another floor but if you don’t stand exactly in the right spot, facing the right direction, you will not get the option to move to the other floor and will end up getting zapped.

Other times you are forced to go the stealth route, but not only that, you are foced to take a deep breath, and take a ton of time to clear out the room as you must wait for guards to get by themselves and in the right spot before you can take them out.  Then, you better move fast and hide while the other guards come to see what happened.  If they see you, you will get shot quickly.  So hide and wait another 5 minutes for someone else to get alone.  Rinse, wash, repeat.  Not my idea of fun.

For the most part, the game was fun and interesting.  The boss battles were challenging and fun to figure out.  I often felt that the mini boss battles were harder than the actual boss battles.  The easiest battle in the game was the final battle which seemed odd to me.

There are lots of tools that Batman gets to use which can be fun to play with.  I do wish the Batarang would actually knock guys out permanently.  But instead, it would just stun them and in a room with lots of guys, it really did not help much.

My biggest complaint is that I feel the game is harder than it should be.  I played through on Normal and died often.  I do expect to die from time to time, but I would expect to die during boss battles.  Most of my deaths happened while taking on the henchmen.  I would never play this on Hard considering how hard the normal level was.  But this is most likely just a personal thing as everyone plays differently and is at a different skill level.  But I feel that Normal should not be as hard as it was.  It was unexpected and disappointing.

Replay Value: I had no desire to replay this game.  By the time I finished, I was so frustrated with it that the challenges and collectibles were of no interest. Had it not been for that, I would have enjoyed replaying the game to get all the Riddler’s and Audio comments picked up.  I would also have enjoyed trying to play the game without Detective Mode to see how well I could play.

Final Score: B

If I take out the frustration from the overly difficult Normal setting, then this game gets an A.  I can handle repetition even after 12 hours, but the overly hard gameplay is what dropped the score for me.

Without a doubt, this is the best Batman game ever made.  There is no doubt that this game will be a huge success and we will see a sequal.  I will play the sequal, but I will play on the easiest level next time.

-Wingman709