Given all the hoohaa going round the Internet at the moment over Batman: Arkham Asylum, I figured I should at least try the demo.
Was I blown away. First of all, Rocksteady’s approach to making a demo really hit the nail on the head. Whereas The Force Unleashed‘s demo made the game out to be too fiddly to bother with, and Resident Evil 5‘s demo dropped me in the middle of a firefight with no explanation of the controls, Arkham Asylum starts at the beginning of the game with a light tutorial that teaches you the basics of combat, stealth, and the totally awesome “Detective Mode”.
I’m not a huge comic reader, but the game really captures the “Dark Knight” mode of Batman that I like. It’s about being a high-tech, enigmatic, tenebrous badass. He’s Sam Fisher without the handholding of the US government.
The combat is fluid and dynamic, the “Detective mode” adds an interesting dimension to the game, and the stealth system beats the pants off anything I’ve played before. This is definitely high on my must-play list.