Obscured View

A simple combat system with some evolving depth, great environments, (mostly) fun and challenging boss battles, an easy to use control scheme, a lot of exploration and secrets to find, a challenge mode, solid UI, heaps of back-story via an in-game encyclopedia on Batman’s villains, and a good batman-centric story with great voice performances.

What the hell?  Aren’t licensed games supposed to suck?  I always thought that’s part of the standard contract for a licensed comic / TV / movie property.

Clause XIII: Being a franchised title, and in keeping with the long-adhered to standard of said franchised titles, said title discussed herein must actually suck at least donkey-class balls as per the General Game Suck guidelines (appendix A-2), score less than a 60 on metacritic, and only exist for quick-grab bucks with a film tie-in or be a viable title that grand-parents can purchase for grand-kids because they think they like those “comic books stories” and don’t know any better.

So what went right?  Well, just about everything.  It’s like they took Metroid Prime, Chronicles of Riddick, and some Bioshock, blended it up with Batman as a centerpiece… and actually produced a good game.  Combat is fun, upgrading is fun, exploring is fun, bosses are fun, there’s a ton of extras and secrets to find, and you totally feel like Batman when playing, and you know what?  He’s a fucking bad-ass.  If anything, this game should turn non-batman fans into fans.  This guy gets beaten on over and over throughout the course of a hellish night against some epic enemies and he just keeps fighting.

This is one of those rare occasions where you don’t feel like the game got cut down, a mechanic removed, or some entire section of the design removed because of time or budget constraints.  The game feels complete.  As a game designer, I’ve always hit places in projects where something didn’t fit, had to be cut, had to be radically changed, or had to be postponed for an expansion or a patch… or never got added at all.  I’m not saying that the Rocksteady guys didn’t have their challenges in making this game, since every project does… but holy hell if they didn’t pull off a well-rounded game at the end of it all.

Sure, 360 owners may complain about the lack of Joker as a playable in challenge mode (I’m betting this will be a timed exclusive to the PS3), but if that’s all you really have to complain about… uh, yeah.

And props have to go to securing the animated series’ cast for the voices.  Hamill’s Joker is classic joker with some dynamite lines, Batman is right on the money, and all the supporting parts are voiced appropriately.  The dialogue has dramatic progression to it as the stakes are raised, the story makes >gasp!< sense for a Batman universe story, and the little touches as batman gets more and more beat down over the course of the game are great.  Torn armor and cowl, 5 o’clock shadow, cape ripped to shreds on the side… it all adds to the overall feel of progression in a great way.  Talk about something that they didn’t have to do, but they did because it made it just that much better.

My biggest complaints of the title are the camera in a few boss battles, and the fact that “detective mode” is just too damn useful.  Instead of being something you’d switch into from time to time, it’s so important that you stay in it almost 100% of the time, rather than enjoying the environments as the artists depicted them.

If I had to nitpick further, I’d say at least one of the boss battles isn’t as creative as I’d hoped, but given the others that knock it completely out of the park, it’s still not enough to detract.  The only other annoyance is that the stealth challenge levels have some very obtuse hints for how you’re supposed to get the rankings (bat symbols, whatever) as you complete them.  It would have been nice if the game had been a little more explanatory here, given how good it is at doing so at every other turn.

I had no idea this game would be this good.  I’ve always liked Batman, but my only video game purchase on his behalf up to now was Lego Batman.  That should be saying something.

Maybe part of the reason for Batman : AA’s high ratings is that it’s a licensed game that finally didn’t suck, and that caught the press and gamers completely by surprise… but maybe it’s because it’s just a damn good game by any standard.

Highly recommended.