I got Batman: Arkham Asylum from gameFly a few days ago. I was stoked. It got good reviews, a few friends told me it was on the up and up. I got it, fired it up, played it for a lil while, then stopped.

I came back to it the next day, played it some more, and after that just didn’t have any desire to play it any more. I loved how the hand to hand combat was set up. After a while though, it just turned into “mash X until i see the thunder bolts, then mash Y, and after that go back to mashing X. Oh and wiggle the joystick a lil.”

As you moved through the facility you tended to approach it in a similar manner. heres the process: 1) Walk into facility. 2) Walk down a hall/through a room. 3) find a couple of unarmed bad guys to beat. 4) go into another room which then turns it into a stealth mission. 5) beat the room, explore/examine. 6) leave room, rinse, repeat.

Every now and then, you’ll run into a boss, once again, here comes a formula. 1) bad guy comes out. 2) boss shows his attack. 3) usually you have to dodge, then hit/throw something at them. 4) rinse, repeat. Each successive boss fights adds an new technique for step #3, so the first boss was 1 move, the 2nd was 2 moves.. etc…

I grew weary of the repetition. I think thats what killed it for me. the repetition. which is weird, since i love RPGs, i put countless hours into grinding in Borderlands, Final Fantasies and the such. RPGs are built on repetition. But there was something about the lack of reward for all the repetition as you played through the campaign. Every now and then you would get a chance to gain new abilities, but even then, there were some you were not allowed to get. Which means the game doles out the powers to you when it deems fit, not when you’ve done enough to deserve it. Therein lies my problem with it. In a RPG setting, if you use weapon x enough you’ll learn an ability, not when you get to a certain part in the games story. You can improve upon the skillset you have, and even learn new ones under a different class/job, while running around getting in various fights with lurking monsters and the sort.

On the plus side, there were some things i liked very much. I mentioned the combat system, it was pretty good, but i did not play it enough to find out if you get combos, ie  ’x + b + a’ does this and ‘b + a + x” does something else. The stealth move batman had were pretty awesome. A few takedown options, one as simple as approaching from behind and knocking the bad guy out. My favorite was grabbing the guy and tying him upside down from a gargoyle.

How can it be approved? well, i dunno. One improvement i would like to see, but this is one i have with most video games is: more options, more room. You tended to get stuck in a certain area, and can not get out until you get rid of all the bad guys. Nothing wrong with that mind you. Its just, why can’t i get outside the warehouse, and drop in through the skylight? Batman would/could do that. Instead, i’m stuck lurking in the rafters. I want to have enough room to set up the takedowns the way i like, the way i think batman would do it.

Batman: Arkham Asylum got really close to being a really good batman game. Its good, definitely worth a play, but i would suggest renting/borrowing instead of buying. There is just not enough here to keep you playing.