Will to Power, Love to Hate: A Far Cry 2 Retrospective

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. If you've never played the game, please read at your own risk. However if you've played the game and hated the hell out of it, please skip right down to JBbear's Two Cents.

Back in the tail end of 2016, I got a sudden craving for a sandbox first-person shooter. I’d already played Fallout: New Vegas, but I was yearning for something smaller and less dense, something with which I could just turn my brain off and play before bedtime to relax (I may have a strange definition of “relaxing”). I needed something my decent-but-not-quite-top-of-the-line gaming PC could accommodate (I avoid playing FPS’es on consoles like the plague), and had read good things about the Far Cry series, specifically Far Cry 3. However as  and Far Cry 3 was not available on GOG.com (I refuse to deal with Steam for reasons that are obvious if you read my previous post), I settled for Far Cry 2. The game's premise seemed simple enough: you're a mercenary sent to an unnamed, war-torn African country to kill the Jackal, an arms dealer who's fueling the conflict by selling to both sides. There's a vast open world to explore, a shitload of guns and explosives to use, and a metric ton of bad guys to shoot at/explode/turn into roadkill: it looked promising enough.

Pictured on the left: Soon-to-be roadkill.

Refreshingly, the installation process was the longest thing about starting the game: Far Cry 2 doesn’t bother overly much with any tutorial sequences or hand-holding crap (again, please refer to my previous post for my feelings concerning such crap).

Oh, it’ll give you quick hints early on, of the “press ‘E’ to pick up this rifle”, or “consider scouting this first enemy camp before rushing in, if you want to not get shot to hell” variety. But this game does not fuck around: after an introductory ride through part of the open-world map that serves to show how pretty the graphics were in 2008, you pass out from what has to be the quickest onset of malaria in all of recorded history. You then immediately get to meet the Jackal, your antagonist/mission objective, who indulges in a Nietzschean monologue (of course) before vaguely threatening you and then leaving you with a machete and a pistol.

Which you will need (along with the previously mentioned rifle, picked up by pressing “E” or whatever key you’ve assigned to picking stuff up) as soon as your selected character picks himself off his sickbed and finds himself in a war zone. And yes, your character will be a “him”; sorry ladies, Far Cry 2 is the archetypal sausage fest where playable characters are concerned.

On that note, there are nine playable characters, which could be an obscure nod to the Fellowship of the Ring but is really not, since all of these guys are pretty much personality-less mercenaries of various ethnic backgrounds (at least a token effort at racial diversity was made, genders be damned) and the game clearly doesn’t give a rat’s posterior as to which one you choose. SPOILER: this is kind of a recurring theme in Far Cry 2.

Immediately after the tutorial level (which will end with you either “dying” or passing out, depending on how long you manage to survive), you get forcibly recruited by one of the game’s warring factions, and then promptly dumped into a hostile world where everyone’s sole desire is to kill you. This is not a hyperbole: one of my most memorable moments with this game is seeing a car drive by me whilst hiking to some mission objective or other, going "oh, cool, it didn't try to run me over, which means there's non-hostile traffic in this game to make the world feel more alive? Nice touch."

"Ha ha," said the game, as the car stopped, a guy got out, and promptly started shooting at me with an Uzi. "Fuck you."

"Well, fuck you right back," says I.

The game even puts a lampshade on this: during your mission briefings with both warring factions (and you WILL be forced to work for both), you'll be told something to the effect of "even our guys don't know you work for us, so they'll try to kill you." Indeed there are very few “friendly” characters in this game – the handful you get to interact with are either opportunistic (your fellow mercenaries, IE the characters you didn’t select, who constantly try to rope you into optional side-missions that really make you do twice the work for minimal rewards) or desperate (people trying to escape the country, who reluctantly trade you malaria medicine for delivering travel papers).

Yes, the malaria is an actual gameplay mechanic, and you need to restock on medicine at key points in the game (read: after completing a set amount of missions). Every so often, your screen turns into a sickly shade of yellow as a droning sound drowns out everything else that may be going on, and your character will collapse unless you pop a pill. Doing so takes a mere couple seconds, however as the malaria episodes seem to have disproportionate odds of happening during combat, you may as well pop a handgun bullet for all the good it will do.

Speaking of guns, they degrade realistically over time in Far Cry 2.

Ha, no they don’t; that was a joke.

Guns will arbitrarily start jamming after firing a set amount of rounds: the weapons gradually accumulate dust and rust with use, though some of the more “fragile” ones will visibly corrode with each shot. Any weapon picked up from a fallen foe will practically be falling apart with rust and most likely jam at every other shot (note that this never happens to them while they’re shooting at you). Should you somehow manage to not die and keep firing with a rusty/grimy weapon, the gun will ultimately disintegrate, often exploding like a set piece in a Michael Bay film, as seen above. There is an upgrade system in place to mitigate this issue (as well as improve other specs, such as accuracy), but this doesn’t make much difference in many cases. Thankfully there's gun shops located throughout the game world, and adjacent warehouses contain a self-replenishing supply of purchased (read: unlocked) guns. As such the only way to avoid the scenario pictured above is to regularly restock at those warehouses.

Pictured: Guns. Lots of guns. (well, there WOULD be a lot if I'd bothered to unlock them all)

The in-game currency for all these shiny toys is blood diamonds (of course), which you either obtain by completing missions, or finding hidden briefcases scattered throughout the map. True to itself, the game doesn't hold your hand when choosing which weapons to unlock with your limited budget, so it's entirely possible for a player to purchase, say, all of the available shotgun models, and screw themselves out of any other weapons until they obtain more diamonds - until then, they'll be stuck scavenging barely-functioning guns off of dead enemies. It must be noted that the version I played included "Fortune's Pack", a DLC which automatically grants three free weapons, making things a tiny bit easier for new players.

A silenced shotgun for the stealth players, a crossbow with explosive bolts for the rest (guess which one I went with).

The world, as previously stated, is beautiful by 2008 standards. Hell, even a decade later I think it still holds up quite nicely: fields of tall grasses sway in the wind, and – in what I found to be a very nice touch – foliage actually moves as you step in it. Some vistas are genuinely impressive and made me stop just to admire the scenery; leisurely driving through the savanna/jungle at sunset was particularly soothing.

Very soothing indeed.

However,despite the impressive-looking locales, the world presented in Far Cry 2 doesn't feel lived-in. Aside from the occasional zebra or wildebeest, the only life you see is at designated spots: enemy checkpoints and encampments, set patrol routes, "neutral zones" (where you get your mission objectives from), and some buildings. Though enemies constantly respawn, thus avoiding the issue mentioned in my Arkham Asylum restrospective (namely, an empty map with no one to fight), the world still feels very artificial, almost like a theme park ride that resets itself after each tour. This directly links into another, oft-mentioned issue: the enemies sometimes have a very short "respawn range", often reappearing as soon as you're barely out of eyeshot of their checkpoint/base. This can make backtracking through some areas particularly tedious at times, especially if you're just trying to get to a mission objective and happened to take a wrong turn.

The character models, while inevitably subject to the uncanny valley effect, are very acceptable; the texture work in particular is quite detailed.

Seriously, just look at the level of detail on this dead guy's pristine tactical vest (that I shot like 30 times before taking this screenshot).

I should specify that I am cheating and playing with graphical mods that remove the default game’s brown filter. Even with said filter I still believe that the game looks great (if perhaps a bit monochrome), but with the mods, the world you play in is absolutely spectacular for its time.

And the game wants you to burn it all.

The cover art is very subtle in this regard.

You don’t have to, of course. But Far Cry 2’s visual theme – and its main selling point – centers around fire and its effects on the game’s world. You may pick up a flamethrower or some molotovs to set fires in and around guard posts and see the enemies freak out, or simply snipe the explosive barrels liberally dispersed throughout every enemy base and watch the fireworks through your scope. Hell, many enemy bases are deliberately set up so that a well-placed explosion will trigger a Rube Goldberg-style chain of other explosions and flatten the whole place.

Pictured from left to right: Oil barrel, oil spill, and gasoline tank. Not pictured: Michael Bay wetting his pants (though the oil spill provides an adequate visual).

The roving patrols give more opportunities for wanton destruction: vehicles have lovingly detailed models, and will show damage in very satisfying ways: you can pop the hood and doors off and shatter windows by shooting them, or you can cut to the chase and simply lob a grenade underneath. In all cases, vehicles will catch fire when damaged enough, and then explode after a few seconds. Should there be anything flammable in the vicinity… well, you get the idea. The fire effects themselves are rather well done, and are subject to environmental variables; for instance, the aforementioned wind can direct the spread of a fire (and catch you in the flames if you’re not careful).

Disappointingly, the enemies themselves won’t show damage, as seen above: there’s Mortal Kombat-like bursts of blood upon shooting them, but you won’t be able to visibly explode, crush, decapitate, or otherwise maim (or in gaming parlance, “gib”) your deceased foes as is common in so many FPS’es. Given the game’s emphasis on fire mechanics, one would at least expect that enemies could be burnt into charred husks, but even if shot non-fatally and left helpless to slowly perish in a blaze – I swear I totally did not spend hours doing just that – your foes will just leave an unblemished corpse. Initially this seemed to me like a gross oversight in a game that seems to revel in its carnage.

But therein lies Far Cry 2’s brilliance, in my opinion: it does not revel in much of anything, nor does it really let you, the player, revel in what you’re doing. Sure, there’s fun to be had in burning guard posts to the ground, and stealthily terrifying the enemy mercenaries before you mercilessly gun them down. That is, if you manage to be stealthy – sneaking mechanics are not well-defined in this game, with no indicator of whether you are properly concealed, or whether you’ve been spotted; being abruptly ventilated by machine gun fire is usually the only warning you’ll get that your cover’s been blown. As previously mentioned, guns break down at an alarming rate, and will often fail you at the most inopportune times. Scavenged weapons will jam offhand and get you killed more often than not; that is if you don’t succumb to an ill-timed bout of malaria first. What I'm saying is: if you play this game, prepare to die a lot. 

The plot is a bleak homage to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (or of Apocalypse Now, if you are more familiar with the better-known film adaptation), and though you are presented with choices throughout the game, none of them really impact the endgame save for the order in which you’ll kill some characters. SPOILER: You’ll kill them all anyway. And then yourself.

Speaking of plot: want to avoid combat and quickly get to your mission objective? Assuming you can drive past a guard post without your vehicle being shot into Swiss cheese, the enemies will give pursuit and chase you to the end of the world. Well, the end of the map, at least.

To the game' credit, there's no "invisible walls" at the world's edge; if you exceed the limits of the map you simply "pass out" and wake up back within the boundaries of the game world.

This is not a joke – enemies will literally chase you across the map if need be, and their vehicles are always faster than yours. And unless you play on PC with mods, it will likely take you an entire magazine of AK-47 rounds to take down one shirtless guy (that’s assuming every shot actually hits the enemy). Even the dialogue sounds rushed and clipped; this was allegedly done to cut down on the size of the sound files, but it made me feel as if everyone you talk to in this game can’t wait to be rid of you and just bulldoze through their dialogue in a desperate attempt to get you out of their faces. Even the “boss fights” are an anticlimax: named characters aren’t any tougher than the average mook, and in many instances will give you even less of a fight, often attempting to: A) talk you down, or B) surrender.

Refreshingly, this guy did not go for Option B.

Interesting fact: this gold-plated AK-47 (there's only 8 of those hidden from the game world) degrades approximately four times slower than a regular one. This is perfectly realistic, much like the bolt and selector switch being on the wrong side, and a random lobster cage that arbitrarily goes flying upon shooting a guy in the face.

Even the armed mercenaries you gun down by the dozen get in on the guilt-tripping action: by the game's mid-point, when your "reputation" score is high enough, wounded enemies can be heard miserably pleading for their lives, yelling that they don't want to die, or just want to go home.

Bottom line: Far Cry 2 makes it really hard to enjoy it, and extremely easy to hate it. But it hates you right back and gives no quarter. It doesn’t care for you or your gaming expectations. It challenges those expectations, and challenges you to find your own enjoyment, or not: it doesn’t care either way. And the revelation that I had shortly after starting Far Cry 2 was that, holy shit, I’d finally found a game as grumpy as myself. And I love it for that.



JBbear's Two Cents

My rage with this game prevented me from writing a coherent review, so I've collected my thoughts in bullet point form. Pick one:

- I put back cutting my lawn for THIS?!

- If you're looking for a great way to ruin your afternoon, this'll do it for just $5*!

- CENSORED (please insert the most colorful language you can think of).

- This game makes my blood boil.

- Screw this, I'm going fishing.

- I genuinely wish I'd spent that $5 on cold beer.

- I've had more pleasant experiences slipping on ice.

- MAFcat, you owe me a beer for this.


*Pawn shop price for XBox 360 version.



I hope you enjoyed this retrospective on Far Cry 2. Next up, I will be taking a look at another game/franchise that hates the player's guts: the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Get the vodka ready, comrades; we're gonna need it!

Modern Gaming Sucks: A Totally Irrefutable Thesis

Before getting into my next video game retrospective (and to set the tone for this entire blog, really), I have a confession to make: where gaming is concerned, I’m basically a grumpy, reclusive old man. Specifically, I have a very old-fashioned sense of ownership. I grew up on the idea that one could go to the store, fork over $60+ (or, back in 1998, $20 for “SNES classics” - to this day I consider A Link to the Past on of the best deals I ever got), and get a game.

That was all; you paid for the game, you got the game, and it was yours forever. Cynics will argue that nothing lasts forever and they would be right, but for the fact that vintage Nintendo products are virtually indestructible. When the apocalypse comes, only two things will remain on the ravaged Earth: cockroaches, and Nintendo consoles.

Behold: the future.

Additions and changes to this simple “pay, get, own forever” concept tend to annoy me at best, and induce incoherent screaming rage at worst. DLC doesn’t bother me insofar as it merely adds extras to a game that stands perfectly well on its own. Patches annoy me (fuck waiting for an “update” to finish downloading, I want to play NOW - and also, couldn’t you be bothered to make a good product to begin with?) Do not get me started on microtransactions, and DRM is the devil: Steam only got to refuse to let me play a game I'd purchased (on account of not having a functional Internet connection at that particular moment) once, before I uninstalled everything and never looked back.

I dislike multiplayer; to me gaming has always been a solitary, pseudo-sacred activity and a way for me to get AWAY from people. I enjoy having the freedom to immerse myself in a world and then at the simple push of a button have time itself come to a standstill so I can step away from the screen and go take a piss, or have a snack, or have a snack while taking a piss (I have no pretension of being a classy grumpy, reclusive old man).

"But you're going to review Far Cry 2, and it has multiplayer!" I hear you all clamoring on the other side of the Internet. Firstly: Shut the hell up, it’s annoying. Secondly; yes, I know damn well that Far Cry 2 has multiplayer. I just deliberately never touched the thing, because I’m contrarian like that, and also because (SPOILER!) my objective is specifically to discuss the game’s single-player experience.

Speaking of single-player experiences, I abhor excessive hand-holding and/or especially lengthy tutorials sequences that get shoved down your throat like some sort of shitty endoscope. I should probably launch into an "in my time" tirade right about here, but that would be hypocritical, since obnoxious tutorials aren't exclusive to recent games: Eternal Darkness, I’m looking at you.

In fact, I've looked at you for too long. Far, far too long. And I'll likely look at you again for a future review, you magnificent, insanity-inducing bastard.

Well, that's enough from me; I'll let my fellow blogger and grumpy gamer JBbear offer some closing comments on this one.


JBbear's Two Cents

What MAFcat said. Done.



RANT OVER. On with the Far Cry 2 retrospective!

Arkham Asylum: A Two-Faced Retrospective

My earliest exposure to Batman was through reruns of the 1960’s TV show, but it really was the Animated Series (and the associated toyline) that made me fall in love with Batman. Rocksteady Studios released Arkham Asylum, a game mixing beat-em-up action with stealth and platforming elements, back in 2008. While I was aware of the game, I didn’t get around to playing it until 2015 (more on that later). When I finally did play, I was ecstatic to find that Arkham Asylum seems to borrow several visual and thematic elements from the animated series, including the voices of Kevin Conroy as Batman, Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn, and Mark Hamill as the Joker (Mr. Hamill will always be the definitive Joker to me), as well as some aesthetic choices such as the Batsuit looking like a more realistic version of the one from the cartoon, and Paul Dini writing the story.

Overall this game felt like a reunion; it was as if something from my childhood had left for a while, grown up while it was away, and returned to me – older and grittier, but still very much the same at heart. This emotional/nostalgic connection doubtlessly coloured my perception of the game as I played it; as such, please be aware that this will be a very biased review. For a more objective look, my friend JBbear was kind enough to provide the second "face" of this retrospective and share his two cents as a "Sunday gamer" and non-Batman fan. 

My Very Biased Review

Arkham Asylum fucking rules. Review over.

What, you expected an in-depth analysis of the game's overarching themes?

Alright, fine: My Actual Review (and an in-depth analysis of the game's overarching themes)

OK, more seriously, right off the bat (see what I did there?), the game looks incredible, and still holds up quite nicely today in my opinion. Close-up shots of Batman on the title screen highlight the extremely detailed texture work on his character model; the fabric on the Batsuit and the face stubble are definite highlights for me. 

Pictured: Bat-Stubble Bat-Santa beard and Bat-Pecs. Not pictured: Anything from the actual game.

The environments mostly keep to that same level of quality; though some textures aren’t as polished when viewed from up close, I assume some sacrifices had to be made for the sake of performance. There are several neat little details scattered throughout the asylum, some of which reference the Batman mythos, and others seemingly put there just to make you go “uh, that’s neat” upon discovering them (I’m looking at you, random severed-head-in-a-jar. In fact I probably looked at you far longer than necessary, or healthy. I know, I’m weird).

Bottom line, this is a very pretty game, especially by the standards of its time. In fact, this was the first game to make my wife comment on how pretty the graphics were (whereas my meticulously modded-out version of Skyrim simply enticed a disinterested “eh, yeah, that’s nice”). Granted, this was my first PS3 game ever and both it and the console were my 2015 birthday gift courtesy of my wife, so she might have been as biased as myself in that regard; but biased or not, the game is gorgeous. The music also very much fits the game and to me sounds sufficiently “Batman-like”, for lack of a better term. However I can think of no specific track that really stuck to my memory, unlike some of the very memorable music heard in the sequel.

It should be said that Arkham, despite the obvious amount of effort and attention put into its design, isn’t believable as an asylum, at least not in a realistic sense; there’s no reason for any mental health institution to have gargoyles hanging from the ceiling (I’m no psychiatrist, but I surmise demonic figures watching from above may not very conducive to mental health), or tall windows that would seem more at home in Hogwarts’ great hall. But it is believable as Arkham Asylum, as part of the Batman universe, and it works wonderfully as a setting that suits video game conceits while serving an unrelenting gothic horror aesthetic.

Indeed, there is an undeniable horror vibe to this game, from the environment's general decrepitude (I had to laugh out loud at a video of the warden praising Arkham Asylum's "cutting edge" psychiatric treatments; the only "edge" I found in that specific part of the game was a discarded bone saw), to the interview tapes you can find detailing the psychoses of Batman's nemeses. The first Scarecrow encounter had Batman descend into the asylum's morgue, situated in the "lower corridors" - an area that seems to borrow its visual inspiration from Freddy Kruger's boiler room, and Silent Hill's Otherworld. Scarecrow's presence is heavily telegraphed with some classic "slasher movie villain" moments, but the path to confronting him, complete with off-kilter camera angles and genuinely creepy music/sound effects, briefly kept me guessing as to whether what I was seeing was actually real, and it was brilliant.

Speaking of fear...

Yes, the thing I dreaded having to write: despite my love for it, Arkham Asylum is not without a few glaring flaws. Though I have started re-playing it for the sake of writing this article, I have yet to finish my second playthrough. Part of that is due to being a responsible adult (yeah right) with less free time on my hands than I’d like, but there is also the unfortunate fact that the game’s replay value is severely limited.

Sure, you can still roam the asylum after the game’s ending, but the door to the final boss is sealed (I’d have expected being at least able to replay the last boss fight at will, but such is not the case here), and the defeated enemies are gone forever. Still, with nothing to do aside from hunting down the remaining Riddler trophies, the deserted asylum is even more oppressively creepy than before, and you can now freely soak in the atmosphere and wander around to explore every nook and cranny at your leisure, which is enjoyable.

For about 10 minutes.

Sadly, it didn’t take long for me to get bored after clearing the game. Respawning enemies and/or bosses (if even just the final boss, as mentioned above) could have kept the fun going for a while. Even just a “New Game Plus” option – that is, being able to replay from the start of the game while keeping most of the character upgrades – would have been appreciated. As it is, there is little reason to go back to Arkham Asylum once the game has been cleared, except to go through the very same experience again. Not that said experience is not worthwhile, but a subsequent playthrough will never be quite as magical as discovering the game for the first time.

Of course, one could argue that the challenge maps are specifically made to play the game after the “main quest” has been completed, and I will admit that being able to play as the Joker in the PS3 challenge maps was a fun diversion. This being said, to me this game’s strength lies in its storytelling, in its atmospheric buildup and the interactions between Batman and his foes – though the gameplay itself is undeniably one of the game’s strong suits, it alone was not enough to keep my interest for hours on end.

An action figure re-creation of my absolute favourite level from the game. (The stuff that may be oozing out of your monitor right now is an overflow of liquefied sarcasm)

In case the above picture wasn’t obvious enough, another one of my main pet peeves with the game is the Obligatory Sewer Level™. I found this segment overly tedious, especially when you get to the chase part at the end, inevitably have no idea what to do if it’s your first time playing (or rather, don’t remember what you’re supposed to do because the entire sequence is so much of drag that your brain went into sleep mode), die, and have to restart at the last checkpoint, which means slogging through even more of that tedium. Mercifully the game doesn’t have you re-do the entire sequence; I would not be here writing about this game if it had. In fact, I would likely not have a functioning PS3 controller (or TV) anymore if it had.

Objectively though, the sewer area fits well in with the narrative and there’s an in-story justification for its existence, as opposed to standing out as a purely arbitrary video game level. Like the rest of the game, the atmosphere there is delightfully creepy and tense (think Jaws), and it serves to demonstrate the game’s gorgeous water effects. It’s just too bad that the sewer is very linear (being basically little more than a series of corridors), and is not quite as visually inspired/interesting as other areas of the asylum; if you end up having a somewhat difficult time with this sequence (as I did, on account of sucking hard), then after a while the suspense just gives way to annoyance.

The same goes for all of the game’s boss fights, really; in general these were the parts of the game I enjoyed the least, despite the climactic buildups to some of them. The mechanics of the game tend to change during boss fights, and whereas the main game usually gives you freedom as to how to approach a situation, the bosses tend to have only one key weakness/pattern that you need to figure out to beat them. I preferred the cutscene villains (IE the ones Batman effortlessly punches out in a cinematic sequence once you’ve managed to get to them), probably because to me it seems more like the “Batman” way of doing things.

This being said, I think that there is an understated brilliance to the way boss fights are handled in Arkham Asylum. Here is a game that gives possibly the closest experience there is to actually being Batman; you have the gadgets, you have the moves, and best of all you have responsive controls and a lovingly detailed 3D environment as your playground, complete with goons to beat up with the aforementioned gadgets and moves. You can punch them in the face, kick them in the face, batarang them in the face, blow explosive gel up in their face… and if face destruction isn’t your cup of tea, Batman will sometimes randomly punch people in the groin (I wish there was a specific in-game gadget for that, like in the 1989 movie).

Sonic Shock Batarang? Nah, I'm good with the wrist-mounted, dick-punching cheese grater.

Anyway; you have options, is all I’m saying, and Batman is at all times in control of the situation (or at least he can be, in the hands of a sufficiently skilled player – given my general ineptitude at video games, my Batman probably comes across as Mr. Magoo in a bat costume).

However the boss “fights” (in particular the sewer segment) take those options – and therefore any control of the situation you might have had – away, turning the tables on Batman. I mentioned earlier that Arkham Asylum, to me, works wonderfully as a horror game: during the “predator” encounters, or even when just having a grand time walking/jumping around beating up mooks, this is undeniably a horror game – for your enemies. The game enforces this notion by letting you turn on Detective Mode and seeing your foes’ heart rates go up and their status change from “calm” to “nervous” to “terrified”. Batman is all about fear; that’s the whole point of going around dressed as a giant, angry bat. This is the first Batman game I ever played that gets that, and I love it.

But then you run into a boss, and realize that the horror theme works both ways: your options are now mostly gone and the boss is forcing you to play the game like they want. And that’s just the way it should be: these are supervillains, after all. Being frustrated with the Killer Croc boss fight enhances my immersion into the experience of being Batman, because now I know exactly how he feels when he hears Croc’s escaped Arkham (Despite his stoic demeanor, I expect his inner monologue to be along the lines of “Shit, I have to fight him? AGAIN?! FML.”)

In that sense, I find the Killer Croc segment (and nearly all of the other boss fights) thematically brilliant, if no less annoying. I wish the same could be said of the final battle against the Joker; a straight fight against a T-Virus-enhanced Joker (you can’t tell me that “Titan Joker” doesn’t look like someone took a rejected Resident Evil boss design and slapped the Joker’s face on it) wasn’t exactly what I would have expected from a game that, so far, had demonstrated such understated brilliance.

That would be one heck of a crossover though. Which we might see when Disney inevitably acquires both DC and Capcom.

Or maybe the developers knew exactly the kind of Batman most gamers would play, and just caved in and gave us something else to punch in the face for the big finish. How appropriate for the Joker: I guess the joke’s on us after all.

Well played, Rocksteady. Well played indeed.



JBbear's Two Cents

Batman, Arkham Asylum was a huge hit when it came out. With IGN, GameSpot and Metacritic all giving reviews over 4 stars, it’s no wonder I picked this one up when I saw it for sale at my local used game shop for 6$. After all, it was 2016, the game was getting old, but MAFcat had already told me it was worth the buy, and I was due for a new game. The question, however, is how does this game hold up as I write these lines in fall of 2017?

I popped it in my trusty ol’ 360 for a second playthrough last night to refresh my memory.

The plot line behind that game is quite simple: Batman brings Joker in the Asylum. Joker breaks free and wreaks havoc in the place. Batman has to save the day.

The main antagonist in this installment of the franchise is Joker, but you’ll be facing a wide array of secondary antagonists, some more memorable than others. Names include Quinn, Croc and Bane. The Riddler has some presence in there but you never actually see him. He’s the master of secondary quests. The controls of this game are straightforward and simple. Perfect for a guy like me. Batman moves smoothly and intuitively and it’s easy to navigate the game. Minutes in, you’re introduced to the various menus, maps and other tools you will be consulting frequently throughout the game, and a few fun extras such as character bios and recordings of antagonists during sessions with their doctors.

Upgrades to weaponry, armor and moves can be had through leveling up, and accumulating these makes you a stealthier, stronger, and more iron-clad foe, and allows you access to some of the Riddler’s trophies and challenges that were inaccessible in early game.

I like a game with a good storyline. This has that. I like a game with an immersive world. This kind of has that. I like a game that’s unique and refreshing.

This is not that.

Unfortunately, although this is a good game that definitely gave me some very fun play hours, it’s nothing magical or astonishingly new. It very much reflects the ambiance you’d want to have in a Batman instalment, but that’s all it is: faithful. When I say faithful is all it is, I mean ambiance. This is the first Batman game I ever played. I can’t knock a game for being faithful to the franchise, but I can’t give extra points for it either. Faithful is safe. If we disregard the brand name, it’s another third person action game. Nothing new or ground breaking.

To be fair, I get the hype. The Batman franchise has such a colossal following that it would be sin to move away from some aspects of it. I mean, let’s face it: I would flip if Link got a gun (I haven’t played the newer Zelda games, he better not have a gun…) or if Master Chief got anything but a Spartan armor. I get that fans and hard-core gamers get nostalgic from using the batarang and from bringing the Joker to justice. I unfortunately, am neither a fan, nor a hard-core gamer. Therefore, from a Sunday gamer perspective, the game isn’t a masterpiece. It’s another third person action game.

It certainly deserves a spot in my collection, and I’ll keep going with my second play through. I’ll even pick up the sequel if I find it when I’m in the mood for a new game, but I don’t need it this minute.

Overall: well done. This is a solid game.

JBbear approved.



We hope you enjoyed this retrospective on Batman: Arkham Asylum. Our next article will take us right into the Heart of Darkness, with a look at Far Cry 2!