[For this guest post, I welcome back Jaylee Warren, who previous wrote about Metal Gear Solid 3. Jaylee is a queer comics writer from the Pacific Northwest. Her work focuses on queer resilience and portrayals of radical joy in trans life. You can find her on twitter as @JustJaylee.]
Nearly 14 years ago Batman: Arkham Asylum debuted on Xbox 360 and PS3. Released just a year after Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Asylum blew away critics and fans with an engaging showcase for Batman and his rogues gallery. The Dark Knight changed the way audiences viewed the superhero genre with complex, award winning performances, and a gripping story. Arkham Asylum would change the way action games played for years to come.
The intro sequence to Asylum is one of my all time favorites. Slowly wheeling Joker through the halls of Arkham sets the stage for the rest of the game. The crown prince of crime’s escape feels inevitable, but waiting for the game to reveal how he slips through Batman’s fingers helps keep the tension palpable. Joker’s rapport with the guards is unnerving, but believable as one of Arkham’s most frequent fliers. Will sympathetic guards start a jailbreak? Will an inconveniently timed power outage be the key to his freedom? This uncertainty allows an otherwise straightforward stroll through several hallways to be an engaging introduction to our hero, his nemesis, and the Asylum that can barely hold their warring personalities.
Arkham Asylum’s most lasting impact was the introduction of free flow combat. This system provides all the player needs to glide from target to target, effortlessly stringing together punches, counters, stuns and dodges. One can get through the majority of the game mashing buttons to take out wave after wave of the buff henchmen Arkham throws at you just fine, but it doesn’t compare to the poetry of a perfectly executed skirmish. The real beauty of free flow combat comes from embracing the rhythm of combat— including the equally important pauses between strikes. Superfluous hits that don’t connect with an enemy halt the action and reset the combo meter, requiring the player to embrace brief moments of inaction while you wait for the next attack to counter or dodge. These moments remind me most of the way comic book page design and gutter placement are key to their pacing.
The gutter is simply the space between panels, but its importance in the form cannot be overstated. It can convey time, distance, tempo, and more but its goal is always the same: to string together individual panels into a larger narrative. Just as the gutter will help readers process the page, these quiet moments during combat help carve out space so each hit can pop out of its panel. This system makes even minor encounters feel cinematic and carefully choreographed. A perfect fit for franchises like Middle Earth, Mad Max, and Spider-Man, which would go on to emulate the combat system in their respective games.
What hasn’t aged nearly as well are the depictions of women in the game. Oracle assists Batman with navigation and strategy via communicator, but the women who get screen time in the game fall into two camps: victims or hyper-sexualized villains. As the story progresses the doctors who work at Arkham (an important distinction as all of the women in the game sans Oracle have a doctorate) become hostages to be rescued by the player. Harley Quinn retains the same character as her animated series incarnation, albeit reskinned here in a naughty nurse outfit. Poison Ivy fares far worse in a blouse barely held together by a single button and a sort of plant-based underwear situation to complete the look. Who needs pants when you control plants? These depictions are not unusual for games of this era. Many of the conversations around problematic tropes for female characters in the form wouldn’t gain widespread publication for several years.
Before 2009, the majority of games featuring the caped crusader were beat-’em-ups, focusing on the brute force of the bat. Arkham Asylum was the first Batman game that showcased the breadth of the caped crusader’s capabilities. Players were given the opportunity to step into the boots of the world’s greatest detective to collect evidence and track down targets. Combat could be avoided altogether with stealth segments that showcase Batman’s strategic takedowns in predator mode. Arkham Asylum is a fan favorite because it gave players the opportunity to embody new facets of one of comics most iconic characters. It remains a classic due to its innovations and a paragon of design that is still being emulated to this day.
Top of the charts for week ending 29 August 2009:
Top of the charts for week ending 5 September 2009:
WCRobinson
An incredible game for sure, that continues to inspire the mechanics of many third-person action games. Just think how often people describe the combat of a game being Arkham-esque.
Also you’re right about the female representation, when you go back to certain games it’s quite shocking how far we’ve come since. I’m playing the first The Witcher game and woah, not good. At least things are (finally) improving on that front nowadays!