The Batman franchise was reawakened back in 2005 after Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' was released. In comparison to the original four Batman movies, Nolan gave his film a much darker edge, removing the comical elements completely. 'The Dark Knight', released two years later, was even darker still, and the franchise became even more popular. What was seen was a boost in interest everywhere - toys, books, comics, and also video games. Although there was a 'Batman Begins' game, due to the bankruptcy of Pandemic Studios, 'The Dark Knight' game was never released. What we did see however was a Lego game based on the franchise. It didn't follow Nolan's films, but instead  Read the complete review

Sick of The Joker escaping, Batman decides to escort him personally to his cell at Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane. Unfortunately, The Joker has planned for this and escapes taking over the asylum. This leaves Batman to deal with a whole host of escaped villains. "Batman: Arkham Asylum" is a great game. A sprawling action adventure it is up there with some of the great anime style cartoons out there. Not surprising really considering much of the voice acting is done by the same people responsible for many of the recent cartoon series. Batman himself is voiced by the ever reliable Kevin Conroy but perhaps best of all is Mark "Luke ...  Read the complete review

Let me get this out of the way first; Batman: Arkham Asylum is excellent. Not good for a Superhero game or good for a franchise based game, excellent. Arkham Asylum is a plain and simple, state of the art piece of game design and one of the finest examples of the modern video game. There, now that's said I can get on with the review. Batman: Arkham Asylum is based around a simple story. Batman has just caught his arch-villain, the Joker. Returning him to Gotham's finest mental health facility, Arkham, Batman springs a trap. The Joker has sealed off the asylum and let the inmates loose, as Batman you must work your way through the various sections of the ...  Read the complete review

Batman has featured in a number of great computer games over the years. Jon Ritman's classic 8-bit game was a great platform/explorer game, whilst Ocean's Batman Movie licence featured some (for the time) jaw-dropping graphics and some pretty good varied gameplay. Arkham Asylum for the PS3 continues that trend of good Batman games. In fact, it exceeds previous efforts since Batman: Arkham Asylum is the first game that really captures the Dark Knight of the 80s/90s comics. Previous Batman games have tended to be either generic platform/action games which just happen to feature the character or have focussed solely on the combat element. Arkham Asylum, on the ...  Read the complete review

In short, this is an excellent game! The story line is excellent throughout and the movement, gadgets and skills of Batman make sure there is never a dull moment. You have control of a variety of martial arts moves to take out villains (creating your own amazing hit combos), a number of gadgets which you gradually unlock which both help you through the story and enable you to take out villains in new and entertaining ways. The game makers have kept Batman within the grounds of Arkham to have some realistic limitations to his movement which may dissapoint some people (you don't get to drive the batmobile!), but it is all well interwined with the ...  Read the complete review