A game set among the mentally ill has the potential to be lots of things — eerie, revealing, maybe even funny. A game with the dark, stylized Batman aesthetic set among the mentally ill has the potential to be, well, great. Unfortunately Batman: Arkham Asylum, for all the respectability it’s garnered for the series, is not great, or revealing, or funny. It’s not even eerie — unless you count its belabored character rendering, in which case ooooooo, quake with fear.
Insanity, the classic gothic trope of cinema and literature alike, makes our spines tingle specifically because it hits close to home. Those we see as “crazy” in art are not monsters, not impossibilities from beyond the grave, but flesh and blood human beings who vary from the norm in plausible and thus unnerving ways. Arkham Asylum‘s first and biggest failing comes in the missed opportunity to spook us out with (putting aside the possibility of making us think meaningfully about) with the uncanny. Instead we’re confronted with familiar Batman villains, inhuman goons, and the generically committed.
Also not doing the game any favors in the uneasy ambiance department: the game’s graphics. I would have much preferred a simpler, more stylized aesthetic, perhaps influenced by Batman: The Animated Series, which would have allowed the atmosphere to remain ripe for stealth without the over attention to detail, which is currently derailing the visual experience of navigating Arkham. Batman does earn points for one type of uncanniness: the uncanny valley of its stilted, “realistic” characters. I could go on a boating expedition up the Congo in the creases in the Dark Knight’s face. And who thought it was a good idea to have us watch 90% of the game from behind a rippling black cape, an impossible feat of rendering?
At its brief, best moments, Batman: Arkham Asylum reminds me of Bioshock — as voiceovers from the Joker flood in through padded walls. At its worst, or I should say its most mediocre, it feels like an excellent game that could have been. Maybe other players, less eager to turn a corner and see deranged doctors performing sadistic cosmetic surgery, will be content with the gameplay. I for one was let down again and again by the lack of insanity in this house of the insane.
Bonnie Ruberg is a sex, technology, and video games journalist who contributes regularly to publications like The Economist, Forbes, and The Village Voice. By day she's also a comparative literature PhD student at UC Berkeley, where she studies French, English, gender, sexuality, surrealism and perversion. You can reach her at [her first name and last name, all one big word] AT gmail DOT com.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
After reading all the good reviews and comments about AA, I was really looking forward to it. I just finished it the other night, and I wasn’t impressed. I thought it was slightly above average.
From the opening screen, where Batman’s rigid pose makes him look more like a statue and less like a man, to the rigid way he walks, I was saddened by his awkwardness. His combat moves are very fluid, and give you a sense of his grace. I didn’t think this translated well to his non-combat animations.
As for the ambiance and creepiness factors, there were a few places where I thought it was well done, like the visitors center. For the most part, the omnipresent stalking of Joker was underused, and the general mobs could have been better. Is AA the home for the most dangerous, and the most inept? Dudes with pipes? The thugs could have come out of an alley. Where were the straight jackets?
In the end, there were a few fun moments, but overall I agree with you that there was a lot of potential left in a cell somewhere on the island. Too bad I couldn’t get a Riddler map for it.