[7/11/2023]

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman Arkham Asylum is the first game in the Arkham quadrilogy, the plot revolves around the Joker taking control over Arkham Asylum shortly after inmates from Blackgate prison were transferred there due to a fire. Batman escorts the Joker, realizing that they gave up easier than usual. With Harley Quinn's assistance, the Joker manages to get past a guard and flees from Batman while Commissioner Gordon is registering him into the Cell Block.

Arkham Asylum is much more atmospheric than the later games in the series, it conveys a certain sense of dread that none of the others manage. While all the games are pretty dark in their plots and appearance, Asylum is noticeably more grim. While it has less content and the combat is a lot less advanced than the later titles, the game holds up very well. Graphically it still looks great, the story is good and the plot doesn't really falter, there's no obvious plotholes or really any glaring issues at all with it.

The bossfights of the game tend to be the weakest part, being put into the game last minute. Most of the boss fights are titan related except for the Poison Ivy fight. You have, prototype titan thug, two titan thugs, titan thug with regular thugs, two titan thugs with regular thugs, Bane, and Titan Joker. The worst one being the Titan Joker fight, its basically just fighting thugs until Joker turns around and then you pull him off a platform. It's more like a fight with Joker's thugs rather than a fight with the Joker himself. You could also argue that Scarecrow is a boss, his areas are mainly just platforming sections where you simply need to time when you move.

Arkham Asylum's combat set a new bar for superhero games with its innovative freeflow combat system that allowed you to smoothly jump between enemies without any halt in your movement. Though having a couple flaws (most of which were fixed in the sequel) the combat is extremely intuitive while also being difficult to master. Along with the hand to hand combat sections the game features predator stealth sections where you take out rooms of armed thugs. Over the course of the game the thugs get more tools that make both the predator sections and the combat sections more difficult, forcing you to adapt.

While the game does have its flaws, its the first game in a series that only gets better as it progresses. The atmosphere is dark and dreadful in a great way. The graphics still hold up today, and look incredible for the time. The story makes sense and is pretty easy to follow while having some deeper elements that aren't needed to understand the plot, but definitely add to it. There's riddler trophies to collect outside of the main story which help expand the lore, a lot of them being tapes of interviews with the different patients around Arkham Island. There's also stories which go over the mind of the founder of Arkham Asylum. Needless to say, Arkham Asylum brought a lot to the table as the first Arkham game.

[28/9/2023]

Condemned:Bloodshot

This game, I'm not sure how to feel about it. Thomas, who they now call Ethan, is completely different. In the first game he looks sorta Asian American? In this one he's just American, no hints of anything other than pure blooded white. He's a lot smarter and more gristled, since the first game he has become an aggressive alcoholic. Now extremely pale and rugged, I honestly sorta like the design change. It makes him a little more iconic, he looked like a very normal guy in the first game, in this one he's a little more defined. I like the themes of this game a little more than the first. Or at least at the start.

The start of this game is pretty good, as in the first three levels. I enjoyed the first three levels and a couple more. The doll factory level made me want to actually peel my eyes out. There's a lot of BS in this game as well, trial and error things that are clearly made to screw you over. Which I don't entirely hate, but sometimes there's literally no way to get away from them, like later on there's enemies that completely prevent you from attacking and drain your health, which I was cornered by several times. Basically guaranteeing my death.

The story is much edgier and Thomas loses his power to link with minds for some reason, now replaced with a scream that can blow up heads, which you get much later. My main issue with the story is that it hardly focuses on anything that happened in the first game, it focuses on the final boss of the first game, who was just a random guy to be honest. You get to figure out his origin. Serial Killer X is also back, but his plot is never finished for some reason, he shows up several times and his plot is just never concluded. Its very strange.

There's also a scene where Thomas survives a fucking TINY PLANE nosediving into the ground, like sure the guy has dense bones but like, nah, I don't buy it. By the way, the enemies can kill him with three smacks of a bowling pin, not a bowling ball, but a BOWLING PIN, I chock that up to videogame logic though. There's a part where he falls like, three floors down an elevator shaft, and is completely fine, then later, he falls a similar length and is injured to the point of needing to rest and being unable to move. Its very inconsistent and I don't like that very much, though again, I can't really consider it real criticism to pick at that in particular.

There's also a presence of an "Alcohol demon" which you fight to... cure Thomas of his alcoholism, if only it was that easy. The combat in this game is much more fleshed out, but the enemies can tank SO much damage, it was impressive in the first game, but in this one you can crack a dude with a sword like four times in the face and he'll be completely fine. They added a weapon breaking feature, but that doesn't really matter because there's about 40 weapons in every room, and Thomas' fists are just as effective as pretty much any other weapon.

The detective minigames are better too, you can actually mess them up and get scores for them, there's goofy questions you can ask and you can give poor results. I disliked the camera stuff because the prompts are usually very unspecific and they want you to take pictures of really specific areas, so you'd be taking thirty pictures trying to figure out exactly where they wanted you to be positioned. Otherwise its a lot better, there's one mission where you have to describe a bomb to someone while they help you defuse it, which actually was pretty fun, though it was a 50/50 chance so it didn't really matter how well you described it considering there's a checkpoint right before it. You also get rated depending on how well you describe what occured in the crime scene, trying to piece together what took place via context clues rather than being told everything over the phone.

There's rewards for exploration now, you get an upgrade at the end of every mission, and depending on how many side objectives you finished it'll be upgraded more. This can make the game very easy by the way, especially if you get a fully upgraded taser, for the same reason the first game's taser is overpowered. Its definitely a plus though, being rewarded for how much you actually explore, its a nice touch.

I also hate the antagonist of this game, he's just some random chump in the FBI who is plotting against you. He hardly shows up throughout the game and then suddenly has like powers by the end of it. His fight isn't hard either, its just, kill some goons, scream at him, attack some more goons, scream at him, do a quick time event, and win. The antagonist group is also pretty lackluster, being a cult that has similar powers to Thomas, who want to figure out how he works, its some goofy evolution thing. I personally don't like them, but I can see why people would like them, they're sorta unique, and have neat designs.

Overall I both like and dislike this game more than the first for its own reasons, I like the protagonist a little more, the combat can be more fun, sometimes, sometimes it can suck really bad. The missions can go on for too long, and sometimes you gotta sit through cutscenes again if you die because there's not a quicksave in this game, just checkpoints. Usually its not too bad, but I really didn't like sitting through the same detective discussion over and over again after I got cheapshotted by an enemy. Its usually forgiving with its checkpoints though, thankfully. If I had to pick one, I'd replay the first game before I replayed this one, it's not a bad game though, I kinda recommend it if you want an experience similar to the first, but a little more action-y.

[27/9/2023]

Condemned: Criminal Origins

Man, I really want to like this game, its kind of hard to though, its got a lot going for it but it never capitalizes on any of that. The game starts with a feeling of being trapped somewhere you'd hate to be, similar to Silent Hill, but that's not the case. Thomas goes from place to place throughout the game, showing that he has no trouble staying or leaving. It gets rid of a lot of that desperate feeling. I played through the game without using any of the guns as well, on hard mode, wanting to give it a chance to feel more desperate. But it wasn't too hard except for the end. Where I was fighting Richard Trager lookalikes who knew how to do like front flips and spin kicks. It honestly kinda ruined the entire vibe.

The gameplay wasn't bad, it could be a little bland but it wasn't awful, the combat was decent and I had fun with it. The main things that bug me were the story and how goofy the names were for the killers. Shit like The Torturer, Killer X, and The Roadside Carver, all very goofy names for people who are apparently very dangerous. The big names you go after never feel very dangerous either, not even Killer X, who is kicking the shit out of you in every cutscene, his fight is just as easy as the other fights, except he has a little more health. The AI is either really smart, or like braindead, sometimes guys will run away to ambush you, and then sometimes they'll just stand there and stare you down while you beat the life out of them.

Thomas is very stoic? I dunno how to describe it, but there's a scene where you're taking pictures of a guy who is presumed to be dead, all carved up and whatever, only for you to be grabbed by him when you try to take a picture of his face. He asks for help only for Thomas to respond with the calmest "Help is on the way, who did this to you?" No fear in his voice, no tremble, no nothing, just straight up. He's also apparently this medical marvel with super dense muscles and bones, with incredible stamina, but he gets exhausted after running three feet and takes like five real minutes to regenerate his stamina bar.

He also seems to be a little uhhh, not bright. He constantly has premonitions, but never seems to think any of them are real? Like he finds a trail of blood leading to lockers, which he JUST had a premonition of some guy getting stuffed inside of, only to be like "The case is cold" before being reminded that he's surrounded by closed lockers. Like we're supposed to think this guy has some type of special detective instinct? I don't really buy it, he never figures any of the stuff out on his own, he's constantly told what to do through the phone and he doesn't feel all that bright to be honest.

Despite all my rambling about how bad the game is, it's pretty average. The gameplay is fun, its just a little underwhelming. The detective parts are fun, and the combat is fun, if a little bit bland at times. I think that the game is sort of like a diet coke Silent Hill with a larger emphasis on combat. I think it'd also be a little better if the weapons in the game broke, because you can get some pretty strong weapons and just cheese the level like that. All and all I have a sorta hard time recommending it, but if you can look past its flaws, the game has some decent charm and isn't the worst thing I've ever played, far from it.