Batman: Arkham Asylum's story starts off in a predictable way. Batman catches Joker easily, and is taking him to Arkham Asylum, Joker's "home away from home." Thanks to a fire in Blackgate, Joker's gang members have been transferred to the premises as well. Cue Joker being himself, and suddenly the staff is dealing with a full-blown outbreak as well as a host of demented super-powered freaks running around. Batman has to corral everyone back together and restore order before the madness spreads to Gotham, as well as figure out just why Joker wants control of Arkham Asylum.

The who's who of Batman villains are here. Characters such as Bane, who broke the Dark Knight's back, and Poison Ivy, whose seductive powers are legendary, are just a few of the freaks here in the asylum's walls. Unfortunately, the game leaves out some of the more notable villains, although the are referenced through the game's riddles system. Villains like Two-Face or the Ventriloquist have been left out, which is unfortunate giving their iconic status. However, it was a delight to see Scarecrow in the game using a decidedly more disturbing outfit than normally depicted. It is worth mentioning that Arkham Asylum has an ensemble cast, with Mark Hamill reprising his role as Joker being the best example. And boy does he pull it off.

The visuals of Arkham Asylum are absolutely spot on. The game does not fall prey to the "realism" standard seen in many modern games, and while it is certainly dark, it is also filled with vibrant colors and superb animations. Characters behave in a dynamic, larger-than-life way, and some of the texture work is absolutely stunning. The character and level design is also fantastic, and with things such as Harley Quinn's new outfit or Scarecrow's visually confusing mini-levels, the developers really pushed the limit of the Batman mythos. Not that we are complaining, as this change is incredible.

The basics of Arkham Asylum revolve around three forms of gameplay: detective work, exploration, and combat. Detective work is the least used of the three, as it only covers riddles and finding out where to go next in rare few situations. In the case of the former, every time the Dark Knight enters an area, he can come across riddles which must be solved in order to get their bonus (normally XP). Riddles come in two varieties: figure out the answer, and find the question mark. In the case of answers, you might be inquired about finding someone impersonating someone else, or the cell of a particular inmate. In the case of the question mark, you must line up a question mark from a certain, often unusual, vantage point.

Exploration is a natural progression of the game, but ties back in to the riddles you are given. Whenever you explore, you will run across things such as the Chronicles of Arkham, trophies, maps that point you to unfinished riddles, or patient interview tapes. Often these require you to go back to already cleared areas with new gadgets you have obtained from the story. Sound familiar? If it does, it's because it has been a common trait of the Metroid and Castlevania games for a long time. That's right. Batman: Arkham Asylum is, in raw essence, Metroid. But you will never hear us complain about this.

Combat is very simple, but very engaging. It boils down to attacking, countering, and specials. Attacking is mashing a single button, although timing your hits perfectly increases your damage. Directions do count in attacking, as Batman must move rapidly between many targets to keep his combo up. Countering can be done to any enemy with blue lines above their head, and counts as a single knockdown hit. Finally, specials are moves that can only be triggered after reaching certain milestones in your combo, such as every 5 or 8 hits.

As you progress through the game, you unlock new gadgets at certain points in the story. These gadgets often allow you to visit old areas for more riddles or to gain access to newer areas. There is also a level-up system, which triggers as you gain XP through exploration and combat. Altogether, you unlock five gadgets through the course of the story, and a few others through the upgrading system. It's worth noting that these upgrades carry over to challenges, so if you want to get a great score, sometimes it might be prudent to wait until you have more upgrades or gadgets to augment your abilities.

Beyond the story mode are challenges, which boil down to fights or stealth. Fights function much like an outright fight does in the main game. You dance around enemies, punching them into unconsciousness and breaking the occasional arm or leg. You are also scored according to your performance, with things such as special takedowns earning more points than regular punches. You are also rewarded for varying up your combo, making a combo last an entire round, and never taking a hit.

The stealth portion of the challenges function like the predator sections of the game. A bunch of enemies have guns, and you have to take them out one by one, as if you expose yourself you will be rapidly filled with bullets. This part of the game is extremely satisfying, as you prey on the fear of others and make them react in crazy fashions. Cut down a strung-up criminal in front of his examining buddy to cause terror, for example. Scared enemies are less attentive, and if they never see you at all, only your handiwork, they go from calm to terrified insanely fast. An excellent experience and a definite capture of the style of Batman. And who doesn't love a henchman screaming and running around shooting his gun into the air because he is scared?

Arkham Asylum is a great game with few gameplay faults, but it suffers from some incredible technical shortcomings. The first is the save system. You can not save at any time in Arkham Asylum, and it seems that the game only commits your autosaves into permanent form once you quit. Which leads into the next technical issue: Arkham Asylum crashes. A lot. Every time you crash, you lose all your progress from the time between the start of your play session up until the game crashed. It's very, very disheartening to have to fight four bosses over again. A definite mark against the game. Finally, Games For Windows Live is integrated into the game. While this is not normally an issue, errors were experienced with viewing the marketplace as well as the dashboard that actually forced a system restart. The technical errors were so great that when the game faked a technical error as part of the story, I actually had to check my system to make sure nothing was wrong. It's immersive, sure... but in exactly the wrong way. Here's hoping that patches fix some of the glaring issues and add in a better save system.

The PhysX in the game is incorporated sporadically, with volumetric fog and such being uncommon in the halls of Arkham Asylum. For such a major selling point, it does not seem to be a major part of the game. If you were planning on picking up the PC version solely because of the PhysX, I'm sorry to say that it will not add anything new. It's superfluous at best, and completely non-existant at worse, and does little to add to the atmosphere. On the bright side, the game has a great atmosphere already!

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a simple game with a great atmosphere. It combines the disparate elements of Batman such as stealth, gadgets, detective work, and brutal hand-to-hand in sublime ways that never feel out of place or tacked on. It's easy to pick up, and every set piece and boss is thoroughly unique. Even the massive technical issues can only drag it down so much. It's easily one of the best superhero games, and is a definite must buy for just about everyone.