Arkham Asylum: So yeah, I finished this and knocked out the rest of the Riddler challenges (which are thankfully free of FAQ-bait). Game is fun, would recommend playing it, etcetera. Combat can be repetitious mechanically, but it's quite smooth once you're used to it and damned if it's not stylish. You are basically a human tornado when a brawl breaks out, flying from enemy to enemy, reacting to attackers from behind like you're psychic, swooping down from the shadows and leaving people hanging from the rafters when it's too dangerous to face them head-on. In short, you're Batman. The developers obviously went to some effort to see that you played like him and not just any average action game lead.
Actually, this respect for the source material in general was evident throughout the game. This is probably the selling point. In addition to the fighting style characterizing him perfectly, Batman gets progressively haggard as time goes on (your character model acquires some superficial injuries, the suit gets a collection of rips and tears, five o'clock shadow emerges). VA for most of the key players is top-notch, environments are vivid. This is basically as close to visiting the grimy hell on Earth that is Gotham City as any sane person would want to get (why anyone in the comics still lives in Gotham is beyond me). Special props go to Scarecrow sequences, which are impressively surreal and perfectly reflect the kind of villain he is (attack the mind, not the body).
Joker fight was underwhelming, though. Actually, boss fights in general are not a high point of the game. Most of them boil down to pattern recognition or gimmicks. While sometimes they'll throw in some mooks to make it harder for you to tie down the boss, this feels like a stopgap measure. Ultimately doesn't hurt the game much, though. There aren't that many true boss fights anyway.
