Batman: Arkham Asylum

During this year's D.I.C.E., Rocksteady Games took the stage to talk to a room full of eager developers, all anxious to know how the developer was able to adapt its linear action game into an open-world Game of the Tear contender. What they found out, however, was more than a little surprising... 

If there were a list of Rules for Videogames, the #1 rule would have to be, “Always make cutscenes skippable.” But the number two rule may very well be, “Don't play games based on movies.” It's a truth that's been self-evident rarely without exception ever since ET stunk up the Atari 2600.

But Rule #2's been in for some revision lately, as GoldenEye-shaped aberrations and Butcher Bay-escaping anomalies defy the “movie games are crap” truism. Maybe the way to make a non-terrible adaptation is to hold off until you're sure you have a classic property on your hands. Given movie games’ review history, the simple act of getting them to a stage where people say they’re “well-executed” or “worth the price” is a pretty big step...

Let's face it, the public doesn't want originality. The public wants first-person shooters on 360, fitness games on Wii and pirated copies of anything else because the risk of buying something unfathomable is too high. It doesn't want LittleBig Planet (despite Steven Fry), couldn't give a damn about Okami despite all our best efforts, and thinks Rez HD is a sleep disorder you get from those newfangled tellies.

But while some games are

Mark Hamill unleashes a fiendish cackle that simultaneously sounds like skin ripped from flesh and fingernails dragged across corrugated iron. If the bowels of hell have a soundtrack, this is it.

Rocksteady Games created a monster in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and senior gameplay programmer Paul Denning is so proud of their game spawn that he just couldn’t stop talking to us about it. He spilled so many truth nuggets from his talented maw that we had to split the interview into two parts. Here’s the second bit, complete with all sorts of interesting information about Batman’s return to the dance floor, how he nearly had the power to command motorboats, and even a story about how a big film company didn’t interfere with the game development process to a significant degree

THE INFO BOX
Post date: December 18, 2009
T-Dar 81 length: 2:13:26
Intro song by: Anamanaguchi
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Right about now the rest of the internet is tripping over itself to crank out the “definitive” end-of-year list. Well, they can stop. We already did it. Over the next few pages our unquestioned expertise will identify the coolest, most important games of 2009 with zero room for error. Yeah, it’s that big of a deal. That’s why they’re basking in the dazzling radiance of a Platinum Chalice.

With their first venture into the world of superheroes, Rocksteady Games have created something developers have been attempting for over 30 years: a superhero game that’s actually worth playing. In fact, more than that, it’s the best darned superhero game this planet has ever seen.

That was fast. Less than four months after the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum – aka, the greatest superhero game ever made – a sequel has been officially announced. Even more exciting? The news came packaged with a surprisingly dense teaser trailer, meaning that rampant speculation and freeze-frame detective work can already begin

Anticipation is supposedly sweet, but you know what? Instant gratification is a hell of a lot sweeter. Sure, we could sit patiently and wait for official announcements on our favorite franchises. We could avoid assumption, steer clear of speculation and only publish our opinion when it’s unequivocally backed by cold, hard press release fact. That wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, though.