A few months ago, I replayed 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum. I've had some thoughts about it that are still rattling around in my brain, so I figured I'd write them down. Altogether, Arkham Asylum very much feels like a "Batman sample platter." There are so many villains in this game, but individually, they don't get to do many interesting things when they get spotlight. With that being said, there were a few that stood out to me.
When the inmates of Arkham Asylum break free, The Riddler contacts Batman to announce he's left a grand scavenger hunt for him. In other words, like a lot of AAA games, the whole island is littered with lame little optional trinkets to try and find and artificially extend the length of the game. Crucially, however, it seems The Riddler has some awareness of how lame his scavenger hunt is. Perhaps terrified that Batman won't even bother with any of it, he's also left behind maps that mark the location of every single trinket he's hidden. That's... really sad.
Among these trinkets is a series of tapes, recordings of interviews that Arkham's psychologists had with the patients. In one interview with The Riddler, he recounts a story from his school days in which he correctly guessed the amount of jelly beans in a jar and won a cash prize. When he went home to tell his father the good news, however, he physically beat him, cynically assuming his son must've cheated. I get the impression that, deep down, The Riddler is a lonely man who yearns for connection. The fact that he would even include this tape in the scavenger hunt, implicitly asking Batman to find it and listen to it, is a surprising show of vulnerability. It's like a cry for help.
Yet, tragically, because he's attached so much self-worth to being the cleverest boy around, he can't seem to help but reflexively insult Batman even as he seeks his company. Throughout the earlygame, The Riddler will frequently belittle Batman as he finds the trinkets, saying things like, "Oh, even a child could've found that one!" As Batman finds more and more, The Riddler will get progressively more incredulous, baffled that Batman could find so many (even though, as mentioned before, he left Batman maps with each trinket's exact location...). He sees Batman as a potential friend, so he tries to pull him in, but he also sees Batman as a threat to his sense of superiority, so he pushes him away. He's like a guy who gets mad when his girlfriend beats him at video games. I haven't played the sequels, but I hope he gets better in those, for both his sake and Batman's.
Batman's oldest, most hated foe... Firearms
When Batman gets into a fist fight, even against a whole crowd of hired goons, it's a piece of cake. You just hit the attack button a few times, hit the counter button every now and then, and you're done. These poor guys just don't stand a chance. Yet, before long, Batman will find himself stuck in rooms with a bunch of armed hired goons, and suddenly things become deadly serious. This isn't FINAL FANTASY, where Shinra soldiers will riddle you with bullets and somehow only take four of your 300+ hit points. In this game, guns kill you. Fast. For decades, Batman has famously hated guns a great deal, so I'm interested in the way this game depicts the struggle in overcoming them. The things Batman needs to even stand a chance against goons with guns are absolutely bonkers. They include:
X-ray vision. Yes, Batman has x-ray vision in this game. He can see through walls so he can always account for where every goon is and where they're facing.
A grappling gun, with which he can use to pull himself up toward
The preposterous amount of indoor gargoyles* throughout Arkham Asylum that can support Batman's weight. Did Arkham's architects leave them there specifically for costumed heroes to use as hiding spots?
A special cape which allows Batman to silently glide down, like an owl about to snatch a mouse in its talons.
Plenty of fictional heroes have ways of dealing with firearms. Batman, in this game, has perhaps the most convoluted method possible. It does a great job of emphasizing how vulnerable human beings are. Batman's always just one or two gunshots away from biting the dust, just like anyone else.
*While the game refers to them as "gargoyles," this is technically inaccurate. A "gargoyle" is a type of decorative waterspout designed to convey rainwater away from a building and minimize water damage. A fixture that looks superficially like a gargoyle but doesn't perform this function would more accurately be called a "grotesque."
