My Wish List for Batman: Arkham Asylum 2

Default_picture
Sunday, January 17, 2010

It's not often that we see sequels to games being announced only months after they've come out, but that is the case with Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 (working title). I am playing the original Arkham Asylum right now and loving it. My expectations are high for Arkham Asylum 2. These improvements are just some of things I hope it delivers on:

More “death from above”: Everyone loves smashing thugs' heads together, but my favorite part of Arkham Asylum is the rooms full of armed thugs that needs some real strategy to get through alive. I find these combat puzzles fascinating. Arkham Asylum delivers it best “Batman Moments” in these rooms (mad props to the inverted takedowns). Hopefully Arkham Asylum 2 will deliver more combat puzzles than the more mindless ground combat. Fighting on your enemies' terms is still fun, but not as interesting as becoming a true Dark Knight.

Larger scale, but not generic: The trailer for Arkham Asylum 2 hints at the setting being moved to Gotham City proper, which opens up the game world quite a lot. This brings to mind Infamous, another great superhero game that happens to have an open world. My one disappointment with Infamous was that the whole world seeming generic and while big, not interesting. There were some cool places, but they were few and far between.

Even though the original Arkham Asylum had a small open world, every inch was used for something, with nothing to spare. The world was well made and there was a good incentive to explore it (the awesome Riddler Trophies). Here's to hoping that Arkham Asylum 2, if it is an open world, doesn't sacrifice it's interesting setting to squeeze out more square mileage to play in.

 

Refine detective mode: The most unanimous complaint from Arkham Asylum was the overuse of detective mode. While incredibly useful, detective mode prevented players form seeing the game the way it was meant to be seen. This game has amazing visuals and atmosphere, but half the time it's to your advantage to be oblivious to the great graphics as you need to worry about tracking fingerprints.

I think taking out detective mode is the wrong idea, but instead Rocksteady should make it less obtrusive. For example, instead of a color filter always on when detective mode is on, it should be only necessary in certain situations. Also, instead of always showing the annoying x-rays of all the living things on screen, they should only be shown when they are not in your line of sight. This would make the game a lot more enjoyable to play while being the world's greatest detective at the same time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bitmob: What is on your Arkham Asylum 2 wishlist?

 
Problem? Report this post
TREVOR HINKLE'S SPONSOR
Comments (6)
Default_picture
January 17, 2010
An open-world Batman game that plays like Assassin's Creed 2, while keeping missions feeling like Batman: AA, each exploring a new villains lair or iconic Gotham location. Perhaps the hub would be more like Wolfenstein/Halo 3: ODST then an open sandbox world like GTAIV.
Default_picture
January 17, 2010
I still need to play the first one :)
Default_picture
January 20, 2010
Co-op. Bring in Nightwing and Robin. If done from the right approach Nightwing and Robin won't come off as campy. Just think of how sweet it would be to coordinate attacks with a friend over XBOX Live.
Jason_wilson
January 20, 2010
Drop Arkham. Set the game in the "No Man's Land" era as Batman fights to free zones from the likes of Two-Face and other villains. That could be a lot of fun. You could even do co-op, as Jeremy suggests, with Nightwing, Robin, Cassandra-turned-Batgirl, or even the Huntress.
Redeye
January 20, 2010
if they add in coop I'd be right pissed if it didn't include one of the females from the bat mythos.
Default_picture
January 21, 2010
@Jason, I agree with the idea of dropping "Arkham" from the title. I think co-op could be beneficial or detrimental to the game-play. I f done correctly, the addition would be great. But it could hurt the game too. I think the guys at Rocksteady know what they are doing though and could pull it off.

You must log in to post a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.