Batman: Arkham Asylum [Xbox 360]

"Batman Arkham Asylum is one of those games I kinda stumbled upon. I knew it was going to get released, and I had seen the screenshots, but somehow I had the feeling it didn't distinguish itself enough to set it apart from other games.

But then I started playing the demo...and from that moment I got hooked.

Batman Arkham Asylum has so much to offer! It's a third person action adventure in which you not only have to investigate what it exactly is that Joker is planning, you also must deal with plenty of villains along the way.

The first moments I started playing, I remember thinking to myself that the whole fighting concept seemed a bit boring as you only seem to have 1 attack button, 1 counter button and 1 evade button. But as I grew more accustomed to the controls, I started to enjoy the brutal freeflow combat more and more. Execution of your moves is done very well and you can almost feel each punch or kick Batman delivers.

Another cool thing is that, as Batman, you have access to all of these interesting gadgets like the Line Launcher, Explosive Gel and the Batarang for example. One minor gripe is that the more interesting stuff gets availabe later on in the game, and therefore - if you're willing to unlock all secrets - you have to revisit various early levels.

Still, revisiting earlier levels and looking for those hidden riddles isn't all that bad, because - when you look at it positively - this expands the longevity of the game...which isn't all that long to be honest. There are three difficulty levels and it took me twelve hours or so to complete the game on the normal difficulty level.

But hey, if you have finished the game you can always try to complete the various Challenges that you've unlocked during the main quest. These Challenges can be divided into Stealth based challenges and Fighting based Challenges and take place in several different environments. In order to complete each Challenge you must make sure that three goals have been succesfully achieved.

Batman Arkham Asylum has a lot to offer. Great visuals, fluent controls and an almost inconspicuous but terrific soundtrack combined with a well written story. Although I do think the events near the end of the game were a bit TOO over the top, but that aside.

All in all a great game and highly recommended. The two things that stood out for me were the boss battles (the various encounters with Scarecrow are just great) and the voice acting of Joker, done by Mark Hamill.

A possible contenter for this year's best game? It just might."