Achievements!

First off, I should acknowledge one of the disclaimers that shows up whenever one finds oneself in a discussion about video games. “For a superhero game” follows most descriptions of any given game being good. “Batman Vengeance was pretty good for a superhero game”, you might hear… which means that, really, the game was pretty mediocre. The recent release Thor: God of Thunder, by contrast, is considered crappy even “for a superhero game”. (This tells you to avoid at all costs.)

There are, however, a couple of heroes that not only have made games that are good for a superhero game, but are, like, actually and for real good. Spiderman and Batman. Now, of course, they’ve both released their fair share (for superhero games, anyway) of stinkers but we’ve also been blessed with the suprising “holy cow, this game is actually good” game from both of them.

The first superhero game that qualifies was the (seriously, I couldn’t believe it either) movie tie-in video game from the first movie. It wasn’t because the graphics were sweet (though they were) nor that the combat was interesting (though it was) nor even that they made a nice balance between Spider-Man’s powers (which might have made the game too easy) and his weaknesses (though they did). It was that they captured the thrill of web-slinging from building to building as you went from this part of town to that one. Remember the “whoo-hoo-hoo!” scene in the movie? Yeah. They, somehow, caught that. Add to that the fact that there were interesting bad guys (Vulture! Shocker! Green Goblin!!!), and we found ourselves with the best superhero videogame to date at that point… (Am I wrong? What was a better one prior to 2002?)

Spiderman 2 came out and built upon the awesome that was Spiderman. Instead of shooting webs straight up in the sky (eh, it works in the comics), you actually had to hit a building. The combat was better, the story was better, and the villians were better. Since then, the best games tend to be “good for superhero” kinda games (Shattered Dimensions had some parts that were great and some that were merely meh) but, for a brief and shining moment, we had a game that captured what it must feel like to be Spiderman webslinging his way down a city canyon.

Which brings us to Batman: Arkham Asylum. If Spiderman and Spiderman 2 made you feel like you were Spidey, Arkham Asylum is the game that makes you feel like Batman. Indeed, this game is touted as being a Batman Simulator. They cover pretty much everything. There are sections dedicated to melee where Batman’s martial arts skills flow fluidly. There are sections dedicated to Batman hiding from thugs with machine guns who have to be taken down one by one by one while their compatriots move from “we’re going to kill The Bat!” bravado to “holy crap, he’s knocked out Wally!” terror. For those who remember the flagship Title, there are even sections dedicated to detective skills.

In contrast to the youthful joy of swinging through the air that Spiderman gave the player, Batman: Arkham Asylum gives the player a sensation closer to grim satisfaction as The Bat swoops through the air to land his knee on the kidney of one of the Joker’s oblivious thugs (oh, and if you miss, the thug will likely see you and then shoot you… so concentrate).

The main thing that both things have going for them are that they make you feel, however faintly, like the superhero feels… they make you feel risk, however faintly, the superhero feels risk going into a fight or going into a “run away!” mode. Awesomely, they make you feel, however faintly, the satisfaction of doing well when the superhero you’re controlling does well. You can’t do that with Superman. They haven’t done that with oh-so-many others (Green Lantern, Thor).

Now, they have come close with some newish properties… but Infamous is another essay.