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Submit Your Comment On Batman: Arkham Asylum's First Half For The Deepest Dive (Patreon)

Published:
2021-03-08 14:22:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Here we go, everybody. We're creating the best, most thorough discussion about Batman: Arkham Asylum on the internet and we need your comments! This time the panelists are Ben Hanson, Kyle Hilliard, Bryan Vore (formerly from Game Informer and 2K), and Easy Allies' editor-in-chief Brandon Jones (@trailerjones).

For this week's discussion, we're covering the game's first half. Roughly 6 six hours or so, everything before you get the line launcher tool just like in the screenshot above.

Submit a comment below on Batman: Arkham Asylum's first half and please get specific. Don't write a long review, please keep your one comment to around the length of a tweet. We want to get to as many comments as possible. Let's talk about your favorite moment, line, combat strategy, room, tool. The more specific you are, the higher the odds of us reading your comment during the discussion. We'll finish collecting comments on Tuesday morning.

For your own reference, here's the schedule for the rest of The Deepest Dive...

Monday, March 14th - The second half of Batman: Arkham Asylum

You can watch us record The Deepest Dive live on Tuesday evening if you're at the $10 Backstage Pass tier on Patreon. The link will be in the Backstage Pass tier on the Discord. Thanks for your support.

Files

Comments

AnotherRobot

I know this might be stupid, but I am fixating on the Batmobile having a trunk. There is no way this Batmobile’s design can support a trunk of any consequence. What the hell could Batman keep in there other than exploding gel? Is it like a Mary Poppins carpet bag? Could he pull out a 3-piece living room set if the situation requires it?

Rory Sublett

I really love the restraint with characters the developers have shown so far. We’re in Arkham Asylum, it’s FULL of Batman’s Rogue Gallery, they could throw ANYBODY at us for boss fights, but they’ve only used Scarecrow and Bane, and Zsasz only to teach some gameplay mechanics.

whitemex

I'm having trouble keeping the combo meter going past like x15. The game really punishes you for not "flowing" properly. This is made more apparent because the previous game I played was Spider Man Remastered where the combat is more refined and forgiving. Anyways really enjoying the story again and world building Rocksteady did here.

Brainfreeze

The Arkham games are some of my favorite games of all time so I feel like I have so much to say about Asylum lol condensing thoughts down for The Deepest Dive is hard. I still remember being absolutely wowed at the Game Informer cover story for the game, and annoying my dad by taking an hour out of our day at the theme park to sit down and obsess over all the details in the magazine; it was one of the first games I was really aware of as a kid before commercials started rolling out on TV, so I anticipated it for a very long time. Here's some scatterbrained thoughts for you to choose from: A) Combat and stealth are still solid today (I completed all of the challenges for the first time in preparation for my hard playthrough so I was super warmed up going in), but I definitely feel the missing pieces that were later added in City and Knight. B) The art style and atmosphere are fantastic, but this game has an inescapable "early HD unreal engine" aura that is a little distracting at times, like the way that pretty much every enemy grabs their head and stiffens their legs before rag dolling when you get the final hit on them. C) I love Batman and I understand the design decision, but I've always been a bit uneasy with the way Batman beats hundreds of inmates to a pulp in these games (the limb breaks on the B+Y combo move is brutal). It's especially egregious in this game with the crazed, screaming asylum inmates who had nothing to do with Joker's plan, but were just released to cause havoc. It's probably for the best that the enemy type didn't appear in future titles. C-2) Similarly, there's a few blackgate prison transfers who you can hear talk in detail about how Joker is threatening their family or something to force them to cooperate, but then the game forces you to kick their ass anyway. Batman says something about "needing to take out all of Joker's henchmen before leaving the area." It makes me wish stealth was more of an option to avoid some combat scenarios entirely. D) It's interesting in this game that a lot of the Riddler trophies are focused on brain teasers about Batman lore, where as the later games focus more on switch puzzles to gain access to trophies. I like both approaches (and every game has a bit of each), but I think seeing cells and confiscated paraphernalia from each villain works particularly well in Asylum. E) This is the only Arkham game without new game plus, meaning all of the Riddler trophies I've already collected in past playthroughs are still there, and I don't have the equipment I need to grab most of them yet despite knowing what I need to do. It can be frustrating! But could also make me overpowered if I got too many too soon, since Riddler trophies give you XP too? F) It's probably mostly a personal thing since I've played this game a bunch, but I got super impatient with the Scarecrow stealth-platforming sections. Almost all of my deaths came from being too gung-ho in these sections. Once you're good at stealth, combat, and traversal you can really fly through that stuff, but Scarecrow's sections force you to slow down. I'm curious if future boss fights will make me feel similarly. G) I know a lot of people don't like that you fight Bane-like enemies multiple times in this game, even after defeating Bane, but I like that they basically become a regular enemy type. It's like how big bosses eventually fall into the typical enemy rotation in Doom or other intense action games. Maybe Bane as a character is a little undervalued in the story since he never really gets a chance to say how he feels about Venom being turned into Titan, but I still like the gameplay repercussions of giving us a bunch of mini Banes to fight. Two of them at once was a good ending for this section of the game. Sorry for writing so much, hopefully you don't mind picking out the thought you find most interesting for the show. (Edit: Also I vastly prefer Arleen Sorkin's Harley Quinn to Tara Strongs, I'm sad this is the last time we hear her in the role)

ian williams

I dont really know how to sum up my notes so ill just write this The writing and performances of this game really make it an almost everlasting good game, despite being a bit "video gamey" at times with the scarecrow sections and some puzzles so its no shock that it is written by Paul Dini. Hamill and Conroy and every one of the voice actors really shine and i would argue this game (and series) is the best they have ever been. i also like Batmans little steps as he walks through doors, seriously watch him he does a weird little shuffle its so funny to me.

John Scovic

I'm gonna go against some of the other comments here and say that the combat in this game and its sequels are actually still the best version of this style. There are a lot of games that have emulated this style like the Mordor games, the Insomniac Spider-men, but for me the Arkham-style combat is best in these games for a couple very specific mechanical reasons. The biggest one is that you can't just dodge out of your own animations to cancel them- in the Mordor games this was especially egregious, you could realize halfway through your attack that you had made a mistake and dodge out of it to change your mind. This took away so much of the challenge and satisfaction of performing well, and ended up with me just jamming the attack button at all times until I needed to dodge, rather than planning and making smart decisions. Similarly, I love that the combo system ends your combo if you swing and hit nothing. In the Insomniac Spider-man games, your combo multiplier only ends if you get hit or if it times out, meaning you can flail around at the air or miss attacks with no penalty. In Arkham, if you make a single mistake of swinging at the air, your combo is ended. These little mechanical quirks have me staying actively engaged with the combat throughout and trying to get my combos up, and a 25 hit combo in this game where you know you had to earn it is infinitely more satisfying than the 100 hit combos in Miles Morales. P.S. the giant wave of nostalgia when I first heard the intercom chime jingle immediately made me excited enough to play this whole chunk in one sitting. I couldn't have told you what that chime sounded like by memory, but as soon as I heard it I was in 2009 again.

ProcyonNumber6

I'll keep this short. Arkham Asylum delivers in one area where a lot of other games failed for me. They give you just enough obvious clues/riddles/puzzles that you feel like you can actually 100% playthrough. So often I find collectibles in other games on accident and just assume I'll never take the time to get them all. Arkham does not softball all of the riddles at you but they let you see so many of them (even if you can't reach them yet) that it seems a more manageable task.

Marshall Banana

All I want to say is OMG Batman’s voice-acting is nails on a chalkboard for me!

Bread

In the spirit of being thorough with the small details, I just wanted to take a second to remember the odd changes to the flow of the first area that were present in the demo of this game that was released via Xbox Live at the time, one I played at least a dozen times. Some sections are outright skipped, after stopping Zasz the vent that leads you directly to the room filled with Joker gas, is instead shortened by a sudden flash of lightning and the screen going black, coming back into focus with you suddenly at the corridor where the game teaches you how to deal with enemies with guns. Other parts are shuffled around, for instance you're then sent to the first real stealth section of the game, where you find the body of Officer Boles, but when you finish it, it cuts backward to something that should have already happened with Joker showing off the first Venom enhanced bad guy. I know these details are small and inconsequential, but I find little differences like this interesting, and I played that demo so much, that every time I go back and play this game again I'm briefly confused why it's not following that structure, even though I know that's just not how the final game goes.

DJ Tommy Pizza

Hello Deepest Divers! I’m an enormous fan of this game and replaying it always gets me to watch more of the 90s animated series, but I can’t shake the feeling of being slightly hindered in this section of the game. Compared to City and especially Knight where you have a variety of Bat-tools at your disposal from jump, I get kinda bored of the same inverted or silent takedowns being your two options for stealth, or only having your cape or Batarangs in combat. Anyone else getting that same feeling? Otherwise, I’m looking forward to the end where we have a few more unlocks to play with. Thanks, Tommy Kliszcz (last name rhymes with ‘fish’ btw 😊)

Joe Kafchinski

I just want to point out that we're introduced to more supervillains during the tutorials of Arkham Asylum than the entirety of Marvel's Avengers. That is all.

Tyler Kelsey

Hi, there's a pretty significant chunk of this half of the game after Gordon is captured, where in almost every conversation with Oracle, Batman refers to Jim Gordon, by name, as Oracle's father despite the fact that he keeps calling her by her code name. It's a small thing, but it cracked me up every time. Overall I'm enjoying the game, but it definitely seems like a lot of the writing is weaker than I've come to expect from newer, big budget games like this.

PhillyYeetSteak

Hello! A small touch that i really love is pressing R1/RB to throw a batarang instead of the trigger, because the camera will follow the batarang all the way to its target, and its just fun to watch. Also, this may be controversial but i actually prefer the way other games like Sleeping Dogs and Mad Max approached this style of combat. Very quickly, batman just turns into a human pinball and are shooting all over the place instead of doing combos on a single enemy. I prefer attacking a single person several times before they collapse.

RiskyChrisP

Hello all! Just a few points for you to pick from: -I currently have 72 platinum, and the original Arkham Asylum was my first. I feel like I’ve been chasing the high of this trophy list ever since. The riddler challenges are what introduced me to the majority of Batman’s rogue gallery as someone who knew very little going in, and I think the series only gets better with the way it handles it in Arkham City. Do you have a favorite collectible? Mine is almost certainly Clayface menacingly pacing in his cell, disguised as Cash. Having no idea who that character was in my first play through (spoilers: or how important he would become to the series) made it even more interesting. -Do you wish more games had Easter Eggs like the hidden room in Sharp’s office that hint at the future of the series? I know there are some other examples of this like the secret ending to God of War if you go back home, but this feels like this one feels more special because of its cryptic nature. -Am I the only one who actually enjoys dying in this game because of the game over clips? I died more than I’d like to admit on Bane’s fight, so I got a bit tired of his lines, but Joker’s are pretty fun. What’s your favorite? -Playing on hard removes the flashing symbol when you need to counter, and I think the game is much better as a result. It forces you to engage a bit more and pay closer attention. Are there any features like this that you wish weren’t connected to a difficulty setting?

DangerZone

I forgot how incredibly satisfying Batman Arkham Asylum is to play. From running and grappling to countering and using bat-gadgets, everything feels great! Even having to open vents feels satisfying, either ripping them off entirely or sneakily placing them to the side. Also, I love when my two favorite podcasts team up! HELLO JONES!

Harrison Holt

There's a part in the Penitentiary where Harley has set a trap, with two civilians hanging over electrified water. The game is introducing you to the Sequencer Gadget at this point, which vibrates strongly to indicate the sweet spot. Harley takes note of it, and I can't believe I've never clocked this before, she says, "A girl could have hours of fun with a toy like that". My juvenile nerve could not take it and I burst out laughing. I adore Harley Quinn in this game. Brilliant voice actor, brilliantly written.

Kyle Silva

I am possibly playing this game, through the dumbest means possible. It turns out that a streamable version the Game of the Year Edition is included with my subscription to PS Now. Furthermore, the Game of the Year edition includes a Red/Green 3D option that works on any television. Naturally, it meant only one thing: stream this game in 3D wearing a pair of 3D glasses. Articles at the time disapproved of the game’s 3D effect, but I find it quite fine. The biggest issue with playing this game in 3D is that the colours are completely dulled out, almost in a Virtual Boy fashion. Say goodbye to the Joker’s iconic green hairdo, as it’s now in a reddish tint.

RickyWinterborn

it's funny how revolutionary the combat felt back when this came out, when basically they just gave you a heads up to dodge/counter. this game specifically changed video game combat design forever right? or does it get more credit than it deserves

KaijuWill

First observation since I played it the first time on the PS3: EVERYONE IS RIPPED!!!! EVEN COMMISSIONER GORDON. lololol Makes it seem so much more grim, dark, realistic, etc. Also, this game is much better than Arkham City. Fight me. I'll press triangle and counter you. But still: Knight > Asylum > City > Origins Blackgate > Origins. Personal ranking. How would YOU rank the series?

PoorFrisco

Am I missing the rest of the trend for these environmental puzzles? I can’t place anything else that really fits the mold of getting a clue when entering an area and then getting no guidance from there and basically taking pictures until you find it. (The camera made some of these more difficult than they should have been.)

Gabe Brandolino

Layers of history built on top of each other, modern facilities built into old architecture standing atop ancient catacombs. Bones of the long dead seep from the collapsing stone. The island’s graveyard is an utter mess of wildly uneven terrain filled with unkempt caskets and tombstones. Arkham is a rotting slice of hell that I don’t think I appreciated in full until replaying it now after originally doing so as a middle schooler.

PoorFrisco

How are y’all playing this game? The easiest way I found was to play on PS5 through PS Now. I’d never tried it before and thought it would be similar to Xbox GamePass but more old games. I totally forgot it’s primarily streaming. It ran great. I selected the game and waited about 40 seconds for it to load. It was a great surprise seeing as most games require a huge download before I can get started these days.

Sandshrewd

I love how Rocksteady stuffs the game with details. You can see Frank Boles (the guy whose alcohol breath you follow) take a swig from his flask in the intro section, Clayface doesn't have any bones, all the villain easter eggs, the hidden Arkham City office! They really nailed making the environment rewarding to explore as a Batman fan. Also, there is a random guy with a unique face in a cell near where Clayface is locked up. His name is Luke Oliver and you even see his name on Joker's Party List. Apparently he won a contest to have his face rendered and appear in the game. What a cool thing for a contest!

Starkiller

Going back to Arkham Asylum, the most interesting thing to me is how RockSteady held back on the number of villains included. Being set in the Asylum already gives them a good excuse to use a variety of villains, but they could have gone overboard and included so many that the game would feel messy or bloated. Instead there is just the right amount that serve fun gameplay (Scarecrow, Riddler) or story (Bane, Joker). It shows incredible restraint on their part that made the game come together perfectly.

Brian Paradis

I had tried to start this game about a year ago on PC, but just couldn't get into it back then and was really excited about having a reason to try again. I don't know if it is the slow pace or the awkward camera/ controls, but I just couldn't get into it and lasted maybe two hours. I love the art design and the voice acting, but the gameplay just didn't click for me. I like timing-based action games like Spiderman, but for whatever reason, I just bounced off of this one. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Jesse L

Has Batman ever heard of a wrench or pliers? Every time he removes a grate with his fingernails I cringe. That has to hurt. You'd think a guy with unlimited fancy boomerangs, an exploding foam gun, and a mechanical grappling hook would have room on that utility belt for a some simple tools.

Brady Easter

Jotted down a lot of thoughts but I'll keep it short. First, did anyone else notice Batman's eyes glowing red during the first Scarecrow bit (starting when Commissioner Gordon was "dead")? What's weird is that they WEREN'T glowing red in the second Scarecrow bit (walking down the hallway). Did I miss something there? And second, I love Clayface in this one. What a cool touch. ~Brady Easter Edmond, OK

Lochlan Belford

This game came out when I was in ninth grade, and while I might have seen The Dark Knight by then, I feel like Arkham Asylum was my real introduction to the Batman universe. And it is a great introduction! From the immersive intro to all the extra lore available from Riddler trophies, this game quickly turned me from a newbie into a true fan. I think one of the best decisions this game makes is to give you multiple encounters with every villain (except Bane, I guess). This lets them feel more like real characters Batman has to deal with, rather than existing simply to act as bosses. On that note, who is everyone's favorite character?

Jeorin

I told myself I wasn't going to bother with collectibles this time around, but they are just so hard to resist. The character bios alone are worth the effort. So many of Batman's enemies were abused as children, which is a very realistic cause for psychopathy. People, please treat your kids with kindness so they don't grow up to be super villains.

Zachary Sweet

Batman is supposed to be so smart yet his only option to get out of the clock tower is to throw a Batarang and send the bell crashing to the floor? He obviously got into the clocktower somehow and there's very clearly a hatch he could probably open, some detective he is. And I'm sure Bruce Wayne can just write a check to Arkham to cover it but c'mon man, be a little more smooth next time.

Jordan Holmdahl

So, how important do you think Arkham Asylum's combat system has been for third person action games? It broke new ground in 2009, and was darn near ubiquitous for several years to follow for good reason. The Arkham games nail the sense of empowerment one wants when playing as a bona fide superhero.

Cole Helgerson

On a scale of 1-10, how Bioshock is this game? From the audio logs to the metroidvania style map and level design, this game feels extremely influenced by Bioshock which came out two years earlier. Even the gothic horror tone feels influenced by Bioshock. It's not a complaint from me as both games are fantastic but revisiting this game 12 years later, it was clear that this game took a lot of notes from Ken Levine's 2007 shooter.

The_Smak

Hello fellow Caped Crusaders, Watchful Protectors, and Dark Knights, I am playing through the game in 3D. This option is only available for the GOTY edition on PS3. The game uses a 3D technology called TriOviz that allows 3D technology to work on non-3D TVs. You must wear the classic red and blue 3D paper glasses that came with the game for it to work. It works surprisingly well although, it is not your standard “things flying at the screen” 3D. Instead, it separates layers upon layers and creates a sort of diorama effect. This makes Batman feel farther away from his surroundings. It gives you the feeling like you are walking down the narrow corridors of the Asylum or staring at the impossibly high ceilings of the mansion. It is extremely effective during the Scarecrow sequences and not noticeable at all during combat. It’s very immersive for such an atmospheric game and I plan to play it in its entirety in 3D It’s too bad that TriOviz never caught on as anything more then a gimmick, because I am impressed at how well it works. Thanks everyone!

derek m

I really appreciate that much like the animated series, this game takes place in the time span that lines up with the worst era from the comics. The post Jason death, post knightfall era sucked in the books but that era of batman had so much storytelling potential with the villains moving away from cheesy caricatures to serious threats. Note to all, skip 90s batman comics but everything else is real good

LinkuLuis

Played Batman on the Xbox series X. Game actually looked great but man, the controls felt so kahlunky. I’m glad for controller mapping and my elite 2 controller. Made it much bearable. Did you guys re-map for smoother gameplay?

Adam Harris

Batman seems to have his own Alexa, and no, I’m not talking about Oracle. When he first enters the bat cave he has hidden on Arkham, he just yells out “On!” and then the lights and computer boot on and he gets to work. What other Batman voice commands do you think he has? What’s the closest home automation I can get in my house like that or that you’ve tried experimenting with? Also, the atmosphere entering the bat cave and how he gets there is so great.

Dan Willey

Those Spirit of Arkham recordings are weird right? The voice acting, the fact that the Riddler would incorporate these into his own scheme, and the very concept of this guy recording his memoir and then scattering it around his prison are all strange. This is my first time playing Asylum, having only played City and Night previously. I don't remember anything quite this funky in those games. I dig it.

Shawn Mills

In the section where you have to save the doctors there is a room full of laughing gas with a henchmen hanging from a rope in it. Before you can clear the room you have to cut the rope and you can hear him screaming as he falls and then he immediately starts laughing. After you clear the gas you can scan him with detective vision to see that he's alive but it made me wonder how he got tied up there and how he survived the fall and the gas? I also think that Mark Hamill's performance as Joker really makes the game work. I love whenever Joker chimes in with one of his announcements. My favorite scene of his is when he offers to let Batman knock him off the platform he's on to kill him and Batman starts to move but can't do it. Joker laughs and calls you predictable which feels like foreshadowing for a scene from the next game.

Brendan Regan

Why was Frank Boles allowed anywhere near any of the inmates? His bio says he had been suspended twice for drinking on the job and he openly carries his flask around.

The Krispy Kreme Lemur

I’m new to the Arkham Series and Batman: The Animated Series and I’m really enjoying the game so far. A few stray thoughts 1. Kevin Conroy’s understated, stilted monotone was at first off putting but I ultimately came to appreciate it. It fits Batman’s noirish detective roots, and, more than any other Batman media I’ve seen, the performance shows how emotionally stunted Batman really is. As the alley flashback sequence highlighted, he’s been left with nothing following the brutal killing of his parents, despite the assumption that “He’ll be fine, he’s rich”. 2. I’ve often heard this game compared to Metroid Prime and I’ve found this comparison to largely hold true. However, one area where this game differs from classic Metroid design is how story driven and overall chatty the game is. Audio logs and fully voiced cutscenes abound, and they often destroy the quiet, eerie vibe I wanted from this game. What is the gameplay benefit of Joker piping up every 5 seconds just to say something like “you thugs are a disgrace! You boys couldn’t catch a bat in a barrell!”? Anyone else annoyed by the Joker’s omnipresence in the game? 3. The way Batman controls in this game reminded me of RE:4 quite a bit. Both games are members of the exclusive club of 3rd person games where you press a face button to run and where you are immobile when firing projectiles.

Eric Merrill

Merrill and the inmates, Have you dived into the challenge rooms? These were the only I don’t have the platinum on any Arkham games. They get insanely hard towards the end. I vow to platinum in the name of diving the deepest!

Steven Sell

Revisiting this game has been a treat. Arkham Asylum continues so be the standard of superhero gaming. Everything from kicking ass to sleuthing around feels so Batman. Anyways, how far do you move from walls when using the Explosive Gel?

The Diddler

Do you prefer the Return to Arkham "remasters" or do you prefer the original game's look?

shades42

Hello fellow MinnMaxers! I noticed right before the first nightmare sequence with Scarecrow that when you're in the morgue, there is a line that is being whispered in the room that says "Get out of here" which also sounds like "Get out of Fear" which is possibly what was being whispered as well, a neat little audio cue I found. Also the Lip syncing in this game is really well done, even if the jaws are mechanical hinges. I bet it helped having Hamill and Conroy for the main characters as well.

KnockingNick

Are any of you guys playing on the hard difficulty? Also, what is up with all of jars full of body parts scattered throughout the asylum? Does this concern anyone else???

BlakJak

Hey Bat Friends, First time playing this game and I'm playing the original version on xbox360. Boy this game holds up. I'm not a big super hero fan and find it hard to be immersed in most marvel and DC worlds. But the voice acting and dialogue in this game have completely pulled me in. For some reason Batman being referred to as "Bats" by Joker and "B-man" by Harley Quinn is so engaging and gives a strong sense that all of these characters have a real history with each other.

Reid Harry

Can we talk about how good Batman is at removing those metal grates quietly? I really like how in stealth scenarios he carefully takes them off, but absolutely demolishes them otherwise. Thanks!

Pelicanman

It’s been great revisiting the game, but it’s also been a reminder that Congress needs to pass a law mandating left-stick sprint in every game

Ryan Schindler

The game is really fun so far but I don't get why people say this style of combat started here, this was already done in Spiderman 2 on the PS2 back in 2004, so really this game erk'd it from Spidy....

Barnsley Pal

Rockateady were clearly fans of Metroid style games as they borrow plenty of elements from those games, but in a way that makes it into their own thing. Batman has an interesting perspective inversion from Metroid Prime, which is a 1st person game that goes into 3rd person when in morph ball going through tunnels. Batman is a 3rd person game that goes into 1st person when crawling through tunnels. Does anyone have any other nods to Metroid style games (either directly borrowed or subtle plays off already established concepts)?