Gaming Batman: Arkham Asylum PC Review

3rd person on the Pc......just doesnt seem right, far to much of a 'console' design perspective.

My rule of thumb for games purchases is First Person: PC, Third Person: Console.

 

My mate has it on PS3 and loves it, pretty much cos he loves Batman, doesn't really float my boat, I found it pretty crappy really. Yeah it has a lot of cool features and such but reminded me of Assassins Creed, X+X+X+X+X=WIN!!! With that said I really enjoyed Assassins Creed, this just doesn't do it for me.

 

According to my local gamestop it's been pushed back to the 28th for release. I'm very much in a "WTF?" moment.

 

Yesssss!

I'm glad it's not a disappointment, I'll definitely add this one to my collection.

 

Demo was top notch, looking forward to my copy landing on the doorstep tomorrow.

 

Got it on Xbox, buying it again for PC. Love the game to bits.

Was a bit disappointed that the scarecrow levels weren't mentioned, especially the third one, because they are *quite* impressive IMO.

Either way, great review

 

Mentioned it a little bit, but to be honest I thought it was best to save the surprise for those bits

 

How's the GFWL part of it?
Does it get in the way the same as GTA4?

 

That's true, still, quite excellent level design through those bits. Granted, the entire level design of the game was incredibly impressive, with stuff written on the walls, graffiti here and there, etc.

Truly felt like an asylum, and you really felt you were fully immersed in the batman universe, specially with the different rooms which housed certain criminals such as:

Spoiler

The Calendar Man, Ivy, Clayface (I forget his name in English), Riddler, Scarecrow, etc

It's been a while since I've played a game so well thought-out and executed.

 

The demo ran perfectly fine on a 9800gt. After playing RE5 on pc, Batman isn't very graphically impressive.

I'm probably going to be the only one who doesn't like the game :/

 

Games for Windows Live?! Why?? And Steam does not remove this requirement either, does it?
Mind you, if I am going to play it, it will be on the PC. Also, it would have to be with the PhysX. I just hope Nvidia move it to OpenCL within the next year or two. Perhaps they will see that developers would be more likely to prefer PhysX to Havok if it can run on both ATI and Nvidia GPUs.

 

Linear, easy, combats winnable by mashing button A and - guess what - ported from a console! Pure coincidence of course.

Also:

"it recommends a GTX 260 and a PhysX dedicated 9800 GTX for the Enhanced setting"

...so that's three times the cost of an xbox 360 just in graphics cards. Phleurgh?

 

Nice review, at last a port worth buying. Shall pick up a copy come payday!

 

Aside from the fact that Steam's ridiculously long download times meant I had to wait an extra day before I could play (why on Earth would they have three major releases on the same day and not let you pre-load any of them?), it was entirely worth it. I haven't had this much fun in a game in a long time; it's pretty rare I come across a game I have to force myself to stop playing so I can get some sleep. My only complaints are that the consolification means we lose some of the nice customization options, like more control over the sound and changing the default button configurations (I hate having to use the middle mouse button for anything, since on my G5 clicking the mousewheel left minimizes the current window).

 

I thought that at first too, but you can change the settings and config, just not from in game. There should be a Game Setup you can run from autorun before the game proper starts up.

 

I really enjoyed the demo on the 360 but found the controls on the pc not quite right for me. Plus I didn't see a massive increase in graphical quality going from playing the 360 demo to the PC version running everything maxed (with Physx) 4xAA 16x AF, I can only assume there is a difference but the increase view distance when playing on the 360 masks this quite well.

I think this will be a console purchase for myself.

 

I would reconsider:

Quote from Eurogamer

Full comparison here

 

Speaking of controls... does the game allow mapping to a gamepad? I use a gamepad on my pc for racing games and older emulated games. If this game was designed with the ability to play on a console as well, I would think it should allow mapping to a gamepad.

 

Had the PC version free with my new GPU, took ages to download from Steam (Thank you Nvidia for using Steam and not the Nzone store!). It is quite a stunning looking game compared to the console versions, especially with the extra effects. Quite a nice benchmark tool included too, which I've FRAPSed and youtubed.

 

couple tweaks I did.. under this directory

User\Documents\Eidos\Batman Arkham Asylum\BmGame\Config\UserEngine.ini

open it up with notepad and change these cvars

[Configuration]
BasedOn=..\BmGame\Config\DefaultEngine.ini

AllowD3D10=True
DetailMode=7
bAllowMultiThreadedShaderCompile=True

think it makes the environment textures look less consolified.. force 16x af in the control panel too.. nothing wrong with multithreaded anything- I dunno if they actually have direct x 10 code