Disclaimer: This blog will not contain any spoilers from the story of the overall content of the game.

I was lucky enough to get from one of my supplier today an handfull of copies of Batman Arkham Asylum and I wanted to share my experience so far in order to enlighted you with some of my concern and praise for the game.

I had time to play about three hours into the game tonigh and I am far far behind the expected schedule for modern videogame releases. I have heard from many people who tested the game that it should take about 20 hours to get throught the story and complete the bare minimum , I'm starting to feel why.

Not that is a bad thing of course ; the game takes itself very slowly and many of you who seen the demo know that it is not an action brawler at all since pretty much all the fights are scripted into certain areas of the map. So far the game is devided in three distinct paths , Exploration (Detective Mode) , Stealth and Combat.

Althought the game is fairly linear and the puzzles are quite straight foward (for now) I found myself very suprised to find hidden places and alternative routes that I didn't noticed the first time. This is probably one of the best aspect of the game being that the first time throught you're gonna stumble and might even complete certain rooms of the Asylum without the proper course of action you'd wanted it. So by adding the knowlegde that certain areas can be approched differently it let you as the player think about what you've could've done and most certainly encourage you to play it again.

The gadgets can be used both in combat or in Stealth mode. The upgrade system is kinda confusing for now since most of the time the upgraded moves and gadgets require a very specific sequence to be activated or used by Batman.

The story is good , the voice acting is excellent (Mark Hamill is outstanding) if you are a fan of Batman or have the desire to beat the shit out of every villian in the comics (Most of them) it is a very satisfying game. (Mainly because the combat is fucking brutal)

The only downside and I'm saying this in all modesty is the graphical quality of most of the humans NPCs present in the game being more of less badly designed or just plain ugly due to the lack of polish; It's only a minor concern thought since most of the key characters a very well rendered. However it feels out of place in some scenes because overall the Asylum is very well made and beautiful to look at.

So yeah all in all the first couple of hours we're pretty satisfying and I didn't had any hype whatsoever for this game , it delivered in every aspects of what a good stealth action game should be and it has a very classic style of beat'em ups at the same time.

DC comic fans , Batman fans , Hitman fans and even Tenchu fans should find they're jam in this merry title. Rocksteady has nailed the Eidos way of doing Stealth action game and this only could be for the best; The Hitman serie was outstanding and Blood Money was a masterpiece.

Arkham Asylum is the best stealth action game I have played since Metal Gear Solid 4.

Go pick it up when you have the opportunity it's worth every penny.