• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Batman: Arkham games haven't been topped in the Superhero gaming space

Arkham City. Asylum. Origins. Knight.

Gritty stories that explore the depth's of Batman's humanity. Awesome boss fights. The Joker. Arkham & Gotham's atmosphere. Addicting Freeflow combat. The range of abilities, gadgets and puzzles..
However their flaws may be, the collective stand tall as some powerful games.
Hell I actually feel like I'm Batman. The immersion's just so powerful.

Greatest superhero games imo. So damn awesome.
h7Mn143.jpg
 

Cashon

Banned
I think it depends on whom you ask. I think Arkham Asylum is still the best superhero game I've ever played. But I also think Origins is better than City, which is better than Knight, and that Marvel's Spider-Man is better than all three, in every way except combat (not by much though) and atmosphere.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
I put a premium on the one that innovated it in the first place. I give credit to Arkham Asylum for creating a whole new style of auto-lock on combat, mixing it in with nice casual stealth, gadgets and taking the presentation seriously. The level design was also best in the first game. It's my favorite.

Spider Man is #2, but it basically copies the entire Arkham formula, and adds the web slinging traversal. It's still a great game, but felt familiar as I was playing it.

I didn't enjoy Arkham 2, 3 or 4 much. I think moving to an open world was a mistake and killed a lot of the stealth and level design I loved in the first one while adding a lot more bloat. They're playable though, but I never finished any of them.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Yeah, I agree. I bought the Spider-Man games, but something about me still hasn't drawn me to them for whatever reason. I loved Spider-Man growing up too, so it's not like I didn't love the character. It's just something about Arkham's vibe and aesthetic that made me more excited about jumping in.

Venom was always one of my favorite villains ever since I was a kid, so hopefully I'll want to play Spider-Man 2 more. But I don't know, right now I'm not feeling hyped at all. :(
 
I think Insomniac Spider-Man was basically the Arkham of Spidey games. Maybe Batman is just cooler and more fun to play?...
yep. peter parker's sweet. bruce wayne's sour. & i know which i relate to more. never mind the fact that batman's rogues' gallery is flat-out unbeatable, & that the combat system used in both series was fundamentally perfected by rocksteady...
 
Last edited:

Punished Miku

Gold Member
yep. peter parker's sweet. bruce wayne's sour. & i know which i relate to more. never mind the fact that batman's rogues' gallery is flat-out unbeatable, & that the combat system used in both series was fundamentally perfected by rocksteady...
I think people forget the first game was literally taking bone breaks and take downs right out of Tom Yum Goong. The combat choreography was sick. Thinking about it makes me want to replay Asylum.
 

Cashon

Banned
yep. peter parker's sweet. bruce wayne's sour. & i know which i relate to more. never mind the fact that batman's rogues' gallery is flat-out unbeatable, & that the combat system used in both series was fundamentally perfected by rocksteady...
I think that Arkham Asylum is an overall better game than Spider-Man, but there is a controversial element that I think is inferior, which is Bruce Wayne/Batman himself. Peter Parker feels more like a real person who has normal motives for what he does.

Bruce is a mentally ill rich guy who assaults other mentally ill people, while dressed as much like a bat as possible, and while affixing his bat logo on as many things as possible. He may be autistic, actually. Stop being cheap and go get some quality therapy.
 
Last edited:

Reizo Ryuu

Gold Member
Origins and city are great, but I kinda hate the free flow combat, the sliding around bits at least, it looks stupid; also knight added so many bs enemies that instead of fighting it feels like you're just solving a puzzle only to lose your flow because the game decided you wanted to attack the enemy with the shock stick instead of the one without...
Good 4 set of games though.
 
I think that Arkham Asylum is an overall better game than Spider-Man, but there is a controversial element that I think makes it inferior, which is Bruce Wayne/Batman himself. Peter Parker feels more like a real person who has normal motives for what he does.

Bruce is a mentally ill rich guy who assaults other mentally ill people, while dressed as much like a bat as possible, and while affixing his bat logo on as many things as possible. He may be autistic, actually. Stop being cheap and go get some quality therapy.

To be fair, they are mentally ill criminals who are incredibly dangerous. And his parents were killed by some dude who was a boy scout by comparison. I'm willing to give him a pass.

And I identify with Peter more too.
 

ProtoByte

Member
Disagree. Without them, superhero games wouldn't be where they are now or will be in the future, but the interpretation of Bruce Wayne, the Batfamily and plotting in general is nowhere near the maximum potential of Batman. TellTale got closer on the storytelling front.

The first Spider-Man is a way better interpretation of Parker than any Arkham is of Wayne. The art style also became lame in Arkham Knight, which had a truly dreadful story.
 

clarky

Gold Member
Yeah, I agree. I bought the Spider-Man games, but something about me still hasn't drawn me to them for whatever reason. I loved Spider-Man growing up too, so it's not like I didn't love the character. It's just something about Arkham's vibe and aesthetic that made me more excited about jumping in.

Venom was always one of my favorite villains ever since I was a kid, so hopefully I'll want to play Spider-Man 2 more. But I don't know, right now I'm not feeling hyped at all. :(
Exactly where im at. loved spiderman growing up but for some reason im just completely indifferent to Insomniacs take.

The feeling of being Batman in the first
game has yet to be topped in this space.
 

Roni

Gold Member
Arkham City. Asylum. Origins. Knight.

Gritty stories that explore the depth's of Batman's humanity. Awesome boss fights. The Joker. Arkham & Gotham's atmosphere. Addicting Freeflow combat. The range of abilities, gadgets and puzzles..
However their flaws may be, the collective stand tall as some powerful games.
Hell I actually feel like I'm Batman. The immersion's just so powerful.

Greatest superhero games imo. So damn awesome.
h7Mn143.jpg
I have to agree, Arkham Knight's gameplay is sublime. The entire trilogy has an excellent story arc and the side quests are usually really well integrated with the character and the medium.

Rocksteady at that time was something special...
 

Holammer

Member
I played through the quadrilogy back to back in 2018. Everything OP says is correct, you really feel like the caped crusader and besting the Riddler is one of the highlights in every game. Also... Mark Hamill sells it as the Joker, as usual.
I always say it, but I think Daredevil would be perfect for an Arkham-esque series. He's got the movement of Spiderman + the grit, smarts & darkness of Batman.
 

xBlueStonex

Member
Couldn't agree more. Loved the webslinging in Spiderman 2018, but everything else I loathed. The characters were awful, the story terrible, the pacing downright dreadful. The stealth sections alone with MJ and Miles are still totally unforgivable.

Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were superior in everyway.
 

Lokaum D+

Member
Arkham City. Asylum. Origins. Knight.

Gritty stories that explore the depth's of Batman's humanity. Awesome boss fights. The Joker. Arkham & Gotham's atmosphere. Addicting Freeflow combat. The range of abilities, gadgets and puzzles..
However their flaws may be, the collective stand tall as some powerful games.
Hell I actually feel like I'm Batman. The immersion's just so powerful.

Greatest superhero games imo. So damn awesome.
You lost me here, Web of Shadows is betther then Origins.



immagine Arkham Knight with native ray tracing.
 
Last edited:
Batman is just the best and most interesting superhero/world. Marvel is definitely more kid friendly, but as you grow up i find it definitely easier to tell more adult stories in the batverse.

Having said that, Insomniac is on another tier and extracted more from Spider-man than Rocksteady did from Batman. Looking at the stupid suicide squad game, i'm pretty sure a lot of the talent they had has long since left.

A few people mentioned the combat, I'd just say i'd take a new Batman game with Sifu's combat any day of the week. Be cool if those guys got any street level hero to work with. Someone like daredevil maybe would be cool.
 

Puscifer

Member
I still wish they figured out a way to group combat to feel like something else other than people waiting to get their asses kicked but other than that, yeah, they fucking nailed nearly everything I could ever want out of a Batman game even the Arkham Knight with all it's faults I feel like the Batmobile and full access to the city nailed it.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Knight with 80% less Batmobile would be the perfect super-hero game.
 
Last edited:

MiguelItUp

Member
Exactly where im at. loved spiderman growing up but for some reason im just completely indifferent to Insomniacs take.
Feels good to know that I'm not the only one, I feel like the majority usually preach about how it's the best and how outstanding it is. I don't doubt it's good or great or anything. I just have absolutely no desire to start it. It's so bizarre, lol.
 

bender

What time is it?
I always thought as their game worlds got bigger, the quality declined. The only knock on Asylum is the terrible boss battles.
 

Papa_Wisdom

Member
I’ve completed origins, asylum and city on the 360 and re bought asylum, city and knight to go through again on Xbox. I’ve tried several times to get into Spider-Man over the years but I can’t get past a couple of hours without getting bored and I can’t quite put my finger on why, it just doesn’t click with me.
 

intbal

Member
Yes, the Arkham games are the best.
But don't sleep on this one. It provides a much different gameplay experience, yet is still a fully immersive Batman game.

XzpDSFR.jpg


I didn't like Enemy Within as much, but it's still good.
 

Neff

Member
Agreed. The Arkham games are the gold standard. And since we're comparing Spider-Man, I'll say that imo it didn't compete in any way bar production values. The Batman games simply have so much more going on in them environmentally and mechanically speaking. Plus you're Batman, so there's that.
 
Top Bottom