My hopes for Batman: Arkham Asylum

I'm proud to say that there have been a handful of Batman games that beat the stereotype that all licensed games are dismissible drek. There was the Batman game for NES, for instance, along with The Adventures of Batman & Robin (based on the animated series) for Genesis and Batman Returns for SNES. The existence of those is already enough to propell the Batman video game franchise above the usual, but there's something even more peculiar than merely that here. Do you know what all of the aforementioned games have in common? They're all 2D, and that's a bummer.

That's not to say every 2D Batman game was good. The Batman Forever adaption was one of the worst Batman games in existence, along with one of the worst games I've ever played. Whoever thought Mortal Kombat-like fighting game controls would work in a game whose itinerary involved platforming was sorely mistaken -- unfortunately a mistake a couple of developers didn't realize, as evinced by the existence of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero and Wario: Master of Disguise.

But if you said that all of the 3D games haven't been any better than average, well...you'd be completely correct. I don't know what it is with developers and 3D Batman games, but they're having serious trouble getting it right. Sure, the Batman Begins game was an average Splinter Cell-lite project, and that fits with Batman more than the controls of Forever, but it didn't quite make the mark. Anything else with the Batman name that's 3D isn't even worth mentioning, especially Dark Tomorrow. Heck, I don't even know why I bothered to mention that.

So I have my fingers crossed that Batman: Arkham Asylum can pull the franchise out of its virtual rut. On the surface, it hits all of the right notes. Batman is set on infiltrating Arkham Asylum, where The Joker and numerous other villains have taken over. The result is a Bioshock-inspired aesthetic that should ideally merge the moods of both the newer Batman movies and The Animated Series. Here's hoping it captalizes on those promises, and makes for a more TAS-esque experience than Gotham Knight.

And it just might if the trailers and gameplay videos are indicative of the final product. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil are back as the voices of Bruce Wayne/Batman and The Joker, respectively, which shows that the developers know fans love hearing those two voices associated with those characters (really, Conroy is still practically the voice of Batman in animated form). Unfortuantely, it doesn't look like anyone else from TAS is reprising their voice if IMDB is to be believed, but there's still some talented voices there like Michelle Ruff and Kirk Thornton. The combat also looks interesting enough, though it's tough to get a feel for it without any hands-on experience. After I played Assassin's Creed, I thought it's battle system would work well for a Batman game, but I can't tell if it's actually like that or not from the videos. I sure hope so.

And I sure hope the developers can get the demo that's at numerous retailers on the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network sometime before the game releases. Actually, I'm puzzled as to why the demo wasn't also available for download in the first place. I'd like to see if I should be enthusiastic about this game or not; I'd love to be as a Batman fan, but when you consider its 3D reputation, it's hard to get excited. I hope my worries are just illogical, blind pessimism.