This is one of those moments, as a critic,  when I write a review that I know will be met with much skepticism and even more disagreement.  It seems just about everyone else has thoroughly enjoyed Batman: Arkham Asylum since its release this past August.  IGN and Destructoid rated Batman a 9.3 and 8.0 respectively.  One writer at Kotaku praised it so much, the writer states, “I really enjoyed this game, so much so that I would have its babies if such a thing were possible.”  Batman does offer stunning graphics and fantastic dialogue, but when you actually play the game it feels like a glorified version of whack-a-mole.

Arkham Asylum is not an open-world video game.  There are places to play around with your toys, but for the most part, it’s much more follow-the-corridor-and-ventilation-shaft then geographical problem solving.  I have not booted up any Metal Gear games in the past year, but this struck a familiar cord with how I was supposed to navigate Solid Snake.  Now, one can use Batman to whomp some Joker terrorists in the face, kidney, and knee caps, but sneaking up undetected seemed the developer’s intentional path of fight mechanics.

As confessed earlier, the graphics are astounding.  Even the tone of the shading techniques used in and around the asylum is superb.  You really feel like you are in the moment at Arkham Asylum, and this can not be said for many other games.  I found this to be one of the flaws of 2009 Game of the Year Borderlands.  With that game, you can maul through a valley probably a half-mile long, and within that time frame, you have gone from day to night twice over again if you’re taking your time.  Who takes two days to walk and shoot along a half-mile stretch?  A midget with a peg-leg would be my finest guess, and that is not even a viable character choice.

The camera style used in Batman: Arkham Asylum also carries the possibility of totally pissing you off in mid-fight.  The game utilizes a few different angles, and the two used the most, third person behind and aerial 360, both have their flaws.  In a game where environment plays such a large factor, for example grappling from ground to rafter or blowing up a wall with explosives, I really hoped the camera style would remain consistent throughout.  This way, I can train myself to look for the in-game clues that environment will be used in the story.  In Zelda, for NES, when you come to a room with no other doors in it, and no compass, key, or map, mechanics show that you can either move a block or blow up a wall.  We realize this early because it only takes a few times to see this before we start expecting it.  However, with Batman: Arkham Asylum, we really only use the environment when being told to do so, which is an engineering cop-out.  The changing angles weaken this component rather than strengthening it.  Also, try fighting in close quarters in a hallway.  After every fight, you have to check your map to make sure you are still headed in the right direction and not totally turned around because after six camera angle changes, the select button becomes your closes friend.

The premise for my frustration with Batman however lies in the reality that it is not fun to play.  The story is great; Joker’s lines and Batman’s aura truly do live up to what we expect from the protagonist-antagonist dynamic.  But too many thought-provoking moments are ruined because we are told what to do.  Let me figure out what to do when I’m trailing the scent of tobacco, and the scent leads me to a locked door.  Don’t prompt me with, “The door is locked, I’ll need to find another way to get through.”  If I didn’t know that was the next step, the fucking video game itself wouldn’t have made it into my Xbox 360.  Quoteth Derek Zoolander, “The files are in the computer…”