Gameinformer.com went live several days ago, and with it came a feature about tidbits in Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum. The short feature talked about some of the smaller details about the game that are largely overlooked; like where the sound effect for the explosive gel came from. Out of all of these, one tidbit caught my eye.
“Combat went through three distinct revisions – the first one being a full rhythm action game! The second one was prototyped in 2D, which popped up whenever you got into a fight, and involved colored circles bashing into each other. This actually formed the basis of the final system.”
I’ve thought it before, and now I have proof: Arkham Asylum is a rhythm game!
It may not have been in the final version, but the elements of rhythm games feel prominent in Batman. If you hammer the punch button in it, you will probably die a painful death. The key to success was the timing of your combat buttons. It led to one of the most fluid combat experiences I’ve ever felt in a game. Beforehand, I could only compare it to Assassin’s Creed’s combat done right.
Even with the rhythmic feel of the game, I entitled this post “Quick Time Events done Right” for a reason. By nature, a QTE is about reacting to an on-screen command with a single button combination. What gets in the way of this in modern games is that they are used to keep the player from screwing up something awesome (see God of War). What Batman does is give you rewards for pushing the correct button at the correct time. The game-given gift: Combo score. Getting a high combo is one of the most badass-feelings I have ever felt in a game. During the second-to-last moment of the game, I got a 60+ combo score and nothing has ever made me feel like Batman before (but feeling like Batman is already written about in another article).
Am I right? Am I an idiot for thinking that Batman has a lot in common with Dance Dance Revolution? Comment and tell me.
When you boil almost any any game (especially action titles) down to their core functionality, it becomes a matter of pressing the right buttons at the right time. This was true of the “learning to keyboard” exercises we had in grade school and hasn’t changed much since then.
That said, I’ve played only the demo version of Arkham Asylum so can’t comment on how rhythmic this particular title is. But I suspect that it’s not the only game to have gussied up the feature of the QTE, even if an earlier draft of the combat system made it more apparent.
BTW, I think your post got double-pasted. And what does the opening line mean, “Gameinformer.com went live”? Are you referring to its new design?
Compared to brawlers, Batman’s combat feels much more fluid. With a title like God of War or Devil May Cry, combat is much more twitch-based than Batman. The rhythm in Batman comes from much more apparent on-screen images. When you play Batman you’ll see what I mean (and you should play Batman because it is fantastic).