Batman Arkham Asylum Game Looks Awesome!

"I have to say — this is the best cape in a videogame."

Nathan Whitman, an associate producer at Warner Bros.' videogame division, is proud of the way Batman's cape is coming along in the game Batman: Arkham Asylum. It's a third-person game, so you spend the entirety of it staring at the cape, and Warner's is taking particular care to get it right.

"We've got a guy working full-time on cape physics," Whitman says. That means that Batman's signature mantle won't act like most videogame capes, floating through walls and enemies as if it were a holographic projection. It'll animate and collide realistically with everything.

At least, it should, when the game's done. Watching Whitman play a pre-alpha version of Arkham Asylum recently, I saw the cape doing all the things he says it's not supposed to. But the game's summer release date is still months away, he points out, and Warner's, co-publishing the game with Eidos, wants Arkham to be more than just your usual licensed game.

Yes, we've heard this all before. What could help Arkham on the long journey out of franchise hell is that it isn't based on any specific Batman movie, comic book or television show. It's an original take on the series, so its developers have more creative freedom.

Although the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC game bears no direct relationship to the film The Dark Knight, the plot centers around the ongoing conflict between Batman and The Joker. Things kick off with caped crusader capturing the clown prince of crime and bringing him to Arkham, where Joker is strapped into a Hannibal Lecter-style human hand truck and wheeled off into the asylum's inner cells. Suspecting that something is wrong, Batman follows him in.

This is where the player takes a limited amount of control, in a mostly cinematic sequence that sets up the plot and introduces some of the main characters. Over the course of these five minutes, we get to experience quite a bit of this game's version of the Joker, as played by Star Wars' Mark Hamill. It's a much more strangled, maniacal performance than Heath Ledger's Dark Knight Joker, which fits well with the thinner, lankier, comic-book appearance of the character in the game.

For his part, Batman does look a bit like Michael Keaton (if the Batman actor were on steroids). In fact, everyone in this version of Gotham City is totally buff, up to and including Commissioner Gordon. They are all apparently oiled up for the gun show. This might be a good time to mention that Batman: Arkham Asylum is powered by Unreal Engine 3, which seems to be used in a disproportionate number of games featuring angry people with shiny muscles. (It is not considered appropriate to speculate why.)

Anyway, long story short, Joker locks down the nut house and traps Batman in there with a whole host of petty thugs and most of the major villains from the comic book series. Yes, the Riddler is in there. And Harley Quinn is definitely in there — we saw her in the opening scenes, sexed up quite a bit more than the comics version. "She's showing a little more skin than usual," said Whitman, unnecessarily.

Characters pulled from deeper in the Batman canon, like Killer Croc and Blue Beetle, also appear. (Don't worry, I don't know who they are either.)

Generally speaking, there are two things Batman can do to take care of business in Arkham Asylum: Punch people, and punch people quietly. Warner's has trademarked the names for both these actions: The FreeFlow™ combat system lets Batman "ping-pong" between enemies, sliding back and forth on the floor and racking up combos as he punches them into unconsciousness — but not death. You can go nuts mashing the attack button, or you can patiently wait for enemies to begin their attack animations — pointed out by a helpful flashing highlight — then hit the counter button to dispatch them with more cinematic flair.

And then there is the Invisible Predator™ mode, in which you stay undetected, sneak around behind enemies and take them out silently. You can grapple up to the top of gargoyles (there are lots of gargoyles on the ceilings, naturally) and then glide down, kicking the unsuspecting enemy in the back of the head. (Whitman illustrated this technique by taking out Zsasz, another character that non-fans have probably never heard of.)

Batman can also enter the (inexplicably untrademarked) investigation mode, which works a bit like Metroid Prime's scan visor. You'll get a whole host of information about the current situation when you enter this mode — things you can interact with will be called out, you'll know how many hostile enemies are around and whether they're aware of your presence. It's sort of like an X-ray and heat-sensing visor all in one cool (if impossibly unrealistic) package.

In addition to using this mode to hunt down enemies in silence, you'll use it to do detective work — following footprints, investigating odors ("whiskey breath" was one I saw) or solving puzzles, like using a Batarang to hit a switch to shut off poison gas that's filling a room. You'll be able to save people, which you'll want to do, said Whitman, because — wait for it — you earn achievements by saving people.

So, is Batman: Arkham Asylum actually going to be good? The developer, Rocksteady Studios, is largely untested — its only previous effort, Urban Chaos: Riot Response, garnered what might be charitably called mixed reviews.

I haven't been able to actually play Arkham for myself yet, but the amount of care that Warner's and Eidos are obviously putting into this game makes the title worth paying attention to.

Watch the trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Images courtesy Warner Bros.