There are many people getting excited about the new adventure with the Caped Crusader, but for some strange reason, I wasn’t one of them. The reason is a simple one though: hype. So many times a game has come out to more fanfare than it can handle and it just seems to turn any title into an anti-climax and give it not just bad vibes, but bad ratings as well. I love Batman in it’s entirety, from movies to graphic novels and the original comics, but can Eidos and Rocksteady REALLY deliver that one thing that seems hard to do, bring a very good comic book game adaptation to the masses (well, at least one that doesn’t involve Lego bricks). Time to go through the demo of Arkham Asylum and find out.

Even hitting the menu screen and seeing Bruce Wayne’s alter ego standing there you begin to really appreciate just how sweet the graphics are. This is an amazingly beautiful piece of gaming and the dark and moody feel of everything associated with one of DC Comics’ favourite sons is present for all to see. The way the moon shines off the costume and the spooky styling of it all helps to put away any fears that this game looked great when stationary and not when there was movement involved.

Being a demo, things are noticeably limited, but it doesn’t mean we can’t look into what COULD be coming. Looking at the character bios section shows us a total of 42 people, of which only Batman and the Joker are shown at the start. This will be a mix of good and bad types, but could mean a decent chance of a good size of game, rather than a “finish before dinner” job. Fingers crossed.

The intro sets the scene very well, with Batman taking the Joker personally to Gotham City’s notorious madhouse. The atmosphere plays a big part in setting the scene and the visual style is very much a mixture of both movie periods, with Christopher Nolan’s gritty character look and feel mixed with Tim Burton’s craziness and a Batmobile that leans closer to the Michael Keaton era than not. The animated series lends a hand as well, with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles of the Caped Crusader and Joker respectively. Once our most loved villain is deposited into the asylum, he manages to break free from the wardens and, with a little help from Harley Quinn, begins to take control of his first home.

Now the real game begins and the control system feels very fluid, with a good balance of movement and button bashing. There are some lovely bullet-time style slow motion hits, but never too much to make it feel like a gimmick. Counterattacks and a good repertoire help to show a well thought out combat system. There have been games which try to implement counter moves and usually with a varied degree of success or failure, dependent on how you look at it. This control method gives you that feeling of any fault being your own rather than the game being unresponsive. These are the basics however, as things get more interesting a bit further on.

Serial killer, Victor Zsasz has a security guard hostage and won’t allow him to live if the winged hero gets anywhere close. As you cannot allow the officer to perish, you must find another way to eliminate the threat. This is where the Detective Mode comes into play, allowing you to see things your eyes wouldn’t normally be drawn to, such as gargoyle statues in this case to use your zip-line to climb onto and then glide kick Victor and incapacitate him. This mode also has a cool X-ray look about it, showing all characters as skeletal mass, which allows you to determine the good guys from the bad ones by having them show up as different colours. Could this have more input in puzzles later in the full game? Who knows?

After you deal with the staff problem, you then move on and find yourself up against three of the Joker’s armed goons. This is where you learn your silent takedown technique. This is very valuable and will no doubt save you from many tight spots later on in Arkham, but it doesn’t take long to get rid of these thugs once you know how. Once you head through a second vent shaft you then come across an office area with a few enemies walking about on patrol. It’s an ideal place to put into practice what you have learnt, as well as get one or two new moves down, like hiding in interactive bits of scenery until your target walks by or even dropping down on the zip-line, taking your enemy up with you and taking him out quietly without being detected.

Then just as you do all that and come face to face with your first big boss the demo decides to end. It does a great job in enticing you into wanting Arkham Asylum it has to be said. It’s even made me start to believe that this game has the credentials to stand up and be counted in terms of the product being the culmination of all the other parts coming good in equal measure. The only gripe I would have is that you don’t get to see the more intricate puzzle elements that are in this title, other than a brief glimpse in the video footage included in the download. There is definitely a little bit of stealth woven into the fabric of Batman’s latest adventure, which is a welcome change from mindless button mashing.

I’m really looking forward to the 28th August when this hits the shelves, which is so much different to the worry of it not living up to the hype I was thinking before. I would strongly advise you to grab the demo now and see for yourself what the fuss is all about and if the rest of the game keeps this quality up then I can’t see it doing badly at all on general release.