For Your Viewing Pleasure, Chickenman's Top Ten Video Games (Part Six)

Rehash of Games So Far:
The Sims (PC)
Star Wars: Battlefront (PS2)
Hitman: Blood Money (PS2)
Everything or Nothing (PS2)
Rise to Honor (PS2)

The only way I can think of how to improve Arkham Asylum is to have an unlockable, playable Michael Keaton version of Batman. It is so well done. I admire the decision to produce a game with a unique storyline instead of trying to replicate The Dark Knight movie. Even more pleasing is the fact that it makes a great effort to stay consistent with the Batman canon and tradition, such as including many of the voices from Batman: The Animated Series, showing the developer's ability to both pay homage to long-time fans, as well as being totally accessible to those who might not know who Killer Croc is. This is in deep contrast to the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, which I feel does the double task of disappointing Spidey fans as well as insulting its viewers by being consistent with neither the comic series or its own movies (Eddie Brock is mentioned by name in the first movie, but is treated as a new employee to the Daily Bugle in the third)! However, one of today's honorable mentions is Spider-Man 2 game based on the movie, as it included the long dreamed-of feature of the ability to freely roam Manhattan, therefore being, in my view, the first Spider-Man game that let the player actually feel like Spider-Man (in the sense of being a masked vigilante who stops random street crimes). It actually would have my vote for best super hero-themed game prior to the release of Arkham Asylum (which itself is topped by Arkham City, but we'll conveniently ignore that for the sake of this post). But to make this about Batman and not Spider-Man, I would like to finish off by mentioning the things that make Arkham Asylum so great: its ability to capture the overall Batman theme of fear and darkness, faithfulness to the character, a fun and challenging fighting system, and stealth levels that don't suck (I didn't mention that yesterday for Rise to Honor, but it is a prime example of this problem). It sets the bar for what a comic book hero game should be.

Honorable Mentions:
Spider-Man 2 (PS2), Spider-Man (DC), Comix Zone (Genesis)