Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum DEMO

Walkthrough


This is one of the best demos I've played for PS3. It's truly an original game because it's not the standard 3rd person action/fighting game. It explores the entire range of Batman's skills. He has to solve puzzles and figure out how to take out multiple armed bad guys with his brain. It's not one of those games where you could just charge in, dodge bullets and dish out hits faster than taking gunfire. This is very realistic as you'll see in my walkthrough. But it's not all strategy. There are also sequences where you take on several unarmed thugs in hand-to-hand. The freeflow fighting system is very fluid and Batman can put together some crazy multi-hit combos.

The game starts off with Batman capturing the Joker and sending him back to Arkham Asylum. What he doesn't know is the Joker planned to be captured as he has already setup a takeover of the asylum, setting free the classic rogues gallery that Batman will have to take on in the full version. Batman's first fight sequence is 2 rounds of freeflow to warm up. Have fun with this and practice using the hand-to-hand buttons. Use the attack button and switch up the directional stick in the directions of your many opponents to get the back-and-forth freeflow combos going. It should be relatively easy to take out all of the enemies. After that, there's a vent just under the mezzanine section that Gordon is standing in. Open it up to get the Riddler trophy.

After Joker opens up one of the corridors, head right up. From a distance, you'll see a set of windup teeth on the floor. Hit it with a batarang to rack up some points and get some target practice. There are a few of the along the way. Continue following the corridor. After you hear a PA announcement, 2 more thugs will come at you. Drop them with hand-to-hand combos. Turn left to talk to the cop trying to unlock the door. Then head in the opposite direction. You'll get a call from Oracle. Continue to walk towards the closed door. Talk to the cop.

Run up the stairs and talk to the guard on the right. switch to Detective mode and move the camera to the gargoyle to the upper right. Grapple up to it. You want to swing your way to the one in the back... directly behind Mr. Zsasz. It's the only one that gives you a 100% success rate at taking him out without seeing you. Once you knock him down with a glide kick, make sure you crouch down and knock him out.

After Harley's cutscene w/ Jeremiah Arkham, walk towards the wall away from the balcony. There's another shaft with a Riddler trophy. Then go back to the other side of the room. Another shaft will lead you to the next scene.

Walk through the shaft and bust open the next grate. Switch to Detective Mode and you'll get a call from Oracle. You'll be in a room with 3 machine gun armed bad guys behind the wall in front of you. You can't use the direct approach obviously. Grapple your way up and swing behind them. Drop down silently. Crouch down and sneak up on the guy in the middle and do a silent takedown. Do the same to the guy on the right and then the guy on the left. You must do it in that order or they'll see you. Because the 3 guys are close to each other, if you mess up, it's possible to win the fight with freeflow. Also, once you take out the first 2 guys, you don't necessarily have to choke out the 3rd. You can unload on him without alerting anyone else. Head back in the opposite direction and up the stairs. There will be another armed henchman talking to the Joker on the big screen. You could choke him out, but it's faster to run up and pummel him.

The next sequence is the hardest by far, but it will really hone your predator skills. Open up the vent in the room. Head through the shaft and open the other side. There's going to be a bad guy that just took a machine gun away from a dead cop. You must choke him out quickly before he goes up the stairs. If he makes it up the stairs, your task will be much harder. Once you choke him out, immediately grapple up. Scan the room quickly and you'll see another henchman under the central gargoyle. Swing your way there (again, quickly because you need to get there before he moves). Aim the camera down and do an inverted takedown. Quickly grapple to another gargoyle so the others don't see you. There will be 3 other armed bad guys left. If you didn't act quickly on the first 2, you'd have to deal with 5, which is really hard because they'll all be on the move simultaneously. The idea is to take them out from above when the guys get separated. If one of them sees you, he's going to fire and you can't block bullets! Once you take out the guy in the middle with the inverted takedown, the remaining 3 will check that guy out and then walk over to the first guy you choked out. At this point, you can't attack. Just observe from above and be patient. They'll then fan out to look for you. Switch Detective Mode on and off to see where they are and see if there are any walls obstructing their view. For the next takedown, I suggest waiting for one of them to wander under a gargoyle. You can do another inverted takedown, but it has to be faster than the first time because he won't be standing still like before. And also make sure the other 2 are out of sight. Continue to stalk the remaining guys until they separate. Every time you take down a bad guy, the others will go towards his scream. To be safe, swing to the opposite side of the room. For the next bad guy, wait until he's close and on one of the higher platforms (some of the lower ones are hard to grapple out of and you don't want to get stuck there). Do a glide kick and then punch him out. The last guy will be extremely scared and jumpy. Wait a while before taking him out because he'll fire his gun randomly a few times. Since there's no one else, feel free to take this guy out however you want. If you go for freeflow, make sure you land close to him since he has a gun.

And that's the demo! Pretty intense, huh? The full version comes out on August 26. Pre-order your copy now!

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