Day 20 - Tomb Raider: Underworld and Batman: Arkham Asylum

Tomb Raider: Underworld 

Yet another Tomb Raider game. This one was definitely the best looking of all those I've played to date, and seemed to be a lot more puzzle driven. The game opens with a confusing scene of you escaping a burning building and coming upon your friends who open fire on you. The game then flashes back to one week earlier and shows Lara on a boat attempting to find some hidden something-or-other, perhaps a tomb to raid, who knows.

What follows is an annoyingly long, slow and tedious underwater segment. Lara swims relatively slowly, and you're not given any instructions on what to do. I quickly enough located what looks like a puzzle, and the first piece to it, but it was fairly obvious a piece was missing. After searching the room thoroughly, and spending a bit of time trying to solve the puzzle with a piece missing, and then searching a wider area, and then trying to do the puzzle again, I was starting to get bored and frustrated. Just when I was about to give up on this endless and pointless swimming I found the hints button, which told me one thing I already knew (find the damn missing piece!), and one thing I wasn't sure of (look everywhere BUT here). So I sent myself on another hunt and located the final piece soon enough.

The water segment was not enjoyable at all. I spend a lot of my time trying to search the ground, but Lara can't look at the ground without swimming towards it, so it was a constant battle to get a decent view of everything while searching for the missing piece. There's some combat, a few sharks that are patrolling nearby to deal with, but the combat was uninteresting. I also don't understand why her pistols can fire underwater, but that's pretty common in video games.

The next area had some more ledge puzzles, which are never fun in Tomb Raider games. The one major difference with TR compared to Uncharted is that Drake will usually not jump towards nothing, and naturally jumps towards ledges. Lara will jump to anything, and also is incapable of looking behind herself to see if there's a ledge there. Platforming is not an enjoyable experience.

I played for 52 minutes, and spent the majority of my time battling with the controls and levels in uninteresting ways. I had no idea what was going on and the "previously" video was about 30 seconds long and way of NO help at all in catching up on the story. Overall, my opinion on Tomb Raider was not changed, and my opinion of the series from Day 1 hold true for this one and I will not be coming back to this game.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

This and Arkham City are two hugely acclaimed titles that I've never tried before. I was definitely looking forward to playing this game and seeing if it really does stand up to the hype. Batman is definitely a good series, but I'm not the hugest fan, so I wasn't drawn towards this series in the past, when there were many other titles vying for my attention.

Arkham Asylum is a very polished and quality title. The game starts with a long introduction sequence, where Batman having just caught the Joker, is escorting him into Arkham Asylum. Everything is a bit suspicious though, as the Joker was caught just a little too easily. Soon enough, the Joker escapes and takes control of Arkham Asylum, locking everyone in/out, and starts wreaking havoc.

This action-adventure game gives you plenty of tools to use, and all of them feel well designed and work well. Melee combat is simple enough with attacks and counter-attacks being the core of it. You're given plenty of tools early on, such as the grappling hook, batterang and your trusty cape, all of which help you get around the levels and challenges. Gameplay consisted of moving along a linear path in a non-linear map, engaging in combat, and tracking down criminals. You're also getting a healthy dose of Batman / Joker interaction, with plenty of Harley Quinn as well.

The game looks very nice, sets a great mood and has some rock solid mechanics. I played for a little over an hour, and while I didn't feel like I achieved much, the game was certainly enjoyable. I probably won't come back to this game, but I'll be sure to pick up Arkham City at some point and play through that.

Notes

This week marks 40 goals met, 1 game completed and 2 failed goals. There are still plenty of games to tackle, though, and a long road ahead.

Album: Steam Challenge - Day 020