Batman: Arkham Asylum is 13 years old now so I'm a little late to the hype train. I also hope I made some people feel old by stating that fact :c

Joker has escaped Arkham Asylum, and as expected he is on a mission to destroy everything! Not only will you (as the famous Dark Knight) get to fight Joker, but the game also features many of batman's other villains as well.

So this game was made for Batman fans. I'm admittedly not a fan of Batman, although I also really enjoyed The Enemy Within by Telltale. As long as you throw a compelling Batman story in front of me, I'll still enjoy it. Still, the easter eggs, the lore, the several villains and tapes and items you can find along the way. These are all huge nods to the fans of the Batman universe. If you have limited knowledge of Batman like me, it won't hit as hard. It's still great to read a bio or listen a tape of a character and learn more about them. I especially loved that it told you what comic and year each character was introduced.

The Riddler's riddles were a really cool idea. The Riddler will present riddles in almost every area in the game and if you solve them it usually gives you a bio to learn about a character or some peice of lore in the Gotham universe. The Riddles are fairly easy even if I didn't take the time to do them all. If you are a completionist, this game gives you a lot of riddles collectibles, character entries, etc to complete.

I know the combat has mixed reviews but I enjoyed it. I like it when it feels like my hits are actually making impact on others. The gadgets were also a lot of fun. The game embraced Batman as a character and added several gadgets to make the player truly feel like the caped crusader. Sneaking into vents, stealthing around the room, it all immersed me in the game and actually made me feel like a stealthy crime fighter.

I won't spoil which villains make an appearance, but there's a good amount of them. Most of the time when movies or games shove a bunch of villains in at once, it makes the story feel convoluted. Ex: Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3. It's a guitly pleasure, but it has to many villains for the screen time. Arkham Asylum pads its time out well. Each villain either serves a purpose, or is not in to enough to detract from the main story.

Obviously the game has aged. It would have been better to play on release. It really has aged well though! If I had to add more nitpicks, I just wish Batman was a more interesting character. He felt very boring and 2D. I know the villains were supposed to steal the show, but they did not provide him any spotlight. I also wish there was more teamwork with him and Gordon. The nitpicking is strong here, but their friendship or at least solidarity is one of my favorite parts in Batman. I like to have a partner around. Maybe they should make a Batman and Robin video game :P

Do I recommend this game? Heck yeah! Especially if you are a Batman fan. I feel like a lot of it was lost on me. It's still a good deal for $20 but its often on sale (like right now for $3). Pick it up! Maybe I'll get to the rest of the series soon. I heard the sequels aren't as good unfortunately, but I may still love them.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a linear choice based action-adventure game. Getting my bias out in the open, these are my favorite types of games. Right behind choice-based rpg games, I LOVE linear story-telling games. Open world can be fun but its to much time and effort for me sometimes. I just want to be told a good story while I make my way through the chapters. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but that's why this game was made for me :P

I'm going to mention small gameplay spoilers, but no story spoilers. If you want to go into the game 100% blind, maybe skip this review.

Firstly, let's talk about the story and characters. The narrative starts small and grows by the chapter. Just like a movie, the stakes seem low and then become very high. I enjoyed the story and the moral message that came with it. I'm going through similiar themes that the story touches on and it hit me the right way. You play as Star-lord who is the leader of the group. It had to take me a moment to detach Chris Pratt's face from my image of Star-lord since the movies are the only knowledge I have of GOTG. I enjoyed the movies, but I think I enjoyed the game more. Especially with Star-Lord. Both are fun pieces of GOTG media, but being able to make choices as a leader made me relate to his character more.

The other guardians are great too. It actually does feel like a horribly flawed disfunctional group that comes together the longer you play. The dialogue and banter between the characters is by far the best part of the game. There's probably a hundred hours of dialogue, most of it casual and not even obtained by playing the story. The voice actors did a great job.

The graphics are very pretty and I like the different worlds. Especially how vibrant the colors in the game are. I got a lot of nice screenshots. The guardians and other characters look nice and its all immersive when the game isn't bugging out (more on that later). There are also collectibles and outfits you can find. The collectibles are neat because you can get insight on the guardians when you find them. It opens up more dialogue options. The outfits are just fun to find and you can wear any outfit at any time.

Onto the gameplay. Most people hate the gameplay. I understand why. It's repetitive, confusing, and can be boring. But this is my review and I LOVE the gameplay 😂. Unlocking new abilities and being able to pick which abilities each guardian uses on any enemy. It's so much fun. It's just chaos and I'm here for it! Drax, throw this barrel while Gamora slices him in half and Rocket throws a frickin bomb at this guy and I'll shoot him with my hundreds of rapid fire bullets!
The huddle is my favorite thing in the whole game. Although it only works as intended if you turn the volume slightly down on effects and dialogue (just a little on dialogue.) Then turn the volume all the way UP on music. Then the huddle becomes a blast. I love mindlessly killing thing while Rick Astley or Jitterbug blasts in my ear :P I will admit, towards the last two chapters the fighting become repetitive to me. But gosh darn if it I didn't love wrecking everything!

Let's talk about the soundtrack. Music is a big part of Star-lords life and both the movies and the game have a great soundtrack. Of course its mostly 70's, 80's songs but there are (I think) 28 songs in his soundtrack and you can even pick which songs to listen to on the ship. I enjoy the classics and its a nice addition to the game. Also like I said above, I recommend turning dialogue and sound effects to around 80% and the music volume to 100%. Depending on your headphones of course. As long as you can properly hear the dialogue, the music being the loudest sound enhanced the game A LOT for me.

The game was very easy imo. I'm not great at games but I never had an issue once where it took me more then two tries to beat a boss or group of enemies. I beat every boss on the first try except the final fight which bugged out when I beat it (more on that later) If you like harder games I would suggest raising the difficulty. Everyone is different though. If you are new to this type of game, I'd keep it where it is. I played it on normal difficulty and had a lot of fun.

Alright onto the part I've been hyping up! The glitches, bugs, overall reason I didn't give this a higher rating. Yeah this game is pretty buggy. Not horribly buggy to where its constantly glitching and ruining the game, but it can be annoying sometimes. I'm not knowledgable on types of glitches but I'll try to explain. It will lag sometimes for no reason, the cutscenes will skip real quick or linger a second to long. A few visual ones that happen for a half a second but take you out of the moment. Also the dialogue not finishing even though I didn't cause it to skip in any way. The final two chapters had the most. I had to refight phase 1 of the final boss fight cause it didn't register that I beat it the first time. They weren't overbearing, but it is a shame regardless.

Overall, I recommend this game. It seems very hit or miss. Some people loved it, some hated it. It fits right up my alley but maybe not yours. I got it on sale with the Avengers game so no regrets from me. If there's a sequel i'll play it!