Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best Batman game and it really isn't especially close. The 2D beat-em-ups are fine, of course, but don't especially scream "Batman" at you. The early 3D attempts are all terrible. And the Arkham Asylum sequels - City, Origins, Knight - are all just bloated re-treads that aren't as good as Arkham Asylum. Keep reading for more and to watch gameplay.
Batman is a hard character to make a video game around. It isn't like Spider-Man where swinging to and from missions is the fun part. Or Incredible Hulk where destroying stuff is fun. Or ... have there been any other good super hero games? Batman's whole character is more about meticulous preparation and then showing up at a mission site. The locomotion isn't the important part - regardless of how badly the games want it to be. And having a huge city to explore isn't that important - especially when the Batmobile sucks. And they can't really do the preparation part - which is 90% of Batman's character - because gamers are idiots with short attention spans.
That's why Arkham Asylum works so much better than the other Arkham games. It has a relatively small, tightly designed area where everything serves a purpose. Batman isn't about running around a whole city. He shows up and gets the job done and leaves. Arkham Asylum takes place over the course of a single night, and that's amazing. You get to punch your way through a huge chunk of the rogues gallery and use a ton of gadgets in the most efficient way possible. The Metroidvania aspects are well done, too, because the whole game is perfectly designed.
The crazy thing is that I don't even like Batman (you could probably tell by how I totally got his character traits wrong above, haha!) but I love Arkham Asylum. DC heroes just suck in general, but they have better villains. Marvel has better heroes, but crap villains.
Also, the Return to Arkham remasters are totally fine. People complained about dumb pointless stuff when they came out, but they're fine.
Wow, this blog lost steam in a hurry.
