The Best of Batman (Spoilers ahead for the Batman Arkham series)

     In the year 2009, a little known developer named Rocksteady, put out a little gem into the world known as Batman: Arkham Asylum. In the years and years leading up to the release of that game, licensed games were known to be not great. Most were viewed as shameless cash grabs, mostly based  on the well known characters of whatever movie or tv show that the company had gotten their hands on, however, Arkham Asylum truly broke that mold. Batman is undoubtably one of the most celebrated and beloved characters in Pop Culture today, but most Batman games created before that game and what would become the Arkham Series amounted to mostly just beat 'em ups. Not to say that those were bad, but they were very much a product of their time (as the ones that I'm thinking of came out for the NES and SNES). Sure, there were some good ones, I've heard that Mask of the Phantasm was actually really good, but I never played that one, and as I only speak from my own experience here, I can't really go into that. Today I'll be talking about the series that really raises the bar for all other licensed games, and has made quite a mark on the landscape of video games even today.

The Inmates have taken over the Asylum

    This doesn't have any effect on the gameplay necessarily, but the story in all of these games is phenomenal, and it does a great job of connecting the games all together in a cohesive story. In Arkham Asylum, Joker is captured and brought to Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, but quickly takes over and sets all of the prisoners free inside. Surprise! This was actually an orchestrated plan to drive Batman insane like him. The Dark Knight has to face all of the prisoners that he's put in there over the years in order to take back control of the asylum, in addition to figuring out what Joker's plan is this time, since it's immediately clear that he's gone all out. The Joker's main plan is creating a new serum similar to Bane's venom to create his own army of super jacked thugs, and in the end, he injects himself with the serum, making him incredibly strong and giant. The sight of Joker growing to the extent that his spine actually shoots out of his skin is still a really gross and terrifying image, even today. Batman takes him down and the police take him away, (hopefully under better protection than the last time), but the story is a lot deeper than that. Throughout the game, you collect a bunch of trophies that the riddler has hidden around the island, as well as some other challenges such as finding different interview tapes from patients of the asylum. Among these are hidden recordings from the spirit of Amadeus Arkham, the man that the asylum was named for. All through the game, you get hints that things aren't as they seem, that the spirit is actually somehow alive in this time period, despite the fact that the man has been dead for a long time. Once the game is over, you find out that the Warden of the asylum, Quincy Sharp has been leaving the messages around and believes himself to be a reincarnation of the asylum's founder. He sees it as his mission to police all of the madness in Gotham city, through whatever means necessary. The amazing thing about the layout of this story is that people found an easter egg after the second game in the series was announced, revealing Sharp's secret office, offering clues of what could be awaiting Batman in the sequel.

There's trouble right here in Arkham City!

    The second game in the series, Arkham City, really opened the doors in terms of gameplay as well as an even more fleshed out story. Quincy Sharp has become the new mayor of Gotham City and creates a new prison compound known as Arkham City. It's essentially a walled off part of Gotham that will be free for criminals to run around and kill each other to their hearts' content. Bruce Wayne makes a speech speaking out against Mayor Sharp's plan for this area and he's immediately arrested and taken into the city where it's immediately clear just how off the rails everything has already gone. Catwoman is dangling over a vat of boiling oil because she tried to steal from Two Face, Riddler is around and has taken hostages who were working in the hospital, police officers are missing and the last place they were seen was the Iceberg Lounge, run by the Penguin. All of Batman's greatest villains are here, including some that weren't in the first game, but where's the Joker? He seems to be MIA for much of the beginning of this game, mostly occupied by Hugo Strange, the new warden of Arkham City who seems to be much more connected to shady dealings than most residents realize. Joker has a huge impact on this game, however, and soon becomes the entire driving action for the story as he's revealed to be incredibly sick from the toxin that he injected himself with at the end of the first game, and gives Batman a blood transfusion so that he will find the cure for this illness, or die from it. He also has donated a lot of his blood to different hospitals around Gotham, infecting more innocent people as well. Batman works alongside Mr. Freeze and other temporary allies and acquaintences as he grows weaker and weaker while looking for the cure. I could go on for a long time about the story of this game, but long story short, Batman gets the cure and takes it, but Joker ends up dying, ironically by his own hand as he stabs Batman just as he was about to give him the cure. The final scene of Arkham City with Batman exiting from the Monarch Theatre with Joker's lifeless body in his arms, then silently walking out as the criminals all mourn the Clown Prince of Crime is still a chilling ending, and a beautiful and unexpected way to set up the short period of peace before the beginning of the third game in this saga. As Jim Gordon says at the end of the game, "What happened in there?"

Oh, what a Knight!

    The end of the Arkham Saga comes in the form of Batman: Arkham Knight. Along with an insane ending to the saga as a whole, the gameplay takes the open world nature of Arkham City one step further by letting you explore all of Gotham with the Batmobile! It's Halloween, several months have passed since Arkham City was shut down, and the super criminals of Batman's Rogues Gallery have been quiet after The Joker's death. That all changes as a police officer is investigating a disturbance in a diner, and Scarecrow unleashes a new form of his fear toxin upon the residents of Gotham. He vows that he'll release it on the entire city if they don't leave in the next few hours. His threat works and soon, Gotham belongs to the villains as the only people who stick around are criminals, Supervillains, and the police, assisted once again by the world's greatest detective, Batman. Scarecrow is out to seek revenge on Batman for defeating him in Arkham Asylum, and at the beginning is willing to blow up the entire East coast with his fear toxin, and Batman alone is able to stop the explosion at Ace Chemicals. He doesn't entirely stop it, but he does contain and lower the blast radius to just the chemical plant itself. Unfortunately, Batman does inhale enough of the fear toxin to cause him to begin hallucinating The Joker. Even though he died at the end of Arkham City, he still lives on. Remember when I said that Joker donated his diseased blood around Gotham? The infection really took hold in 5 of the patients, and Batman is holding them captive in the remains of an old movie studio where he's studying them and trying to develop a cure for them as they slowly are turning into new Jokers. One of the cells is empty though, why is that? Batman himself is infected with Joker's blood and is concerned that he'll turn as well, which is why the fear toxin took the form of Joker as Batman worries about becoming just like his greatest enemy. Throughout all the twists and turns of this game, Batman and Joker are fighting for control of the body, and I won't tell you exactly how the game ends, or most of the different plot points involved, but it certainly goes off with a bang.

    All of the Arkham games detail the complicated and messy relationship between Batman and the Joker. Arkham Origins (which I haven't spoken about and actually was the third to release in the series, though was made by a different developer, WB Montreal) is a prequel to the series and actually shows off the extremely early days of Batman's hero work as well as his first encounter with, you guessed it, The Joker. Joker's whole path seems to be set by this first encounter, trying to prove to Batman that all it takes is one bad day for someone to go mad, which is a huge theme of The Joker in the comics. In the Asylum he tries to drive Batman mad through all kinds of tests and trials set up by his orchestrated takeover. In Arkham City, he isn't directly responsible for most of the problems that happen, but he does force the Dark Knight to find the cure for him, and causing him to fall into madness through his elaborate scheme played out all through the game, and not revealing the truth of it until the very end. In Arkham Knight, as I said, there's Batman's own mind playing against him as the Joker is constantly able to cause him to question himself and his own decision making. Joker is obsessed with seeing the broken man that Batman is underneath, and he's willing to do anything that it takes to prove it to the vigilante. The only way that Batman is able to succeed in all of these trials is with the help of the people who love him, ultimately.

All in the Bat-Family

    Batman would be nothing without his Bat-family, and never has that been more true than in these games. Even without them actually showing up to do anything most of the time, Alfred, Barbara Gordon (aka Oracle), Robin, Nightwing, and even Catwoman (in her own snarky way), help to back up Batman and keep him grounded, especially when he doesn't want to hear that he's wrong. In Arkham Knight, Batman makes a lot of very dark decisions, and that's mainly because his hallucinations are making him doubt himself. He tries his best to keep the ones that he trusts the most at arm's length, not wanting to tell anyone the whole story. This is a common theme for Batman, even when it comes to the Justice League. In the comics, Batman has set up contingency plans for if it's different members ever turn evil, and that includes one for himself if he ever goes too far. 

    Batman is certainly an interesting character, and one who I feel doesn't get properly represented enough in his movies. Most versions of the Dark Knight just paint him as a crime fighter, and really downplay his detective skills, but in the Arkham series, you really do have to play detective sometimes. Of course there are lots of thugs and villains to fight, but you'll also be scanning crime scenes for evidence. Scanning finger prints, reconstructing car crashes, and analyzing various different toxins all throughout this series are all common activities, to the point where Batman really wouldn't be out of place in a forensics crime lab. This version of Batman is not unprecedented outside of the comics, of course, many other versions also have him solving cases, but this version is perhaps best able to wear the detective hat because you're actually able to work through the cases as Batman does.

    The Batman: Arkham series is really interesting, especially in terms of story, though the gameplay compliments it every step of the way. It takes a concept that could have been boring in less capable hands and makes it an absolute joy to step into the boots and cowl of the Dark Knight. The voice acting really sets it up for success, with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill stepping back into their iconic roles from Batman: The Animated Series as Batman and The Joker respectively, and it really sells the idea that this could be a more adult-themed continuation of that series. I highly recommend you checking them out for yourself if you haven't yet. There is a collection on PS4 (And I assume also Xbox One) called simply, Batman Arkham Collection that goes on sale fairly often for $15 or so. This is a fantastic deal to get these games, though I don't think Arkham Origins is included in it. 

    Thanks so much for reading this long post, my main goal was to show the connective tissue between the games in terms of story, and I may have gone slightly overboard with that. Now that it's October, I thought it would be a good time to post a bit about Batman, one of the spookier heroes out there. Let me know what you think about the Arkham games if you've played them, or let me know what you want me to write about next in the comments. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you next Friday!