Well the title of this blog post had to be this really considering the subject matter.
Before I get on with the actual content of this post I should give you a brief peak behind the curtains on the process I used writing this post.
Although you are reading this post in December. I actually started writing it back in mid August a couple of days after Amazon informed me that I would be getting Batman The Arkham Trilogy slightly earlier than expected.
Initially when I preordered the Batman game collection the estimated arrival of the game was after Christmas, early January iirc. But a couple of days ago as I write this part of the post I had an email from Amazon to say that I would be getting the game mid October. Which has now fallen to back to early December!
What a pleasant surprise. And oh does it put so much pressure on me in the meantime to make progress on Tears of the Kingdom (and many of the other games I have on the Switch).
So the plan is I write my relationship and history with Batman now in August, and then when I finally get my grubby mitts on the game give my initial impression.
Batman and Me
Back in the seventies when I was just a young innocent little boy playing soldiers with my younger brother, and dreaming one day of following dads footsteps into the army and the parachute regiment (a dream that died in my teenage years as I discovered I was a nerd/geek and not para material). The 60’s Batman tv show starring Adam West as Batman was my first exposure to the hero and his rogues gallery of colourful villains. Boy did I have a crush on Catwoman.
I did have the Batman action figure which I played with along with my Action Men. But my main object of desire was the Corgi die cast Batmobile. I remember a friend had one. I was very envious.
Luckily during my childhood episodes of Batman were regularly shown on tv. I love the show. It’s camp, lighthearted, comedic tones did influence the comic. And it appealed to a lot of people.
I was lucky enough to see the 1966 movie on the big screen at the local cinema. Obviously I didn’t see it back when it was released. That would have been impossible without a time machine. It came out two years before I was born. But back then in the late seventies and early eighties cinemas used to show films like the Batman movie, or theatre versions of popular tv shows like On the Buses, Morecambe and Wise, the Spider-Man tv show, or Battlestar Galactica.
I do remember the Batman cartoon from around the time but not getting to see that many episodes. I think this was The New Adventures Of Batman as it had the tv series cast doing the voices and it had Batmite!
My next run in with Batman was during the home computer boom of the eighties and the 8 bit computer games that came out then, such as Ocean’s 1986 isometric classic Batman on the Spectrum. Followed by their 1988 release Batman: The Caped Crusader.
But it was the events later in 1988 that would give me a really strong bond with the character.
On the morning of 10th September 1988 my dad took his own life. I did try to revive him to no avail. Even now decades later I can’t forget the taste of his breathe from my attempts to resuscitate him.
After the funeral I returned to Brighton to finish my second and final year of my HND in Computer Studies (Software Engineering).
It was a very rough year for me to say the least.
However I got into comics in a big way whilst I was going through all the emotional turmoil trying to deal with the loss of my dad.
It was at this point in time that I came across Batman in the comic books. The Death in the Family four part story line had just started. I was hooked. But it was the issues of the various Batman comics after the events of Death in the Family that resonated so much with me. As Batman dealt with the loss of Jason Todd I too was going through similar. Obviously I wasn’t taking out my grief on the criminal elements of the UK. However I was in a bad place and was taking out my grief on myself.
As a now die-hard Batman fan this late eighties, early nineties for me was a golden age of the comic.
Obviously we had the Tim Burton movie, that had Sam Hamm (he wrote the script for the movie) write some issues of the comic. There were some amazing Batman graphic novels that became classics.
Like all good things my time with Batman in comic book form had to come to an end. I had to ween myself off my comic book addiction during the early nineties. My comic habit was unsustainable.
It didn’t help that Michelle Pfeiffer was an incredible Catwoman in Tim Burtons Batman Returns, along side a very dark portrayal of the Penguin by Danny Devito. Plus I was catching odd episodes of the Batman Animated series that captured Burtons Batman and Gotham so well. Plus it introduced the world to Harley Quinn!
Obviously I had to endure the very painful to watch Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. The movies that killed Batman in the cinema until Nolan did Batman Begins.
I love The Dark Knight and you know I will say the predictable thing of I just love Heath Ledger as the Joker. My favourite Joker of all time.
In the intervening years I have enjoyed the more recent cinematic portrayals of Batman. I love that the last Batman movie took the character back to his worlds greatest detective roots. The DC animated movies have been out of this world. And in my opinion easily out shone anything that has been put on the big screen.
I did come to the Batman Arkham series pretty late and have only played a bit of Arkham Asylum on my PS3 back in 2010 or 2011. The memory is pretty fuzzy on precisely when. But it was a GOTY edition I got cheap. I couldn’t even tell you exactly why I stopped playing it. It was most likely due to a move back to my home town. But I do remember enjoying it. Naturally I was nowhere close to completing it.
I think it was around 2014 time when I had a spell of getting some copies of classic GameBoy games I wanted for the collection and the Batman: The Video Game was one of those titles I picked up. I played it briefly to make sure the cart was working.
Obviously I have a small Lego Batman minifig collection. With my pride and joy of it being the Heather Ledger Joker figure (that is worth a bit of money).
I even currently have a dvd project that I am doing on a Saturday morning of trying to capture that Saturday morning magic of my childhood. By watching cartoons (not necessarily the ones from the time) such as the Dungeon and Dragons cartoon, Thundercats, and the Batman Animated series with my morning coffee and pan au chocolate. Come pay day I’ll be adding more series that I grew up with including the The New Adventures Of Batman, the 1960s Batman series, and Hong Kong Phooey. Maybe I should do a post about this project (which by the time this sees the light of day will have happened).
So all the above established I am a Batman fan of many years. Which means at least we know where I am coming from when I start talking about the Arkham video games below.
I wouldn’t say I’m a hardcore fanboy. But I am a fanboy with a connection to the character that I don’t think I will ever break.
For such a big Batman fan I surprisingly don’t have that many Batman themed board games. I have the out of print Love Letter Batman. Which is my favourite version of the Love Letter family of games. I have the Batman the animated series dice game that is loosely based on the zombie dice game. Plus I think I have the Batman story cubes.
You’d have thought I would own a copy of the Batman game that was based on the Conan board game. But that was a Kickstarter thing that at the time was something I couldn’t afford or justify. The miniatures were amazing for it. Sadly I heard once people got their hands on it that it was not as good as the original Conan. So dodged a bullet there.
I did own the Batman version of Fluxx. But that was donated to the game box of the Gaywood store I was working at.
I’m just gobsmacked at the lack of Batman games I own or have played. Think we should move on and talk about the latest video game.
The Arkham Trilogy on the Switch
I don’t know if it has shown but I have been trying to improve my writing especially when it comes to talking about video games. Like the section above I’ve been including more personal bits to show where I am coming from when I talk about the game. So that folks can see my biases and experience into account when they read my words and opinions on the game I am playing.
A big influence on shaping those posts is the book Introduction to game analysis by Fernández (details at the end of the post).
I’ll talk about how I am playing the game, such as the platform and any additional hardware, if I am using a players guide etc. I think this is useful information for whoever is reading so they know how I am experiencing the game and if they think that is relevant to the information that I provide.
I still have a long way to go before I am happy with the posts I write about games. But at the moment they seem to me more a diary of my experience as I play than any academic article or review.
In the past I have said I don’t like to review a game (video or board), and that when I talk about a game I like to talk about what works for me and what doesn’t.
There are folks out there that review games far better than I could ever do. So I kind of like the approach I take of play experience diary. It’s different.
And that’s the way I plan to cover the Arkham Trilogy as well.
So let’s get started and cover the hardware etc that I am using to play Batman Arkham Trilogy.
How I’m Experiencing the Batman Arkham Trilogy
For those that have read my previous words on video games the following will be familiar.
I’ll be playing the trilogy on my Switch Lite. Which makes sense since this is the Switch version of the games I am playing.
When I’m playing the game at home I will be using the inbuilt speakers of the Switch Lite to listen to the audio. However any game play away from home will use my usual setup of VANKYO C750 Bluetooth active noise cancelling headphones. Which are over ear, Hi-Fi Stereo, and apparently deep bass.
Like all the other Switch games I’m playing at the moment I’m not spending hours at a time playing the game. But grabbing “moments” when I can. I also have too many games I want to play. The knock on affect is I don’t focus on one but flick between them. I think currently I have four games on the go. If you have read my recent life, the universe post you’ll know playing anything has been a real struggle.
This is the physical version of Batman Arkham Trilogy that I’m playing.
Batman Arkham Trilogy has the following three games included Batman Arkham Asylum, Batman Arkham City, and Batman Arkham Knight.
Both City and Knight need to be downloaded first before playing. They are not on the cartridge. Now this is a pet peeve of mine. There are other physical released titles like Resident Evil that include supposedly have three games on them. When in fact like Arkham Trilogy there is one and the remaining titles need to be downloaded. I bought the physical version for a reason. I wanted a physical version and not having to rely on an eshop.
My play through of this trilogy will be in the following order Batman Arkham Asylum, Batman Arkham City, and Batman Arkham Knight (which is their release order I believe).
For all three games if given a language choice I will be playing the games in English. I will also be playing the games on a normal difficulty level. I may live to regret this decision. But somehow my young mind thinks my gaming skills should be still sharp enough to play the game.
Paratexts I’ve Used
Para what?
I’m going to get you to read a couple of quotes that explain way way better than I ever could what a paratext is, and how they can apply to video games.
“If we consider games texts, we can also understand them better by analyzing what Gérard Genette calls paratexts—texts that surround the main text being analyzed, which transform and condition how the audience interprets that main text.” (Fernández,2019)
“In videogame terms, paratexts would include the box of the game, the instruction manual, the game’s commercial website, reviews, and interviews with the developers, as well as other media, from other games to commercials or films that may have been inspired by the game or spawned by it. Extending Genette’s concept to videogames allows us to understand how they become complex media artifacts in the light of these paratexts, since they provide further layers of interpretation.” (Fernández,2019)
So with the above in mind after a gap of over thirty years I’ve reread the Grant Morrison penned, and Dave McKean drawn 1989 Batman classic graphic novel Arkham Asylum. Which according to Wikipedia was an influence/inspiration on the developers Rocksteady whilst developing the videogame. It wasn’t the only influence, the darker, grittier Frank Miller was also one, as was the work of Neal Adams.
Although Arkham Origins (which I’ve never played) isn’t part of this release there was an animated movie called Batman: Assault on Arkham that sits between Origins and Arkham Asylum. It’s meant to act as a way to bridge the gap between the two games. So I’ve watched this for the first time.
Obviously my comic book collection, the movies, tv series, previous video games also fall into the paratext camp. They shape my interpretation of Batman, and to some extent my enjoyment of the games. On a mechanics level the game maybe fun. But if the portrayal of Batman in the game doesn’t align with how I see the character. Or even one that I can accept then will I actually enjoy the game?
I’m not sure what direction these posts will take as I progress through the game. Or even when the next post will be. But we’ll see where the wind takes me on this.
This post has been rather long, and I haven’t even started looking at the game itself yet! So I better call this post to an end and see you in the next one (whenever that happens).
Fernández-Vara, C. (2019) Introduction to game analysis. Second edition. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.