The answer is usually the Arkham games, with Arkham Asylum as the first great Batman game. One game is usually left out or isn’t part of the best pre-Arkham games debate. Batman Begins game surprised me, the reviews said it was bad. I don’t understand it takes from other games and Arkham took some stuff from it.

Batman Begins follows close to the movie. There are some differences is how scenes play out. The levels can be are very different from the movie. The order of some events has been switched around. The game actually begins in the middle part of the movie in Arkham, Batman is trying to find Dr. Crane, then flashes back to beginning. They use movie footage which is also cool and I miss this

Graphically the game is good. The vistas can look really good, like those of Gotham. There’s some diverse environments from snowy mountains to sewers to destroyed buildings. There is a lot of brown but it realizes the grittiness of the movie.

Gameplay wise it’s good, but not mind blowing . It takes some movement from Splinter Cell. You can climb on pipes and try to be stealthy. You can sneak up behind people, but it has issues. There’s even an optic cable to look under doors. They have this unique mechanic, where you can scare big groups of enemies by destroying things or knocking something down around them. They will drop their guns and you can fight them. If you don’t,armed enemies can kill you easily.

There were a few issues with this game. You can only use Batman’s gadgets only in certain places in the level. Like batarangs and the grapple, there’s places you should be able to use them. They don’t tell when enemies can and can’t see you, they just start shooting. You can only go into cover in a few spots in a level, when it should be every wall. The vehicle sections run a little too long, but still there’s a bit of fun.

This game is a good game that Batman fans should check out. It’s a game that needed a sequel to become that great game. The ideas are there, the execution needs changing. Arkham Asylum in many ways is that sequel.