Batman: Arkham Asylum PC Demo Released

Very much getting this game.

It ran great at medium settings, PhysX on medium, on my 9500GT GPU, 2GB RAM, and 2.8Ghz AMD X2 processor compy, which is great as it isn''t exactly fantastic. It only slowed down a bit when I started breaking glass and the PhysX started working really hard, but that was a rare occasion, and certainly something I am willing to live with. :D

I have been waiting to try this game out since it first initially came into the spotlight earlier this year. I just picked up a GeForce 9800 GT, so hopefully I don't do too badly.

Thoughts based on the demo (which is fairly short and doesn't seem to include much):

I'm disappointed.

If you played the Watchmen game, or the demo for it, thats what the best part of this game feels like. You have three or four bad guys around you and you get to beat them up. It actually does LOOK really cool, the freeflow combat system (as they call it) links one animation into the next very very well, even when you're changing directions (i.e. hitting a guy in front of you and then throwing a punch in the opposite direction to get the one behind you). I really could go on for quite some time about how cool the animation linking is and how fast and responsive the combat commands are. The problem comes in the "quicktime event" style counters, where the opponents head lights up bright blue just before he attacks so you know when to mash the counter button, and the "Chuck Norris Movie" way that the opponents don't really attack you as a group, and instead come at you one at a time.

The majority of the demo, however, has you using stealth to get past guys with guns via conveniently placed gargoyles. Now maybe the "fighting" and the "stealth" were a 50/50 split in terms of "space taken up by the demo", but the stealth portions take a lot longer to get through without actually rewarding you with any feeling of stealth or cleverness. You just grapple to the gargoyle and then jump down behind the guy and do the one button stealth "silent kill" and move on.

This is a game I'll pick up for 20 bucks somewhere down the road just because I thought the "freeflow combat" was cool and hey, its Batman, but based on this demo I wouldn't pay full retail for it.

Disclaimer: Everything I just said was based solely on this demo. If the combat becomes more challenging and incorporates more moves later in the game (and the enemies stop "taking turns" attacking) then I could see the combat being more enjoyable. If the stealth sequences become more dynamic and less predictable I could even learn to like that. If there is a dev for this game out there I'd like to say this to you: That was an over 2gig demo, in the future your demos should have a lot fewer cutscenes and dialogue and a lot more gameplay.

FYI all, the game demo is set on EASY.

it was confirmed over at the eurogamer forums.
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Yossarian
08 Aug '09 22:34:24

Oh, and I asked Keir at Eidos what difficulty level the demo is. It's set to easy. :P

It's set to easy.


In hard you got things like no warning of incoming attacks in FreeFlow - this adds a massive new challenge to the game. Thugs reaction time, speed, damage and willingness to take advantage of you when you're under attack all increase. In the rooms with armed thugs, these will look up on gargoyles for you so you need to be more careful when navigating the room. The bosses will also be more difficult with more dangerous attacks on hard.

And that email is hot out my inbox from Sefton Hill (I had to email him because I'm too much of a pussy to play in hard).
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So, is the control scheme geared more towards the 360 controller or should I be fine with my KB+Mouse? Not trying to start a war here btw, just curious.

Ran Great on my system 2.66 i7 quad, 6gb tripple channel ddr 1600, SLI nvidia 260
everything max, physx on high 4x aa sustained 55 - 60fps had vsync on to prevent tearing

My only complaint is that the in game cutscenes are not realtime, they are video's and look terriable. Seems to happen alot on any unreal engine game making videos of game engine cutscenes

Geezus! The game crawls on my Q6600 8gb Geforce 8800 gt

Anyone have a chance to play all three versions? Played the PS3 version last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, it was fuckin BEAUTIFUL and ran great. How do the PC/360 versions compare presentaton/graphics-wise? (aside from higher res on pc)

Cool. Downloading now!

Game is Bought. Amazing.

anyone notice the papers and boxes and cans and stuff laying all over the place waiting for physX to be active ? i can't wait to see crap flying all over the place from my cape spin thing.

sigh, 3 times I've downloaded the PC demo now, and 3 times

"unexpected end of archive"

I've tried different fileshack servers and chrome and FF

*tries another site*

Wow, is it just me or are demos getting bigger faster than bandwidth can become cheaper?

Demo is now on steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/35020/

how does this run on ATI cards, downloading now eager to try on my new 4890. Hopefully we can see PhysX on ATI cards sooner rather then later, the last thing the PC community needs is more divisions on hardware. Should be the same experience for both people on the red and the green side.

Anyone else getting this error?

CRC failed in PhysXMaps\Maps\Max\Max_B4_PhysX.umap

Wah!

Q_Q

My thoughts on the demo (PS3): http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=20604874

Includes plenty of tidbits from other Shackers.

Well that was rather unexpected, a good demo! I'll probably be buying this.
The game looks incredible, so very intricately detailed, you can see the developer has put a lot of hard work into it and it seems to be paying off.

What's amazing, the controls don't suck! They're actually really intuitive.

Holy crap that was fun! Used my 360 controller on the PC and it was GREAT!

Definitely picking this up!

Excellent. Happy to hear they're supporting all platforms simultaneously AND leveraging the PC strengths. I'll definitely be buying this game.

Great demo.

I played this and PS3 version. Both were fun, but the PC version looks far sharper.

Just played the demo, and I have to say it's one of the best games I've played in a while. Can't wait for the full game!

2 gig demo gets ya about 10 minutes of gameplay nice...

(i) some basic combat (attack one button, counter on another). if they have enough animations it will be alright

(ii) silent kill from behind seemed to only have one animation which kinda blows after playing riddick

(iii) instead of shadow based stealth they give an x-ray vision (ie wall hack). seemed like easy-mode

(iv) died trying something out and it made me listen to a forced Gears style hold finger to the ear radio sequence again. let me skip that the second time :/

(v) The graphics are pretty good. the textures aren't as high res as the DMC4 PC port but it does have extra effects

(vi) on the other hand the cut scenes aren't in engine which means they get to be low res to support the lowest common denominator. They look horrible compared to the game.

(vii) the presentation is good. the setting is a good. hopefully the detective mode and the gadgets are fun.

Awesome, awesome game. Seems to be worth the hype.

Very nice and it does seem to include the physx support that was mentioned earlier (takes me from 60 to 30fps to enable on high. Visually id say its noticeably cleaner compared to the ps3 demo i tried earlier. it actually controls totally decently with kb+m but I think it would be more fun with a controller. for the visual increase plus physx support (and hey 10 bucks cheaper!) im gonna say PC for this game. wasnt expecting that heh

Nice I was about to go to bed and here this is now I will be all ready for it when I get off work tomorrow!

Available now on Xbox Live if you use the UK xbox live website...

You sure this is the complete demo?

It's supposed to be 2.03GB, not 1.57GB like the on here ...

why is the demo for the pc under the 360 section of fileshack?

Damn, downloaded form Nzones site. It weighed about 2gb... wonder why... =P

Anyway, lets see if this is fun!

Downloading it for PS3 now. Hopefully it's everything I want it to be. There's some solid releases this month, from the promising Wolfenstein to this, of course. I'm hoping the boss battles are clever (So absolutely nothing like Bionic Commando) and that everything feels solid and deep. I'm on the fence.. on one hand it could go very good, but knowing the developer's limited pedigree and the shocking portrayal of Batman in games past, it could go either way..

This demo should go a long way in convincing me. No Trine for PS3 this update was a big disappointment yet again... good thing Fat Princess is extremely fun.