I just finished playing Arkham Asylum for the first time, and, to my great surprise, I think it has helped me to fall back in love with video games.
Axiom VII of the Fundamental Axioms I came up with when I first started this blog (axioms which could probably do for some revision right about now) states that “If your writing is bad, I don’t care how fun your mechanics are.” This, I find, is one of the defining factors of how I look at video games. A game with bad writing tends to be bad art, and, perhaps because I am a writer, I tend to find poor writing and storytelling very distracting. I used to worry that I didn’t like video games at all. After all, if what I really want are good stories and well-written dialogue, maybe I should just stick to films and novels? Nearly all of my favorite games prioritize story and dialogue over flashy graphics or gameplay mechanics, to the extent that some of the ones I value most are actually very clumsy to play. (I’m looking at you, Torment.)
I say all this because Arkham Asylum is not the best-written, best-acted, or best-plotted game I’ve ever played. It’s probably not even in the top ten. The plot is really very silly, (why would the Joker need super-soldiers?) the dialogue is serviceable but largely unremarkable, the voice acting is competent but largely not particularly inspiring, (Hamill and Conroy excepted). It ends terribly.
Imagine my surprise when, upon finishing the game, I realized I absolutely did not care. Sure, the game would have been better if they had addressed some of these issues, but that absolutely doesn’t matter. So, why do I enjoy this game so much?
Because you get to be Batman.
No, Seriously. Batman.
That’s not a flippant answer. And I don’t just mean that the game’s avatar is shaped like Batman, or that he’s voiced by Kevin Conroy. The simple fact that one is playing a character named Batman in the game is not what sells it to me. It works because the game’s mechanics, combat system and physics engine allow you to actually be Batman. When you move the analog stick, the character moves like Batman. When you punch a criminal, the character punches like Batman. When you grapple onto a gargoyle and then swoop down onto an unsuspecting maniac, leaving him dangling from your perch, screaming and soiling himself in terror, you do it like Batman.
It’s the game’s rhythm, the way it allows you to calmly walk into a pack of fifteen felons with crowbars and know that you’re going to come out victorious, that makes the game work. It’s no surprise that it may originally have been planned as a rhythm game proper.
I had heard all of this before, but it’s one thing to hear about how a game really makes you feel like Batman, and another to actually play that game. (Which may render this whole post moot, come to think of it.) It wasn’t until I played the game and giggled like a first-grader for hours on end that I realized how truly unique it is.
See, about the fifth time I entered a room full of armed felons and quietly dispatched each of them without taking a bullet, the truth of the matter hit me: Arkham Asylum is exactly what a certain kind of video game does well. What Arkham Asylum does is something that video games may do better than any other medium: it allows you to step into someone else’s shoes, and learn something about what it is like to be a different person.
Namely, Batman.
And Batman is kind of a big deal. Who do geeks revere more than Batman? If, in any argument, you can prove that Batman approves of a particular point of view, you win. “Appeal to Batman” is a respected rhetorical technique. If you walk up to a geek and say “think about something cool,” he or she will think about Batman.
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| Comic is Zach Weiner’s at SMBC. |
Loss of Self
I wrote an article with the title “Better Storytelling Through Loss of Self,” and while I was primarily interested in the way a good GM can reduce distance between player and PC in a tabletop RPG, the idea struck a chord with me. The best works of narrative art coerce you into perfect sympathy with the protagonist. They cause you to feel what the character feels, see what he or she sees, and, think how he or she thinks. A great work can make you inhabit, if only for the briefest of moments, another person’s mind– can make you leave yourself behind and temporarily become someone else.
This is the art that can change lives, the sort of art that alters worldviews, and video games might be uniquely suited to this kind of radical shift in perspective. It is one thing to read about a person’s life, and quite another to actually live it. This is not to say that video games will necessarily eclipse all other art forms — I am not one of those so fond of video games that he will refer to them as the apotheosis of all artistic endeavor. Even in the realm of “media about Batman,” The Dark Knight and The Killing Joke are better art than Arkham Asylum. These other works, in addition to telling great stories, let me imagine what it might be like to be the Caped Crusader, give insight into Batman’s psychology, the myth surrounding him, and the universe in which he operates. But in Arkham Asylum, I actually get to be Batman. The difference is crucial.
So, video games can allow you to experience what life is like through someone else’s eyes. That’s neat, but why talk about Arkham Asylum, when I could talk about Torment? Because Arkham Asylum lets you experience what it’s like to be a very particular person.
Some people ask “Would it be as good if it wasn’t about Batman?” Of course not. Would The Once and Future King be as good if it wasn’t about King Arthur? Would The Last Temptation of Christ be interesting if it wasn’t about Jesus? Like these other works, Arkham Asylum doesn’t just “happen” to be about Batman. It is entirely about what it is like to be Batman. If it wasn’t about Batman, it wouldn’t exist.
The Dark Knight Rises
So why is this good or important? Does it just allow young men and women to act out the adolescent fantasy of dressing up like a bat and punching people in the face? Well, sure. It does that. Certainly part of the fun of the game is finally getting to appease the 10-year-old that ran around the backyard in a blanket-cape and jumped off of trees. And it’s important to note that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In all seriousness, Batman is a lot more than an adolescent fantasy. Batman is a legend. Tom Bissell put it best when he said “Batman may have come to us through the comic book, but he belongs to American mythology now, and it is as hard to imagine him having been created by Bob Kane as it is to imagine Jesus having been created by Mark.” Batman is a Hero, with a capital H– a legend, a symbol of justice and protection and goodness in a way that even Superman isn’t. Batman always has an answer for every situation, can always tough it out through whatever anyone throws at him. You can try to write him off as “a dude in a batsuit,” but you would be wrong to do so, just as if you were to say Robin Hood is “a dude in tights,” or King Arthur is “a dude with a sword.”
Why do we all want to be Batman? Because he’s brilliant, tough and strong. Because Batman always beats the badguy, and he always looks cool when he does it. Because although he doesn’t play by the rules everyone else does, he is honorable to a fault. He will never kill the Joker, because he knows it would be wrong to do so. Batman is selfless when we are selfish. Batman is strong when we are weak. He can survive anything and beat anyone, but he is just human and broken enough to be believable. Superman is untouchable because he’s from another world. No one of us could ever be Superman, and so the desire to be Superman is always thwarted, but Batman — you almost think you could be Batman. He’s just barely possible.
Why else do we keep coming back to him, almost eighty years after his initial debut? The Dark Knight is a powerful archetype, an inspiring legend, the sort of Hero that resonates with every person.
The Adam West Batman still exists, and so, sadly, does the Clooney one, but Batman as an idea transcends all of that silliness. Everyone who ever booted up a copy of Arkham Asylum brought an idea of Batman to the table. Every single person who plays the game knows who Batman is, and even where they might prefer Nolan to Miller, or disagree about the specifics, they agree about the fundamentals of the Batman mythos, and the fact is that Arkham Asylum satisfies all of those different preconceptions. When you play the game, you are stepping into the shoes of a legend, and there’s something powerful and beautiful about that.
I don’t wish to overstate this: Arkham Asylum, for all I’ve just said, is probably not Great Art. It’s a fun video game, and I recommend it wholeheartedly, but it didn’t give me any great epiphanies about human nature. But what it did is cause me to remember one of the reasons I love video games and find them as utterly fascinating as I do. The great ones allow you to briefly abandon your own experiences and take up another’s, to re-enter the real world having lived for a while in a different one, and to be better for it. For a short time, I was Batman, and while I still eagerly await a game which really examines the psychology of the character in a more mature way, it was beautiful and fun, and completely worth my time.
So, play Arkham Asylum. It probably won’t change your life. It’s unlikely to make you rethink the nature of humanity. You’ll probably spend most of the time giggling maniacally at the newest ridiculously cool thing you just did.
But you know what? It’s beautiful, and special.
And it lets you be Batman.
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