Contains LIFE-ENDING SPOILERS for a relatively new game.Discussions of Arkham Asylum thus far have rightly focused on two aspects of the game's rhetoric: "being Batman" and the spectre of the institution. The reason I think an analysis of Arkham Asylum falls under the purview of this blog is that it problematizes incarceration while proceduralizing the ethics of non-lethal force adhered to by law enforcement personnel--including its risk and reward. Of course, actual police officers bear firearms and have the right to use them in compliance with professional rules of engagement, but we're allowed a little romance when we're talking about Gotham.
Being Batman means having access to x-ray vision, knowing the fault in every structure and the status of every enemy. Guns glow red under Batman's cowl, just as they do in the "runner vision" of Mirror's Edge. Faith, the protagonist of ME, has a choice to pick up and fire the weapons dropped by her foes; however, doing so limits her natural parkour abilities and thus the unique pleasures of playing that game. Batman has no such choice. I personally have no patience for the ridiculous lengths that Jedi and some superheroes will go to in order to preserve the lives of mass murderers, but this is the ideal proceduralized here: even though firearms are coded as an object that enemies can pick up off the ground, the player does not have the option to interact with them.
This is one way the player "becomes Batman," and in general Arkham Asylum is a marvel of defiance to the principle of direct manipulation. Combat and stealth are rendered almost trivial for skilled gamers because the player controls a character attributed with ninja-like skill. Unless one is literally caught standing directly in front of an enemy, they won't see you. Combat is a refined version of Too Human's failed one-stick experiment: the direction one orients the left analogue stick is more important for maintaining freeflow than the rote pressing of X for attack and Y for counter. Some enemies need to be stunned with a cape-swirl (the B button), and some need to be leapt over (double-tap A); however, you quickly learn that you can avoid this complication by stringing a short series of blows into an instant combo takedown against these more advanced enemies.
A frequent complaint among other bloggers is that, especially during takedowns and counters, Batman displays brutal force that threatens to render impossible any notion that he isn't killing at least a few of the poor sods; however, if we can accept the other affront to direct manipulation, we can take it on faith that Batman is skilled enough to cause reprimanding injury to his assailants without slaying them. The most egregious contradiction to the rhetoric of non-lethality comes in the form of a simple environmental puzzle. In one of the wings of the medical building, a scientist and a guard are trapped in a room on the verge of filling of Joker's deadly laughing gas. The player must activate three fans by getting a clear shot at their control boxes and tossing a well-aimed Batarang.
Strangely, the third control box is guarded by the breakable ceiling of a utility closet. Over the closet hangs a conveniently-placed criminal, and the most obvious way to clear the obstruction is to drop the man to his death. In fact I tried for a good five minutes to figure out how to solve the puzzle without killing the man, but either I was too stupid to find the solution or it wasn't possible to complete the task in a non-lethal manner. This seems especially odd considering the fact that earlier in the game the player had the abundantly obvious option to save a similarly-endangered villain.
[ADDED: Justin Keverne holds that somehow the villain survives after you drop him through the ceiling and into the laughing gas. I admit that I didn't use my cowl to check his heartbeat, but I was under the impression that Joker's gas was lethal if inhaled. This problem is amplified by the fact that you can choose whether to drop the man when you first enter the room or only right before you need to. So how long is this man sucking laughing gas down before you turn on the final generator? It varies. Instead of dragging this through the dirt, let's use it to consider a critical flaw in the game's entire progression and interaction design.
In an effort to make Batman's tool progression as close to Metroid Prime's as possible, the designers have completely mangled two aspects of Batman. First, he's always prepared--further, he knew that something was wrong from the beginning because it was so easy to capture Joker. Why wouldn't he bring all of his tools with him from the beginning? Second, Batman is a bricoleur. This game shouldn't have taken its inspiration from Metroid, but from the horrific failure that was Alone in the Dark. In that game, you can combine simple objects to create more complex tools and weapons. If this system had been implemented in Arkham Asylum, then the player could solve this problematic environment puzzle the same way Batman would: he would spray a Batarang with explosive gel, throw it at the breakable ceiling, and detonate it.]
Also, there are two cut-scenes--one in which Batman rams the Batmobile into Bane and one in which Scarecrow is eaten by Killer Croc--that bring to the forefront the weakness of using such non-interactive sequences in games: why couldn't these scenes be interactive, and why couldn't we choose to solve the conflict non-lethally? Even the much-maligned QTE would be preferable in these instances. A "secret" cutscene at the end of the game shows us that Bane escaped a watery death, but the consumption of Scarecrow by Croc seems certain (it is even referenced in a voiceover at one point). [UPDATE: Keverne says that the hand is Croc's, while Mitch Krpata thinks it's Scarecrow. This proves the validity of Ecclesiastes 1.]
With these caveats in mind, let's look at how the game mitigates the inclination toward brute force. One aspect of "being Batman" is that you can execute a silent takedown when you're behind an enemy who hasn't detected you yet. This method is the most non-violent available to the player, taking the form of a sleeper hold instead of a bashing-of-the-head against concrete. It is also the safest of all possible takedowns, because it doesn't draw the attention of other enemies (this changes slightly later with the added complexity of alarm collars and explosive-rigged gargoyles); however, there is a distinct risk in using the silent takedown because it requires close proximity to the target and takes temporally longer than any other move. If another enemy spots you in the middle of a silent takedown, you have to complete the animation before you can escape. This can be lethal if Batman's health is already depleted. This complex dynamic shows that the silent takedown is both the most nuanced technique afforded by the game and the one that best exemplifies the rhetoric of non-lethal force.
But what of the non-criminal inmates? Around halfway through the game, Harley Quinn releases a number of clinically insane patients from their holding cells. If one of these spots Batman, they run at him garbling maniacally in an attempt to leap onto his back and slowly drain health. I never got close to one of these so-called "lunatics" without being spotted, so I don't know if a silent takedown is possible. The most common way to dispatch them is a single punch to the face followed by a takedown--the same brutal face-to-concrete takedown employed against criminals.
Justin Keverne and Travis Megill criticize the game's treatment of the infirm as overly-violent and symptomatic of the history of mental healthcare deconstructed by Michel Foucault in Madness and Civilization (the actual textual reference was invoked in comments by Darius Kazemi). Keverne suggested that there should be an alternate method of takedown here: one Batarang to the head would knock these enemies out, or a tranquilizer dart could be added to Batman's arsenal. But I don't think this remedies the deeper problem--the way these characters are designed visually and kinetically is reprehensibile. I've visited a suicide ward, and it was filled with docile and regretful patients so medicated that they hardly knew what was going on around them. My tentative "fix" was to change their scripting to better mirror the varying behavior of the infirm: some would hide in a corner, some would loll around on the ground, some would crawl forward to tug at Batman's cape, and maybe one or two would actually attack him.
Zachary Reese lamented, in the comment section of Megill's article, the fact that the game didn't attempt to integrate work by authors of the Arkham Asylum graphic novels (Paul Dini and Grant Morrison in particular) that critiqued the institution and its treatment of patients. A few aspects of the game's narrative qualify this a bit. The most obvious is the incarceration of Bane and Dr. Penelope Young's cruel experimentation on him, which connotes the compulsory deprivation studies and procedures practiced in turn-of-the-century mental health facilities. Secondly, we have an optional voiceover narrative about the downward mental spiral of Amadeus Arkham and his subsequent efforts to "cleanse" Gotham of its criminal and infirm elements.
Finally, and most importantly, are Batman's own violations of the institution's authority. Before the events of the game, Batman constructed a second Batcave in the caverns beneath Arkham Island--"just in case." We learn this through the course of playing; however, there is an even earlier instance. In the opening scene of the game, while the credits roll and the player escorts The Joker to his cell, Batman sets off the facility's protective sensors.
Batman doesn't belong inside Arkham. Perhaps it's true in the comics that Batman is just as unhinged as his enemies, but in the confines of this game's world he transcends the asylum's deranged purpose and practices. He brings his arch-nemeses there because he has no place else to put them. He knows that this super-saturation of criminality in one location will result in their eventual escape--in fact, he depends on it. By keeping his enemies in a constant flux between escaping the institution and combating him, he keeps both them and the citizens of Gotham alive. There is a ludic match to this narrative case against Arkham: the player can move through its ventilation ducts, disable its protective force fields, and smash through its walls. Every rote act of acquiring a new tool and finding a new passage removes one brick from the formidable facade of the institution, and by the end of the game the player moves through the space with total mastery.
One other ludic peculiarity almost redeems the game's depiction of the infirm for me: unlike the Blackwell criminals, they can be dropped with a single punch. In other words, the game seems to know that they don't belong there either.
A frequent complaint among other bloggers is that, especially during takedowns and counters, Batman displays brutal force that threatens to render impossible any notion that he isn't killing at least a few of the poor sods; however, if we can accept the other affront to direct manipulation, we can take it on faith that Batman is skilled enough to cause reprimanding injury to his assailants without slaying them. The most egregious contradiction to the rhetoric of non-lethality comes in the form of a simple environmental puzzle. In one of the wings of the medical building, a scientist and a guard are trapped in a room on the verge of filling of Joker's deadly laughing gas. The player must activate three fans by getting a clear shot at their control boxes and tossing a well-aimed Batarang. Strangely, the third control box is guarded by the breakable ceiling of a utility closet. Over the closet hangs a conveniently-placed criminal, and the most obvious way to clear the obstruction is to drop the man to his death. In fact I tried for a good five minutes to figure out how to solve the puzzle without killing the man, but either I was too stupid to find the solution or it wasn't possible to complete the task in a non-lethal manner. This seems especially odd considering the fact that earlier in the game the player had the abundantly obvious option to save a similarly-endangered villain.
[ADDED: Justin Keverne holds that somehow the villain survives after you drop him through the ceiling and into the laughing gas. I admit that I didn't use my cowl to check his heartbeat, but I was under the impression that Joker's gas was lethal if inhaled. This problem is amplified by the fact that you can choose whether to drop the man when you first enter the room or only right before you need to. So how long is this man sucking laughing gas down before you turn on the final generator? It varies. Instead of dragging this through the dirt, let's use it to consider a critical flaw in the game's entire progression and interaction design.
In an effort to make Batman's tool progression as close to Metroid Prime's as possible, the designers have completely mangled two aspects of Batman. First, he's always prepared--further, he knew that something was wrong from the beginning because it was so easy to capture Joker. Why wouldn't he bring all of his tools with him from the beginning? Second, Batman is a bricoleur. This game shouldn't have taken its inspiration from Metroid, but from the horrific failure that was Alone in the Dark. In that game, you can combine simple objects to create more complex tools and weapons. If this system had been implemented in Arkham Asylum, then the player could solve this problematic environment puzzle the same way Batman would: he would spray a Batarang with explosive gel, throw it at the breakable ceiling, and detonate it.]
Also, there are two cut-scenes--one in which Batman rams the Batmobile into Bane and one in which Scarecrow is eaten by Killer Croc--that bring to the forefront the weakness of using such non-interactive sequences in games: why couldn't these scenes be interactive, and why couldn't we choose to solve the conflict non-lethally? Even the much-maligned QTE would be preferable in these instances. A "secret" cutscene at the end of the game shows us that Bane escaped a watery death, but the consumption of Scarecrow by Croc seems certain (it is even referenced in a voiceover at one point). [UPDATE: Keverne says that the hand is Croc's, while Mitch Krpata thinks it's Scarecrow. This proves the validity of Ecclesiastes 1.]
With these caveats in mind, let's look at how the game mitigates the inclination toward brute force. One aspect of "being Batman" is that you can execute a silent takedown when you're behind an enemy who hasn't detected you yet. This method is the most non-violent available to the player, taking the form of a sleeper hold instead of a bashing-of-the-head against concrete. It is also the safest of all possible takedowns, because it doesn't draw the attention of other enemies (this changes slightly later with the added complexity of alarm collars and explosive-rigged gargoyles); however, there is a distinct risk in using the silent takedown because it requires close proximity to the target and takes temporally longer than any other move. If another enemy spots you in the middle of a silent takedown, you have to complete the animation before you can escape. This can be lethal if Batman's health is already depleted. This complex dynamic shows that the silent takedown is both the most nuanced technique afforded by the game and the one that best exemplifies the rhetoric of non-lethal force.
But what of the non-criminal inmates? Around halfway through the game, Harley Quinn releases a number of clinically insane patients from their holding cells. If one of these spots Batman, they run at him garbling maniacally in an attempt to leap onto his back and slowly drain health. I never got close to one of these so-called "lunatics" without being spotted, so I don't know if a silent takedown is possible. The most common way to dispatch them is a single punch to the face followed by a takedown--the same brutal face-to-concrete takedown employed against criminals.
Zachary Reese lamented, in the comment section of Megill's article, the fact that the game didn't attempt to integrate work by authors of the Arkham Asylum graphic novels (Paul Dini and Grant Morrison in particular) that critiqued the institution and its treatment of patients. A few aspects of the game's narrative qualify this a bit. The most obvious is the incarceration of Bane and Dr. Penelope Young's cruel experimentation on him, which connotes the compulsory deprivation studies and procedures practiced in turn-of-the-century mental health facilities. Secondly, we have an optional voiceover narrative about the downward mental spiral of Amadeus Arkham and his subsequent efforts to "cleanse" Gotham of its criminal and infirm elements.
Finally, and most importantly, are Batman's own violations of the institution's authority. Before the events of the game, Batman constructed a second Batcave in the caverns beneath Arkham Island--"just in case." We learn this through the course of playing; however, there is an even earlier instance. In the opening scene of the game, while the credits roll and the player escorts The Joker to his cell, Batman sets off the facility's protective sensors.
Batman doesn't belong inside Arkham. Perhaps it's true in the comics that Batman is just as unhinged as his enemies, but in the confines of this game's world he transcends the asylum's deranged purpose and practices. He brings his arch-nemeses there because he has no place else to put them. He knows that this super-saturation of criminality in one location will result in their eventual escape--in fact, he depends on it. By keeping his enemies in a constant flux between escaping the institution and combating him, he keeps both them and the citizens of Gotham alive. There is a ludic match to this narrative case against Arkham: the player can move through its ventilation ducts, disable its protective force fields, and smash through its walls. Every rote act of acquiring a new tool and finding a new passage removes one brick from the formidable facade of the institution, and by the end of the game the player moves through the space with total mastery.
One other ludic peculiarity almost redeems the game's depiction of the infirm for me: unlike the Blackwell criminals, they can be dropped with a single punch. In other words, the game seems to know that they don't belong there either.
Nice piece - did you ever play The Suffering? I don't recall getting very far along in the game when it originally came out, but I seem to remember it having slightly more to say about the prisoners involved.
I remember seeing that on the shelf, but I never tried it. That came out back when I would still just show up at a store and buy whatever looked cool, because I was stupid. But maybe I'll make a month of going back through that, the Manhunt games, the end of Riddick, and the second Condemned. I wonder if the prison game sub-genre will ever be big? I remember five years ago or so there was this explosion of prison drama flicks in Brazil; I guess they caught the Oz bug or something. Riddick is probably the most complex prison game I've played, but my experience is sorely lacking.
This reminds me that I owe you a list of good Iranian films, which I'm cobbling together now.
There's also the Gothic series, which takes place in a prison colony, and Escape from Woomera (which is, I suppose, a good old-fashioned news game of the first order).
One day there will be an MMO set in a prison camp, and we'll see Zimbardo's trial writ large and given room to breathe. Or maybe our friends over at Terra Nova will implement a player's bill of rights and such works will be rendered illegal. Then those of us with a perverse interest in exploring the mathematical theatrics of power, authority and constraint and mapping the inverse kinematics of freedom will grind out tiny epiphanes of voluntary forced labor in a samizdat gulag archipelago of off-shore servers.
Meanwhile, superheroes.
I tried to come up with delicious prose in response, but I know when I'm in over my head. One day I need to sit in a room with you and Ian (and maybe Charles) so you can browbeat me until I learn to keep up with you.
Escape from Woomera is definitely in our chapter on documentary games, but I think only Ian has played it. There's a small bit about prison camp life in Darfur is Dying, but that section of the game is almost completely broken. Considering the number of name drops that game gets, you'd think somebody would have shilled out a few thousand bucks to fix it up by now.
The odd thing about the idea of a Player's Bill of Rights is that I'm not entirely sure most Players would be interested in having their Rights enumerated. For instance, grinding would have to be abolished in such a document. And everybody loves grinding... well, at least the 10-million-and-growing who still play WoW. And Wii Fit. I wonder how many detractors there were when the Declaration of the Rights of Man was penned. And when Wollestonecraft plagiarized it?
That said, if you ever get in the business of running an illegal MMO out of an abandoned oil rig I'd be happy to work there for bananas and a rusty cot.
The inability to combine items into complex tools is part of the larger problem of the game suppressing and preventing player creativity.
After I got my zip line tool I tried using it to crash feet first into crumbling walls. It didn't work. I also considered somehow throwing explosives onto walls out of reach but knew none of the mechanics supported this. There is exactly one way and one tool that can be used to get each Riddler item. It's the worst kind of "figure out what the designer wants" because it is followed by "wait until the designer gives you the means".
Every cool improvisation Batman does do is without player input. He set the explosive trap for Croc automatically. He sprayed explosives on his fist in a cutscene. Even in the introduction he grabs the Joker's neck when the power briefly goes out while the player is as confused as the guards. Which is it? Are we Batman or are we along for the ride?
Stealth combat, okay there is some creativity required there, but it is all intentional play. String this guard on a gargoyle, set an explosive trap here, glide kick that guard, etc. You can get really creative with this stuff, but when shit hits the fan there is basically no smooth transition to improvisational play. You hide in a vent or hop between gargoyles until the guards lose track of you then set up the exact same traps you might have when first entering the room.
Every new threat is also introduced at the intentional planning phase. The gargoyle explosives were a perfect chance to throw the player into an improvisational phase, but instead of leaving them as a surprise to disrupt the player's plan, they gave it away in a cutscene.
Hey Michel, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I saw your Tweet that you'd finished the game and hoped you'd stop by with your thoughts, so, awesome!
I agree with you completely that literally every Batman-like improvisation was delivered in a cutscene, which is shoddy. Do you think, like I suggested, that they should have built the game from the ground up to allow it... or do you think quick-time events would at least make it "Batman-enough" for us?
As to the abrupt cut between intentional and improvisational play... yeah, I figured out fairly early on that the absolute winning move was to find a duct and hide in it. They can shoot you when you're in a floor duct, yet somehow the air ducts in the walls and ceiling are safe? Makes absolutely no sense unless a wall is obviously obscuring it. I tried to avoid that method because it made it no fun for me, which meant that when they finally put the bombs on the gargoyles it became pretty awesome. That's when it felt natural to me, setting up traps that I knew I could run past and then detonate if I were in a tough spot and really using the floor grates to my advantage (which had risks if I accidentally downed a guy near one). One question I have, though, based on your wording is... what kind of smooth transition would you want between the two modes of play? The follow-up to that comes from this:
"Every new threat is also introduced at the intentional planning phase."
What games have you played where you actually liked it when a new threat was introduced during the improvisational phase? Usually this just completely pisses me off, maybe because usually I've seen this done in a QTE and all of a sudden you don't know how to twist your analog stick correctly (I'm looking at you, Bully) and you've wasted the past 5 minutes of your life. If you have some good examples of how you think introducing novel elements during panic mode works, I'd love to hear em!
I guess I didn't mean to say simply removing the cutscene would have worked.
The reason the gargoyle traps needed a cutscene was because the idea of the Joker's men setting explosive traps for Batman was new. If this was something in the core of the game -- bombs in doors, dead bodies (an interesting use for the cowl, eh), vents, etc -- the player would then not feel cheated when suddenly confronted with a new type of explosive in a new location.
The idea of henchmen setting ambushes, however, was well established. Would you have been annoyed if, in one stealth room with gargoyles, the enemies suddenly turned on spotlights and started looking up? That would also throw the player out of their usual pattern.
"he would spray a Batarang with explosive gel, throw it at the breakable ceiling, and detonate it."
No. A Batarang covered in explosive gel would radically alter the aerodynamic properties it has. It would not fly.
He didn't need to toss it far. Really, he needed to be able to chuck it two feet upwards in one case and drop it straight down in another. Good point about the ergonomics of Batarang industrial design, though; thanks!