Awesome / Batman: Arkham Asylum

I'll never let you win. Never.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Awesome moments in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

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• For the dev team - prior to this game, they were an independent developer that had only made one unremarkable game. This game resulted in them getting brought up by Time Warner. It's since gotten a sequel which ended up being arguably superior.
• This isn't from the game itself, but from the developers. A person pirated the game and started playing. Strangely, when they tried to make Batman glide, he simply fell down, surrounded by poison gas. They went on the Eidos forum to report the bug and got this in response: "The problem you have encountered is a hook in the copy protection, to catch out people who try and download cracked versions of the game for free. It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your moral code."
• One more for the developers, who made the first really spectacular superhero video game in recorded history, using a superhero with no superpowers.
  • Even more awesome when one considers that this was only Rocksteady Studios' SECOND GAME.^note The first one was a quickly-forgotten shooter called Urban Chaos: Riot Response for the PS2 and XBOX Moment of Awesome, indeed.
• Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their roles for this game, which is awesome in itself seeing as both of them are considered the definitive voicesinvoked for these characters. But what really makes this even more awesome is how they really get to show their acting talents for these characters. Kevin is able to once again convey Batman's grimness with that same sense of determination, while also reminding everyone just how terrifying the Dark Knight really is. Mark, meanwhile, lets loose and shows all of Arkham just why the Clown Prince of Crime isn't just Batman's greatest enemy, but he's perhaps the ultimate threat to Gotham. It just goes to show why we love hearing Kevin and Mark's voices.
• The final boss fight where Batman smears explosive gel across his knuckles to give his final punch a little extra kick. Hard. Core.
  • Damn, the most awesome line in the game came right before that:
    Joker: I can take it! I can take anything you throw at me, Bats! Hee hee hee! I'm actually going to win! Ready for the next round?!
    Batman: Always.
    Joker: What?!
    Batman: I'll never let you win. Never.
• Scarecrow has a few MOAs at various points throughout the game for how completely and utterly he'll mess with not only Batman's, but your mind in some seriously epic Mind Screws. Let's tally them up (but seriously, do not look at these if you haven't beaten the game!):
  • The first time, he tricks Batman into thinking Commissioner Gordon is dead, and when Batman radios in to Oracle to tell her the bad news, she gives a canned "your call could not be completed as dialled!" message, cluing Batman - and you - in to the fact that something's up. Then the doors in the morgue start flying open and Batman finds his parents' corpses. Meep.
  • The second time, he forces Batman to walk through a dark alleyway and relive his parents' death. Halfway through the sequence, Batman de-ages into a young Bruce!
  • The third and final time becomes a Fission Mailed: the console "glitches up" and "reboots", starting up the introduction sequence from the beginning of the game... except you're playing as the Joker escorting BATMAN into Arkham Asylum. And then your point of view switches back to Batman just as the Joker takes out a gun and shoots him. You then get the game over screen with the Have a Nice Death tip telling you "Use the middle stick to dodge Joker's bullet." (or on the PC, "Tilt the mouse") And then Batman rips himself out of an illusory grave. Then Scarecrow injects him with a crap-ton more toxin. Batman isn't inconvenienced by this. He even wakes up amid the unconscious bodies of about six thugs and a Titan henchman... which, coincidentally, you had just beaten up in skeleton form in the Scarecrow nightmare.
    Scarecrow: How are you doing this? You've ingested enough fear toxin to drive ten men insane! WHAT... ARE YOU!? [runs off like a pansy]
    • Many, many players report a nigh-irresistible urge to reply, "I'm Batman."
    • Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally discovered what Scarecrow fears.
  • Again, a moment for the developers is in the third scene with Scarecrow. It's completely debatable exactly why Warden Scarface was added, but quite surely any reactions ranged from 'oh, well that's interesting' to 'oh yes'.
  • The Scarecrow's sections of the game are like playing the most memorable parts of Eternal Darkness as Batman. And it's awesome.
• The takedown moves, especially at the end of a match. Watching Batman RKO a Psycho Knife Nut inmate in slow-motion, to the sound of fracturing bones? Yes please.
• The first time you do an inverted takedown (hang down from a gargoyle, wait for mook, snatch said mook, leave mook hanging by his foot from a rope, other mooks start wetting themselves.)
  • The first time?? It becomes funny to the point of absurdity when you snatch someone up, glide to another gargoyle, use your batarang to cut the first trapped mook down, glide back over to the first gargoyle, and snatch someone up AGAIN.
• Another moment that shines comes at the very end. Batman and the authorities have subdued all of Arkham's inmates and thus the nightmare comes to a close. Gordon tells a bloodied, surely sore Batman to go home and take a deserved rest when, moments later, a nearby radio police unit says that Two-Face has just robbed a bank. The Batwing then swoops mightily and Batman rides on, heading for what is definitely NOT Wayne Manor to take a nap. As Bruce Wayne put it so wisely, "Batman has no limits." Indeed.
  • If you completed the story before finishing up the side collectibles, consider this: Batman flies off to stop Two-Face, then immediately goes back to Arkham to tie up loose ends, without even stopping to get an undamaged suit, much less get some shuteye. Sure, it becomes even less plausible that it all takes place during a single night, but awesome nonetheless.
  • Even better, it's implied that Batman broke his arm when he punched out Titan Joker with Explosive Gel. So he's not even letting a broken arm stop him from going after another criminal.
• The Car Fu on Bane.
  Bane: I WILL BREAK YOU, BATMAN! THEN THE BRUJA!
  Batman: No, Bane! This time I break you!
• Prior to the final battle with the Joker, the guards will remark that you're the "party's guest of honour". The mooks lined up on both sides of the room will applaud and cheer as you walk through (looking like a badass, naturally) to confront the Joker.
  • You can get an achievement for beating them up, called "Party Pooper" naturally. It's a 25 on 1 fight.
  • Even better, do it without getting hit once, using every single one of Batman's moves, all in one long combo. It's difficult due to the extremely close quarters, but undeniably satisfying.
• The game for Batman. Beating up countless thugs, Bane, Harley, Poison Ivy, blowing Killer Croc up and actually resisting being transformed by Titan. Plus he can uncover Arkham's darkest secret and solve all of the Riddler's challenges to send him into a rage which allows him to send the police his location. All in a single night.
• Some in-game instances can be like this too. After triple bataranging all three to the ground, Batman pounces on one guy and knocks him out and proceeds to pounce the next guy to knock him out too. By this point, the third had gotten to his feet and had his bat raised over his head ready to smack Batman in the back of the head... when the counter signal appeared and Batman proceed to give the guy a Backhand to knock him out too in mid-swing.
• There is a fully equipped second Batcave on Arkham island, which Batman had built years ago for situations like this. When asked by Oracle how he managed to hide it, he says "It's me, remember?" You can almost hear the grin on his face with that line.
  • The real Crowner is walking into it for the first time, Batman saying "On," the cave powering up, and then gliding down as the music swells slightly in the background. It can definitely give you goosebumps.
• Causing Riddler to go from an unbearable Smug Snake to falling into a Villainous Breakdown.
• Any time you clear out a room full of mooks armed to the teeth with just your fists, feet, wits, and gadgets - and three of them you don't even need. Particularly when you do so without them ever once noticing where you are and the Joker repeatedly has to point out that there are fewer men on the job than punched in on the time sheet.
  • Especially since combat in prior Batman games were little more than pure beat-em-ups. Here, you really have to use creativity, patience, and skill to clear out a room of armed thugs, which gives you a true Dark Knight feeling. Remember the dock scene in Begins where Batman takes out all of Falcone's henchmen without so much as being spotted? Yeah, you get to relive that kind of rush many times over.
• Scarecrow's fifth and final interview tape. It starts with Scarecrow bragging about his ultimate fear gas, and you hear some of the victims, but then Batman bursts in. And then Dr. Stephen Kellerman says to Scarecrow, "Give it up. Now!" Scarecrow asks how both Batman and Dr. Kellerman are unaffected by the gas; however, the Caped Crusader replies by saying both are affected but it's not stopping them and that they have already made an antidote to the fear gas. Batman delivers this awesome line:
  Batman: He fooled you, Crane. How that does make you feel? Threatened? Humiliated? Scared?
• In one of the early stealth missions, you can begin by adding gel the wall behind a mook, gel the ceiling above another mook, then perch yourself on a gargoyle above a third. Then you can blow up the gel and do an inverted takedown within less than a second of each other, taking out three mooks at once before they even know you're there!
  • Alternatively, spray the gel on the back of the wall, then land on and knock out the guy in front. When the others go to investigate him, then detonate the gel, knocking them all out and, if someone wasn't quite in range, scaring the everloving daylights out of him.
• In one of Croc's interviews, he tries to to intimidate Aaron Cash. Croc isn't even finished before Cash just tasers him. Awesome.

Croc: I've got your scent, Cash. And when I get out of here I'll-BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
Cash: Yeah, and I got yours too. And you know what, big guy? It stinks! (turns towards on-duty clinician) Carry on, Doctor.

• Aaron Cash just in general. Guy survives the night, and manages to keep the people who stay around him alive as well. Plus, Batman may catch 'em, but he's the guy who has to live with 'em. He got his hand bitten off by Croc and didn't quit.
  • Also, when playing as the Joker presumably 'escaping' from Arkham, the only person he threatens and views as the only real threat to his fun? Not Sharpe, but Cash.
    Joker: You'll never stop me, Cash!
  • Further evidence of Cash's sheer awesomeness: What does he do when tied to a chair, six armed guys around him and Batman shows up to rescue him? He calmly tells Batman how many guys there were in the room and how much fire power they were packing. His reaction to being stuck in a room full of poison gas? "I can do this all night, but the doc over here looks like he's not gonna last much longer."
• Whenever a player completes all 240 of Riddler's challenges without resorting to the internet or the strategy guide, or any other kind of outside help.
  • Riddler HIMSELF! He came from just a minor threat from the comics to actually SCARY in the 2 Arkham games, and bonus points in this game, because seeing how the mass prison escape happened early on, and only a little bit later did the Riddler started challenging Batman, it could possibly imply that the Riddler put ALL of those trophies and crazy challenges BY HIMSELF!
• The moment you realize that you are not just playing as Batman. You are him, using his gadgets, wits, and interrogation scare tactics, talking with famous allies, and beating up the famous rogues gallery all the while saving people. What more could you ask for?
• Killer Croc's introduction while you're still escorting Joker into Arkham. You see the elevator coming up, and you notice that there seems to be something in it. Wait a minute...that's...HOLY CROCODILIANS, BATMAN, HE'S FREAKIN' HUGE!!!
  • And that's before he opens his mouth and uses that scary, guttural growl to immediately threaten Batman.
• Freakshow Rodeo. At first it's difficult to take down a Titan while you hold off a bunch of Mooks, but when you do you can go to town on the poor bastards as the Titan swings, smashes, and slams his way through any one stupid enough to be in its way.
• There's nothing quite like the feeling of pulling off the Freeflow Perfection achievement, where you're able to pull off all of Batman's combat moves in one uninterrupted combo. Strikes, criticals, counters, takedowns, throws, ground and pounds, batarang, batclaw, cape stun, dodging over a mook, all at once. Makes you feel like an absolute badass.
  • "Absolute badass" nothing. That achievement makes you feel more like "an absolute badass". That achievement makes you feel EXACTLY like THE Goddamn Batman!
• The Greenhouse where you have to rescue the guard who's been tied up in order to turn off the power and continue. During the entire fight, the tied-up guard is rooting for you.
• Getting the Perfect Knight bonus in challenge mode. You just took on a large number of Joker's thugs without so much as one of them successfully landing a punch.
• When saving one of the doctors in Medical, you can use Detective Mode to notice that there's a large number of henchmen hidden and ready to ambush you. As you enter the room, a cutscene triggers where Batman casually approaches the doctor, apparently unaware of the mooks lying in wait. It looks like Cutscene Incompetence... until the doctor shouts "It's a trap!" and Batman casually answers: "I know, just not for me!"
  • And if you didn't use detective vision, you get the same cutscene.
• In the cutscene near the end where you finally meet Joker face-to-face, as Batman approaches his throne, several mooks rush Batman from behind. Batman just casually punches out each and every one of them with a single blow while keeping his eyes fixed on the Joker.
• During one stealth mission, Batman must take out all of the guards without being spotted, lest Harley kill Gordon. If Batman fails, Harley taunts Gordon before shooting him. Gordon's response? "Do your worst." Come on, you have to admit that took serious guts.

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