Literature for the digital age: A Batman: Arkham Asylum Review

“An icy chill seemed to sweep through the room as I heard the inmates speaking among themselves.
Not wanting to be seen, I crept silently close to the walls of the old asylum,
being sure that my body was cloaked in shadow.  The open doorway on my left was an opportunity to
get out of sight.  The room was empty, save some scattered papers and an old roll-top desk.
Was that a reel of audio-tape on the desk? I picked up the tape and ran a finger across the dusty label:
Arkham Asylum: Interview Tape 1: Edward Nigma: aka: The Riddler“.

No, this wasn’t a scene from the latest DC Comics graphic novel.  This was my experience playing in Batman: Arkham Asylum by Eidos Games and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.  Naturally, I was playing as Batman, the Dark Knight himself, and The Joker was on the loose again.  The reel of audio tape that I picked up in that empty room was useless.  By “useless”, I mean that it didn’t help me at all in a game sense.  I got no extra points for picking up the tape, it didn’t give me any clues on how to find the Joker, or tell me how to defeat the Scarecrow.  I could play through the entire game without ever having listened to this tape.  When I did listen to this tape, however, what I heard was chilling.  It was a psychological interview with The Riddler, one of Batman’s less dangerous enemies.  The interview lasted only a few minutes, and played out exactly the way that you’d expect an abnormal psych evaluation to go.  The Riddler did not suddenly lash out and attack his therapist, there was no screaming or frothing at the mouth.  He just asked the good doctor a simple riddle, and when she confidently answered, he corrected her.  It was when he gave the correct answer to this riddle that chills ran up my spine. (in real life) The tape ended, and I continued to search through the mansion, hoping to find the Joker, or one of his minions.  The interview tape meant nothing to the rest of that level. It was just a bit of lagniappe, some flavor text to a spook story into which I was fully immersed.

See? This is totally thematically creepy, right?

The point to all this, is that this was the point that I started to enjoy this game on a literary level.  Sure, I could beat up the Joker’s goons all day, and it was a whole lot of fun.  But listening to psych evaluations from Batman’s rogue’s gallery gave me a level of immersion that a thousand well-thrown batarangs couldn’t replicate.  Later in the game, while under the spell of The Scarecrow’s neuro-toxin, I began to hallucinate, which added an entirely new dimension to the gameplay.  I stopped caring about what kinds of power-ups I had in my inventory, or how many weapons were in my utility belt. I just wanted to see where the story went from here. I knew that Batman would probably win in the end. (he usually does) But I’m curious to see how this narrative plays out.  Did The Joker escape from Arkham on his own, or was he working with someone on the inside?  How does Dr. Young fit into all this, and is Warden Quincy Sharpe involved.  As I continue to unravel the many mysteries of this game, I feel myself drawn in on a visceral level.  This is like a novel for me, and not just some silly video game.

There still many libraries that discount video gaming in general as pointless time-wasting.  Libraries are, after all, in the business of disseminating information.  We as librarians are purveyors of arts and literature, and we shouldn’t be wasting our time playing games.  But how is the feeling of apprehension and malaise that I felt while listening to the Riddler’s greatest hits any different from my fear and trepidation while reading Stephen King?  Is the excitement I feel when battling Darth Vader in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed really that different from the thrill of confronting Vlad Dracula in Kostova’s The Historian?  Yes, I concede that there are many games out there that offer little more than a mind-numbing lather/rinse/repeat of violence and button-mashing.  As the game industry matures, however, we are beginning to see a rise of games that contain fully developed storylines and complex plot architecture worthy of a well-written novel.   Batman: Arkham Asylum is far from the only game with complex characters and a well-written storyline.  Games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and even Brutal Legend have created an immersive storyline that does more than just move gameplay along.  Game developers have already realized that their audience includes sophisticated adults and teens who want more than just an pointless game experience.  How long will it be before games are able to stand side-by-side with great works of literature in modern libraries?

And then where will we shelve Dante’s Inferno?

Just look at the state of those card catalogs! No wonder Batman's so angry!