Comments on: Arkham Asylum, and the space of traumatic memory

By: Aperio: Games and Spaces » Blog Archive » Link Round-Up: Memory Spaces, Agrarian Life, Closed Rides, Future Cities

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:23:30 +0000

[...] Arkham Asylum and the space of traumatic-memory [...]

By: Daniel Golding

Daniel Golding — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:28:09 +0000

Oh yeah, certainly Arkham Asylum isn’t doing anything new with the franchise in developing themes of mental trauma. The comics have been there for decades. But it’s certainly doing something new in the videogame world; the extent to which the game is bathed in the themes of its source material is pretty unusual.

By: Evan Stubbs

Evan Stubbs — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:14:28 +0000

@Gbrut: I hear you – I knew it was coming, and yet it *still* caught me by surprise. Whether that’s a comment on the degree to which we internalise the fourth wall, even when we know better, or on my own my magpie-like ability to focus for long periods of time, I’m not entirely sure …

@Daniel: I’d debate whether or not it’s Arkham Asylum specifically; Miller’s take on Batman was pretty grim and focused fairly heavily on mental and physical trauma. In that sense, the game remained true to the ethos on which it was based. I’d argue that the execution is excellent, but on the same token they’ve been lucky enough to have drawn from one of the richest veins of graphic novel material.

Of course, seeing as so many others have utterly failed to do anything worthwhile even when presented with excellent source material, you can’t exactly undersell what they delivered. Watchmen, for example?

By: Daniel Golding

Daniel Golding — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:56:02 +0000

@Gbrut: Yeah, actually, fellow RKD writer Harry Milonas made the exact same point prior to posting this article. It’s certainly an interesting approach. I never played Eternal Darkness, but I meant to at the time. I guess though the only difference, as Harry pointed out, would be that I would expect that sort of thing from a game like Eternal Darkness, given that the whole thing is about insanity, whereas Arkham Asylum never displayed this sort of tendency before release. It’s only when you start to play it that the theme of trauma (and borderline insanity) starts to shine through.

Thanks for dropping by!

By: Gbrut

Gbrut — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:28:34 +0000

Eternal Darkness on the gamecube has also done the whole ’screw with your head’ thing. I beleive at the time one of the best ‘glitches’ was that when I tried to save my game it gave an error and then the screen started a progress indicator for ‘deleting game save files’

By: Sunday Supplement: “all-brawling and all-stealthing” | Kotaku Australia

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:32:04 +0000

[...] Kings Dream: Arkham Asylum and the space of traumatic memory Daniel Golding suggests there’s a moment in Arkham Asylum where Batman’s trauma becomes [...]

By: Daniel Golding

Daniel Golding — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:19:03 +0000

@enwandrews: Yeah, to me, the most effective, and even most important type of media is the mainstream type that has a message or a meaning hidden underneath barefaced appeals to a huge audience. Arkham Asylum fits in here, though perhaps the message isn’t hugely important, but it’s only one of a handful of games that does so. I’d like to see more.

@Michael: Thanks for dropping by – I did wonder how someone on PC would respond to the ‘glitch’, as it brings far less of the baggage over. I wonder if Rocksteady Studios could have incorporated something more specific, like the blue screen of death? Or would that have been too hokey/obvious?

By: MIchel

MIchel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:20:01 +0000

uhhh..Not MW2, obviously. I meant GRAW2. Anyway…

By: MIchel

MIchel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:19:18 +0000

I played the game on PC. The glitch was not some horrifying hardware failure that made my heart stop, but a familiar aspect of playing games on a PC I had built myself. I’ve recently been trying to play MW2 and STALKER, but something about the graphic settings I’m using causes my video card to overheat and restart my computer. Batman’s glitches just made me raise my eyebrow for half a second before I realized what was happening.

I guess you have a point, but we’re now talking about the metagame. Batman: AA on Xbox 360 in front of a flatscreen TV, as you say. Batman: AA on my randomly restarting PC is another thing altogether.

By: enwandrews

enwandrews — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:25:15 +0000

It’s a real treat to find something meaningful in a game that’s trying to be all things to everyone. As a fan of the Nolan films I assumed the darker themes would be underplayed, with a stronger focus on the bubblegum batman.

The unfolding nightmare sequences stand out as that rare example of interactive storytelling over controller resting cut scenes, and I hope it’s something that shows up in more big budget games.

It’s what good licensed tie-ins should be, a simulation of what it feels like to be the hero, warts and all. That I feel like batman in combat & movement is one thing, that I’m able to share the same mindset as the hero is another thing entirely.