The Perfect Knight
by Mark
After a year of playing Batman Arkham Asylum, I finally finished it. The 100% achievement, Perfect Knight, is mine. To be honest, I’m not much of an achievement chaser; usually it’s a case of playing through the main storyline, getting some multiplayer done if there is any and moving on to the next new game on the market. I could never really understand why people would go to the trouble; surely it’s just a frustrating, tedious task for nothing but a few extra gamer points and an achievement. I felt that way until Arkham Asylum.
Batman Arkham Asylum, for me, is one of the greatest examples of action gameplay and a compelling story. The freeflow combat system allows the player to feel so connected to the main character that the combat becomes instinctive. Playing through the game on hard difficulty switches off the UI symbols that help show how combat is playing out, meaning the player has to watch out for tell-tale animations from the enemies and combat them accordingly. This is something I have not seen done so well in any other game and when mixed with the classic Batman storyline, an island filled with lunatics and murderers and a madman cackling while he tries to kill you, fully immerses the player.
To say that I enjoy the game would be an understatement and people who know me will tell you that I rarely play the same game twice, unless it’s for multiplayer, and never for achievements. I just don’t see the point; if you know the plot twists then really you are just going through the motions. With Arkham Asylum however, I’ve gone through the game five times on hard and three on normal. So after completing my last play through I decided: Batman Arkham Asylum was going to be the first game I’d ever 100% completed.
Looking through my current achievements, I saw that I only had three more to get in order to complete the game. Freeflow Perfection, which requires you complete a freeflow combo using every combat move at Batman’s disposal and both the Combat and Predator Challenge Gold achievements, which both ask the player to get the maximum number of medals on each challenge map. It shouldn’t take too long after all the play throughs so far, so I should speed through it, right? How wrong I was.
First up were the Predator missions. As fans will know, these missions require you sneak around in the dark, stalking your targets and taking them out quickly and quietly. Each mission has three set objectives such as pull a target over a railing or use corner cover to take out a target. The first few missions flew past, taking out enemies in new and imaginative ways to complete all of the objectives and I was then left with Invisible Predator Extreme, which required taking out two henchmen by destroying the floor below them, taking out three henchmen in a row by pulling them from a ledge and jumping out and giving a henchman a little fright. Sadly, this took me many many… many attempts to get right. At one point I spent twenty minutes waiting for some guys to get into position. After a few days (yes, I know I’m rubbish) I finally got it and, after a victory lap around the house, I started on my other challenges.
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All there was left to do was get my Freeflow Perfection and finish off the combat mission Shock and Awe (Extreme). After looking at a few online tutorials and picking up exactly what all of Batman’s combat skills were I flew through the Freeflow Perfection and was finally left with possibly the most frustrating gaming experience of my life, Shock and Awe (Extreme). With Shock and Awe the player has to defeat all of the henchmen with a good score, in a very short space of time, before the floor is electrified and you die. After god knows how many attempts and nights of sitting constantly hitting start and restart over and over I finally finished it and did, for the first time in my gaming life, a victory celebration running around shouting YES!
Plink, that was it, The Perfect Knight, my very first 100% completion of a game. I now see why achievement chasing is so popular among gamers. If anything, there is an insane sense of accomplishment from finishing something so completely. Still, I don’t think I would do it again. I just don’t have the patience to sit and work through achievements. Then again, maybe Arkham City…
Last five articles by Mark
- I Have A Problem
- Total War: Warhammer - Review
- Rainbow Six Siege - Review
- Mordheim: City of the Damned - Review
- Star Wars: Battlefront - Review
I have to go back to this game at some stage and finish off the story on hard; so I’ve not maxed the game out. Whereas BatVan has maxed the game out on three different versions, The standard edition, the GOTY edition and the ‘I’m milking this for gamerscore’ edition.
Well done on maxing your first game.
Well done on Maxing your first game, Mark!
However, I completed Arkham Asylum on my dad’s PS3. Firstly so I didn’t have to bother with achievements (no one cares about trophies and everyone knows it), and secondly so I didn’t then have to face off against Victor’s challenge scores and be tied down into a neverending game of having to keep trying to beat impossible scores and the risk of no longer enjoying a fantastic game.
I’ve only bothered to max both Penny Arcade Adventures and Spiderman Web of Shadows. I can’t be bothered to max either Modern Warfare either, leaving them both at something like 960 each because I can’t be bothered hating either game more trying to get all the intel and doing the mile high club. In fact, most games I can’t be bothered to max by virtue of not wanting to ruin the game for myself with teeth-gnashing frustration or by not having the time and having too many games to play.
Basically, in a long and roundabout way – You’re a much better gamer than I am for being able to max Arkham Asylum
Well done dood! The first game I FULLY maxed out on the XBox was Two Worlds… I’d completed Oblivion to the 1000 points but Knights Of The Nine was already out and then Shivering Isles came out (which I wasn’t overly keen on) so although I’d taken Oblivion itself to the max, it was no longer maxed out as far as XBox Live was concerned because the DLC points were also being taken into consideration. When I completed Two Worlds, which really was quite tough as the last achievement was for discovering EVERY location on the map, I was over the moon. To me, it was a testament to how much I enjoyed the game if I would go to such extremes to achieve that 100% mark.
More recently, I completed Borderlands along with the three DLCs, which meant I was back up to the 100% mark for that particular game… and then they released the Claptrap Revolution which immediately threw another bunch of points at me. Unfortunately, I’m having severe issues maxing this one out… thanks to the collectibles such as 25 Offshore Oil Cans (I think I’ve got maybe ten at most), 15 Claptrap Bobbleheads (no idea how many I have, perhaps half) and the other achievement for picking up 3 Pink Panties (got), 5 Clapfish (got) and 15 Pizza slices (I swear I’ve got WAY more than 15 now but the achievement hasn’t popped yet) so even with me throwing countless hours at it… I still haven’t maxed it out. Not because of skill, unfortunately, but because of randomly generated content in a collectible quest. Joy.
Congrats on your first completion
It is always a great feeling to max something that you really care about, which is why my best ones were Hitman, Mirror’s Edge, Alan Wake, and a few more. Though, as Mark says, it is infuriating when new DLC (that you may not fancy) knocks your percentage back down again.
I know this feeling all too well, and was in a similar position to yourself, only with a different game (Civilization Revolution), very satisfying when that last one blips up, will never do it again though…maybe.
Congrats!
I’m yet to max out any game and the challenges were too tricky in this game for me!
Mine was Gears of War and Gears of War 2.. i usually try and get 100% on games that i purchase anyway but Gears..oh man, it was a whole another story.
I’ve never been an online multiplayer fan, but Gears changed it all..the moment my chainsaw revered and i won an online match, a light hit me from above..
after realising it was my brother turning on my bedroom light, i went back to gaming and was hooked..i had to get the seriously achievement and complete the game 100%..why? because i KNEW i could
i remember the day the infamous achievement sound played and the achievement played across the screen, i was up on my 2 feet doing more thrusting and hand gestures than John Travalto on steriods
Gamers tended to check others gamerscore while waiting for the match to start and others used to go * what the! you got seriously? * i was like..* oh yeahhh.*
then came the glitchers and everyone unlocking seriously in an instant but it still didn’t stop me when Gears of War 2 came out..i had to do it, i KNEW i could do it, and yeah i did.
Thanks for the comments guys.
@Splicer261 I think every human has that primal cheer in them that they go to when things turn from crappy to awesome. Im not one for cheering, anyone who knows me will tell you that, but when i finally beat the last challenge in this i went to that primal cheer and was jumping up and down on my bed and everything.
This was only after weeks of trying, shouting at myself, at batman, the devs, the stupid enemies, my fingers, the controller….
Im not big on gamer score to be honest, i dont check to see who is the best of my friends list. Im just not that competitive, i dont even play sports games.