Lock us up and throw away the key, please

Arkham Asylum drops players into the role of the Caped Crusader, who—after a busy night of doling out vigilante justice—has managed to capture and transport the Joker to Arkham Asylum, Gotham City’s island-bound sanitarium and prison for the criminally insane. Despite the hero’s presence, the Clown Prince of Crime breaks free of custody; and instead of escaping (as a sane person might), he opts to lock himself in, take over the institution, and free all the convicts.

With the inmates literally running the asylum, it’s up to Batman to set things right. Fortunately, he’s well equipped for the job. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll lay a hammering on low-level thugs, bosses, and notable villains from the DC Comics universe, using a wide variety of upgradable barehanded combat techniques, weapons, and gadgets from Batman’s arsenal.

It’s nice to see old friends getting together for a few laughs.

Despite the impressive number of ways to churn out pain in the game, the combat system is elegantly simplistic, and empowers players to dole out bone-crushing combos and a buffet of knuckle sandwiches like a boss. That said, Batman: Arkham Asylum isn’t all about beat downs—far from it, actually. Stealth and planning make up a large part of the game, and when combined with the amount of action the title affords, the result is some of the most compelling gameplay ever seen on Apple hardware.

From start to finish, Feral Interactive’s port of Batman: Arkham Asylum is a thing of beauty, with moody environments plus clever character design brought to brooding life thanks to excellent voice work.

While testing the game on a mid-2010 13-inch MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM, we found the graphics and gameplay to be absolutely stellar, even with the settings maxed out. And while the game can be played with a keyboard and mouse (or touchpad), Arkham Asylum’s beautifully fluid combat is best experienced with a gamepad.

The bottom line. Action packed, beautiful to behold, and a joy to play, Batman: Arkham Asylum is an easily accessible title that will gobble up hours of your time.