When comparing Rise of the Tomb Raider vs Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Slant community recommends Rise of the Tomb Raider for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Rise of the Tomb Raider is ranked 50th while Batman: Arkham Asylum is ranked 75th. The most important reason people chose Rise of the Tomb Raider is:
In Rise of the Tomb Raider there are 9 optional tombs that serve as large scale environmental puzzles. They all rely on you reading the environment carefully. For example, one of them is a wooden ship frozen vertically on the wall of an ice cavern. The puzzle is reaching the treasure at the top of the ship. It might seem really hard at first, but if you carefully look at the environment you'll find a path. Solving one of these puzzles is really fun, especially because you get an upgrade from them.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Challenging but fair optional puzzles
In Rise of the Tomb Raider there are 9 optional tombs that serve as large scale environmental puzzles. They all rely on you reading the environment carefully.
For example, one of them is a wooden ship frozen vertically on the wall of an ice cavern. The puzzle is reaching the treasure at the top of the ship.
It might seem really hard at first, but if you carefully look at the environment you'll find a path. Solving one of these puzzles is really fun, especially because you get an upgrade from them.
Pro Jaw dropping graphics
Rise of the Tomb Raider has phenomenal graphics and a very great attention to detail. Simple things like the snow moving as you step into it or how Lara's hair moves in the wind. This gives it a feeling a of polish most games don't have.
The character models and animations are also phenomenal. Each of their movements and facial expressions look real, creating a movie like experience.
Pro Rewarding exploration
Each level is large, so there is quite a lot to see and do in each one. You'll be rewarded for exploring as there are many hidden items, weapons, and beautiful views to be found. This gives you an incentive to fully explore each location.
Pro A variety of weapons to keep the gameplay fun
There are over 20 weapons to choose from, including handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, and bows. You can also craft special ammo or explosives such as nail bombs. This keeps the gunfights interesting since you can switch to a new weapon whenever it gets dull.
Pro Replayability through unlockables
Once a level is competed, you can to complete unfinished or new objectives. These will unlock new outfits or other items. This gives you plenty of goals to strive for outside the main story. Trying to complete all the optional objectives can be quite addictive.
Pro Freeflow combat pioneer
Arkham Asylum is the first game to bring us freeflow brawler melee combat in its full glory. It invented the combat genre where you fight a multitude of enemies who take turns attacking you, while the player has a basic attack, a parry+counter and a combat roll. Getting multiple hits in on enemies builds up a combo streak that makes batman stronger. This streak is reset by getting hit by an enemy. Other games, like Assassin's Creed, had superficially similar combat systems, but not as optimized as this and they did not feature hit/combo streaks. Arkham Asylum's freeflow combat system is very suitable to be played with controllers.
Pro Fun stealth & gadgets
Remaining stealthy and getting stealth takedowns is important in Arkham Asylum's gameplay. Arkham Asylum gives the player a relatively large number of different gadgets to use for different combat purposes, such as ranged takedowns, cutting ropes, diverting enemies' attention, blasting through doors, traversing longer distances and hacking.
Cons
Con Overused and overly familiar plot
The gist of the plot is that Lara is searching for the key to eternal life. This plot has been used in other franchises such as Indiana Jones and Uncharted. It seems kinda lazy, especially because both of these franchises are also about treasure hunters. You won't be able to shake the feeling that you already know the story, which somewhat ruins the enjoyment.
Con Very linear
Most of the time you'll be forced to move along a single path. There are occasional quick-time events and simple puzzles, but every situation only has a single solution. This makes it feel more like an interactive movie than a game since you're never really given any freedom of choice.
Con Focuses on action too much
Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn't have many puzzles or slow-paced sections, so you never really feel like a treasure hunter looking for artifacts. There are just way too many gunfights and high intensity moments one after another. It would have been nice to see more puzzles to balance out the action.
Con Stealth seems pointless
While there are stealth takedowns and you can be stealthy in many areas, there is no real incentive to be stealthy. You can easily take out most enemies in an open confrontation and you won't ever feel like you're truly in danger.
Con Difficulty spikes late game
During the latter half of the game the gunfights will suddenly become a lot harder. While they're not impossible to beat, the sudden difficulty spike will take time to get used to. This may cause some frustration and worsen your overall experience.
Con Dark atmosphere
You won't realize how many shades of black exist until you've played an Arkham game. It's always dark outside, so to people who like daylight and colors in their games, this might get a bit dull after a while.