When comparing Alan Wake vs Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Slant community recommends Alan Wake for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” Alan Wake is ranked 51st while Batman: Arkham Asylum is ranked 75th. The most important reason people chose Alan Wake is:
The story of an author trying to break out of a writers block slump, who is trying to meet a deadline, decides to travel to the countryside with his wife in order to relax. Of course the wife is kidnapped as weird events start following the protagonist around. This is just the outline, but it is very fleshed out through great voice acting as well as interesting TV like scripted segments that break up the gameplay. Overall it shows a lot of polish and makes for a story that is intriguing, that player wants to stick around to resolve.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Immersive story
The story of an author trying to break out of a writers block slump, who is trying to meet a deadline, decides to travel to the countryside with his wife in order to relax. Of course the wife is kidnapped as weird events start following the protagonist around. This is just the outline, but it is very fleshed out through great voice acting as well as interesting TV like scripted segments that break up the gameplay. Overall it shows a lot of polish and makes for a story that is intriguing, that player wants to stick around to resolve.
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 Late game drags
Sadly the late game story and gameplay drags a bit, making for a title that is stretched just a bit to long as the written and played scenarios get more and more outrageous.
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.