5. Batman: Arkham Asylum The Game Crash and Middle Stick
Rocksteady pulled one hell of a surprise with Arkham Asylum. When it was first announced, nobody was too thrilled though Spiderman 2 was not too far into the distant memory, wed all seen too many superhero flops to get the bunting out. Even when promises of comic-book fidelity and gothic themes came through, we werent too amazed. But then it came out, and we found it wasnt just good, it was
great, and confident enough to mess the player around too. In hindsight, I guess it was an obvious move the element of the Arkham Asylum itself, Scarecrow and Bruce Waynes childhood trauma obviously necessitated going off the rails somehow, but I dont think anyone expected the Britain-based studio to go quite as nuts as they did. Namely, whenever Scarecrow came up, the game pulled a fast one on you, but its only in the later encounters that you see how inventive the whole thing gets, with the whole thing actually faking a mid-game crash and restart just to screw with the player. It was stupendously twisted and glorious to boot we re-enacted the opening cinematic, but with Batman playing the nutcase before the coup de grace Batman actually gets killed by the Joker in a feat of fourth-wall-breaking brilliance. Were told to use the middle stick you to dodge Jokers gunshot, but obviously, that doesnt exist whats actually happening is that Scarecrow is using the games mechanics against you, first forcing the rest before launching a fake death-restart screen. Its a tremendously bold move from a greenhorn developer (theyd only done awesome-but-functional shooter Urban Chaos before this), and you can tell theres a Kojima influence in there somewhere.