Bayonetta

Bayonetta – 1/1 – Henry Arrambide

Exploitative? Possibly.

There’s a noticeable phenomenon that occurs within any pop-culture medium that I have dubbed ‘The Tendency Towards Mediocrity’. To keep it short as possible, the Tendency Towards Mediocrity is a trend that develops as a medium ages; the medium picks up accessibility, the means of production for the medium are streamlined, and economic viability rises – this leads to a profit driven model of creation which results in games that, while not necessarily bad, tend to follow a checklist of profit-ensuring elements which could be fun, or recycled and stale, but definitely are not inspired by creative drive.

Note that I mention the means of production are streamlined and the medium picks up accessibility. These are key because while it leads to a market dominated by ‘mediocre’ titles, these big safe profit ensuring hits allow companies to make money and allow them to allow developers to take risks and make more experimental products – with cheaper and easier means of production, niches are allowed to grow and stabilize, and so a weird balance is achieved. In other words, shut the fuck up about how casual games are killing gaming.

Where did that come from? Anyways…these ‘mediocre’ titles…like I said, they’re a balancing act. Some of these ‘casual’ or ‘mediocre’ titles are actually good. Majora’s Mask and Silent Hill 2 come to mind as being products of this system, which also churned out Twilight Princess and Silent Hill Homecoming. Which brings me to Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Sometimes the tendency towards mediocrity creates horrible horrible results.

Arkham Asylum is by all means the most mediocre videogame I have ever played. It has the licensed characters and Unreal Engine graphics to pull in the right non-hardcore gamer markets, the spacey-flowy Batman-on-ice combat which makes you kick all kinds of ass with the slightest friction so that the player doesn’t really ever get frustrated, the gargoyles neatly yet nonsensically placed everywhere so that you get the feel of stealth gaming without really ever having to manage environmental tricks or traps (seriously, at one point you must sneak up on Harley without her sensing you, which sounds tough in practice until you realize all the vents are setup just right to where you can stealth takedown all the bad guys without much trouble – you don’t even need to hide bodies, just crouch walk up behind all the men and take them out with a press of the action button), an abstract upgrade system which gives you just the right sense of progression (they couldn’t at least have made Batman be disarmed due to Arkham house rules or something to explain that away? Why is Bruce Wayne purchasing his own tech back? How was it lost? What exactly are these exp points?), and it’s held together by a story that’s….well it’s a comic book story for sure, but it’s so subdued and straightforward, not really anything substantial enough to distract or ridiculous enough to entertain.

You’re a man dressed up as a bat fighting a woman who can control plants, a really big buff guy decked out in S&M gear, a crazy phobia obsessed scarecrow, a man-crocodile thing, and all kinds of thugs and gangsters kept in a world famous mental facility. I should feel some sort of friction in this situation…but the game never really presents that. You’re just the player, running through the motions, killing time. Yet it’s such an uh, interesting title. The weapons are fun and what little strategic freedom offered is fun. You definitely feel like Batman at certain points (in combat and sneaking around, at least; all the detective work is taken care of by magical detective mode to ensure you feel like you’re progressing). It’s not a bad game…just…mediocre. I bring up the game here because my feelings for it merit the game a 0.4 or something and we just can’t allow that, now can we?

But the thing is, I’ve played Arkham Asylum many times under many names. It’s been called Fable, Gun, Kingdom Hearts, Legacy of Kain, Tales of something, most recently it was a game called Darksiders. I’ve seen and heard it before as Pirates of the Caribbean and Metallica. Doesn’t mean the particular medium is dying, just means I need to try a little harder, dig a little deeper, have a little faith. Lo and behold I found Bayonetta, and was my quest and faith paid back at least tenfold, shit maybe fifteenfold I daresay!

'Dem Angels are everywhere man.

Screw common sense, screw a sensible plot, screw character development and exposition and all that stuff, hell screw the basic physics and all that jazz. Here, control this chick, beat the shit out of those angels, and these axe wielding things, and then these bigger axe wielding things, and these gryphons, NOW EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE DON’T PANIC, fight these fiery gryphons, now these fiery angels, now here’s a two headed dragon, kill that yes yes good, now beat the floating babyfaced demigod, alright you’re on a plane now don’t ask why or how, okay now you’re underground watch out there’s lava, now fight David Bowie, okay now face this Golem, now turn into a panther and run up the side of that skyscraper okay you got it now…

You aren’t really told to do any of that. You just sort of do it. Why? Because it’s there. Because there’s a huge flying thing spitting fireballs at you, and you just aren’t going to let that stand because god dammit the last two headed fire breathing flying snake with tentacles for eyes went down like a chump and this floating tentacled babyface plant monster can’t be any harder. It will die by your hand, because the acrobatic lightning and fire brother claw demons had fallen to your hair-sword, and just like them, so too does this foe know mortality. Go forth and be awesome. The game isn’t info-dumping and pointing you from plot point to plot point (I am quite sure the game has no clue what the hell it is talking about except for right at the end when the drugs wear off), you just sort of realize you can turn into a bird and so you fly…and then you can walk on walls…or turn into a panther. Yeah. Don’t play the game because you need to kill time, play it because you can turn into a panther.

No seriously, you can turn into a panther.