According to Kotaku.com, I hate Arkham Asylum.

[LandryWalker]

I'm a comic book writer. And according to the popular website Kotaku.com, I hate Batman: Arkham Asylum.

This was news to me, as I love the game. Possibly my favorite gaming experience to date. I play the stealth challenges frequently, and have managed to rank in at under a thousand in at least one of them.

I recently wrote an article for the website Elder-geek.com about video game violence, and how subtlety when displaying violence in any medium can be more effective at provoking an emotional response than simply escalating the level of blood and guts. In this article, I have an aside where I talk about watching a friend play Batman: Arkham Asylum. My friends approach baffled me, as his intent was to simply rush through the game as quickly as possible. There was no attempt to immerse himself in the atmosphere or the character. Which seems like an incredible waste of a brilliant game and (to me) also utterly defeats the purpose of being this iteration of Batman.

While my article is loaded with hyperbole, I didn't think the intent was that difficult to parse. Here's an excerpt:

"I want realistic violence when I play video games. So, my goal when I played Batman: Arkham Asylum was to not get shot."

I believe the beauty of a game like Batman: Arkham Asylum is that you get back what you put in. If you want to lower the difficulty and wade in, knocking out goons in the most 1960's manner, you can. But if you want to play as a perfectionist, silently waiting in a grate for just the right moment to take down the last terrified thug, you can do that too. I chose to treat every bullet as life threatening and every wound as mortal. But somehow on the Kotaku website, this translated to:

"He says he found the game "lacking" because Batman's methods for dealing with the gun-toting henchmen in Arkham was to run up and punch them."

The original writer at Kotaku was apologetic when the inconsistencies of her interpretation of my article were pointed out, and she wrote as much on her blog entry. But Kotaku is a big site, with lots of traffic. Their blog page has been mirrored and reposted in multiple corners of the internet. Because I am a writer working on Batman (albeit, a very different Batman) my words are now being used in sensationalist headlines like this one:

"Batman Writer Not Impressed By Arkham Asylum"

It's absolutely false. But I guess it drives up traffic. At my expense. Let's be clear: This game is one of the most impressive I have played. I frequently take breaks from writing comics to play the game, and get in the proper head space for the character. And I very much look forward to the sequel.

Anyway, in case anyone here had seen any of this on one of the many sites misreporting my original article, I thought I would clarify the truth. My apologies otherwise.

[Old_BenKenobi]

It really sucks ass that people are taking your comments out of context and trying to kick up some . Hope this doesn't have any negative effect on your career.

On another note, you have a Wikipedia article. That's pretty sweet.

[Drazar]

Well that's just awful to hear. =/ Kotaku hasn't been the kindest towards Eidos studios either. There was this guy who started a rumour that Eidos paied reviewers to give the game +9 scores and a cover image to their magazines. Truly awful that now you receive this kind of treatment. =/

[Batman The Trailer Hunter]

Thanks for the clear up dude, my bro showed me the kotaku article and i had a hard time believing that it!

[the_killing_joke]

kotaku does anything for hits, I stopped paying attention to them a long time ago.

[E.Nygma]

Dear me, that was such a blatant example of misquoting, it's almost unbelievable. Will Kotaku ever stop sinking to new lows every next time I hear of them?

Never mind them, LandryWalker. Just take a look at the kind of entries they write in that website, and you will realize what kind of website that is.