Killspeak

I recently finished Rocksteady’s excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum. It is a good game, but I feel that its detective vision mode is not particularly meaningful. It’s useful, but using it is not special nor interesting—and it could have been, if it were less powerful or less available.

Nothing lost, much gained

Detective mode includes a form of night vision, which makes it easy for the player to find her way in the dark. When close to certain enemies and items, detective mode brings up a little window with information on that item: stuff like its state, weaknesses, and backstory. It also highlights doors and vents, collectibles, destructable walls, hackable circuit boxes, and armed enemies. Further, the answer to many of the Riddler’s puzzles can only be found when in detective mode.

The only thing detective mode lacks is a downside. It gives the player a number of advantages over the game’s enemies and environments, but has no cost, no time limit, no weaknesses. Indeed, playing through Arkham Asylum, I found myself in detective mode all the time. As Yahtzee asks, “Why would you ever want to turn it off?”¹

Arkham Asylum tries to encourage the player to step out of detective mode now and then (it takes the player out of detective mode whenever she finishes off the last thug in a room or triggers a cutscene), but everything the game gives the player to do is easier when she’s in it.

Arkham Asylum misses an opportunity to present the player an interesting choice. As it is, the player never has to consider whether or not to use detective mode. The player is made to think when solving puzzles and during combat—should she attack, dodge, or counter?—but to stay in detective mode is a no-brainer.

Trade a strength for a weakness

Arkham Asylum could make its detective mode better by making it weaker or more limited. Vision modes in other games are not only useful, but also give the player a choice to make. They provide a trade-off between some advantages and disadvantages, and thereby make the choice to use these modes meaningful.

The flashlight in Half-Life can be used for a time limited by its battery power. Deus Ex‘s tech goggles provide night vision, but have a hard time limit, and cover only part of the player’s vision. In Doom 3, the flashlight occupies the player character’s hands, and so trades light for the ability to use more powerful, ranged weapons.

These simple costs and limitations make the player use special vision modes judiciously. The player can help herself with the flashlight in dark areas of Half-Life, but can’t rely on it all the time. In Deus Ex, the player saves the tech goggles for when they are most needed, and then must take advantage of them quickly before they run out. In Doom 3, the player often finds herself fighting in a dark room, desperately swapping weapons and the flashlight.

In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the player has a number of vision modes at her disposal: night vision, heat vision, and EM vision. None of these modes are limited by time nor by what the player can or cannot do when a mode is on. Their trade-offs are all based on what the player can and cannot see when in a mode. Night vision makes it easier for the player to see in the dark, but makes it much harder to see well-lit areas and distorts the edges of the player’s view. Thermal and EM modes each highlight a certain kind of enemy or item, but make it much more difficult to see other kinds of enemies or items.

The result is that the player has to decide when and where to enter into a vision mode, when seeing enemies clearly is more important than seeing any nearby surveillance cameras, for example. These trade-offs make modes meaningful tools in play.

It’s too bad that Arkham Asylum‘s detective mode isn’t meaningful in a similar way.