BATMAN AKHAM ASYLUM

I played the demo months ago and I found it interesting but since I´m not a great fan of stealth I didn´t buy it. Now, and for working reasons, I´ve played and completed it and I have reasons to think it´s a really unique and remarkable game.

It´s mainly based onto 3 core mechanics: Melee combat, Detective mode and Stealth. However the part I consider more interesting is how they managed to increase the playtime due to replayability. There is a number of collectables, hidden secrets and story elements in the rather small scenarios, and the plot forces you to cross those locations regularly, which re-uses their graphic assets constantly.

Also, I think the difficulty regarding finding hidden items is perfect. Being the Explorer type of gamer (also achiever) I was able to find lots of secrets, but the game offers a map which highlights more or less where every item is. Although it sounds like destroying the fun in finding them, most of those secrets are still difficult to find even with the map. I´m struggling to get 100% of the content without having the need to check the internet not even once, which is strange in most games.

WARHAMMER 40K SPACE MARINE

Right after Uncharted 3 I completed Warhammer Space Marine. It´s not a remarkable game but a solid and professional work. Gameplay favors melee combat over ranged through a non-particularly interesting story which otherwise serves its purpose. Graphically it´s not impressive but I´d say it reflects nicely the Warhammer 40k universe.

I´d have to check other posts but I think I´ve stated before average games (i.e. around 70 in metacritics) deserve more attention than videogame media generally offers. Journalists tend to focus only in the 5-6 big titles of the year while you can have lots of fun with non-so-known games. If prices were not the same in both cases, I´d strongly recommend most of these titles.