Deus Ex and Batman Arkham Asylum Similarities

So I am pretty gosh darned (excuse my colorful language) excited for Deus Ex: Human Revolution releasing tomorrow. In anticipation I've been thinking and the release really reminds me a lot of similar circumstances to the release of BAA. Edios Montreal is a new developer, so was Rocksteady. Both developers got established franchises with lots of room to maneuver and, pretty much, creative autonomy. One is a game I paid full price for and one is a game I will pay full price for tomorrow (esteemed praise in my book).

When BAA came out it really wasn't much on my radar. I knew it was a Batman game, but there really hasn't been a single Batman game prior even worth mentioning, never mind playing. Despite being arguably the greatest super-hero ever conceived, Batman had a terrible track record in the interactive medium. It really took pretty much universal critical praise (and summer boredom) for me to resign to giving the title a shot and, much to my delight, it was an absolute pleasure.

BAA was a game that not only embraced all of the lore of it's high profile license, but really built and innovated on what that license meant. For the first time in my video game career I knew what it meant to control the iconic Dark Knight. Also, it was about as dark and gritty Batman as you can get, but nothing resembling the real world tone of the recent movies.

Deus Ex also reinvents an epic license (although the history is not quite as storied or well known outside the PC master race). It is a game that has been marketed as a reboot/spiritual successor of the cyberpunk cult classic. It is also created by a freshman developer with an auteur vision of bioethics (I'm comparing this to BAA, not BioShock mind you, but that might be another great post after I actually play the game).

Now it took critical acclaim for me to pay my hard earned dollars for BAA, but it took one trailer for me to buy into DEHR hook line and sinker. Bottom line is that it makes me happy that these are both games created for, and marketed to me; the 24 to 40 year old male gamer who makes up the core consumer base for video games. Both games take great geek topics (one game takes a Blade Runner-esque dystopian near future and makes it awesome and the other one is Batman) and creates a mature, fun, well polished story that makes more sense as a video game then a movie or book (speculation of course on the DEHR front, but I am comfortable that it will be epic).

Regardless it instills great hope for the future that new developers like Rocksteady and Edios Montreal have the money, license power, and the artistic freedom to take established franchises and make them awesome.

Is it tomorrow yet???

BTW, special thanks to @antaydos for the AWESOME graphic above!!