You would think that delaying a game is an awkward process. The game is closing in on its completion date. The studio needs to be finished. Ads are placed. The publisher wants to start selling the thing and making money.

You'd also think that Arkham Asylum game director Sefton Hill of Rocksteady Studios might have had butterflies in his stomach when, earlier this year, he and his team broached the topic to the games publishers that the game, which was planned for a late June release, could benefit from being pushed back.

He doesn't tell the story as if he had much fear at all: "We discussed it with Warner Brothers and Eidos and said, 'Look, we believe we have a really good game here.' What we all agreed to do at the outset was put the time in and make sure we deliver a game worthy of Batman. ... [We] said what we really need to do here is spend this additional three months to make sure we tidy the game and deliver the game that we all set out to do. To give Eidos and Warner a lot of credit, they backed that 100%."

For consumers, the delay turned out to be two months. Arkham Asylum slipped from June to late August, when it was released to rave reviews. It seemed such a short delay, in fact, that some gamers thought they sniffed out a different motivation. "I think there were some rumors that it had just been delayed for more sales, but that wasn't true. We were still working on it like crazy."

What did change in Arkham Asylum while the team labored for a couple of extra months? Hill was unable to specify any notable design changes, no new gadgets or altered levels. "Some of the things we worked on that aren't immediately apparent is things like the [data-]streaming times," he said. "You never see any loading screens when you're playing the game. And that's stuff that takes a lot of time to do." Hill said the delay also helped the team optimize the game's framerate.

Hill made the delay sound so easy. Surely it wasn't that simple? He said it was the product of a team confident in their potential, an attitude that would empower other studios to also get their publishers to give them the extra time their games might need. So to get that delay, he suggested, a development team must have "confidence in the game." They also need "to be able to show that [added] time is going to be well spent. I think if you can do that, any publisher is going to buy into that. I think where it becomes difficult is if you're arguing from a position of weakness, if the confidence isn't there."

It sounds like one of those things that's easier said than done. It sounds like one of those things that requires a publisher and a developer to be working together happily, which is not at all a given. And it sounds like something that, as a gamer, would be awfully hard to take.

It also sounds like something that gets forgotten, because as 2009 recedes what lingers about Batman: Arkham Asylum is how good it was. Not how late it was.

Feedback about Arkham Asylum has been illuminating and, yes, even educational for Hill in 2009. This was the year he and the rest of the British underdog team at the little-known Rocksteady Studios developed and released one of the leading contenders for Game Of The Year.

Feedback was helpful, but it also was a little weird.

Imagine the beginning of Hill's 2009. The development of Batman: Arkham Asylum, an adventure featuring Batman's one terrible night trapped on an island prison/asylum overtaken by the Joker and the Dark Knight's worst foes, was more than a year under way, yet almost no eyes aside from Rocksteady's and its publishers' were on the project. The public didn't have the game on its radar, nor did much of the gaming press. "I think we felt at the start of the year that a lot of people didn't know much about the game," Hill told Kotaku in a telephone interview. People in the studio thought the game was shaping up. But who could be sure they weren't fooling themselves? "When you're working on something for so long it's quite weird," Hill noted. "You're sort of isolated from the outside world and you sort of lose quite a lot of perspective."

So for Hill one of the most important moments of his 2009 — "a nerve-wracking time" — were the few days in March that Arkham Asylum was made playable for the gaming press during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. Rocksteady and publishers Eidos and Warner Brothers let game reporters try some of the challenge rooms, the contained areas in the game, one made for Batman brawling against thugs, the other built for "predator" criminal-frightening stealth.

"We sort of decided to go with a slightly different approach, showing the challenge rooms rather than the story because we were confident in the story we had but we didn't want to approach it in a way to show off flash cutscenes or cinematics to try and sell the game. We thought: Let's show people there's real substance to the gameplay."

Hill stayed back in the Rocksteady offices in England during GDC, plugging away on the game with his team. An Eidos representative e-mailed him feedback. Slight problem, though: "Games journalists can be a bit cagey. Sometimes you guys like to be too cool for school. So you can never be 100% sure." This unwashed horde of gaming reporters playing through the demo (a group that may or may not have included the author of this story) may not have been able to verbalize feedback that would be useful intelligence for Rocksteady, but the way the demo was played was good feedback enough.

"One of the things we were really happy with, with the initial feedback, is that a lot of the journalists played it and then played it again and tried to do it in different ways," Hill said. "One of the design philosophies [of the game] was to sort of create your own Batman stories: You did something a particular way and saw these cool things. It was really great to get that particular feedback to come through."

In theory, the game would then be released a little later, but Arkham Asylum, originally slated for a June was delayed until late summer before it showed up at E3 in Los Angeles. For E3, Hill crossed the Atlantic and dared to get some feedback first-hand. The good news was that he was bumping into developers at E3 and getting the insights of people from Naughty Dog, whose single-player balance of action and story in Uncharted was comparable to the design of Arkham Asylum, as well as from Ubisoft folks, whose Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell series were, like Batman, exploring the gameplay of aggressive stealth. "Developers tend to be more generous with feedback because making any game is really hard — even bad games," Hill explained. They know the way things work, and they can relate to the struggle of making this stuff. "You put your life and soul into them."

Oh, but for Hill there was also sort of something bad — or uncomfortable — about being at E3 to get that firsthand feedback. "To be honest, I hate watching people play the game," he said. "It's watching your baby. It's nerve-wracking. I would kind of watch but I could only watch for a certain amount of time and then I would walk away. But it's nice because you can watch in anonymity and see where they're enjoying it and also where they're struggling."

Hill flew back to work in England and then back to California in the summer for Comic-Con. Also in the summer, the demo came out, the one that inspired people on the Internet to start using that term GOTY. Hill wasn't sure what kind of feedback the demo would get, because he was aware of the awkward fact that this demo, a thing theoretically made to sell a game, was, well, inferior to the game it was selling.

"I think we all felt the game was better than the demo," Hill said. "It's a hard game to do a demo of because it's a journey rather than a staccato experience. The story is important. The characters are important. Sometimes that can be hard to get across in a demo. We were really a little bit worried when it went out... So when people really enjoyed the demo, we felt, well if you like the demo, you'll definitely like the game, because it's a lot better."

Batman: Arkham Asylum was released in late August. Hill had just crammed three weeks of vacation into his August, days banked to take off as soon as the game disc went gold and was out of Rocksteady's hands. He was back in the country the day the game was released. Reviews were out, another odd sort of feedback. "It's such a weird experience making games because you kind of go two years with almost no feedback," he said. "And then suddenly you get all this feedback on what you've done for the last two years in one mad hail of comments. And then nothing again for two years."

He remembers about 40 reviews hitting the Internet almost all at once. He was on his laptop, not back in the office yet. He was calling in, and the team was "shouting the review scores to each other. It was really exciting and really crazy."

But the time warp would continue. As the fall arrived and people were playing the game, many gamers were saying, yes, this is the Game of the Year. They were in the mode of showering praise and awarding rhetorical trophies. Rocksteady was in a different mode. "We're sort of trying our best to enjoy it," Hill said, "But obviously by the time the game comes out we're already a couple of months into the next thing we're doing." Hill's interview was conducted before the announcement of Rocksteady's "next thing," but today we know what that is: Arkham Asylum 2.

"Hopefully whatever we do next," he had said, "People will be excited about as well."

And so the feedback from Rocksteady will abate. Hill and his team are now working on something that no marginally helpful reporter, no more generous developer, no eager demo players will likely be able to provide some feedback on for a while. But maybe, it would be nice to let Hill offer some feedback of his own. What did we think of the game? After all, we've told him in many ways. It's his turn:

Why did he think Arkham Asylum was a special game, a special super-hero game?

"One of the things the team did that was successful was make a game that was uniquely a Batman game," he said. "It wasn't another genre that just happened to have a character with a cape in it. It was uniquely Batman in terms of the gadgets, the detective mode, the predator aspects and the combat. All those elements were built, designed and created to reflect Batman himself.

"Not just with super-hero products, but with licensed products, I think what tends to happen is you get a genre rather than a license and you kind of shoehorn the license into the genre. And you don't get the best of the license.

"I think Batman is quite challenging in some ways. There are some things he obviously can't do. He doesn't kill people. He never uses a gun. And there's a lot of genre conventions which you have to approach in a slightly different way. Your options are to embrace that or not. And if you embrace it, it means you have to come up with more interesting answers. I'd like to think that's what people responded to as well. If you can't kill people, what can you do? [We presented] this whole element of creating the fear and changing the way people behave because of this character and this persona he's created.

"If you can get those elements into the game, I think it's really going to resonate with people. And I think that's what happened. "

That seems on target.

Concluded Hill: "We wanted to make a great game, but also a great Batman game. … Thanks everyone for the great feedback."

That really didn't take long. The show opened with the announcement of Batman: Arkham Asylum 2. A url for the game: Arkhamhasmoved.com was given, but as of 6 p.m. Mountain Time I was still getting 404 errors for it.

The figure was disclosed as part of an LA Times report on some restructuring going on at DC Comics, and we'll presume was provided by Warner Bros., who as a publisher can get hold of timely sales data without too much hassle. We'll also presume that the figures are worldwide sales, and not just for North America.

Nice to see a DC Comics game not only get it right, but be rewarded for doing so.

Warner shakes up DC Comics to compete with Marvel [LA Times]

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Want to be heard on Kotaku Talk Radio? Call us on the air LIVE at (347) 857-3782!

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It doesn't get good until the POW SOCK OOF sequence, and the onamotapoeics are replaced with wirdy-dirds, so I guess this gets the NSFW tag? Sure why not. Bravo, Kreyg, now give us a tilt frame shot of the Penguin's hideout.

Original Batman Spoof Intro [Hot Blooded Gaming]

Last Saturday's survey covered your attitudes about the latest Batman title, from Rocksteady and Eidos, as well as your platform ownership and favorites. We then asked your feelings on seven titles, some of them shooters, not all of them world-beaters, to derive what it is you do want to play. Here are the questions and results:

1. Based on what you've seen and read, would you stop playing your current game to start playing Batman: Arkham Asylum?

Yes: 66 percent (8,646 responses)
No: 23 percent (3,000)
Undecided: 11 percent (1,394)
13,040 total responses.

2. Based on what you've seen and read, do you plan to purchase Batman: Arkham Asylum?

Yes: 61 percent (7,445 responses)
No: 21 percent (2,625)
Undecided: 18 percent (2,234)
12,304 total responses.

Sometimes you have to ask a question even if you know the answer. Batman: Arkham Asylum has benefited from rave reviews, skillful marketing, and previews that have been very well received. Judging by the comment histories on Batman stories, many of you planned on picking this up the day of release, and these numbers definitely bear that out. But we will be revisiting Batman in later surveys, as it is a singleplayer game, to see what kind of staying power the game has.

On to some questions about Kotaku readers' gaming lifestyles.

3. Which of these platforms do you own and/or play games on? (Check all that apply)

PC: 9,250 total responses
Xbox 360: 8,277
PlayStation 3: 7,634
DS/DSi: 6,814
Wii: 6,492
PS2: 6,460
PSP: 5,104
iPhone/iPod Touch: 3,300
Mac: 1,854
55,185 total responses. Multiple responses allowed.

Unfortunately, our poll service didn't provide a number of unique respondents to this question. So percentages are meaningless here, which is why they weren't included. Nor is the poll service capable of breaking out multiple ownership, i.e. the percentage who own PC and 360 and DS, the percentage who own Mac and PS3, PSP and PS2, etc.

The median total response for this survey was 12,330. If we assume that many individuals responding here, the total breaks down like so: PC is owned by 75 percent of respondents; Xbox 360: owned by 67 percent; PlayStation 3: 62 percent; DS/DSi: 55 percent; Wii: 53 percent; PS2: 52 percent; PSP: 41 percent; iPhone/iPod Touch: 27 percent; Mac: 15 percent. Again, that adds up to more than 100 percent because of multiple ownership.

Just eyeballing the pageviews for high-readership stories around here, this is not much of a surprise. Everyone owns a PC (or a Mac), because everyone had to connect to the Internet to answer this survey. Then comes the two core consoles. The DS's edge over the Wii may be because of its longer production history. The PS2's dead heat with the Wii shows that console's remarkable longevity and users' attachment to it and its deep library of great games.

The survey also implies there are 10 percent who own neither PC nor Mac - likely these are respondents who may own one or the other but have no games for it or do not consider it a gaming platform.

This is all interesting, but here's the question to put a finer point on things:

4. Which platform do you enjoy the most?

Xbox 360: 41 percent (5,033 responses)
PlayStation 3: 32 percent (3,906)
PC: 19 percent (2,359)
DS/DSi: 3 percent (363)
Wii: 2 percent (266)
PS2: 2 percent (257)
PSP: 1 percent (86)
iPhone/iPod Touch: <1 percent (46)
Mac: <1 percent (28)
12,344 total responses.

No multiple choice allowed here. The 360 came away with a decisive plurality, and the PS3 is in a strong second place, well in front of PC games. The totals for the others are so low as to suggest that they - the Wii included - play a predominantly adjunctive role in Kotaku readers' gaming lineup. Except for Apple, which is nonexistent.

5. Do you want to play Madden NFL 10? (any platform)

Yes: 12 percent (1,525 responses)
No: 81 percent (10,017)
Not sure: 7 percent (824)
12,366 total responses.

These next seven questions cover games released this year that, while not game-of-the-year caliber, arrived with tons of hype and/or brand recognition. They touch a diversity of genres too. Despite the fact Madden NFL 10 is probably the best version to date, and has been reviewed very positively, the game tanks here. This is likely a matter of genre preference, and the fact sports gamers are not well represented in the readership.

6. Do you want to play Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood? (any platform)

Yes: 24 percent (3,006 responses)
No: 55 percent (6,849)
Not sure: 21 percent (2,579)
12,434 total responses.

The sequel to Ubisoft's 2007 western gets a pretty strong thumbs-down. This is interesting because we're a shooter-heavy crowd around here, but you're not into this one. Whether that's because of its sub-genre, or that its the sequel (or prequel) to a game that didn't get rave reviews, who's to say.

7. Do you want to play The Conduit? (Wii)

Yes: 16 percent (1,984 responses)
No: 70 percent (8,661)
Not sure: 14 percent (1,741)
12,386 total responses.

Here's a game that got nearly a year's worth of hype or discussion, is also an FPS, and is designed to appeal to Wii core gamers - and you want no part of it. Just because it has a crosshairs and a gun doesn't mean our readers want to play it.

8. Do you want to play Killzone 2? (PS3)

Yes: 52 percent (6,341 responses)
No: 37 percent (4,532)
Not sure: 10 percent (1,268)
12,141 total responses.

The high negative suggests a fanboy effect against the PS3's premier shooter. But Killzone 2 still rates a majority approval, and taken in light of the console ownership data, there are probably a good number of 360 owners who do respect the game's quality. It would be astonishing to see a AAA, 90-rated first-person shooter get a poor score here, five months after release, regardless of its platform.

9. Do you want to play Halo Wars? (Xbox 360)

Yes: 19 percent (2,337 responses)
No: 72 percent (8,821)
Not sure: 9 percent (1,081)
12,239 total responses.

Neither the Halo brand nor the fact this is the biggest-selling console RTS to date makes much of a difference. It's either still an RTS, or it's still Halo, and a supermajority reject it for those reasons

10. Do you want to play Wii Sports Resort? (Wii)

Yes: 38 percent (4,638 responses)
No: 51 percent (6,261)
Not sure: 11 percent (1,299)
12,198 total responses.

The 51 percent negative for Wii Sports Resort sends a pretty strong anti-casual message from the readership. The gameplay variety and motion control aspect seem to do little to overcome our posture that we like our games deep, we like them to have narratives, and we like them to have guns and shooting.

11. Do you want to play Rock Band: Unplugged? (PSP)

Yes: 17 percent (2,150 responses)
No: 73 percent (9,065)
Not sure: 9 percent (1,161)
12,376 total responses.

In our comments, rhythm games' love-hate rep generally revolves around simulated instruments versus playing real ones. (Well that, and Guitar Hero's perceived overexposure). Rock Band: Unplugged has no simulated instrument. On the PSP, it might be a novel way to interact with your music, but as a game, you've said no thanks, quite clearly. The 73 percent negative is also not much of a surprise considering the PSP's earlier numbers (roughly 41 percent owned, 1 percent most enjoyed).

Look for more questions this Saturday at 7:30 p.m., U.S. Mountain time, as we continue to flesh out the habits, preferences and trends among the Kotaku Gamer.

It sounds like this audio is taken from the character audio histories, which we saw as unlockables in Arkham's well-received demo. Wonder if we'll be hearing more from Amadeus Arkham.

History of Arkham Asylum Trailer [GameTrailers]

From now on, when this happens, we're not going to point to other notable multiplatform releases where the PC version was delayed. We may as well point to the times a PC version is not delayed, since they seem to be in the minority.

It'll instead be out on September 15 in the US, and September 18 in Europe. To sweeten the deal, the game will now be supporting Nvidia's PhysX technology. Doesn't sound like much, but the increased level of in-game physics certainly helped add a little something extra to the PC version of Mirror's Edge, so hopefully it makes a difference here as well.

To put it simply, it's because the game promises to take the best bits of what you love about the Caped Crusader and weave them into a single experience.

"This is the Batman movie I would have liked to have written," said Paul Dini, the Emmy-winning TV writer who penned Batman: Arkham Asylum. "This is him with all the good stuff."

Dini started from a clean slate in writing the plot, not connecting it to any existing storyline. It's a story Dini is sure gamers will like.

"Nobody loves a good Batman story more than I do," he said.

Buzz building for 'Batman: Arkham Asylum' game [CNN]

I was particularly impressed by his ziplining up to a guard tower and clonking a sniper, forehead-first, into the railing. Of course, it required the guy to be completely oblivious to a 200-pound man grappling to the floor he was standing on, but hey. It's Batman. Also, what's up with the x-ray vision mode?

Later, Batman lays out some pretty gruesome hand-to-hand combos - you can see the finisher coming up when the camera speed slows down. The combos deliver you bonuses for varying your moves, so, button-mashers be warned.

Finally, this may be in Polish, but everyone can get that's a load-time joke at 5:40 right? Right? Otherwise, that's one hell of a cameo for this game.

Batman Arkham Asylum Gameplay Beta [YouTube via Gry-Online thanks excaliburps]

Despite his moniker as the World's Greatest Detective, the Dark Knight's video game appearances rarely tap into his vast skills as a sleuth.

While Batman: Arkham Asylum is certainly no comic book CSI, and who would want it to be, it certainly remembers that Batman is a detective first and a slugger second. Asylum asks gamers to think their way through the game not only when trying to solve puzzles, but when quietly taking out a room full guards and even busting heads.

What Is It?
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a third-person action game with a heavy emphasis on fighting, stealth and good old-fashioned detective work. The game isn't based on any particular existing story in the world of Batman, but rather taps into the vast history of comic books, movies and TV shows to create its own storyline set in the infamous asylum.

What We Saw
While I played through the first two chapters of the game, there are some strict rules about certain chunks of the game's story that I cannot talk about.

How Far Along Is It?
Due out in August, the build I played was set to me in May to help me judge the game for an E3 Game Critics award. Eidos later said judges could write previews based on the build.

What Needs Improvement?
Polish: The game is shaping up nicely, but it still needs a bit of polish to smooth out the rough edges. Specifically, I'd like to see a bit more done on character models to deal with things like the occasional flesh-colored mohawks on bad guys, lip-syncing and general lighting issues.

Bats: As much as I've been enjoying the character design and aesthetic of this latest Batman, there is one thing that really bugs me. Every time you take out a bad guy a camp of bats appear and swirl around him for a second Initially it looks kind of neat, but the effect quickly loses its charm.

What Should Stay The Same?
Vicious Fights: The fighting system used in the game is pretty straight forward. One button delivers an attack, another delivers a stunning attack. A third button is used for counter-attacks. You can also double tap a button to dodge. These simple single-button attacks are all weaved together with a heavy reliance on timing and the ability to shift between targets by moving the thumbstick in different directions. The results can be stunning when dealing with a room full of enemies, which is typically the case. This whole fluid combat system is back-up with stunning slow-mo finishing moves delivered to the final bad guy in a room, which gives the game a cinematic flare.

Fun Stealth: I'm not a huge fan of stealth, it's not my style and I don't like have it forced upon me. Batman's take on stealth, though, is a whole other story. Instead of slinking around trying to avoid the bad guys, Batman uses his arsenal of gadgets and the shadows to stalk and take down enemies one at a time, leaving those still standing quaking in their bad guy shoes. Take downs including gliding from the shadows to deliver a face full of Bat boot, sleeper holds, and hanging upside down to knock an enemy into unconsciousness.

Light Detective Work: One of Batman's cooler gadgets is his cowl vision, which allows him to scan an area for enemies, trails, scents and clues. You can activate the cowl at anytime in the game. While active, it shows an X-ray version of everyone on screen. If you look directly at a person it will also tell you their current heart rate and even state of mind. This is great when you're trying to sneak up on people, letting you know if they're relaxed or scared out of their minds. You can also use it to follow trails. At one point in the game, for instance, you have to follow a bad guy by searching for the smell of the alcohol on his breath. The detective work in the game is delivered in such a simple, straightforward way that it manages to add a little nuance to what would otherwise be a straight-up action game without distracting from the central theme of the game.

Voice Acting: Batman: Arkham Asylum is a joy to listen to both for fans of Batman and those new to the hero. The game features voice work by Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, Tom Kane, and even Mark Hamil;l as The Joker. Everyone involved delivers in the game.

Story: Instead of latching on to the latest movie, a TV show or plucking a story from the vast library of Batman comics, the developers decided to create something wholly new and it's the right call. Arkham Asylum opens with Batman escorting The Joker back to his favorite high-security mental ward. Shortly after his arrival though, things go sideways and Batman finds himself trapped in an asylum run by the inmates. The game takes place not just in the asylum but in the wider world of Arkham island, a perfect setting for this open-ended adventure game.

Challenge Modes: These modes are outside the single-player campaign, adding a bit of replayability to the single-player game. There are two types of challenge modes. In one you fight a stream of bad guys, taking on as many as you can until you finally succumb. In the other you use the stealth mode to try to quietly clear a room as quickly as possible.

Final Thoughts
Batman: Arkham Asylum's individual elements of fighting, stealth and detective work can all stand on their own as fun elements of gameplay, but put together they provide an experience much better than the sum of its parts.

What Is It?

It's a Batman game that doesn't suck. It's a little bit Splinter Cell, it's a little bit Batman punching men in the face really, really hard.

What We Saw

I was able to play through the game's first level, in which the Joker is dragged into Arkham, then escapes, captures the warden, and locks Batman in. There was a brief tutorial, then some punching, some kicking, then some bataranging, then some sneaking.

How Far Along Is It?

Game was originally "finished" a few months back, then delayed. It's due out in August. It looks 100% done.

What Needs Improvement?

Swingy-Swingy: You can use a grapple hook to swing from the rafters. But it's implemented a little too simply for my liking, as it's done entirely on autopilot.

What Should Stay The Same?

Fatman: Batman is a big, strong man, and that's how he controls in the game. He's heavy, has a real sense of weight and power to him, and both combat and movement are perfect for the character.

Punch in the Face: the game's obviously heavy on combat, and the combat feels great. It's simple, with only a few moves and counters, but feels really well implemented, as Batman responds to changes in direction quickly and both the standard and "finishing" moves are brutally satisfying.

Animated: You a fan of the old animated series? Many of the voice actors are reprising their roles, with the characters appearance and behaviour similar to their animated predecessors as well. If you enjoyed the cartoon as a kid, this is the cartoon after it's grown up alongside you.

Final Thoughts

From what I played of it, Batman felt like an accomplished brawler, with copious amounts of Batman fanboy service layered atop it, like icing on top of a dark, mysterious cake.

The Mark Hamill voice over work will probably do it for you, if you were a fan of his work the Batman animated series. Frankly, I was never a fan, but I'm obviously in the minority. It's an aspect that I'm sure I'll be able to overlook, as long as I get a chance to butt heads with the Killer Croc and some of Arkham Asylum's more obscure bat-foes.

Batman: Arkham Asylum leaves the Batcave on June 9th. Who's buyin'?

Here's the box art for the game, which looks both suitable rainy and predictably dark. Still a little unsure about those pointy ears, though. He's Batman, not Foxman.

Seeing the units in Halo Wars up close and personal like this, even a moderate Halo fan like myself can't help but get a little excited, especially at the prospect of finally getting to see whole squads of Spartans in action. I especially like the allusion that campaign lead Jerome Jones makes regarding controlling a squad of Spartans versus controlling the ultimate Spartan, Master Chief.

It's be like if Batman was here now, and you heard stories that there used to be twenty Batmans, and that was when they could really kick ass.

Yes, Master Chief is the Batman of the future.

But if Paul Dini isn’t enough to convince you that this Batman game is on the level, there’s plenty more going on in Arkham Asylum that deserves a look. First, and most important for me, is the voice talent. Almost the entire cast in the game seems to be drawn from Batman: The Animated Series. The Dark Knight himself is voiced by Kevin Conroy, Harley Quinn is played by Arleen Sorkin and I’m pretty sure I recognized Commissioner Gordon’s voice, but I can’t be sure it’s Bob Hastings.

The big star, though, is Mark Hamill as The Joker. I’m glad they got him instead of going for a Heath Ledger sound-alike –- it solidifies Arkham Asylum as a Batman game that stands apart from the movies. Besides, the role of main psychopath is a demanding one. From beginning to game over screen, the pinstripe-sporting super villain is there, taunting the caped crusader, goading him and generally being absolutely crazy at every opportunity. You need a star like Hamill to carry the performance.

The game starts pretty much how the trailer shows it: Batman escorts The Joker into Arkham, The Joker breaks free the second Batman is out of arm’s reach, the inmates at Arkham bust loose and take over the whole island. There’s also a plot point about Blackgate Prison being on fire, so a lot of Joker’s minions wind up at Arkham just before the break out. Killer Croc makes an appearance early on, Harley Quinn helps herself to a nurse’s outfit and a gun, and then the game lets the player take control of The Bat to try and get things under control.

Gameplay is a combination of three modes: Investigative mode, Combat mode, and Stealth-hunter mode. Early on in the game, when the inmates aren’t armed with guns, it looks like you can get by mostly with Combat mode. The controls haven’t been 100% finalized, but it looks like you mash A and maybe Y to pull off punches, kicks and headlocks. There’s also some button combo that leads to a slow motion elbow-drop, but I’m not sure what the demo runner did to bring that on.

Right now, the game is still in pre-alpha, so they haven’t hit their goal number of guys on screen for combat. I only saw up to five guys in a fight at once; but the demo guy said they had gotten the count up to 15. By launch, Rocksteady hopes to bump that to 20 so the Combat portion of the game will be even crazier.

During combat phases, a combo-counter appears in the upper left hand corner of the screen along with a health bar. The higher the combo number, the more XP Batman earns for the encounter. When you level up, you can upgrade weapons or fighting moves and the health bar regenerates automatically when the fight is over (unless you die, in which case – game over).

They keyword here is “context.” Almost all of Batman’s moves are context sensitive. For example, you approach a grating over a vent and a prompt pops up, telling you to press A repeated to break the grate faster. You could do that, or you could hold down Right Trigger and then press A once to slowly and stealthily remove the grate and slide it to one side. This is the basis for the Stealth-hunter mode where Batman has to take out multiple minions without being spotted. So instead of running in a mashing A, you creep in and hold Right Trigger while pressing A to turn a headlock into a stealth-choke or a punch into a smothering move.

It all depends on what the situation is and that’s where Investigative mode comes in. By toggling this mode, Batman sees the world in a sort of infrared view where everyone’s skeletons are visible. You can see how many people are in an area, how many are armed, where possible exits might be and all sorts of clues (like “pheromone trails” or hand prints). It’s clear that Rocksteady wasn’t out to make a brawler – they remember rightly so that Batman is supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, not the world’s best boxer.

Other components of gameplay in Arkham are collectible items and exploration. The game isn’t exactly a sandbox game, but neither is it a straight linear path. Batman can go all over Arkham island (observe the mad gliding ability in the trailer), but certain areas won’t be open to him at all times in the game. Some areas will require a certain item or a certain event to happen before they’re open and it sounds like you can’t really go back in the game unless the main plot makes do so.

Using Investigative mode will tell you where to go next to advance the story, but wandering around means more collectibles and more collectibles means more unlockable content. Paul Dini has gone all out on creating back stories for almost all the meat shields prisoners and prison guards in the game. So it’s never just faceless dude Batman has to save/kill – it’s “Steve” or “Joe” and he’s got a wife and kids or whatever. Profiles for characters are part of the unlockable lineup along with original art from WildStorm and probably some other undisclosed goodies.

I walked away from my time with Batman: Arkham Asylum feeling more hopeful than I have in a while about a superhero game. It was said several times during the demo that the developer was out to make a game that would stand on its own without the benefit of the Batman franchise -– and I actually believe that’s true. Of course it doesn’t hurt that it’s Batman. I’ll take any excuse to have Mark Hamill in my games.

Arkham Asylum comes out sometime this summer for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. When asked about Achievements and Trophies the answer was: “There are lots – with a capital L.”

Check out the screens here and here.

Not much going on here besides some bloom effect from the Unreal Engine. But as a preview to the preview that I'm frantically writing right now: Harley Quinn, Killer Croc and Zsasz are all confirmed characters. Also, instead of Alfred, Batman is working with Oracle for the duration of the game.

The official statement on Poison Ivy is "can neither confirm nor deny" and I got a weird facial expression when I brought up Zatanna Zatara. The script was written by Paul Dini, so expect all kinds of cameos - although it doesn't sound like Robin will be one of them.

Sit tight for that preview and get a load of the screens.