Concrete is no match for the Batmobile in Batman: Arkham Knight

Rocksteady returns to its Batman series with Arkham Knight, taking a more original approach with a new antagonist and incorporates the Batmobile. The gameplay video above highlights how the Batmobile moves, especially in combat with its ability to strafe left at right. When in driving mode, the power of the Batmobile shines through, plowing through barriers as if they were made of styrofoam. And while the Scarecrow is being positioned as the main villain of the game, the Arkham Knight looks to be taking the role of making Batman's job harder as he takes a more militaristic approach to crime in Gotham. Batman: Arkham Knight was originally slated for late 2014 but was pushed back to 2015 when it will come for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Gamescom Batman: Arkham Origns trailer introduces Firefly

Warner Bros. Montreal showed off a new trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins at Gamescom, introducing one of the newest of the eight assassins to threaten Gotham on Christmas Eve. Firefly joins the list, which already includes Deathstroke, Deadshot, Bane, and Copperhead. However, those aren’t the only villains who appear, with the Joker playing a significant part, and if you’re careful, you can see the Penguin appearing briefing in the trailer. Batman: Arkham Origins releases for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on October 25, with its handheld counterpart, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, coming to the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita on the same day.

Batman spreads his wings in this E3 Arkham Origins trailer

The newest trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins was unveiled during Sony’s E3 press conference showing a noticeably younger Batman, Bane, and Joker. Developed by Warner Bros. Montreal instead of former studio Rocksteady, Arkham Origins is set as a prequel taking place during the early years of Batman’s career. Because of this, Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy are not returning as the voice of the Joker and Batman, instead recruiting Troy Baker, who voiced Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, and Roger Craig Smith. Arkham Origins takes place on Christmas Eve in Gotham as Black Mask puts out the call for five assassins to take down Batman. Three of those five, Bane, Deadshot, and Deathstroke, have been named so far with Penguin being rumored as a fourth. Batman: Arkham Origins releases on October 25 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC.

Harley Quinn’s Revenge Review: More of the same

Harley Quinn’s Revenge picks up two days after the end of Batman: Arkham City. Batman has been missing for two days since investigating the kidnapping of several cops by Harley Quinn and her goons. This sets up for Robin to come in with the help of Oracle to find Batman and find out what went wrong. It’s an interesting premise that allows you to take control of Robin, who we only get a glimpse of in the main storyline of the game.

Batman: Arkham City Mega-Preview

It is one of the greatest times to be a Batman fan. The recent DC Comics reboot allows fans to jump into the Batman comics without fear of missing previous essential story arcs. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises is finishing shooting and will arrive theaters next year, concluding the trilogy that took a fresh look at Batman. This October, however, fans will get a chance to step into the shoes of the Batman himself with the release of Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham City.

The PC returns to the spotlight

It’s fair to say that in the last decade or so, consoles have been the top dog. For consumers, their relative low entry cost, guarantee to play games tailored for the system, and easy-to-use online multi-player functionality gave confidence for those looking for a dedicated gaming machine. But the rise of consoles left the PC behind in the dust. Games that begun as PC exclusives eventually became console exclusive, leaving anticipating PC gamers feeling betrayed and neglected. Even PC games that were developed along their console counter-parts often suffered from what is referred to as consolification, or designing the game in a way to meet the limitations of a console. However, games releasing this year are beginning to lean more towards accepting the PC as a viable platform instead of an after-thought.

Gamescom 2011 Trailers

While not technically the first day of Gamescom 2011 in Cologne, Germany, those attending took the opportunity to release new trailers for upcoming games releasing this year and into next. More information is sure to come as the show floor officially opens up tomorrow, but these visuals will hopefully tide you over until then.

New Sanctuary Relaunch

Today marks the official relaunch of New Sanctuary. You can now access this site through its new address: www.newsanctuary.net. You’ll also notice more feature articles in the next few weeks in addition to the news articles.

This time of the year is big for gaming. E3 is just around the corner and I’ll be there to cover as much as I can. I’ll be working with the Darth Hater crew so you can expect lots of news and coverage for Star Wars: The Old Republic. You’ll see coverage for other games including Dead Island, BioShock Infinite, Jurassic Park: The Game, Mass Effect 3, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

You’ll also see news coverage the big press conferences for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, where we’ll hear more about Sony’s NGP and Nintendo is expected to unveil its new HD-ready console.

There is a lot more content coming through the end of this year so be sure to make New Sanctuary your new home.

Weekend Edition - What I'm Playing

The year-long video game release schedule is one that is constantly in flux and confusing to me. Not all of it is so alien. Games released during the months leading up to Christmas are logical. This year’s holiday schedule is so jam-packed that it’s a wonder if we’ll have enough time to play the same game for more than a week. This year we’ll see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, Twisted Metal, Batman: Arkham City, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, all in this year’s fourth quarter. That's a lot of heavy hitters in a short amount of time. The months after the holiday make sense as well. People that received money as a gift want to go out and spend it.

Batman with Guns, Gotham City Imposters Coming Soon

During a Warner Bros. Interactive pre-E3 event as part of judge’s week in Los Angeles, a new downloadable Batman was revealed titled Gotham City Imposters.

Batman: Arkham City Trailer Shows off an Eight Hour Game

Rocksteady released a new trailer today for Batman: Arkham City exclusively to IGN. The trailer, set to The Heavy’s “Short Change Hero,” is completely made up of gameplay and features some of the villains in the game including Catwoman, Hugo Strange, Two-Face, Haley Quinn, and Joker. You can check out the full trailer below. Batman: Arkham City marketing manager Dax Ginn also made some comments about the game in an article on Gamerzines about the length of the game. He said that Rocksteady QA testers were able to play through the game from start to finish in about eight hours, playing through story missions only, but that there was a lot more of the game to enjoy. “If you’re exploring and trying new things, obviously that adds a lot to the experience and the game time. I would say for a normal player who knows their action-adventure games, between 20-24 hours,” Ginn said, “We don’t want to make these huge games that take a huge chunk out of your life. We want to tell an amazing story that you can really enjoy and not feel like you’ve got to take six months off work in order to get through it.” Batman: Arkham City will be available on October 18 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Batman: Arkham City Release Date and New Screenshots

Day 1 of PAX East 2011 just wrapped up in Boston and while everything is still being prepped for tomorrow, one of the biggest pieces of news was a release date for Batman: Arkham City. The sequel to the acclaimed Batman: Arkham Aslyum will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on October 18th, 2011. The game's visuals are looking beautiful and Rocksteady was on hand to answer a few questions about the game. They stated that Arkham City is actually about five times the size of Asylum and most of it is available to the player from the start of the game. They've also shown that while detective mode is still as robust as it was in the first game, Arkham City will require more actual detective work, rather than just turning it on and following the trail. Five new screenshots were also released which you can see below. CVG.co.uk is already calling Batman: Arkham City the best action game of 2011, but we'll have to wait till October 18th to see.

Fan Made Arkham City Trailer and New Site Launch for L.A. Noire

Fan Made Arkham City Trailer Shows Batman and Joker Team-Up

A new trailer for Batman: Arkham City, released last week via YouTube, started the internet rumor mill with what could potentially be a new team-up for the caped crusader. The trailer, which is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner Bros. Entertainment., depicts Batman and Joker meeting in a dark alley for what appears to be a fight, but they are quickly ambushed my thugs. They go on to defeat the thugs, working together and even performing some air-defying crushing blows.

DC Universe Online Launch

It’s been more than five years since I played a game by Sony Online Entertainment. My last encounter with SOE was Star Wars Galaxies and their introduction of the New Game Enhancements. I’m not going to get into why, but suffice to say it was less then stellar. So why am I interested in an SOE game now?

2010 VGA Picks

The list of nominations for this year’s Spike Video Game Awards was released today. After going through the list, it really reminds me of how much of a great year in gaming its been. While there are some obscure nominations (Danica Patrick as Herself in Blur for "Best Performance by Human Female”), generally all the nominations I agree with. So while these might not become actually winners, they are who I would choose.

Not Everything Needs Multiplayer

Multiplayer is a strong feature on games and consoles since its first inception on the Sega Dreamcast back in 1999. As the console generations have matured and grown, multiplayer had a foothold on the generation as a way of bringing together gamers over long distances to play their favorite games together. Halo and the Call of Duty franchises are at the forefront of multiplayer games. The wide-spread popularity and the polished and refined gameplay helped keep these games among the top played games online. So when other game companies see the kind of numbers these multiplayer franchises are getting, they want a piece of the pie as well.

New Batman: Arkham City Screenshots are Gorgeous

New York Comic-Con just finished up this weekend and Rocksteady, the developer working on the upcoming sequel to the 2009 game of the year Batman: Arkham Asylum, released some screenshots detailing Gotham City and its environments. Due sometime in 2011, Batman: Arkham City will take place outside of the Asylum (though in what capacity is unknown) and will feature the talent of Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill’s final performance as the Joker. Other characters appearing include Mr. Freeze, Talia al Ghul, Two-Face, Catwoman, and Harley Quinn.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

I’ve been on a mission the last couple months to play some of the great games that I’ve missed. Either by reason of just not bothering or not having time, these were games that received great scores and reviews. Some were even Game of the Year. Sadly, I’m reminded why I skipped several of these games; they are all too short.
I created a list a while back of great games I had missed that I wanted to catch up and play. Some of these included games I talked about last time (Mass Effect 1 & 2, Fallout 3) but some were critically acclaimed games. The rest included Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2, and Splinter Cell: Conviction. I also have not played Assassin’s Creed 1 or 2, but I haven’t felt inclined to play an open world collect-stuff game.