I love Giant Bomb. What drew me to it was how unigue it was. Having been on Gamespot for years I was ready for something new. The personality in the writing, the great staff, and my favorite the video content. The quick looks were what changed the game for me. Seeing a game in its most pure form, without all the PR and bias of video previews on other sites. Call me naive, but I thought this would keep Giant Bomb different from other gaming sites for a long time. Now Gamespot and Destructoid have each launched there own video series that show the first ten minutes of a game being played with commentary by editors. Sound Familar. I dont find any problems with this, but it is obvious that other sites are paying attention to Giant Bomb and emulating some of it's best features. What I am wondering is "Do you think Giant Bomb is losing what made it standout in the first place?" and "Do you think that Giant Bomb's style of journalism will become the new norm for gaming sites?" Feedback appreciated

Batman has always had a hard time in the world of games. For some reaswon developers have never truly been able to nail the feel of The Batman, until now. Batman: Arkham Asylum is the game fans of The Caped Crusader have been waiting for with an excellent presentation and satisfying gameplay that truly makes you feel like The Dark Knight. The game is an orginal story that has Batman, voiced by Kevin Connroy of Batman: The Animated Series fame, trapped inside the infamous Arkham Asylum, a prison for the criminally insane where Batmans greatest foes are held, by The Joker voiced excellently by Mark Hamil, also from The Animated Series. The premise allows most of Batman's greatest enemies to show up without feeling shoehorned into places they normally shouldnt be. The presentation is great and perfectly capturers the dark tone of the story. All the games characters have been given a gritty new look that fits into Arkham Asylum old dirty halls. One of the coolest things is that as you play Batman gets more and more beaten, up till the end where he looks like the shell of a man he was at the start of the game. The story is great until the end where it falls apart with weird decisions by some characters and plot points that should have a better explanation "Im Batman so this can't affect me." 
 
The games enviorments look very slick and there is a lot of detail to be found in them. Unfortunately the characters dont look quite as good. The faces look a little weird and the lip syncing is horrendous, which is a shame because most of the voice acting is good, as already mentioned by Mark Hamil's Joker. The music is very epic and sounds like something you would hear in the Chistopher Nolan's Batman movies. The sound effects are equally impressive with every punch and explosion sounding very powerful. The game's presentation is good, but the gameplay is where the game truly shines. 
 
The gameplay is divided into three parts the "Free-Flow" combat, the detective gameplay, and "The SIlent Predator" stealth rooms. The Game's combat involves you taking on multible thugs trying to kill you.  You must chain all your attacks together by countering and keeping your combo going so you dont get hit. There are multible types of enemies who may need to be stunned or hit from behind that you must also worry about. The game excels when it throws 6 or more guys on you of multible types. It becomes a frantic, adrenaline pumping game of trying to get your hits in while countering enemy attacks and worring about different enemy types that require extra thought that keep this from being a button mashing brawler. Sadly,The boss battles task you to do the smae thing every time to take them out and get repetetive fast. The detective parts involve looking around a scene looking for something to track and usually are used to show you to where you need to go. A more interesting part of the detective gameplay is trying to solve optionable riddles from "The Riddler" in each room. These involve you getting a hint from The Riddler in each room and tax you to find hidden easter eggs that will delight hardcore Batman fans and add to the life span of the game. 
 
My favorite part of the game are "The Silent Predator" stealth rooms that task you with taking down The Joker's thugs one by one. The stealth in the game is different, because you dont feel powerless unlike in other stealth games. You always feel like a badass as you swing down from a gargoyle and snatch up unexpecting henchmen or blow a wall to knock mutible enemies. The only minor complaint I have is you will play most of these sections in "detective vision" which makes the game blue and shows your enemies skeltons but doesnt let you see the great looking enviorments but doesnt take away from the fun of these parts. There are also challenge rooms outside of the main story that give you either combat or stealth parts that give you points for how long you can keep your combo for combat and give you specific challenges, such as blow up a wall to take down an enemy, for stealth parts. These are fun to play, but I did not find them as engaging as the story. 
 
Overall Batman: Arkham Asylum is great game that even non-fans of The Dark Knight should play. With its combination of great presentation and satisfying gameplay, Batman will keep you engaged from when you first get to Arkham Island to the closing credits.    

 I have a dream, and I need the community's help. Some may say it is insane (and they would be right) but I want to watch all the episodes in sitting with others in the giant bomb community. We can all get on skype together so we can talk and accomplish the impossible. I know it would be the hardest 100 hours in our lives, but I believe if we put our hearts and minds in it. We can enter the meat dimension together!