Batman fans like myself have been screaming out for a high quality Batman game for years. Perhaps the 2 games closest to pulling this off were Batman Vengeance and Batman Begins. Both captured the feel of their source material (The Animated Series and the first Chris Nolan movie) brilliantly but were let down by clumsy or simplistic gameplay. Now though, a relatively unknown studio has come from nowhere with a stunning looking Batman game for next-gen systems.

Developed by Rocksteady, the game is Batman: Arkham Asylum. The story is an original Batman tale by Paul Dini, the writer of Batman: The Animated Series and several graphic novels. The Joker has surrendered himself in order to gain access to a dark secret held in Arkham, while releasing other famous inmates into the asylum's dark corridors.

The game runs of Unreal Engine 3, so it obviously looks very pretty. Gameplay focusses on Batman stalking enemies in the shadows and leans heavily towards his use of gadgets and detective skills. There's also plenty of combat, but it uses minimal buttons for maximum effect, hopefully in a better way than Batman Begins did.

There's also a rumour that Kevin Conroy will voice Batman and Mark Hamil will voice The Joker, bringing back together the cast of The Animated Series.

Here's a few screenshots released today:

For a bit more info look on the Arkham Asylum Wikipedia page.

I know screenshots cant usually be trusted to judge a game on, but I cant help but get excited by those.

I'm with phlegms on the screenshots part, sometimes they can be very very misleading. Ohter then that, since its been such a long time since a batman game that grapsped my attention like this one, I'll have to say that I'm putting lots of attention on this game from now on. Also, the adventures of Batman and Robin for SNES was a great game based on the animated series. I'm just saying.

Hmm. That's looks really interesting. Thanks for telling me this, I'll have to look into this one, as well as Lego Batman.

Looks pretty awesome. The graphical style is perculiar, although by no means does that say it's bad.. Kind of reminds me of 300, the way it looks realistic but quite subtely you can see the comic book elements in it. Can't wait.