Batman: Arkham Asylum ships Tuesday (tomorrow), and since it looks like the best Batman video game since …*, it feels like I should call it out, and in particular, this deal from Toys “R” Us.

While buying the title at TRU gets common folk a $20 gift card, Rewards “R” Us Members get a $30 gift card instead -- if you are a member and pick up the game between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. tomorrow (which is also Tuesday). The program is free, and you can enroll here.

TRU is also doing “buy one, get one half off” on Wii and DS titles this week. So, if you’re a mixed household, you could get Batman, then 6 hours later use your $30 for Imaginz Paramedics and Imaginz Emergency Intubation (caveat: these are not really games; yet).

As an FYI, if you buy Batman at Best Buy, you get a DVD two pack of Batman the Animated Series movies (Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero and Mask of the Phantasm). I … may already own these.

If you go this route, check the videos carefully. It's probably fine, but I've done these DVD offers in the past, and passed on them because the two-pack versions didn't have the special features (interviews with Bruce Timm, voice sessions, etc.) that really made the purchases valuable for me.

* To be fair, 1989’s Batman: The Caped Crusader on the Atari ST and Amiga was really good. It was probably published by Ocean Software and/or Data East, depending on the platform. It's been a long time.

Labels: action, brawlers, comic books, shopping deals, stealth, Unreal Engine 3

• The Games of 2008: Q1
• The Games of 2008: Q2

Lotta good games coming in 2008. Quarter three's typically the slow one of the year as publisher's lose their audience to summer, and feel out where they fall in the holiday onslaught.

Quarter four is tough to predict with any accuracy, and a lot of the "to be scheduled" games get shunted into the last two quarters as placeholders for fiscal forecasting.

So I'm lumping the two quarters and uncommitted titles together.

Happy Tree Friends False Alarm -- Cutesy crude IP, of which I'm already a fan. I'm in.

Battlefield: Bad Company -- Interest in the Battlefield franchise for a lot of folks is like interest in the Victoria's Secret network fashion show -- it's their if you happen to stumble upon it. This iteration will add a single-player campaign and deepens the online component, and hopefully removes some of the concessions they've made to enable massive online play in the FPS space.

Ninja Gaiden II -- Itagaki-san has a rock star mentality, and that entertains me. Ninja Gaiden made me curse. I play it to make me think I can handle "games made for gamers".

Fable 2 -- Action RPG from the master of video game visionary promises. As long as the dog makes it in, I'm playing.

Halo Wars -- The CGI trailer has nothing to do with the gameplay, and I don't like RTS games. But the gameplay footage (available via Xbox Live) does look compelling, and may get me into the genre. Plus, it's Halo, so it'll print money.

Too Human -- I can't wait for this thing to get out of the fog of game engine heartburn. I think this has the potential to be a brilliant take on my Norse mythology love.

Fallout 3 -- I'm Fallout fiend (maybe just a Fallout fan; or just an alliteration amateur). I suspect this'll be a fun, immersive, time-suck of an RPG.

Brutal Legend -- Jack Black marries Tim Schafer and they birth a spiritual success to KISS's under-rated Psycho Circus. Tell me why you won't be playing this gem.

Alan Wake -- I'm trying to stay interested in this survival horror title. Knock off the delays and keep this thing funded on the publisher front.

Saboteur -- I think this stealth game with an innovative colorization game mechanic looks amazing. Can't wait, though I'm torn that I may be rescuing France.

LEGO Batman -- Have you played LEGO Star Wars? Have you seen the LEGO Batman toys? I am going to own this game, and my be-otches will play LEGO Robin online by my side.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Videogame -- See above. Minus Robin.

LEGO Universe -- A LEGO MMO. A. LEGO. MMO.

Borderlands -- Hundreds of gun combos. Everything else is gravy, but I'm expecting a lot of gravy.

Fracture -- Real-time terrain deformation as a gameplay (and multi-play) mechanic. From LucasArts.

Mushroom Men -- I miss the Oddworld franchise. Mushroom Men looks to be that foot that bill. Again, from publisher Gamecock.

Dead Space -- Electronic Arts bucks behind a team that wants to create a survival horror title, inspired by the likes of Alien. A potential brown trouser excursion.

Ghostbusters The Video Game -- This game wants to be Ghosbusters 3. If they pull it off, it should rock. I hate Slimer.

Labels: action, Halo, Microsoft, MMO, Nintendo, PC, PlayStation3, releases, RPG, RTS, shooters, Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

Labels: action, brawlers, Microsoft, Nintendo, PC, PlayStation3, releases, RPG, RTS, Sony, Wii, XBLA

• 2005
• 2006

Labels: action, shooters

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3, Xbox 360) -- CoD is a stellar franchise, and I want to see what they do to the modern world.
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Battlefield, but with a cooler mythos. Hope it runs better than Quake IV.
• Spiderman: Friend or Foe -- Anything comic book related for me. Anything.
• The Witcher (PC) -- Dark, twisted, adult-themed RPG with moral ambiguity? Sounds like my toy job!
• Fallout 3 -- Middlingly. I'm a big Fallout franchise fan, but this one's a ways out.
• Devil May Cry 4 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- You seriously don't need me to explain, do you?
• Rocketmen: Axis of Evil (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- "The game is a top-down action title that is something of a mix of an old-school stage crawler with Robotron controls.... you advance through levels while plowing through countless numbers of unnamed soldiers."
• Talisman (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- I think online board games are the New Hotness. Or the new flash-in-the-pan. Which still makes them hot. And this one is a fantasy-themed boardgame with 4-way play.
• Cliver Barker's Jericho (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Cliver Barker's Undying has some of the best audio on a game to date. And it had good gameplay. And Clive Barker's a talented storyteller. Twisted, but talented.
• Rise of the Argonauts (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Like comic books, anything mythology related. Please don't suck.
• Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- In this alternate history FPS, the cab that hit Winston Churchill kills him, and the Nazis take over Europe. Now, it's 1952, and they're invading America.
• Age of Conan (PC, Xbox 360) -- Bloody good fun.
• Hellgate: London (PC) -- Just because I still like the premise, have been rooting for it for a long time, and want to see how the free-versus-subscribtion thing works out for them (and us).
• Medal of Honor Airborne (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Gameplay videos have been me excited about the franchise again.
• The Simpsons (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS) -- Hey, Matt Groening is the final boss!
• Dungeon Hero (PC, Xbox 360) -- I have this unnatural attachment to all things GameCock (even if they don't return my Emails). But this is a dungeon crawler without the boredom. Sign me up!
• Fury (PC) -- MMO without the grinding? PvP? Maybe I'll see you in the demo this weekend.
• Hail to the Chimp (PS3, Xbox 360) -- Love this game. Man crush on Wideload and Alexander Seropian. 'Nuff said.
• Mushroom Men (Wii, DS) -- Oddworld aesthetic. 'Shrooms. Need I go on?
• Two unannounced titles from GameCock (One's probably Section 8)
• Metal Gear Solid 4 -- I'd love an Xbox 360 announcement on this next week, but the game alone, with its hopefully challenging moral mechanics and deep storytelling, has got my attention.
• Fracture -- This "terra-deforming-as-weapon" from LucasArts has be sweaty palmed. No new news on The Force Unleashed, though?
• Kengo: Legend of the 9 (Xbox 360) -- I think this is Majesco's first next-gen game (it's at least their first 360 game). Looking for more info, but looks like a Dynasty Warriors-esque take with 9 historical Japanese figures.
• Blue Dragon (Xbox 360) -- Really want to play this bad boy ...
• Fable 2 (xbox 360) -- The single-player RPG to beat on the original Xbox, let's see what the former Lionheads do under Microsoft's watch.
• Halo 3 (Xbox 360) -- You think this wouldn't make the list?
• Halo Wars (Xbox 360) -- Just for the trailer. Fortunately, leaks about the RTS gameplay have been positive. But they have to go up against Tom Clancy's Endwar.
• Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360) -- Gorgeous. Just brutal and gorgeous. "We are the Knights Who Say Ne -- Oh SWEET MOTHER! MY EYES! MY EYES!" [*gushing blood*]
• Mass Effect (Xbox 360) -- RPG of the century? Mayhap.
• Unannounced XBLA titles (Xbox 360) -- Knock my socks off. You keep dissing my proposals, but you keep giving me stuff I like. So we're good.
• John Woo's Stranglehold (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- I'm excited about this. More I see, I'm excited.
• Unreal Tournament 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Unreal Championship II was under-appreciated, maybe because it was a gamers game. This looks to be that and more.
• Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360) -- We've suffered long enough without beauty, thank you very much.
• Dynasty Warriors: GUNDAM (PS3) -- Honestly, I just want to see if they can take this Artichoke and jelly mix and make it work.
• AION (PC) -- An MMO without grinding, and a leveling system "not like you'd expect"? Demons versus angels (ish)? Wings for both factions (no @#$%^&! earning mounts crap)?
• Dungeon Runners (PC) -- I'm playing the free version of this MMO from NCsoft, and really enjoying it.
• Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa (PC) -- He gets to put his name on it. I want to support that.
• Condemned 2 (PS3, Xbox 360) -- Sequel to the early Xbox 360 sleeper hit, now bloodier, with a revamped combat system and (wait for it!) multiplayer!
• Gas Powered Games' RPG (PC) -- I respect GPG, so I'm waiting to see this.
• Iron Man -- Anything. Comic book. Related. (Anything.)
• TimeShift (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- Rescued from the steaming pile of crap not being all it could be, the revamp looks to wow.
• Heavenly Sword (PS3) -- This could be a console seller for Sony. Hey, it got teased on Heroes.
• Killzone 2 (PS3) -- C'mon, show me something to wash the tast of the lied about "not-prerendered" debacle.
• LittleBigPlanet (PS3) -- Have you seen the videos? How fun is this?
• The Agency -- An MMO from Sony that's not fantasy-themed, and not half-baked sci-fi license. Just don't be stealing from the DC MMO talent pool, kids.
• BioShock (PC, Xbox 360) -- I want to play this game. And struggle with the choices I've made.
• De Blob -- THQ is a savvy publisher. And I really like the art aesthetic.
• Assassin's Creed (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- I think they're hiding the full awesomeness that is this game.
• FEAR sequel (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) -- The first made me almost soil myself. Raise the bar, Warner.

This is just the stuff we know about. I'm hoping we get some surprises from folks not yet announced. Certain Affinity. Junction Point. More GameCock than you can shake a stick at. And so on.

Labels: action, announcements, BioWare, brawlers, companies, E3 2007, Epic Games, events, Halo, PC, PlayStation3, previews, RPG, RTS, SEGA, shooters, Unreal Engine 3, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Live

Labels: action, shooters

Labels: action, announcements