I have to admit to having a healthy dose of skepticism about Batman: Arkham Asylum. After all, the history of superhero-based video games isn’t exactly all rosy and happy. Just in recent times, there’s been a good Hulk game, a bad Hulk game, an Iron Man game with horrid controls, and a Wolverine game that was actually quite good.

My trepidation was somewhat relieved when I got my hands on the demo and found it to have great atmosphere, great pacing, and great voice acting. Now I’ve had my chance to play the full game, and in short, it far exceeds any expectations I had.

Arkham Asylum opens as Batman transports his arch-nemesis, The Joker, to Arkham Asylum. Soon after arriving there, the Joker breaks free of his restraints and takes over the asylum, leaving Batman to pursue him through a myriad of obstacles the Joker puts in his path.

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Eidos is showing off the villains of Batman Arkham Asylum in a new video. This dark and twisted vision of the batman setting will push the Dark Knight further towards the brink of slipping from hero into vigilante. These Batman Arkham Asylum Villains stand ready to push him right off the edge. Check out The Joker, Killer Croc and Bane in action as well as a glimpse of a Harley Quinn design that could have been inspired by Bloodlines.

I think that one of the reasons Batman is so popular is that he is a hero of the people. He isn’t a perfect man, a mutant or an alien. He has no supernatural or magical powers. He’s a man with a mission who struggles to keep from becoming the thing he hates. People can relate to him more readily than say Superman, even if he does have more money than god.

The first glimpse of Mini Ninjas box art has been captured for the upcoming game. Guide Hiro, the world’s littlest ninja on an adventure of massive proportions as you save the world from evil samurai turning animals into mindless minions. Having ninjas as heroes versus evil Samurai seems backward to me but the trailer looks good.

The Mini Ninjas -
Where have the animals gone?
September comes soon…

Mini Ninjas will sneaking up on the PC, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 and the DS September 8, 2009.

There are a plethora of playable demos for gamers to try out this week including Trine, New Star Soccer 4, The Battle for Westnoth, Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships, ArmA 2, P.U.R.E., Alien Arena 2009, Crazy Cooking and Hell Throne Lepteria as well as the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince demo featured earlier this week. There’s also a  demo out for the Axis and Allies World at War mod WW2Total.

Mac users can download The Battle for Westnoth and Warzone 2100 for Mac OS X. Linux fans haven’t been left out of the line up. You can snag the Alien Arena 2009 Linux demo.

Links and details on all demos follow the jump.

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Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition and Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project are available on Good Old Games for just $8.98, 25% off the regular price. Duke Nukem 3D is a legendary FPS and one of the best selling games of all time. The 3D platformer, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, is a more recent release.

Gamers who’ve never met the Duke can finally get an idea of what all the controversy over the Duke Nukem Forever is about. If you’ve already got one of these games, you can pick up the other for $1.50 off at $4.49. The Duke Nukem Pack offer runs until Monday, June 1st at 11:59pm on GOG.com.

Check out the Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project video after the break.
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Thief fans rejoice! Garret returns!

Following on the heals of teasing Eidos employees and interweb rumors, Eidos-Montréal has made it official today: Due to popular demand, Thief 4 (or Thi4f) is heading our way – full sails and all. Coinciding with this announcement are openings of the Thief 4 official website and the Thief 4 official forums.

You can read my thoughts as well as the press release regarding Thief 4 after the break.

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Eidos Interactive and Warner Brothers announced today that they have delayed the upcoming action title Batman: Arkham Asylum. Originally slated for release in June of this year, the game will now be released at the end of summer. I assume that means that we’ll see it hit stores around August or September.

If you haven’t checked out the Invisible Predator trailer for Arkham Asylum yet, here you go. There are plenty of other trailers to check out over at FileFront.

Maxim has compiled its most wanted videogame babes of 2008. Usually these lists pick the top ten, but Maxim just couldn’t stop there. There are seventeen lovely ladies, virtual and real live knock out that give playing videogames an extra thrill.

Several of these heroines are a given. The list wouldn’t be complete without Tomb Raider: Underworld’s Lara Croft modeled after Alison Carroll and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3’s Gina Carano as Russian hottie Natasha Volkova and Jenny McCarthy as Special Agent Tanya Adams.

Maggie Q as Detective Chase Linh in Need for Speed: Undercover may have been overlooked due to the games underwhelming ratings. Of course the virtual girls are well represented including. Zoey from Left 4 Dead is a pick as well as several secondary characters and enemies.

I’d say you could read the article for details but let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? You can view the whole The 17 Hottest Video Game Babes of 2008 list on Maxim.

Shawn recently showed you the cool trailer for the upcoming action game Batman: Arkham Asylum, and recently we have gotten in a slew of really neat screenshots for the game. Today, only two arrived, but they are nevertheless just as cool as the others. Hopefully Eidos and Rocksteady can give us a good old fashiones Batman beat-down a lot better than Midway’s latest offering.

The game is based on the actual DC Comics instead of what those not immersed in the comics have seen on television and in the movies over the years. The whole of the island the prison is located on will be explorable, it is going to be played mostly via a third-person perspective and it is rumored that some of the villains will be playable at some point.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is expected to be released for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in August 2009.

Eidos and Crystal Dynamics has released a patch for the PC version of Lara Croft’s latest adventure, Tomb Raider: Underworld. Fixes include some occasional crashes, the addition of autosaves for each chapter with the save slots being increased, they have also fixed the bacl screen deadlock when skipping the doppelganger cinematic, and a compatibility issue with some Realtek sound drivers that caused crashes.

The full list of fixes and additions are listed below and thy include the ones mentioned above.

• Inability of users to map the mouse buttons.
• Inability of users to map the ‘center camera’ button.
• Some occasional crash fixes.
• Graphics card stability:
  1. A change to re-enable use of some graphics card features on ATI hardware, with their latest drivers.
  2. Progress has been made towards addressing stalling on GeForce 6/7 series hardware.

• Fixed compatibility issues with certain Realtek sound drivers which could cause crashes.
• Autosaves now made for each chapter. Number of save slots is increased to accommodate these.
• Bug with ramp not raising in Xibalba.
• Fixed black screen deadlock when skipping doppelganger cinematic.
• Issue with door lever at Kraken room entrance.
• Occasional control issue during headshot move.
• Fixed an occasional problem when entering a save game filename.
• Some PDA fixes.
• Some cinematic subtitle fixes.

You can get the patch by hitting the badge below or by visiting FileFront here.