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What happens when you combine the potent Batman license, the rich backdrop of Arkham Asylum, the stellar voice-cast from Batman: The Animated Series, an unproven (and even more unknown) developer from the North London suburb of Highgate, and a once-great but down-on-its-luck publisher? The very first comment on our very first post no doubt reflected many of our concerns: "Eidos? Really?" With dozens of shoddy licensed superhero games coming before it, we all knew a video game deserving of Batman's popularity was unlikely.

So it's all the more impressive that Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum is one of the best games of the year, one of the best superhero games of all time, and one of the best licensed games ever made. With the failure of Pandemic's ambitious Dark Knight movie tie-in game still fresh in our minds, Arkham Asylum's strategy for success should have been obvious: simplicity. Instead of building an open-world Gotham City, they built an intimate (and immediately captivating) Arkham Asylum, as full of history and lore as you'd expect the comic book icon to be. There are no driving levels, no flying levels; really, there aren't any levels at all. Just Arkham Island.

The clever script, penned by longtime Batman scribe Paul Dini, propels Batman through a series of elaborate traps laid out by Mark Hamill's expertly voiced Joker, battling beefy baddies along the way with the game's excellent "FreeFlow" combat system, solving dozens of the Riddler's pesky riddles, and learning about the entire decades-deep mythology of the Batman universe, worn into every rock on Arkham Island. This isn't some licensed beat-em-up starring The World's Greatest Detective; this is a Batman simulator. Stealth, strength, and smarts (and a belt full of wonderful toys) are your tools.

Perhaps the greatest compliment one can pay to Rocksteady is this: it reached into the oft-abused Batman license, brushed off our lowered expectations, and pulled out a classic that doesn't simply trade on Batman's name but does something far more difficult: enhances it.

Boy, Rocksteady has WAY better bosses than we do. When we say we need two more months to finish a post, our higher-ups open a whole barrel of complaints: "There's no way it could take you that long to write a post," or, "It won't be anywhere near relevant anymore." We've heard them all. But when Rocksteady said it needed two more months for Batman: Arkham Asylum, pushing the release from June to August, it was apparently backed completely by the game's publishers, Eidos and Warner Bros.

Speaking with Kotaku, game director Sefton Hill said the secret is to have "confidence in the game" and "be able to show that [added] time is going to be well spent."

So, in closing, we'd like to tell AOL that we're confident the extra five months we're spending on that PS3 Slim rumor post you asked about will be well spent. Thank you.

The acquisition of Eidos by Japanese publisher Square Enix earlier this year brought with it some strange consequences. Aside from the obvious Tomb Raider/Final Fantasy crossover that we all know is bound to happen, the above trailer for Just Cause 2 ends with a glaring Square Enix logo that still feels a bit out of place to us. Maybe it's the theme of deposing a South East Asian dictator, the pronounced "Engrish," and the musclebound American protagonist in the trailer -- or maybe it's just us being weird! Who knows?! We do know that the gameplay itself looks like a ripe barrel of monkeys and we're looking forward to its release on March 23, 2010.

Yesterday's debut trailer for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days may have been high on style, but it wasn't so big on substance. Thankfully, reader AlexLK12 was able to massage the game's official site and come up with four screenshots that are just a bit more informative.

For instance, just look at the shot above. Why, already we know that the game has both Kane and Lynch in it. Also, there are guns.

We really should keep a count of how many times "raw" and "brutal" show up in the Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days marketing materials. Anyway, above you'll find the debut trailer for IO Interactive's "raw and brutal crime shooter" – so says the email it came attached to – that shows Kane ... wait, Lynch longingly staring at a bottle of pills, while Lynch, er, Kane has apparently survived a big shootout and is coming to visit the other guy in Shanghai. Ah, yes. Kane and Lynch are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for a new generation.

Noting that publisher Eidos' name was missing from the Batman: Arkham Asylum sequel's teaser trailer, we contacted Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment yesterday to ask if Eidos (Square Enix Europe) was involved with the game. A company representative informed Joystiq, "WBIE is publishing. Eidos is not involved. We are not disclosing any additional information at this time." In addition, our request to learn the sequel's actual name was not granted.

Meanwhile, in an interview with PC Zone magazine (via CVG), Rocksteady Senior Gameplay Programmer Paul Denning stated that the Arkham Asylum angle for Batman has "almost run its course." He elaborated, "Gotham itself is a fantastically realized fictional city and there are so many places that would be probably be ideal for gameplay and great to explore." But don't expect Grand Theft Gotham just yet, as Denning notes that "you have to be so careful when you take that route." Especially because of all the carjackings.

Before the dust settled on the beginning of this year's Video Game Awards on Spike, the first surprise announcement was the revelation that Batman: Arkham Asylum would get a sequel.

Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 -- which is what we'll call it until an official title is revealed -- presumably continues where the original critically acclaimed Rocksteady title left off, and was revealed via diabolical plot from Batman's Nemesis The Joker. Attempting to gas those in attendance, Mark Hamill's threatening vocals reverberated throughout the audience revealing a sequel people "didn't expect." After smashing through sales charts and the assumptions that all licensed titles are crap, we expected nothing less. Take that, Joker!

Update: Hi-res video has been added above! Also, the official site is up at arkhamhasmoved.com.

They say you can find your stripper name by combining the name of your first pet with the street you grew up on. Keeping that in mind, you may someday find yourself trying to figure out how to politely decline the awkward, compulsory advances of Miss Fluffy Lara Croft. As reported in the Derby Telegraph, the hero of the Tomb Raider series in one of eight potential names for two stretches of a road in the UK city Derby, which was the home of Core Design, the original studio behind Lara.

Surprisingly, Lara Croft is not our favorite option, as the idea of being badgered into buying Scruffy John Flamsteed a $13 drink is just too wonderful to imagine. Voting is currently being conducted via a poll on Derby's official website.

[Via F*** Yeah, Lara Croft!, Thanks, Jose]

Our memory of the announcement of Thief 4 has long since been washed away by other sizable pieces of gaming news and releases -- however, Eidos Montreal boss Stephane D'Astous recently assured IncGamers that the dev team hasn't been slacking off since the game's big reveal. In an interview with the site, D'Astous claimed, "the team is making leaps and bounds," later adding, "personally I have never seen a team, at this milestone (middle of pre-production) in such good shape!"

Wait a second -- the dev team is still in pre-production, and they're already working on the game's jumping mechanic? Get your priorities straight, guys.

[Via VG247]

An Eidos Montreal community spokesperson has put a dent in rumors of Deus Ex 3 being developed exclusively for PC. "Only the PC version has been announced so far," he wrote on the official Eidos forums, diplomatically addressing a story that originated from a (now corrected) article on Bit-Tech. "I dunno where that website is getting its info from!"

We dunno if these comments preclude an exclusivity announcement in the future but, as John Walker notes on Rock Paper Shotgun, the situation isn't a conspiracy so much as "a matter of crossed wires." The Deus Ex franchise is certainly no stranger to consoles and, considered from a commercial viewpoint, it seems likely that Eidos and Square Enix would want to share their collaborative efforts with as wide an audience as possible.

"Deus Ex 3 is going to be the first project which will be a concrete product of joint effort between Square Enix and Eidos," said Stephane D'Astous, general manager of Eidos Montreal. Not to be confused with that other first collaboration between the two, the devs in Tokyo will take care of any CGI cutscenes in the upcoming threequel, while D'Astrous confirmed to Edge that the duty of putting together enticing trailers and the game's intro cinematic will also fall on the CGI-smiths at Square Enix.

D'Astrous says Square Enix was excited to contribute, also expressing interest in Thfourteeneff. It should provide a nice change of scenery for Square Enix, though we're sure it'll find a spot to squeeze in a silver-haired, effeminate hero or three.

A recent Square Enix press release has dropped some rather unfortunate news in our laps: Just Cause 2 won't be hitting North American store shelves until March 23, 2010 (or March 26 for Europe, Australia and the Middle East). That's quite a ways past the title's original Q3 2009 launch date -- in fact, that's two whole Qs later than we initially hoped.

Oh, well. It's difficult for us to get in a huff about the game's distant launch date. See, as soon as we feel the huff approaching, we simply watch a bit of Just Cause 2's grapple-and-parachute-centric gameplay, and then we feel inexplicably soothed to our very core.

Square Enix Europe has officially announced Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, confirming that the trademark application from July and the recent viral video portended the return of the notorious duo -- well, "notorious" for all the wrong reasons. The action vets at IO Interactive claim to have infused Dog Days with "a new visual experience ... inspired by documentary filmmakers and the user-generated era."

We've placed the two K&L2 viral videos after the break. The game will release in 2010 under the Eidos brand for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

At the Montreal Games Summit, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada announced that Square is working with Eidos Montreal, part of the newly absorbed Eidos, on a new game. The studio is also working on Thief 4 (or ... "Thi4f") and Deus Ex 3. Wada said that the new game "would be the first collaboration between Square Enix and Montreal," in addition to being the first work done by Eidos in tandem with its Square Enix overlords.

Wada framed the development as part of Square Enix's effort to think more globally. What he didn't talk about was what the game is, be it new IP or another sequel. Presumably, it's the first of many such collaborations, since Square Enix is unlikely to let its subsidiary work totally autonomously.

Action movie sequels always aim to be bigger and better than the original. Having played two missions from Just Cause 2, we can unequivocally say it's bigger than the first game, a cult favorite open-world romp starring a South American super-agent with an inexhaustible supply of parachutes. But better? That would require much more playtime to answer.

We've posted no fewer than six videos of Just Cause 2 to date, but this week I had my first chance to actually get behind the controls of the Avalanche Studios developed title, which reintroduces us to Rico Rodriguez, who's bringing his Desperado-era Antonia Banderas looks (sans the long locks this time) to the massive -- yet fictional -- island sandbox of Panau.