Arkham

This week on preGAME, hosts Jeff Bakalar and Mark Licea take a sneak peek at God of War III! Join us as we play it live on the show and talk to the game's lead designer, Todd Papy. We chat with Todd about wrapping up Kratos' epic saga, some of the new elements found in the game, and pushing the PlayStation 3 to its limits.

But before the demo, we kick off with some headlines that include a breaking announcement about a new game in the Rock Band franchise. That's right; Rock Band 3 will be hitting consoles … Read more

We have a very special guest this week, Mr. Jeff Sparkman. Jeff gained notoriety previously by being named CNET's nerdiest employee. Soon after, it was a fast life of drugs, women, and comic books. We discuss at least one of those subjects with him.

Also in this episode, we talk about fighting with the Vulcan nerve pinch, Dong getting beat up by a girl, and Eric crying like a baby while watching "The Lord of the Rings."

Tech this week, we take a look at Lucid's soon-to-be-released tech. Also, Dong schools us on using Windows Media … Read more

Despite year-over-year sales declines putting a recession-fueled wet blanket over the entire industry, video games are still a big business, and a hit-driven one at that. Hence, much of the attention falls on a handful of commercial superstars each year, from Halo 3 to The Beatles: Rock Band, leaving plenty of worthy games languishing in obscurity.

That's why it's pleasing to see critics and gamers alike praise Warner's Batman: Arkham Asylum, a new action/adventure game about the famed caped crusader. Earlier this year, during the annual E3 video game industry trade show, we said:

Episode 46 of the Digital City, where we debate the merits of the PS3 Slim, show how to get your free Windows 7 upgrade, and discuss new games from Batman: Arkham Asylum to GangStar for the iPhone.

Related links: >>Skip the PS3 Slim and get one of these Blu-ray laptops >>Should I buy a new laptop now, or wait for Windows 7? >>Are gaming handhelds too expensive?

>>Watch the Digital City live every Friday at 3pm EST on CNET Live! >>Subscribe to Digital City on iTunes >>Join the Digital City Facebook fan page &… Read more

It's true that New Yorkers groan the most about the summer heat, but nobody's complaining today because we have Libe Goad from AOL's GameDaily in the studio! She gives us her take on the boring PS3 Slim and even defends our right to be 35, fat, and bummed-out gamers!

Libe helps us kick off the show with a chat about the new PS3 Slim. After yesterday's unboxing, we've all determined that you'd have to be a fool to upgrade from the PS3 Fat (that can't be the official name), but there are a few games to look for on the console, like Wet, starring Eliza Dushku as Rubi Malone, a "lethal heroine who will take any job as she likes it and the price is right." Other games of interest include Wolfenstein and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

All this game talk leads us to a study that reveals the average gamer is 35, fat, and bummed. As a nongamer, I see absolutely nothing fallacious here, but Jeff and Libe have to disagree, and they make a good point. First, the CDC only surveyed 552 subjects in the Seattle-Tacoma area. 552 is a pretty small sample size to determine the "bummertude" of this group, and I'm sure it doesn't help that Seattle rains 226 days a year, these poor gamers are literally being forced to stay in their houses, can we blame them for actually being fat and bummed? We'll get to the bottom of this...

We also talk briefly about the 12 most annoying types of Facebookers, like the Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-Of-My-Day guy (aka Twitter feeders), or the Town Criers who feel the need to broadcast every headline they see on TMZ. Unfortunately, I think all of us are guilty of being The Self-Promoter, but who isn't? Everything you post on Facebook is a form of self-promotion, isn't that why people join social networks in the first place?

Per usual, we always need Calls From the Public, so if you have something to say feel free to give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET or shoot us a line at the404(at)CNET{dot}com!

Eidos' highly anticipated Batman: Arkham Asylum is due to hit stores on August 25. The action title, which will be available on PS3, Xbox 360, and PCs, follows the caped crusader as he takes on the likes of Joker, Poison Ivy, and other supervillains. Several new screenshots surfaced at E3 2009.

Additional reading: Dan Ackerman's take on Batman: Arkham Asylum.

One of the most buzzed-about games of the year isn't a big-name sequel or movie tie-in, although it does have the kind of pop-culture bona fides other games can only dream of. Instead, Batman: Arkham Asylum (published by Warner Bros. and Eidos) is a standalone story about everyone's favorite caped crusader--although the vibe is more Christian Bale's moody Dark Knight than '60s Adam West Technicolor antics.

Video games based on comic book characters have almost uniformly disappointed in the past because the games bore little resemblance to the source material. Typically, they're generic brain-dead beat-'em-ups that a game developer awkwardly inserted a 3D version of a licensed comic book character into.

Perhaps because it started life as a lower-profile project, this game was able to develop without a movie release deadline to hit or a hard holiday season shipping date. What we've ended up with is one of the best games we've played this year, with appeal that goes far beyond comic book fans.

Set on an isolated island that houses an asylum for the criminally insane, Batman must recapture several of his old arch-enemies (who are conveniently all locked up in the same facility). The game smartly mixes several different types of action, and never leaves you doing the same thing for too long. … Read more

Here it is. It's the latest trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum. The trailer is set to air Thursday night on MTV, but fortunately for us, Stephen Totilo, from MTV's Multiplayer, decided to post it early for everyone to drool over.

Eidos and developer Rocksteady Studios set expectations very high when the first trailer for "Batman: Arkham Asylum" debuted in November. The setting of Arkham Asylum combined with the dark tone of the story seemed to embody the feel of Batman's universe.

With Emmy Award-winning "Batman: The Animated Series" producer Paul Dini writing the … Read more