One game that seemed to be at every one of the big companies booths, sans Nintendo, was Batman Arkham Asylum. It even had it's own booth show casing it as well as an area in the Warner Brothers booth, with leather restraint chair for those who got to bonkers while checking out this game. You might be laughing, but we had to restrain Church at one point. Well he kind of just hopped into it for some reason, but this is not the point of this article. The point is, the hands on we were given with the game. Which is why you are here reading this thing.

Not wanting to settle for just playing it as a side game in the Microsoft or Sony booth, I went right to the Batman booth for the right way to play it. Not to mention the first look at the special edition box and goodies for the game. Which, as one might not think, is totally worth the extra cash to throw down. They had this thing in one of those glass cases that you would need Danny Ocean and his thirteen to crack into. They were not kidding when they said how awesome this boxed set is going to be. The only way to make it better would be to include all of the films on BluRay, and a chuck of Mr. Ledger's Skull. The latter something just for me.

But now I am digressing away again from what I am meaning to get to, the Demo and hands-on. Although one more thing, and I know @XBoxFanBoy will have some kind of snark to this. The demo was on the PS3. No not to show off the PS3, but because they were also showing part of the exclusive Joker maps that are only on the PS3. Now to get on with it.

From what has been seen and described of the game already, the demo I got to play was about the first 15 minutes of the game. It went through the opening scenes of the trailer and what I can pretty much say is the beginning. I mean, it does start with you escorting the Joker into Arkham and then his escape and a little of how it was all orchestrated. If you've seen the trailer, then you know what I'm talking about. Harley helping the Joker take control and releasing all of the inmates.

You are then quickly ushered into the action as a small horde of the criminally insane come rushing for you. Also like every other action/brawler type game, it walks you through the controls of the game. In case you don't read the manuals or really know the button configurations by now. But it keeps you in the think of things while doing all of this "tutorial" kind of walk through.

The combat between Batman and pretty much every inmate is very fluid. Employing a kind of lock on system so you can finish off one guy and move to the next much like we know Batman to be very good at. But that's not the only time it will do a switch for you. It will also switch targets to someone that is actively trying to attack you. Which sounds like it could be a pain in the ass, but it seems to determine threat level and go with that. Unless you are trying to sneak up on someone for a quick kill knock out. Which is something cool and odd at the same time.

There are portions of the game where you are able to sneak up and take out an enemy quietly so you don't alert the rest of the crazies in the area. Really easy to do. Crouch and walk behind them and press Triangle, PS3 version. Not to bad, except that the enemies around the person you are sneak attacking don't react. Even when you do it in direct sight of them. They even don't react when crouched and sneaking up to someone directly in front of them. Which made it easy to sap a lot of the inmates, but where is the realism? I know he's Batman, but when I have a gun and his back is to me, I take the shot. He totally wouldn't be able to dodge. That didn't make sense to me at all.

Now what kind of a Batman game would it be without his cool gadgets right? Well I got to play with a few of them in the demo as well. One of which tricky, but the only way to beat the first "boss" you come across.

Batarangs work exactly how you think they would. You throw them and they hit things at a distance. Shocker right? But you do have a seemingly endless supply of them to use. That and when you go into first person view for a better targeting system, you can zoom in for better accuracy.

Then there is also what they called Detective Mode, which seemed like the goggles used by Night Owl in Watchmen. They tint the whole screen with a blue color and highlight objects you can interact with, and they also show you the Health and Fear of all the active NPCs you can see on screen, with names. No indication in the Demo why this is needed, outside of the object part, but I sense an interrogation section in the game where it will come in handy.

The last one that I got to employ was the grappling hook that has been a Batman staple in everything Batman. This was the only gadget that took a little to learn you even had as well as how to use. It can only be used on certain objects and isn't used like the Batarangs. You had to aim Batman at an object while holding the right trigger and press X when it said to on the screen. Granted it was easy once you learned about it, but it seemed like they didn't want you to know about it. After knowing though, it opened up a whole different form of attacks, most really cool stealth ones too.

Where the demo ended for me was right after learning about these grappling hook stealth attacks. Mainly because the "boss" I had to take down had to be taken down in a stealthy way. But I was given two options, slide down in a Spiderman way behind the guy to knock him out or glide down and land on top of him. I chose the latter. I thought it would look cooler, and it did.

I didn't get a chance to play through the Joker levels while there even though it was the reason for the separate booth. The lines for the game were just way to long to take up more time from others. Even though I could have been a media jerk and forced my way in, I felt I got enough. That and I didn't want to ruin the game anymore for myself. This is one I want to be able to play for enjoyment.

I will say that this game looks really good from the time I was given on it. Graphically it is nice to look at, especially Harley. It handles really well. Also the story seems to have gone the path of The Killing Joke and the way the new films have been going. Very dark and very gritty. I might even go the way of picking up the crazy expensive yet crazy awesome special edition when it launches here shortly. I do say it is going to be worth at least one good play through.