The highly anticipated sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, was announced today by Warner Bros. Interactive to start shipping October 18 in North America.

Our friends across the pond in Europe will be able to pick it up a few days later on October 21, and those of you in the land down under will be able to get your hands on it on October 19.

Warner Bros. Interactive also released a few brand spankin’ new screenshots for your enjoyment, which you can find below.

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Sony released a new video that shows off Resistance 3‘s recently-detailed multiplayer in action. As was revealed back at GDC, the multiplayer supports up to 16 players across its variety of game modes, down quite significantly from Resistance 2‘s 60 players. If you’re interested to see how well Resistance 3‘s multiplayer looks, see the video below.

It essentially goes without saying, then, that the pressure on Runic Games was high to do justice to the port over to consoles. They had to succeed where other developers have failed and provide that same solid experience, but with the restrictions that come with using a controller over the ol’ mouse and keyboard. So the question, then, is did they manage to succeed? Well, in a word: yes.

If you’re unfamiliar with Torchlight, here it is in a nutshell: you pick between one of three characters — Destroyer (melee), Alchemist (magic) and Vanquisher (ranged) — and you’re immediately sent into the mines below the small town of Torchlight to vanquish an evil force that has corrupted the mines from within its core. There’s a hint of a story to be found, but that isn’t really what Torchlight is all about — all you’ll likely care about is relentlessly tearing through waves of baddies in order to collect more and more shiny pieces of loot. And when you’ve done that, guess what you’ll do afterwards? You’ll score yourself even more loot. If that sounds right up your alley, then Torchlight was made with you in mind

If all of that sounded a bit dull to you, rest assured that Torchlight does a good job at managing to change things up enough to not bore you. After every four floors you’ll venture into an entirely new area of the mine, each area feeling vastly different from the other in terms of aesthetics and enemy types. And when you’ve made your way down to the final floor and vanquished the boss, there’s a whole ‘nother dungeon to explore with randomized maps and randomized locations. For a game that is so simple in premise and practice, Torchlight has a surprising amount to offer to hack-’n'-slash fans.

The question on the mind of those that played the PC version, then, is how well it plays on a console. Much to my surprise, not only does it handle just as well as its PC counterpart, it actually manages to feel better in ways. Using the left stick to direct your attacks onto unsuspecting enemies feels exactly as it should: precise and intuitive. In fact, the only thing to complain about as far as gameplay is concerned is that you only have eight total buttons in which to map your skills to. You can map skills to Right Trigger, Left Trigger, B and Y with Right Bumper and Left Bumper being reserved for your potions, and you can press down on the D-Pad to switch between your active skill sets. I found I could make do with the limited slots I had, but it still feels restrictive.

The only major difference you’ll notice — aside from the fact you have a controller in your hand this time around — is the complete overhaul of the inventory, status, quest, stat and skill screens. While the new UI is mostly great, it’s also a little more confusing than it ought to be and, in fact, ends up with its own learning curve before you get used to navigating it properly. It’s not that big of an issue in general, but there are times early on in the game where you might accidentally sell off an equipped item or identify and equip an item you were trying to sell, and so on.

The port over to console mostly went off without a hitch, but there are a few surprising annoyances. For one, despite the fact that the PC version can play on practically any computer made over the last decade, the game comes to a crawl whenever a certain amount of spell effects and enemies are on screen at once. It’s not game-breaking by any means, but it’s nonetheless puzzling how a game with such low system requirements could possibly bring the Xbox 360 to its knees.

Another, more significant issue reared its ugly head at me towards the end of my playthrough. For reasons I don’t quite understand, my entire shared storage was completely wiped out due to a strange bug. I was assured by the developers that they were working on figuring it out — and, for all I know, it could have been something on my end that mucked it up — but it’s worth noting in case this glitch blindsides anyone else. Regardless, the developers are aware of it.

It’s a testament to just how solid and, honestly, addictive, this game is that even a nasty glitch couldn’t keep me away from it. Decking out your character with new items is as addictive as it is fun, and the wide variety of skills available to each character, despite the limited number of skill binds, makes the action entertaining throughout. Hack-’n'-slash fans will find hours upon hours of content waiting for them in the dark mines of Torchlight and, even if you’ve already played it before, it’s still just as fun as it was the first go-around. All lovers of loot should definitely add this to their digital library.

Score: 8/10 – Great

If that recent teaser trailer for Battlefield 3 left you hungry for more, EA and DICE released a brand new gameplay trailer late last night that should get you even more excited for EA and DICE’s answer to Call of Duty. The trailer is around three minutes long and shows off the brand new Frostbite 2.0 engine in action — and, as you’ll see, it’s positively mind-blowing.

Atlus confirmed this morning that the highly anticipated, totally insane Catherine will be heading to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this summer. This is contrary to recent “rumors” that it would not be making its way outside of Japan, but come on — did anyone really think this wasn’t going to happen?

No word at the moment on an exact date — or month, for that matter — but Amazon currently has it pegged for a July 26 release date. Until then, you’ll just have to settle for the Japanese demo that’s available on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.

Bethesda put out the very first gameplay footage of Skyrim interlaced with footage from the teaser announcement. I’ll try not to sound too unprofessional here, but.. you know what? Screw it. This game looks amazing, and I’m all kinds of hyped up from this trailer. The graphics are a huge improvement, the draw distances are still great, and the animations and combat appear to be significantly improved over what we saw out of Oblivion — there’s not much to not like here. Check it out for yourself. NOW!

Gears of War 3 was actually due out two months from now, but late last year, Microsoft announced that they’d be pushing it back into a ‘holiday 2011′ release window. Today, we find out just when that is: Gears of War 3 will launch worldwide on September 20.

For the math-challenged, that’s a fairly long seven months away — but at least we’ll have that Gears of War 3 beta by way of Bulletstorm to keep us company. Fortunately, Microsoft didn’t completely leave us hanging until the beta; they revealed a handful of multiplayer and general gameplay details for us to drool over.

The press release revealed five new maps: Trenches, Overpass, Mercy, Checkout and Thrashball. According to Microsoft’s statement, Trenches will feature a sandstorm that, when active, severely reduces the visibility and changes the dynamic of the map significantly.

Also revealed in the press release is an impressive number of new guns. There’s the Bayonet Charge, the Retro Lancer, the Sawed-off Shotgun, the Incendiary Grenade, the Digger Launcher and the OneShot, a powerful sniper rifle that can take someone out straight through a shield. Classic weapons such as the Hammerburst and the Classic Lancer will be receiving a few tweaks as well.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t make mention of just when we’ll be able to get our hands on the multiplayer beta, only stating that it’s headed our way “soon”. Let’s just hope they’re not going by Blizzard’s definition of “soon”.

If we’re being honest with each other, the PSOne Classics offerings in North America and Europe, compared to the Japanese PSOne Classics, is kind of.. lacking. Fortunately, that’s about to change for the better — provided you like lengthy Japanese RPGs, that is.

The PlayStation.Blog detailed this week’s new releases, and in the post comes the announcement that Xenogears will be heading to North America’s PSOne Classics selection tomorrow. If you’ve never had the privilege of playing Xenogears before, you’ll be in for a treat if you choose to pick this up; it’s easily one of the best RPGs available on the original PlayStation.

Ubisoft announced that a new singleplayer and multiplayer DLC for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is on its way to the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live next month for $9.99, or 800 Microsoft Points.

The singleplayer portion of the DLC sees Ezio in a new storyline involving the mysterious disappearance of Leonardo Da Vinci. Da Vinci gets himself captured by a cult called the Hermeticists, and it’s up to Ezio to traverse two new locations in an effort to locate stolen paintings that are somehow connected with Da Vinci’s disappearance.

If you’re more the multiplayer type, you’ll get a brand new map, “Alhambra”, set in a lush quarter of Spain’s Albaicin of Granada. Also included in the package is four new characters — the Knight, the Marquis, the Pariah and the Dama Rossa — as well as two brand spanking new multiplayer modes, Escort and Assassinate.

Escort has two teams of four working together to protect their VIP, while the other team’s objective is to, of course, assassinate that VIP. Assassinate is a much more straight-forward affair, with six to eight players doing their best to murder each other.

The pack is due out on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live at the “beginning of March” for, once again, $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points. Find the teaser trailer of the DLC below.

Have you been holding off on getting Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood until its release on PC? Well, I have good news for you, person! According to Ubisoft’s UK forum manager Mr. Shade, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood will arrive on the PC on March 17 in North America and a day later in the UK.

If you put in a pre-order over on Steam, you’ll be able to score yourself the “Digital Deluxe Edition” which includes two additional singleplayer maps, the Harlequin and Officer multiplayer characters, the Assassin’s Creed: Lineage movie, a behind the scenes video and a whole bunch of other goodies.

See? The wait wasn’t so bad, was it?

Source: Ubisoft, Steam via Joystiq

Microsoft announced this morning that a brand new map pack for Halo: Reach is due out in March. The map pack, titled Defiant, adds three brand new maps and an additional 150 achievement points to collect.

The first of the three maps, Condemned, is set on an orbital station high about ol’ Planet Reach and it supports 6-12 players in a variety of modes, Team Slayer and Free-for-All included. Highlands is the second of the bunch, and it’s located on a top secret military training base on Reach. This one supports 8-16 players in Big Team Battle, Team Slayer and Team Objective. The third and final map is Unearthed, a four-player Firefight map set near a large titanium mine used to manufacture hardware for the UNSC.

The Halo: Reach Defiant map pack is due out sometime in March for 800 Microsoft Points. Check out a little teaser of the three maps below.

If you were to look at Hard Corps: Uprising at a glance, it might not be immediately noticeable that this is, in fact, a successor to Contra. You might be fooled by the gorgeously crafted anime sprites and 3D backgrounds and find yourself thinking this is just some pretty knock-off of one of many sidescrolling shooters of old. You’d be wrong — Hard Corps: Uprising is Contra through and through, but with a fresh visual style and quite a few interesting, well-executed new ideas that enhance that classic Contra experience. In fact, just about the only thing you’ll be missing from Contra is the name. And yes, that means this game is tough.

Fortunately, Hard Corps: Uprising features a mode called “Rising” that makes it a bit easier on weaklings such as myself. Rising allows you to level up your character of choice with health boosts, additional lives and even additional character abilities such as dodge, reflect and ambush. Rising does a whole lot of good towards adding to the classic Contra formula. Even if the legions of baddies walk right over you and drain you of your last continue, you’ll still get a reward for your efforts by way of of points to redeem towards upgrades. Contra purists may be put off by the relatively easier difficulty of Rising, but for them, there’s Arcade mode.

Arcade mode gives you a set of abilities, two lives, two health bars, a couple of continues, any weapon power ups you manage to find and leaves you to fend for yourself. Any perceived hand-holding that Rising provides is gone, and it’s all of the fun (and pain) of classic Contra with the addition of a few abilities at your disposal. These abilities require fairly strict precision to pull off successfully, but when you’re able to dash behind an enemy, shoot him in the back for the kill and then reflect a bullet fired at you from a higher platform, you can’t help but feel like a badass. There’s plenty of adrenaline rushes such as that to be had once you get a feel for the game, but there’s also quite a few moments where Hard Corps: Uprising insists on being a buzzkill.

The game’s highly varied stages are, for the most part, wildly different from one another in terms of aesthetics, gimmicks and general feel, but they all share one thing in common: painfully cheap deaths. This isn’t exactly new to the Contra series, but it being familiar doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Fortunately, these cheap deaths generally only stem from frustrating enemy placements; the bosses and minibosses provide a mostly fair challenge with each one feeling unique. The “cheap” challenge is something that Contra purists — and masochists — will likely welcome with open arms, but for the rest of us, it can be fairly off-putting at times. Provided you’re playing the Rising mode, you’ll at least get some return out of your countless deaths.

Cheap deaths aside, you can’t help but have a blast the whole way through Hard Corps: Uprising. The varied stages keep things fresh the whole way through, the action is mostly true to the Contra formula, and if you choose to play co-op with a friend — locally or online — you’ll find the experience to be even better. I wasn’t able to get into a game of online co-op, but I found local co-op to be an absolute blast to play through, especially considering how much more manageable having a second player makes each stage. If you’re not the co-op type, you’ll still find there’s a lot of fun to be had playing it solo.

Overall, Arc System Works did a stunning job of taking Contra, dropping in a few gameplay mechanics, drastically altering the visual style and tone and yet still managing to maintain that classic Contra feel. If you’re a fan of Contra or sidescrolling shooters in general, you’ll find Hard Corps: Uprising to be a solid, faithful title that will last you a good 5-6 hours. It may feel a bit cheap at times, but the action is so fun and the RPG-like elements of the Rising mode are so addictive that it’s easy to forgive the game as it relentlessly abuses you over and over. Hard Corps: Uprising is very much worth the $15 price tag.

Score: 9/10 – Wonderful
Review based on the Xbox Live Arcade release.

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Torchlight is just a few weeks away from making its debut on Xbox Live Arcade, but it looks as if Torchlight II will be pushed back as a result of the development of the port. Digital Spy spoke with Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer who stated that the team’s work on the Xbox 360 port set development on Torchlight II back a bit, with the new release window sometime around July.

As it turns out, though, this may be a blessing in disguise for Torchlight fans. Max had these encouraging words to say about the delay: “”It’s going great, however. We’ve actually got some optimizations and technical improvements that went into making the Xbox version that we’ve been able to go back and implement into Torchlight II for PC. We’ve got load times down, we’ve got some animation stuff that’s a little bit better, and it’s feeling really good right now.”

If the delay makes for a better Torchlight II, I’m in. Besides, we’ve got the original Torchlight to play through all over again!

Source: Digital Spy

Only a week before the first game is set to release, Microsoft’s Major Nelson dated and priced the full lineup of games from this year’s House Party promotion over on his blog. Up first is Konami and Arc System Works’ Hard Corps: Uprising on February 16 for 1200 Microsoft points, followed by PopCap’s Bejeweled Blitz a week later on February 23 for 800 Microsoft points.

Beyond Good & Evil HD makes its way to Xbox Live on March 2 for 800 Microsoft points, Torchlight follows on March 9 for 1200 points, and the final release, Full House Poker, arrives March 16 for 800 points.

Source: Major Nelson

Publisher of many fine games, 2K Games, announced a sequel to 2007′s The Darkness today. The sequel is being developed this time by Digital Extremes, who you may know as the guys and gals behind Dark Sector, and is expected out on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in time for Fall 2011.

The Darkness II will, according to the press release, carry on the stylistic and over-the-top violence from the first game and perhaps kick it up a notch with the addition of “quad-wielding gameplay”. The sequel takes place two years after the events in the first game and sees Jackie, now the Don of the Franchetti crime family, in the middle of an unprovoked mob war.

If you’d like to check out the first (and only) screenshot of the game in action, see below.