I was pretty underwhelmed by Arkham City. It's really fun to fly around town and be bad-ass, but the whole thing just felt small. The story, the city itself, even the villains were lame this time around. I thought Arkham Asylum was much more compelling.

Not sure what I'll play next, since my library of unplayed games keeps growing thanks to the Steam summer sale.

Yes, but I don't feel like Skyrim improved or expanded much except graphic (and glitch) wise. Arkham Asylum/City can be used as a good reference point on how to do a sequel proper. Obviously different game with a similar feel, but to me Skyrim could have just been an Oblivion expansion pack.

Weird, I feel like "more of the same" is exactly why I didn't love Arkham City.

how i don't even

Well I mean, feel free to disagree. What things did you really love about Arkham City? The new gadgets were fun, and it was cool using them seamlessly in combat. But the story was really uninspired, and it never felt like anything was at stake. The side missions were fun but felt pointless, and the open-world seemed weird in the context of the game. Oh really? Protocol 10 is commencing in a few minutes? Excuse me while I spend the next hour criss-crossing the city to answer Zsasz's phone calls.

Arkham Asylum was much more immersive and fresh. I felt like I was Batman, on an important mission. I loved that claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in the nightmarish asylum. The Scarecrow sequences were so surprising and disorienting!

Just one man's opinion. I enjoyed playing Arkham City, don't get me wrong. I just walked away feeling disappointed after the thrill that was Arkham Asylum.

I actually agree with both of you. I felt like Arkham City wasn't "more of the same" because of the different environment but I also think they could have done a lot more with it. Arkham Asylum is easily the superior game for me but I think Arkham City, at least in concept, is how I want my sequels. The Call of Duty franchise is perhaps the biggest violator in "more of the same", but I have to say the Gears of War franchise really succeeds in making a "more of the same" sequel and succeeding at it. With any form of art, "more of the same" should be taken on a case by case basis. Skyrim just didn't impress me because I felt like I've already played it before. Gears of War on the other hand was a...dare I say...GREAT continuation of another story. I could play GoW 1-2-3 back to back and feel like it was a complete video game. I couldn't play the main quests of Oblivion and Skyrim back to back just because it feels like...to me personally...a different character in the same story. I don't know if any of this makes sense to y'all but that's just how I feel personally.

I'm okay with everything he said about City/Asylum, and Asylum still has plenty of qualities about it that make it stand out. The incredible content and immersion of City is what gets me though, and with bigger scope they also get to play with considerably more Batman mythos, which is my favorite part of the game.

I Am Alive. Downloaded it from XBox Live. It's a post-apocalyptic world. You have a gun, but you're lucky if you can find some bullets for it. But if you point it at people, you can bluff them. For awhile, anyway. Such a cool concept for a video game. I'm loving it. Download the demo.

I've got Final Fantasy VI, VII, and XIII all on the go right now. Not to mention I'm almost done with Halo: Anniversary, and KotOR II.

You might like DayZ (never played it, just read about it)

Recently busted out the Wii, got some Gamecube controllers, and have been downloading old titles from the Wii Shop Channel. So much fun to play the classics again, since I don't currently own any older systems.

Has anyone played Amnesia: The Dark Descent? Scariest shit ever.

I spent this week playing and beating The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and now I'm searching every nook and cranny for extra goodies. This is easily one of the most underrated and creative Zelda games I've played.

My only real criticisms are that it's short, easy and doesn't quite have that grand sense of scale that most Zelda games have.

Nonetheless, it's a must play for any Zelda fan.

Picked up Dark Souls this morning. This shit is hard.