I've just spent the evening playing the Batman Arkham Asylum demo... and I loved it. It oozes atmosphere, is dark and brooding - perfectly capturing the comic book behemoth.

I was pretty impressed by the graphics (slightly more faithful to the original concept than the recent LEGO Batman game!), it had a great narrative and left me wanting more. The latest outing for the Dark Knight was a far cry from Ocean's isometric Batman game that I played on my Amstrad following the original box office hit back in 1989.

Reviews have been hugely positive for the caped crusader's latest dalliance with next-gen gaming. Score aggregator Metacritic awards Arkham Asylum an average of 92 and 91% for the Xbox and PS3 versions, respectively! Not bad going for a character created 70 years ago!

Most of Batman's arch-rivals make an appearance, and each is well characterised with some fantastic voice acting - Mark Hamill (yes, Luke Skywalker!) is perfectly cast as the Joker.

Along the way you can swing about the place using your grappling hook, strike henchmen with a series of kicks and punches or chuck your Batarang at them instead.

All in all, it's a great little package - and Microsoft's ploy of letting me download the demo and have a play has ensured I get my hands on the full game as soon as possible. Judging from its position at the top of the latest sales charts, plenty of you seem to agree.