I finally broke the 10,000 point gamerscore mark today. I've had a 360 since a month after launch, and it took me all this time. Considering I own 124 games for the 360, it's pretty clear how little I actually play many of the games I buy. The collector mentality in me seems to rule over the gamer part of me.
The game that finally pushed me over the edge is Batman: Arkham Asylum thanks to the Baneful Payback achievement. So far, I am having a blast with it. Batman games have a long history of sucking, all the way back to the NES days. I can't recall a single one that was worth being called even average. There was an old Gameboy Batman game that I liked quite a bit when I was really young, and I sure played the hell out of it. I had that game on farm and would play it over and over through to the end on long car trips. So at the time, I guess it was a great game to me.
Back to Arkham Asylum. This game is fan-flippin-tastic. Someone finally realized that Batman is about a whole lot more than just beating up dudes, but beating up dudes should also be super fun. I haven't seen combat this fluid since Prince of Persia. It is super slick how the animations melt into one another, and how the counterattack mechanic works. If they had decided to make this game all about fighting, and used the current fighting mechanic for it, the game would still be quite a bit of fun.
Fortunately, they covered the game with quite a bit of non-combat fun. I won't get into too many details or this post will be huge, but the Riddler puzzles have provided quite a few extra goals to chase after. The start of the game was very reminiscent of the beginning of Chronicles of Riddick. Having opening sequences that are not just cutscenes has always been a great way to get me interested very early. The cutscenes that are mixed in are also very well done, and move the story along at a great pace.
If you aren't a Batman fan, but don't hate the guy, you should be trying out this game. You never know.. you might end up being a big fan by the time you get done.