While reading the opening post, I thought,"How about utilizing what we've seen to be Assassin's Creed's battle mechanics, only with Batman's arsenal of techniques..."

-Instead of what we've seen as the "slow" surrounding combat, there be higher diffficulties offering higher-speed combat.

It may seem petty to capitalize on a yet-to-be-released game's mechanics, but they look great. :P

BranKetra

Gotham City built on the model of the cities in Assassin's Creed would be awesome... In terms of character design, Altair's younger brother... none other than the Prince of Persia :D serves as a decent example of how to create a fluidly controlled character. In fact this is one point I missed out in my first post...

There is a striking resemblence between the Prince (of the Two thrones) and Batman (and I'm not just talking about the duality of the character):

1. The prince uses the environment around him to be more lethal. I loved the wall run/wall push attack combos because it added the extra level of thought to the combat situations. This is right up Batman's alley. I'm quite sure replacing swords with fists will still add up to a challenging gameplay.

2. Speed Kills! I thought they were executed quite well in Batman Begins. In fact, the combat in Batman Begins would have been very exciting if Batman wasn;t a bit clunky and limited in moves. The developers tend to forget that he is a trained martial artist.

I think Ubisoft can do a pretty good job on Batman given their track record with fluid characters.

Disclaimer first: I am not an expert. This is my first post on Gamespot forums and this is something I wanted to discuss with other gamers (and Batman fans!) for a long time.

I'm playing Batman Begins these days and even though it's a lot of fun to play, one of the reviews on Gamespot is bang-on: It's not quite there. By trying to introduce Fear Mechanics into the game, they took a step towards capturing what Batman is all about in this Game, but I'm not a huge fan of the excessive platforming present in the Game... even though we all know Batman is a skilled acrobat, there are other aspects to his personality that need more meat in the Batman games to come in the future. So what would be a step towards a good Batman game?

Here's the deal... with so many games over the years, I do not believe it requires huge never-seen-before Innovation to make a kick-ass Batman game. But combining the right aspects from what has been brought to the table over the years would, in my opinion, holds a lot of promise. So here we go....

1. Movie Plot tie-in v/s Original Plot

The next Batman Game should definitely be based on an independant story created especially for the Game, rather than following the next Batman Movie. I think it restricts the freedom a great deal for the developers. That said, making references to older storylines of the comic book series and even the movies would make the Game a huge hit with the seasoned fans of Batman. Imagine a small early subplot mission involving investigating a disturbance at a chemical plan and encountering the "Red Hood" there... and then watching the Red Hood fall in a vat of chemicals (The fans of Batman will know what I'm talking about)

2. Free Roam Map v/s Linear Levels

This is more fundamental. Batman is the protector of Gotham, waging war on crime, from low life thugs to the insanely notorious. So assuming that the developers want to give the player a feel of being Batman, let him run free in Gotham and fight crime as he sees fit. Can you imagine the possibilities this opens up? If we include the origin of Batman in the game, his relationship (from hostile to cooperative) and reputation with the Police can develop with his performance in his Crime fighting expeditions.

3. Batman???

Ra's Al Ghul calls Batman "The Detective". Every Batman fan knows how important that is. So far in Batman games, I have seen Batman the fighter, Batman the acrobat, Batman the racer etc etc etc... but where is the detective??? That is my biggest complaint with Batman games... The Batman investigates the crime scene, deduces and then jumps in his Bat Mobile. He uses his brain for a lot more than figuring the right way out a room. The question is... how do we bring this thought alive?

One game comes to my mind at this point.... Indigo Prophecy. For those unaware of the game, check out the review on Gamespot and you'll know what I'm talking about. The crux of the game is that the actions that you perform in a given scenario shape up how the game goes forward. I found Indigo Prophecy a bit boring since this was all I seemed to do, but this combined with all the action of Batman should be a very exciting combo.

4. Batman vs Batman Universe

Batman is not the only character in the DC Universe. Any Batman game true the hero would give definitive roles to his allys like James Gordon, Oracle, Robin, Nightwing etc. How about throwing in a few subplots where we get to play as one of these? And while we're at it, how about giving Batman an inventory management system so he can choose what to carry on his trusty utility belt and use what we feel is needed rather than telling us (Ahem.. Batman Begins)... here's a footnote.. people don't mind making a few mistakes in Games before getting it right!)

Maybe all this is asking a lot? But I'm sure its very possible... especially with the current advancement of the Gaming industry.

If you like these ideas, why not add to them and hope that one of the developers takes notice? :)