Standing not quite so tall but indeed proud, the Bat case will indeed garner many-a-look straight from the box. Thoughts ranging from weird to wonderful are undoubtedly in the works, as people passing by your case at the next party take in the definitely masculine sculpted Bat Mask eyebrows, molded overtop of a pair of clear eyes, backed by silver trays to help focus the light from the inbuilt blue LEDs. Cresting the middle and preventing a unibrow is a wee chrome emblem, of what we can only imagine. As you can see, it bears quite a likeness to an Orc Grinning, its face replaced mostly by the omega symbol. Gliding down the smooth black plastic from the emblem we flesh out quite a pointed nose, the tip of which drops off, back to the Case’s smooth mask, and grilled likeness of a mouth. Apart from these features, the front panel remains perfectly clean, unbroken by neither button nor port.

Spanning the face of the case both above and below this mask are large, well painted areas, protected with plastic peel sheets, so not to scratch during shipping. Unlike quite a few painted cases, the finish is immaculate on the seams, giving this case a very professional feel. Perhaps what gives it an even better feel is the door hidden behind the eyes. By tugging ever so gently, but insistently on the side of the face, the door opens, and feels quite solid in your hands – the structure is rigid and moves well, unlike some of the other door’s cases we’ve seen, whose appendages seem to fall off well before the case’s life begins. Threading through this front area is a small wire to feed power to the eyes, but beyond this, we’re greeted again by another expanse, broken only by perfect cutouts for drive bays. Along the edge of the door, a small magnet, which holds the door shut perfectly, resides behind a small rubber pad, which helps to dampen the noise of the door closing immensely. We’re definitely feeling the build quality love here.

Panning upward from the face, we come to the top of the case, and, in a place that’s made others famous, we found the Case’s interaction point. Coming from right to left across the small molded outcropping, we have the reset button, a small door with the USB logo on it, and a power button. Each of these two buttons is rimmed in clear acrylic, undoubtedly acting as hard drive and power indicators. The buttons have a nice, solid feel to them, requiring enough effort to push down so that you know they’ll always be there, producing a satisfying “click” as they reach their apex. Astute modders will probably purchase bi-colour LEDs, and wire up the eyes so they stay lit for power and flash for activity. Want to take this mod on and are not sure how? Drop by our forums via the link at the end of this review and ask away, we’ll be happy to help. Back on topic, sliding that little door back reveals to us a filled in connector for a fire wire port, a pair of USB ports, and a headphone/microphone jack – perfect for dropping a headset into for those late night gaming sessions or steamy VOIP calls. Beyond this outcropping, the top panel stretches out in smooth black satin, looking slick, granted, we would have preferred it to be broken by a blowhole to extract the hot air from up here.

You can’t win them all though. Flapping outward from this smooth back is a pair of nearly symmetrical panels, with the only difference being the left panel catering to a set of whole vents above your video card. Gliding along the top of the well chamfered molded plastic wings, we find ourselves soon at a dip, housing a chrome grille, backed by a fine mesh, much akin to what you’d see on many generic speakers. Tucked behind this mesh is a ducted fan for the left, and absolutely nothing for the right – presumably left that way in order to maintain the near perfect symmetry found throughout the case. These grilles are, of course, tucked in under the very tips of the well molded wings. Moving slightly down the panels, we come to a pair of half heartedly bat shaped cuts in the plastic, which run all the way down to the perfectly painted case panel – these indentations serve as very functional and perfect handles of course. If there’s one gripe we have about the paint though, is that I wouldn’t be surprised if breathing on it would scratch it – much of what rubs against the chassis proper during mounting was scratched nine ways to Sunday. Still, these areas are permanently out of sight, so it shouldn’t be much of an issue. Swinging round to the rump of the case, we complete the tour with a completely uninspired, primer grey finish. Mounts for either twin 80MM or a single 120MM fan can be found, and the re-usable silver backplane covers can be seen. As Officer Barbrady would put it “move along people, nothing to see here”