Batman’s Ark

Batman: Arkham Asylum

The odds were stacked against Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s a Batman game, and there hasn’t been a good one of those since the SuperNES. It’s a stealth game, a genre which generally doesn’t deliver, especially this generation. It’s published out by Eidos, who never put out games people care about, and developed by Rocksteady Studios, who made one other game that I don’t remember anything about. But it’s easily among the best games of the year.

Batman has arrested Joker and is bringing him into Arkham Asylum. But Joker hardly put up a fight, which has the Dark Knight nervous. Sure enough, the Clown Prince of Crime unleashes all the insane inhabitants of the asylum, leaving Batman alone to recapture all of his greatest foes.

Arkham Asylum is at its best when Batman is trapped in a room full of armed guards. Obvious he can’t just run up to them, he’d get shot and die. So he has to hide and use his gadgets and fear to isolate and disable his enemies. This system works really well and is a lot of fun. Batman has a number of fantastic gadgets at his disposal, from the classic batarang to the grapple gun to explosive gel. The other half of gameplay is hand-to-hand combat against thugs, and it’s all based on a simple combat system that lives up to the old adage “easy to learn, hard to master.”

Presentation goes a long way in a game like this. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are back and give strong performances as the lead characters. The game has this sweet detective mode filter that lets Batman see through objects, tracking everything from power sources to his enemies heartbeats. The effect is neat and it’s so useful you’ll hardly turn it off. Which is kind of a shame, because the game looks really good. Also, Batman’s uniform gets ripped and damaged throughout the story, which is a nice touch.

After you complete the story there’s a challenge mode to keep you busy, if high scores are your kind of thing. The story itself will probably take you around 12 hours, which is a good length for a single player experience, but feels short when a game is this good. Seriously, go try it out.

Oh, and if you get it on PS3 you can play as Joker in challenge mode too, but I played it on 360 because I prefer that controller. So there you go.

Old Toys, New Polish

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D

With a number of intriguing movies being released this weekend, it might seem kind of strange that I ended up seeing a double feature of two films I’ve already seen many times, and yet I can’t imagine a better way of spending 3 hours at the movies. Of course I’m talking about Toy Story and Toy Story 2 which are now being shown in theaters as a double feature, this time in 3-D.

I don’t see much point of reviewing the films, because we all know that they’re both great and for my money still the best things Pixar has done so far. So the thing going into this that I was kind of curious about, besides getting to see two great films on the big screen for the price of one, was what two films that are over a decade old and weren’t intended to be in 3-D would look like in 3-D. Well, the 3-D was actually pretty good, everything looked as crisp as any other recent 3-D movies, and made for an even more enjoyable experience.

So if it’s been a while since you’ve seen either of the Toy Story movies, I think you should definitely try and see this double feature if you can. In fact it hadn’t been that long since I’d seen both of them, but I still had a hell of a time. Plus, there’s a new trailer for Toy Story 3 that’s attached to it, can’t wait for that to come out, though it’s hard to imagine them living up to the greatness of the first two.

P.S. Go Twins

Lie Me a River

The Invention of Lying

A little late on this one due to myself getting sick (though that didn’t stop me from seeing two movies this weekend) So Ricky Gervais with an all star cast and an over-the-top premise? What could possibly go wrong? Well a lot apparently as Gervais’ first time in the role of co-director of a feature film falls flat far too many times. Invention of Lying isn’t that bad of a movie but when you look at all the talented people attached to it you wonder why it can’t deliver on the laughs. There’s a few faint chuckles and polite smiles here and there but I never, not even once really laughed at something.

Ricky Gervais plays Mark Bellison an unsuccessful screenwriter for a company that produces movies that are essentially just men being filmed talking about historical events. I’m not sure why movies don’t exist without lies (I assume people can’t make stuff up because it would be taken literally) but it’s a unique idea. Struggling in the workplace and even more so romantically, everything is going downhill until Mark learns to harness the power of lying on one particular visit to the bank. Following this Mark can essentially get everything he wants; fame, fortune but still has to fight to win the woman he loves.

Personally I think it’s a hilarious concept. This kind of idea leaves lots of room for stupid civilians being taken advantage of and I usually like that kind a thing. But what I don’t get is why everyone has to announce how they feel so often. I understand that everyone has to tell the truth all the time but they don’t need to say anything if nobody asks them. I guess I found it just too hard for this world to exist and I feel like if I worked it out I could find a lot of loop-holes.

What does work in this film’s favor is the charming cast and all the welcomed cameos. It’s already a delight having even the smallest roles filled by talents such as Tina Fey and Jonah Hill but to then throw in cameos from the likes of; John Hodgman, Jason Bateman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton and Gervais’ good buddy Stephan Merchant and you got yourself a fun little actors smorgasbord. The downside to that is there’s a bit too many characters. There’s definitely something wrong when I’m only remembering these characters do to the fact they were filled by surprising cameo appearances.

I’ll keep it brief, as I so often don’t and just say that overall this was a disappointment. Maybe I can appreciate it as an innocent little PG-13 comedy someday but for now it just didn’t satisfy me. I still love Ricky Gervais but now I can see that he isn’t perfect. I just hope that his upcoming film collaboration with Stephen Merchant, Cemetery Junction (due out next year) fills my craving for comedy filled with awkward pauses from across the pond.