(Nearly) Final Arkham Asylum Thoughts

After a hellish couple of weeks working far more than desirable, I carved out some time on Sunday to sit down and experience more Arkham Asylum. The pacing continued to be fantastic, and I really enjoyed the fact that, if I wanted to, I could meander through the environments after clearing them to search for the Riddler challenges. The combat, while at times aggravating if I lost my timing, was a lot of fun when I got the rhythm down, countering at the right time and keeping long combo chains alive. It was easy to appreciate the way the developers doled out the story and kept me interested in what was happening throughout the game. Overall, I can say, I've truly enjoyed it.

There is one particular aspect of the game that I wanted to highlight, and that's the sequences involving Scarecrow. Even though they were quite similar in mechanic, I enjoyed the buildup to each one (through the use of hallucinations on Batman's part), and the maneuvering through strange dreamscapes while avoiding the giant Scarecrow's gaze provided a nice break from the rest of the game's scenery and strategy. I particularly enjoyed the fake 'system glitch' and subsequent reimagining of part of the game's original intro sequence; I found it to be clever and well-done. For some reason, even though these sections of the game used the same movement mechanics as the rest of the game, I found them to be more entertaining than some of the other sections. It could be that they were just more bright and colorful than the rest of the environments, and just the aesthetic changed my perception. Regardless, I count these sections as some of my favorites...

Now, I can't say this is a game without flaws. While the Killer Croc lair section of the game was inventive and mildly entertaining, it felt a bit too strung out and overly long, and it is one of the very few areas of the entire game that felt, well, gamey to me. If Croc really is an amphibious beast, and just as comfortable under the water as above it, why did he have such a hard time finding me? I mean, I'm no part crocodile, part human homicidal maniac, but I certainly feel that I would have zeroed in on Batman a lot faster than he did, especially after getting hit in the face by batarangs every time I popped out of the water. I would have made damn sure that I was close enough to Batman to just reach up and rip his arms off before he could throw anything at me. In this game though, Croc kept popping up just far enough away to get knocked off the floating platforms by a batarang. The whole segment felt a bit too contrived and didn't fit in very well with the rest of the experience. This observation could also be clouded by the fact that the final portion of this area was incredibly anticlimatic. Maybe Batman wouldn't have stood a chance in pitched battle with Croc, but at least make it more interactive and less sudden than what does occur.

The relative lack of variety in the boss battles was also disappointing. I don't have the total count of boss battles in front of me, but it felt like the vast majority of them involved one or two Bane-type characters with or without waves of extra normal thugs to muddy the waters. Don't get me wrong, the first experiences with them were challenging and fun, but after dealing with them several times, it became rather rote and uninspiring. I haven't yet tackled the game's truly final encounter, although there is a twin Titan battle just before it, but it appears to be more of the same with possibly some slight variation.

My last criticism of the game, and I may be the only one to have this criticism, is that it really irked me how none of the game's iconic villains actually died in this game. It seemed a bit too obvious that the developers were making sure that any and all of these supervillains could (and probably will) make an appearance in the future. It aggravated me on the same level that a movie does, when it clearly wants to leave the story open for a sequel, in case the movie makes enough money to warrant one. Overly dramatic 'death' sequences abound in this title, where Batman never really sees any of his named villains perish. At first, it seemed obvious to me that because there was no real resolution with these villains that they would appear later, but after several super baddies were defeated but not eliminated it was clear that this was the order of the day. Granted, it's good to keep options open for future titles, and most likely DC didn't give the developer license to kill a major villain, but still...After the first 3 or 4 of these, it felt incredibly contrived.

Again, even with these criticisms, Arkham Asylum is the frontrunner for 'Game of the Year' right now in my book. It is a great package of action, exploration, collection and story. I may pop in with any leftover observations after I finish the last boss battle, but for all intents and purposes, I'm nearly done with Batman for a bit. I'll probably try a few of the challenge levels, just to get a feel for them, but they're not really calling out to me. I'm not good enough at the game's combat to excel at the combat sequences, and probably not resourceful enough to be able to quickly dispatch enemies in the predator levels, so the appeal isn't there, but I'll try them nonetheless.

And with that, it's off to finish my lunch and get my head back into work. Leave a comment if you have thoughts on Arkham Asylum, as I'd love to hear them.

Five Things I'm Pretty Sure I Think

(Title is a modified version of the fantastic segment in every week's Monday Morning Quarterback column from SI's Peter King, who is one of the best, and most prolific, sportswriters I've ever seen).

Here are a few of the things I think about during the course of an average week. The subjects may vary, based on whatever is going on, but the common thread is this: if my brain were to devote as much time to useful pursuits as it does to useless knowledge, questions, fantasies, etc., maybe I would have contributed something useful to society by now. But, since I don't, you're stuck with this...

1. Listening to the Out of the Game podcast today, Jeff Green mentioned that World of Warcraft's gaudy subscriber number of 11 million. Is this number the number of paying customers of the service? Does this number include lapsed subscribers, such as myself? Does this number include the ridiculous number of trial accounts set up by people who never subscribed, or those accounts set up by gold farmers for the sole purpose of spamming ads for their services? Maybe that information exists somewhere, but I'm fairly certain it's not available for public consumption.

2. Is there such a thing as 'too many games coming out'? As a father of two, and soon to be three, there just aren't enough hours in the day to sleep, eat, work, spend time with the family, do chores, and experience all of the games that interest me. As an example, Braid is only $5 on Steam this weekend and I should buy it. It was one of the best games of 2008, and I still haven't tried it yet, which makes me sad. I like to think of myself as up on all things video games, but because of time constraints, I don't often get to experience what I listen to or read about firsthand.

3. I don't like first person shooters. There, I've said it. Now all I have to do is keep repeating it, so I don't convince myself that the Next Big Thing(TM) will be the one that I like. There are so many games I've bought and played, only because everyone in the gaming world was raving about them. Halo 3? Check. Played a little bit of multiplayer with coworkers, and sucked. Didn't get past the first mission in single-player. And yet I still feel guilty for some reason that I don't like it more. CoD4? Fortunately haven't spent the money on it yet. Left 4 Dead? Got it from Goozex a few weeks ago, thinking that I would play it with friends, and so far it hasn't found its way into my 360. It's time for me to realize that it's ok to not like the genre, and that it doesn't make me a bad person.

4. I may have screwed myself out of about 7 hours of progress in Final Fantasy. After releasing the earth crystal from the Lich, I immediately went to the Earthgift shrine, and currently have a save game (my only savegame for this adventure, sadly) on the deepest level of this dungeon. The problem with this scenario is that all of the exits appear to be guarded by boss creatures scaled for at least 10 levels higher than my current level (24). Does anyone know if I can leave this place, or am I stuck here and have to start over? If I have to start over, it probably will spell the end of my quest to complete this particular game, since I don't have the time or patience to go through all of this again.

5. As I'm sitting here writing this, I probably should be getting back to Arkham Asylum. Still haven't touched it since midweek last week. Also, I finally got Lost Odyssey in the mail from Goozex. When I played it the first time, it was on a whim from Gamefly, I enjoyed it enough to put it on my Goozex request list and send back the Gamefly copy. Now I can continue on with that story, which was entertaining enough for me to want to know what happens.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll get the chance to watch some football (it is the opening weekend, after all) or some Red Sox baseball (second game of a doubleheader vs. the Rays), but the wife is playing a mean round of 'Flip TV', so that may not happen. See you next time!

TGI Flippin' F

This week couldn't have ended soon enough. Several nights of working until 10, my lovely daughter deciding that sleep was optional for her, and the fact that I suffered with a random night of complete insomnia makes me hope, nay pray, that this weekend is quiet and restful.

Oh wait, I have 19-month old twins. Scratch that. Let the chaos begin! :)

There will hopefully be a moment or two where I can get back to fighting crime in Arkham Asylum. I'm itching to beat a bunch of anonymous thugs senseless, or string them up from a gargoyle, or something like that. You get the picture. It's been hard working so much, knowing that the game is just sitting, lonely and unloved, in my 360. Soon we will be together again, just a few more hours...

On the upside, at least the large amount of time devoted to work allowed me to 'make some hay' in the large backlog of billable project work staring at me. It also seems that I'll be transitioning into more of a project lead, while supervising the work of at least one or two other people. Could be interesting, could be terrifying. Only time will tell, but it feels like the right move considering the direction my career is going.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Gamespite Quarterly Issue #2

Just received my copy of Gamespite Quarterly Issue #2 from FedEx today. I've only gotten through the first couple of games so far, but it's clear I'll be reading this until it's finished. Not sure what I'm more interested in: their comments on games I'm familiar with, or learning about games I've never tried before.

It was a decent end to a long day. It seems like every day I go to work, a new project is dropped on my plate. While I really look forward to working on all of these different jobs, I'm running out of work time in the day to get everything done. All in all, it's shaping up to be an extremely busy September. On the upside, the fact I'm busy translates to job security (I think).

Happy Labor Day!

As any good American did, I celebrated Labor Day...by going to work. It makes sense, right? At least it was only for a few hours, and it allowed me the opportunity to escape the bedlam of the house and gather myself and my thoughts after a LONG, draining week of family drama, culminating at my brother-in-law's wedding on Saturday. It's over now, and the only hope is that things will settle down from here on out. There's trouble on the wind, though, which may cause this to be more than a one-time incident. Time will tell, and it may not be a pretty story. At least there were some attractive ladies in formal wear there, enough for me to deem the event worth attending. You have to take the little victories when they come...:)

Because of the wedding and the visit to my mother-in-law's house on Sunday (so my wife could see some of her family staying there before they departed for home), I haven't spent a lot of time with the electronic entertainment this weekend. When I could, I grabbed some time with Arkham Asylum, and in the evenings after going to bed I would wind down with some Final Fantasy PSP. Batman continues to impress, and I'm seriously considering buying this one, as it looks to have some replay value. Final Fantasy PSP is just a nice trip down memory lane, except for the fact that I played the original version of this game too long ago to really remember. :)

As I sit in the basement, sipping a Cap'n and Coke, I wish everyone a great holiday and hopefully your long weekend was much less stressful and drama-filled than mine was.

Family Drama

What is it about large gatherings of family (weddings, funerals, etc.) that cause such drama to occur? My wife's family should be celebrating the wedding of the last sibling to get married, but instead the drama is flying. Makes me wish I could just run away from it all.

I guess it's like the old saying, " You can pick your friends, you can pick your seat, but you can't pick your friend's..." Oh wait, wrong saying. You know what I mean.

Arkham Asylum Thoughts

Was up way too late last night playing Arkham Asylum, and for good reason. The game just keeps you moving forward. I'm not sure if I can put my finger on what's drawing me in so much, as I'm typically not very good at this style of game. The combat feels fluid, even though I know I'm not taking advantage of half of the available moves and combos. The choreography of the combat, the visuals, the fluid way your Batman character moves from punching one goon in the face to swinging an elbow to catch another goon coming up behind you...It all melds together into a beautiful, smooth violent ballet. In the hands of someone with more skill it would be a masterpiece, worthy of Baryshnikov. With me, well, it's probably after school recital material, but since it's playing out in my living room and no-one's watching but me, I can pretend. :)

I particularly enjoyed the sequence involving Scarecrow in the morgue. The drug-induced fantasy scene, where you had to maneuver through a bizarre terrain, avoiding the Scarecrow's gaze to get to a Bat signal light to defeat him, was a lot of fun, and a nice setpiece to contrast with the rest of Arkham. I won't mention how many times it took me to get it right (somewhere around 6-8), but even factoring that in, I couldn't help but smile the entire time.

Probably the most surprising thing to me is how much I'm enjoying the stealth action sequences. The design of this, while pretty unrealistic, gives me a sense of what it is to be Batman. Sitting on top of one of those ever-present gargoyles, watching gun-toting goons wander around below me, I get a thrill as I determine the perfect moment to pounce. With a light swoosh, I glide down with a vicious kick to the head of an unsuspecting baddie, wind up a ground strike and quickly fire my grappling hook to ascend back into the shadows of the ceiling before his buddies can figure out where I went. It's this particular part of the game that, I feel, really embodies the Batman seen in the comic books and the movies. Add to that the fact there is a real sense of urgency to this, because one bad guy with a gun can dispatch Batman pretty quickly, and it adds up to me enjoying a stealth mechanic for the first time in a while.

The one downside to this entire concept is that the AI of the goons leaves some to be desired. In one particular sequence, I took down two consecutive goons below one specific gargoyle, mostly due to the fact that the room geometry allowed that location to be somewhat isolated from view of the rest of their compadres. After each takedown, the remaining baddies would run over, look at their buddies unconscious on the floor and wonder aloud where I was. The first time this occurred, I could understand their confusion, as I might have swooped away in any direction. But when the second goon fell mere inches from the first, wouldn't one think about investigating the entire area, including looking up at the gargoyle where I'd been sitting the entire time, watching this ludicrous scene play out? Oh well, this is a minor quibble in a sea of what has been an overall fantastic experience.

One thing I do appreciate, which I touched on in my last post, is how the story of the game is conveyed. I haven't tired yet of having Joker pop up on random monitors throughout the asylum to taunt me and point me toward his next overly dramatic and ridiculous trap. Add to that Oracle popping in on occasion to update important strategic info, and the game continues to give me information to further the story without breaking the immersion of the surroundings. Hopefully the quality of this delivery maintains throughout the experience...

On a shorter note, before really delving into Arkham Asylum I did manage to complete Shadow Complex. This is a game that I'll definitely revisit soon, as I'd like to claim 100% completion at some point. It feels doable for me, even considering the time constraints I play under. Oh, and I'd like to be able to say I completed it in a difficulty higher than 'casual.' :)