Batman: Arkham Asylum - Review

The night has been long, ominous, dark and damp. I have stalked, terrified, abused an army of Joker's goons and I have matched blow for blow Gotham's criminally insane. I have met my fears at the hands of Scarecrow, I have almost been broken by Bane again, I have outsmarted Killer Croc, I have done some serious gardening on Poison Ivy's plants and I have stopped another Joker plot that would have destroyed Gotham. I have done all this because no one else can, I have done this because I am Batman and Batman: Arkham Asylum has made my childhood aspirations come true; while at the same time managing to be the single best Batman game I have ever had the pleasure to play and one of my personal contenders for GAME OF THE YEAR.

My history with the Dark Knight has never been a deep one, I've never followed the comics and I don't know near enough about all the lore found there. Still he has always been there ever since I was a kid, I've followed him in the Tim Burton films as well as in the animated series and I have recently fallen once again in love with him through the recent films by Christopher Nolan. I am only slightly familiar with some of the comics like The Killing Joke, Year One and The Dark Knight Returns through Wikipedia. The one thing that has always stood out to me about Batman is the darkness as well as the intelligence of the character and the best part has always been that he doesn't really have any superpowers like Superman so back when I was a kid I felt hope that I might grow up like Bruce Wayne and have all those cool gadgets; that is why Batman: Arkham Asylum is such a blessing for people like me, because now I finally can at least feel like I'm Batman.

I'M BATMAN! BAI!

Just got confirmation that my copy of Batman Arkham Asylum has arrived and I'm off to pick it up. Don't expect to see me much around for the next week or so, cause I'll be busy saving Gotham from Joker's insane plots! Bai!

Mad Men - Love Among The Ruins S03E02

Last week when the first episode of the new Mad Men season aired I was left feeling underwhelmed because the episode felt like a reset of the show so that the new viewers can get a nice little introduction into the world of Mad Men, nothing wrong with that but myself as an old fan, I felt that the episode was a crude flashback to season one. I also wasn't feeling the season opener since the pacing felt off and it didn't really pick up too many past plot threads. Still the biggest flaw of last weeks episode was in Don's plot line with the air-hostess in that it felt very rough and in your face with none of that Mad Men subtlety which I adore.

Now this weeks episode can be summed into three letters "WOW!". This episode is a prime example why I watch and adore Mad Men so much as a show. It was complex with quite a few small plot lines and many of them felt like they might go on and become major plot lines for the season. The show is at it's strongest when it is subtle and not in your face and this episode is doing that perfectly. Love Among The Ruins as it is titled is already one of my favorites due to the fact that it feels like a Mad Men Greatest Hits episode. The writers of this show are truly genius when they really go all out and despite there being so many threads to the plot in this episode they manage to hint at relevance in all of them.

So glad to meet you, Elliott Smith.

There is something really special about Elliott Smith, it's not often that music truly speaks to my very being, I've had Nirvana, Silver Mt. Zion, Radiohead and the most recent one being Elliott do that. They all cover different parts of myself and I usually listen to them during specific moods. Elliott was a brilliant singer/songwriter with so much talent and heart, the kind that only comes once in a generation, but he was also a tragic character with drug problems as well as a general sense of not being able to deal with life and many of his best songs deal with these themes. Often when I listen to Elliott's music I feel that I am listening to a thousand sad love songs and all of the failures of those loves is put upon himself.

I never knew, met or saw Elliott live but I will always remember him as he was when he performed Miss Misery during the 1997 Academy Awards, back when he was overshadowed by Celine Dion. He was the loser, the misfit, the freak show in the glamorous crowd of Hollywood but at the same time you could tell that this man was an extraordinary musician and there was a pure innocence in his awkwardness; it was as if he knew he didn't belong there and accepted it. Many years later today it still makes me sad that there was no room in this world for a man such as Elliott, I'm sitting here listening to Angeles and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you?

The Twilight World of Gatsby - Icon

Made another icon for Sarah. The Twilight World of Gatsby is as the title says an icon where the result was giving me some major flashbacks of the book "The Great Gatsby"; one of my favorites. I'm embarrassed to say though that I cannot remember where I ran across the stock so I can't link to the talented artist. Sowry.

"His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete." - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

GAME OF THE YEAR 2010 CONFIRMED!

This picture is worth over 9000 words and it's a MGS: Peace Walker screen which has just confirmed next year's GOTY.

Sony @ Gamescom 2009

Gamescom is on in Germany and Sony started with pretty good conference with the main focus being their business strategies rather than game announcements and it seems pretty clear that Sony are ready to get back into the fight over consumers once more with the announcement of a Playstation 3 Slim and a $100/€100 price drop taking affect both with the new Slim PS3 which will be arriving during the first week of September, as well as any older model currently on the market. I guess most would call this long overdo but since I already own a PS3 the novelty for me is purely aesthetic in that I find the new PS3 Slim cheap looking with it's lack of piano black dust collecting finish.



Now what really spiked my interest is the new firmware 3.00 update which appears to have some cool features. In general I like the Microsoft inspired new connectivity with the Playstation Store that they seem to be going for and in general they finally seem to be streamlining the PSN experience and it's long over-due. Still I am I let down by the failure to even mention anything about cross-game party chat and cross-game invites but there is still hope that it might be just around the corner. One thing that I'm really looking forward too with the new update are the dynamic custom themes and I can't wait to see what kind of awesome themes creative people will bring out. A short video about the new update is linked in the image below for your viewing pleasure.



There really weren't that many announcements today by Sony but many of them seemed at least interesting, one of the big things for me was to find out that VidZone will finally make it to Sweden this fall. VidZone is basically a service where you can stream music videos and seems like a great feature to have at parties if it actually works well. The other big thing for me was that the video store is finally coming to Europe towards the end of this year but the downside for me is that Sweden sucks and will be getting it sometime next year; hopefully in the beginning. Other than that I'm excited with the stuff coming to the PSP like the Minis - bite-sized short games for those time when you want to play something while you're doing number two. I'm also curious about the digital comics coming to PSP through the Playstation Store and I'm hoping the pricing is not a total rip-off and the damn things are actually readable.

Wipeout HD Fury

This is one of those cases where my shallow graphics-whore side has riled up all my hype for this game. I have never been interested in futuristic racing games with hovercrafts, well I did play Wipeout on the PSOne but I was never a fan. So when Wipeout HD rolled out on the PSN for the PS3 a while back I shrugged and moved on with my gaming life barely remember it but now with the release of the extensive expansion pack called Fury I actually feel pretty hyped about this whole game.



The main reason of this change of heart can be observed in the pictures found in this blog entry and yes, I am aware that they do not fairly represent the full glory of the 1080p resolution that your experience when you play the game. That's right, HOLY FREAKING GOD this game is running a resolution of 1920×1080 and at 60 frames per second! Now you may think that I'm late to the party since Wipeout HD was doing this always but I counter that I just didn't find the art-direction of the original game as exciting as I find it in this new expansion. The art-direction in this new expansion is just way out there drop dead gorgeous, not to mention it looks insanely slick and interesting to look at due to the way they've done the colours.



Like I said, this is not really a genre I'm into at all but the slick design and technical achievement of the game has awed me to the point where this will be my next gaming purchase. I also read that you can use your own music while playing this so I'll dig out my most experimental instrumental music to go along with the game. Not to mention that from all accounts there is enough content on this downloadable game with expansion it could in theory be sold as a retail game on disc. However the best part of it being a download only PSN game is that Wipeout HD + Fury go for half the price of a new retail game. Anyone interested in seeing one of the best looking games I've seen this gen in motion can click the link below for a cool video.



Wipeout HD Fury Gameplay

Mad Men - Season Three

Mad Men season three is finally almost here; today for the US people and tomorrow for me. I've been watching some promo pictures and it reminded me how much I miss the show and the characters in it, Don, Betty and the whole Sterling Cooper gang. There is just something special about this show and it's hard to put my finger on what but this show is the first show where I have disliked only one episode in the whole of two seasons. Every episode is so well crafted and written and I love how all the characters are human beings with huge flaws yet still are so extremely charming and likable.

I don't know what to expect from season three but I hope they don't reset the characters to season one, I am mainly referring to Don and my hope that he tries not to sleep around so much now that Betty has given him another chance. I'm also hoping for more Don flashback episodes where we find out more about his past. Otherwise I hope the drama isn't the focus as much as in season two and instead we go back to season one's more subtle drama and more focus on the ad business. This show is really at it's strongest when they let the great actors do their characters in a bit more mellow tones and that's what I hope to see this season as well. I'll probably try to blog about the episodes but no promises because I'm kind of lazy.

My Most Anticipated Games 2009/2010

10. Batman Arkham Asylum - PC/PS3/360

I don't think I've ever played a proper Batman game in my whole life but after playing the demo around twenty times I am convinced that the true Batman game is just around the corner. I love the mixture of stealth and action that this game presents, as well as how dark and brutal they have made it. Don't be deceived by the comic look of the game, this game has more in common with Alan Moore's and Frank Miller's Batman, rather than the Batman you've seen on Cartoon Network. The only gripe I had with the demo is that it felt a little too simple but I hope it's due to it being the first level and that the challenge will increase in the full game.





9. Bioshock 2 - PC/PS3/360

It's not often that you get to see an intelligent shooter and it is even rarer to see one become successful and have a sequel. Bioshock came out of nowhere and charmed a whole game scene with it's mad dystopian underwater world of Rapture that was based on Ayn Rand's philosophies gone wrong. It was at the time of it's release a breath of fresh air in a first-person shooter genre that was going stale but to be fair one should class Bioshock as an Action-RPG due to the different skills that your character could develop depending on your choices. Bioshock 2 is already looking like it will be a worthy sequel but my only concern is that the "newness" of the first game will be lost in a sequel.

Uncharted 2 - Gameplay

Every time I see a new video of Uncharted 2 I get surprised by a new setting and environment. First videos were of a sunny city warzone, second batch was of icy glaciers and now we're back with a rainy city section. This game seems to be all about content and according to developers it is a larger game than the first.

Then you have the multiplayer added as well, three player co-op, treasure hunt, team deathmatch and a Horde mode light with added objectives. I was in the multiplayer beta and while it was obvious that it wasn't the finished game and lacked some polish, it was also obvious that it was a sheer gameplay blast to play.

I love how everything is more polished and ambitious compared to Uncharted and it is not just the graphics but more that it truly seems like Naughty Dog has really listened to the fans of the first game and amended every little thing that was lacking with the first game. All in all for me this is a clear case of pre-order time.

Demon's Souls is looking good...

I must admit that I may have been hasty when I wrote off the PS3 exclusive Demon's Souls as another crap title last year when I first heard about it. Then again a year ago I really wasn't impressed with what I saw, the whole game seemed like some generic Diablo meets Oblivion escapade. Fast forwarding to present time and seeing the E3 trailer as well as watching G4TV's preview I must admit that I am feeling hyped and there is the all familiar itch "I wanna play it!".



The whole premise still seems pretty much the same, it does seem like Diablo meets Oblivion and you pretty much seem to just go through the dungeons smiting any evil you find and kicking the asses of the bosses (or more like getting your ass handed to you since I hear the game is brutal difficulty wise). Of course there are some RPG elements where you decide how your character develops skills wise but I wouldn't expect Planescape:Torment level dialogue and story.

Now here is where I get hyped, the game has an interesting multiplayer side to it, apparently as soon as you log into PSN the game world is online and you can see other players and their ghosts/bloodstains will help you out so that you don't make the same mistakes as them. Later on other players will be able to breach into your world and you into theirs and have fights over each others souls. Finally the icing on the cake is a three player CO-OP where you can take on the dungeons with your pals.



These online features sound truly refreshing and interesting, I've always ignored dungeon-crawler games but this one sounds like it might be a blast with some online friends. I can only imagine how kick ass it would be to team-up on one of the game's epic-sized bosses together with your friends or to put it another way; I have too much rage to play a difficult game on my own so playing with a party is my only hope.

And yes, this game does still seem a tiny bit underpolished with how the camera seems a bit too far from the character and the character movements look a bit floaty but none the less I'll be getting this game as soon as I have another brave knight (or two) that are willing to take on the challenge of saving the kingdom. Demon's Souls can be imported from Asia subbed or you can wait until this fall when it is getting released in the US. In the meanwhile I would suggest anyone interested checks out the videos I linked below.


Demon's Souls E3 2009 Trailer
Demon's Souls Hands On Preview - G4tv.com

Teardrop - Icon

Made this avy/icon for Sarah/Ruri. Stock courtesy of fogke over at dA. Check his gallery out!

The Blog Starts Now!

Welcome to my first ever world-exclusive blog; BEARable.

I never planned to start a blog but here I am. This is purely for my own benefit since I think too much about useless things that no one is really interested in so I'll just put them here instead.

This blog will likely be mostly about games, movies, music, shows and other useless pop-culture bullshit.

I'll update shortly with a proper entry...