JOKER by Brian Azzarello

This comic is number one on my wish list this coming Xmas, so a certain forest troll can start gathering their coins to buy it for me as a gift. *cough* Sarah! *cough* ♥

It was basically a tie between this and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller but this just ended up peaking my interest more when I found out that the author Brian Azzarello did my favourite short segment in the animated movie Batman: Gotham Knight. His segment titled Working Through Pain was not only the best animated one in my opinion but also had the darkest message about Batman; a theme about pain-management as well as how unhealthy Bruce Wayne's quest for revenge is and how it doesn't come from a healthy and good mental state. It also got a lot of plus points with me due to a wounded Batman, because there is nothing I love more than wounded, gritty and pissed off Batman. In either case I would suggest anyone even remotely interested in the awesomeness of Batman to check out Batman: Gotham Knight.

Still it's not the only appeal of this comic to me, it is also obviously the beautiful art direction by Lee Bermejo that you can observe above. I simply adore the gritty style and how uncomfortable it makes me feel about the Joker just by looking at it. When I was a kid I used to be terrified of the Joker and even recently I found Alan Moore's Joker in The Killing Joke to be scary but this new comic seems to take my unease with the character to a whole new level. I also love the obvious nod to Christopher Nolan's interpretation of the character since it is to date what I consider to be the finest Joker, largely due to the impressive performance by Heath Ledger last year. In short I want this in my Batman collection so I can learn more about my greatest adversary - The Joker.

Demon's Souls - Impressions

The reason for my absence these past few weeks from this blog has been very simple, I've just had too many great games to play to bother writing anything of relevance. I had great plans of writing some thoughts on the season finale of Mad Men, an Uncharted 2 review as well as reviewing the Pixar movie Up but all of that went down the drain when I got my paws on Dragon Age for the PC; a foolish obsession that cost me about two weeks of my life not to mention that I think it killed a large part of my old PC. I'll try to write more about Dragon Age soonish but knowing how I treat new Bioware games I'll only do that once I've run through it multiple times with different characters.

Well, if that wasn't bad enough I ended up jumping from Dragon Age straight into Demon's Souls and now I'm obsessing over that instead. Since I have no qualms about admitting my loser-level I'll just say it outright that it's gotten so bad that I dreamt about Demon's Souls last night. It's the toughest game I've put my skill against in memory and I think I suck extra hard at it since my progression feels like it's going slower than what it normally should considering the hours put in. However this is probably the most unique, creative and immersive game that I've played this whole year and is my personal surprise hit of the year as well as being one of my personal Game of the Year contenders.

The game has punished me over and over yet I keep on re-trying despite knowing that I'll probably get brutalized all over again. This is one of the most immersive games I have ever played, you really feel the hatred for these abominations that are refereed to as demons and the atmosphere is sometimes so oppressive and tense that I have to take a break from the game to calm my nerves. There is not much narrative at all this far in the game but the few pieces of story that have emerged have been excellent with amazing concept art being shown while a narrator speaks. Still, this game thrives on its rich gameplay mechanics and I think that is the reason it's such a success because as soon as you die you don't get to feel the frustration too long before you're off once again to try to kill some demons and collect their souls.

I started the game and I died alot and it's only now after killing two major demons that I'm starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of this. I stopped reading the strategy guide and just focused on playing like I how I would like to play the game. In short, I got my hands on a two-handed Claymore sword and am going full-retard with what my pal Gatts has taught me about killing demon scum. This philosophy can be summed into; you need BIG swords to kill BIG demons. In many ways this game is the closes I've ever played to a Berserk game because of the general bleakness and darkness found in both. Not only is this dark fantasy game one of the best of this year but I think in years ahead it will be considered one of the hidden gems of this generation.

Mad Men - S03E11 & S03E12

Mad Men season three is coming to an end next Monday and I still feel that it has been the weakest season so far for the series, it's especially apparent since I re-watched season one two weeks ago and that season is television perfection. I think this shift in quality is mostly due to the more stand alone nature to the episodes this season which made the show feel like it was drifting around without a clear plot for most of the season. I also felt a lack of truly outstanding episodes like The Wheel, Meditations in an Emergency, Babylon and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes which stood out from seasons past as the best god damn television I have ever seen. However I should point out that at least the show has been consistently good despite this and there was no episode that felt truly out of place like in season two when Don went to Los Angeles. Basically this is still the best show on television right now despite having a weaker season than usual and when I think about it I can't really blame the creators for not being able to recreate the sheer perfection of season one.

However today I finally caught up with the show with the latest two episodes that I had missed The Gypsy and the Hobo (S03E11) and The Grown Ups (S03E12). I must say that the show finally seems to be tying up all the small plots throughout the season and is returning to form in an incredible way. Sure this season still had great episodes like Love Among the Ruins (S03E02) and Seven Twenty Three (S03E07) but these latest two episodes leading up to the finale next week have been absolutely superb. In The Gypsy and the Hobo (S03E11) we finally get the confrontation between Don and Betty about his fake identity that we've been waiting for and it was more intense than I could ever have imagined and you could really see the power shift happening in front of your eyes between these two characters. The Grown Ups (S03E12) deals with the death of Kennedy, how shocking it must have been to everyone back then and how it almost marks an end of an era. This horrible event in American history really seems to reflect how Don's manufactured life is crumbling around him, right in front of his eyes. I am now impatiently waiting for the season finale and judging by seasons past it ought to be the best episode of the season.

Note to self:

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, it's
the only good fight
there is.

- Roll the Dice / Charles Bukowski

Game of the Day: Ico

I forgot to blog about the fact that I finally got my hands on Ico a few days back mainly because I was too immersed into Prince of Persia as well as being pretty busy studying math so this place kind of fell a few notches on my priority list. However now that Prince of Persia has been completed I actually got around to opening up my brand new expensive copy of Ico and got to play for about thirty minutes. First impressions were that the graphics were much more outdated than say Shadow of the Colossus, but they were not totally horrible. Once I got control over the characters you could feel that this was an old game with an annoying last gen camera and a floaty sense of the character. I was let down initially I must admit and for the first ten minutes I regretted putting out so much money for something that I felt hadn't aged that well.

Then something happened, I met Yorda and the unique Team Ico-vibe instantly set into overdrive. It was absolutely charming to see these two characters interact and I loved that they couldn't understand each other due to Yorda speaking in some mysterious language. It really reminisced of my childhood experience coming to Sweden and still managing to make some friends despite not understanding a word of Swedish. This is where Ico really shines as a game, you really feel the childhood of these two characters, the innocence of only expecting good in another child and yes, it is extremely moving to experience this even at my age. The other thing I noticed was the heavy theme of displacement in the game where you really feel the isolation of this castle and how you're thrown into it with no information or back story to the events. This really made the first ten minutes downright uncomfortable and I think that was the point because it made the meeting with Yorda so much more reassuring and I almost felt myself sigh with relief despite knowing that she would be in the game.

The gameplay mechanic of holding hands with Yorda and guiding her through the level while at the same time protecting her works extremely well and really doesn't feel like an annoying chore, mainly because you actually care about her. Otherwise the gameplay in general seems to be much more of a puzzle-solving game than say Shadow of the Colossus but since I'm in the beginning of the game I haven't actually experienced any hard or annoying puzzles. The basic structure of the game seems to be very simple but what really stood out was the immersion I felt with the setting and the characters despite graphics that can only be called outdated. I think that it's because of the small details, like the menus being kept to a minimum and the simple act of saving is made into something special because you save the game by simply sitting down on a bench with Yorda. In conclusion I'm really looking forward to getting to know this game some more but so far it feels really great and special. I'll be sure to blog some more about it once I finish the game, hopefully soon but it might take some time since I'm quite busy this month.