Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) Review

We've all told stories, joked about and generally shunned the genre of video-games that is 'licensed material' at some point or another, so it would be difficult to blame you for having some doubts about Batman: Arkham Asylum. As well as that when Lego Batman is the best Batman game in approximately 18 years, well, let's face it, you might start getting a little worried about your franchise. However Arkham Asylum does stand on it's own merits. It has a lengthy enough single player campaign for those just looking for the linear experience with an absurd amount of bonus extras and added content waiting to be found by the hardcore Batman fans.

The gameplay is pretty solid across the board, managing to balance action and stealth gameplay more or less 50/50 and putting you in the shoes of Batman, whether you're scoping out a crime scene, engaging in a battle of wits with The Scarecrow and his intense disturbing hallucinogens or praying for dear life when pitted against the monstrous hulks that are Killer Croc and Bane. The freeflow combat is fast and intuitive, whilst the stealth and puzzle mechanics can initially offer puzzles, but never seem to get so complex that they inspire frustration.

The game looks fantastic and just about the only qualm with the experience from a visual perspective is that characters with bare faces don't seem to emote at all (probably as a result of the Unreal Engine being used for the game). The environments are lush and strangely captivating in their darkness, and it makes a slight shame that you'll miss out on so much of the colour as a result of having your Heads Up Display set to Detective vision in order to seek out clues.
The soundtrack is fairly tense and moody, certainly appropriate to the Batman saga, however there's no theme or any piece of music at all which really sweeps you away like any of the tracks produced by Danny Elfman or Hanz Zimmer (The composers to the first two and latest two Batman films) to accompany the character. The voicework, however is way beyond this level of general competency with most of the cast comic directly from The Animated Series from about 15 years ago. It's a fondly remembered series and I think that allowing this cast to return is a smart move. The game is far more mature than the series of old and hearing Mark Hamills Joker screeching with an abundant joy about some very twisted and creepy things certainly makes it feel as if the material has grown alongside it's audience. Hell, if the video-game is considered a part of the Animated Series' canon, then the entire existence of the game may well be a metaphor for just how art can mature along with it's audience.

I had...and am still having an absolute ball with Arkham Asylum. The game is dark, brooding, beautiful, twisted, funny, scary, raw and above all the game is fun. I've had more fun with Arkham Asylum than I have with any other game released this year. I say this not only as a Batman fan but as a fan of videogames in general. I could probably predict that a lot of people will dislike that the game is fairly easy and that everything seems to be handed to you on a plate. But I don't want to predict that. Sure, it would be nice if the game were maybe willing to test my skill a little more, but at the end of the day, it's about the experience of playing through and enjoying the game, more than about showing off how good I am at it. This is a great game and worth your attention.

5/5

Terminator Salvation

Directed by: McG
Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Bryce Dallas Howard, Moon Bloogdgood, Anton Yelchin
Written by: John Bracanto, Michael Ferris
Running Time: 115 mins
Rating (UK): 12A

You've got to be careful if you've been a Terminator fan since childhood. Nostalgia can really blind you and I learnt this firsthand with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Sure, you could easily put my hyperbole down to the fact that I was only 12, but I recall how I genuinely enjoyed T3 in the cinemas and every time since, I've found myself disheartened that it wasn't as good as I remembered. We've all accepted that James Cameron is done with the Terminator franchise and thus I think we've acknowledged that there won't be an installment in the franchise to match either the quality or the innovation of the first two films but hey, there's no harm in hoping that we can at least get a good yarn, right?

Terminator Salvation takes place in 2018, fifteen years after Judgement Day took place and Skynet, the ultra-system running just about every machine on planet earth went batshit crazy and triggered the nuclear apocalypse. Humans now roam in small pockets calling themselves the resistance and Skynet...well, Skynet seems to exist solely to wipe out the Resistance. Machines roam the earth both in humanoid form and in far more diverse iterations such as self-aware motorcycles and aircrafts or as snake-based mechanisms. John Connor (Christian Bale), the now-legendary Resistance leader, however, still has a way to go before he finds himself actually leading the Resistance. Instead he seems to be in charge of a specific squad out in the middle of nowhere in charge of gathering data on Skynet and performing acts of sabotage whilst those with any real level of authority cower in a submarine dishing out orders by radio. Connor seems to be reknowned across the entire planet as their future-saviour and how this news is spread is left a mystery. I suppose we're to assume that he's engaged in a bit of the old self-promotion, or at least dropped hints during what appears to essentially be a motivational podcast that he performs for Resistance fighers within radio-signal distance. Either that or Connors (pregnant?) wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard) has been bragging. As much fun as it is to point out the slight inconsistencies, this is actually one of the things I enjoyed most about Terminator Salvation. It would have been far too simplified to have thrown Connor immediately into the position of the "man's-last-hope" archetype and then film a war-epic but forcing Connor to ascend ranks makes sense. To the resistance, he's a recruit and lest we forget, in the last film he was a drug addict so I doubt the moment that responsibility called, he immediately got his shit together.

As mentioned, Connor is not the last hope humankind has, there's also Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) helping out. In 2003 he was a murderer according to the films prologue. In 2018 he's...well, if you've somehow managed to miss all the trailers and can't figure it out on your own, I refuse to be responsible for killing away your innocence. In any case, after crawling out of a hole, Marcus finds himself in the midst of the apocalypse with his last memory being his own execution. You know the basic premise from here: Marcus wanders the wasteland and eventually his Johns fates become irreversibly entwined. Saying anymore would take away the fun from a film like this because it's all about seeing what will happen next, whether it will be a plot twist or a really cool action sequence. Something to note is that Sam Worthington comes out as the surprise star giving the best performance by a wide margin (aside from an awkward scream towards the sky around 15 minutes in, although that's more a writing issue than a noteable question regarding Worthingtons acting.) Christian Bale is acceptable as John Connor, although a bit too throaty. It's potentially the worst performance Bale has given in at least the last few years and he will come under scrutiny for it if not only because it's so abnormal for an actor of his calibre. Others are more or less the same...Anton Yelchin does a pretty good job with Kyle Reese, but it's nothing you've not seen before and I doubt that there will be anything worth pointing out until we see more or his relationship with Connor in potential sequels. Bryce Dallas Howard isn't quite bad, but is entirely forgettable as Kate Connor. Moon Bloodgood is fairly surprising too, showing that given a role with some screentime, she can really sink her teeth into a part. She's no Oscar Winner, but she's better than most of the cast.
Oh, and there's also Resistance Commander Ashdown portrayed by Michael Ironside essentially playing himself. But that's okay, Michael Ironside is awesome.

So, it wouldn't really be a Terminator film without certain things: Truck chases, an impossible fight against a robot and some science-fiction/philosophical deep thoughts that will last with you for a few days after you've seen the film and then fade into obscurity. Salvation has all of these (and more in homage to the original films) but some themes are presented a lot better than others. The truck chase is fantastic. It's not as good as the Terminator 2 (1991) aquaduct chase but it's the second best in the series after that, with surprisingly scarce CGI work for that segment, as well as surprisingly few actual stunts. It's mostly an exercise in pacing but it sent my heart racing as it took place. The frenzied chaos of escape is perfectly framed and it just looks cool. Although the set up to the chase is large and epic in scope, the actual presentation of it is down to earth and grounded in a way that shows that the film-makers have learnt that bigger isn't always better.
The robot fights are really open to debate and I still haven't made my mind up regarding them. Technically, they're sound and I can understand that using models like in the first Terminator wouldn't work by todays standards at all but as great as the CG Terminators looked I couldn't get past the Uncanny Valley aspect. They looked perfect but because I knew they were fake, I couldn't get over the fluidity of how they moved. Fortunately, this is only an issue in the last Terminator fight, as the first one looks a lot more in sync with what we've seen from the past films, although that really does present for an unfortunately anti-climactic final showdown.
The philosophy is less deep in this film than in the first two (and I'll happily ignore the third in this regard due to it's own shallow nature). Rather than specifically raise it's own issues, it tackles one of the most prominent questions thus far but in a different way: What makes us human. It works, really well in fact but it feels like it functions more as an automatic question raised as opposed to one that was written in on purpose.
Potentially the most annoying thing about Terminator Salvation is its one liners, which are recycled from past films. Kids catching their first Terminator film will no doubt be saying them in the playground already but they feel forced and unnatural. Set up to be followed by an exciting moment, montage or orchestral score. "Come with me if you want to live." and "I'll be back." should mean something but they should also have a fluidity with the rest of the picture, rather than feeling like they were shunted in as fan service. One day soon, I'm going to write a letter to Hollywood explaining that fanboys/girls simply are not that insecure.

It's a new Terminator picture. It's a different Terminator picture and did I like it? Well, yeah, actually I did. Is this wrong? Probably so, it's so different in design from Cameron's Terminators, the ones I love and cherish but it's already been proven that you can't just mimic those films and pass it off as a worthy entry to the series with Terminator 3. I certainly don't love Terminator Salvation, but I had a good time with it and I'd be more than happy to return to this dystopia in a few years time, box office results pending. I see the internet flaming and the hate and it confuses me now, not because I don't see how people can't enjoy Salvation. That much is understandable. What I don't get is that 6 years ago I felt like the only one that didn't want a Terminator film set after Judgement Day. In hindsight, I'm glad they made one anyway.

4/5

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Xbox 360) Review

As developers continuously work on ways to advance games and the different ways to play them, the Beat-em-up genre is one that is surely dieing out. Western Beat-em-ups are practically unheard of nowadays with only a few frenzied Japanese style based Beat-em-ups surviving the genre, along the lines of Devil May Cry and the upcoming Bayonetta but one of the great things about this medium of entertainment is that it's never too late for a ressurection. It's also never too late for a real surprise which is where X-Men Origins: Wolverine comes in. Not only does it stylishly bring a genuinely entertaining button masher back to your consoles but is probably also the best Movie tie-in game since Spider-Man 2. Anyone who follows video games as religiously as I do is either fist pumping right now, or has already played Wolverine and loved it.

Unsurprisingly, Wolverine manages to completely disregard it's movie counterpart apart from a few key plot points but what may prove to be it's biggest weakness is how loosely it plays with the chronology of the comic books. Considering the nature of comic book chronology and the excessive use of retconning that they utilise, this may prove to be a blessing for most players but comic book fanatics may become raged by this. Seriously, though, you won't be bothering with the plot anyway as it's so ridiculous and underplayed that it's worth completely disregarding to focus on the combat. Which is awesome.
You've never been this aggresive in your life. Think about the most badass characters you've ever played as in a game and imagine him with 6 blades sticking out of his hands considering the havoc you can wreak. That is what makes Wolverine so enticing. Combat is essentially broken into light, heavy and airborne attacks, with 4 signature moves which are all brutal to the max. When you attack enemies, their limbs fly off in exessive fashion and blood sprays across the lush vistas with every hit making this the most violent superhero game to date. Even when you're tackling robots, the Wolverine avatar itself moves which such force and power that you can almost feel the rage yourself. It's also worth pointing out that Wolverine himself looks pretty fantastic. What with this technically being an adaptation of the movie, the developers Raven have obviously been able to pull Hugh Jackman in to share his likeness and voice and the result is one of the best looking celeb-scans in recent tie-ins. It looks especially awesome when Wolverine has been blasted to pieces and slowly you see underneath his layers of clothing, flesh and then adamantium skeleton. Even better is the way that as you're playing, without taking damage, Wolverine will begin to heal and all those layers slowly re-materialise. As an aside, environments look pretty cool, especially outdoors. Inside environments still look fine, but it's nothing you've missed in other sci-fi-based games.

The combat is the key selling point but the slight scattering of puzzles and platforming are certainly capable of keeping you entertained for the few sequences that they are vital to keeping the flow going. For the first three-quarters of the game this keeps the game feeling fairly fluid and balanced, but towards the end of the game, a lot of issues become apparent. The combat is still remarkably satisfying but with a lack of new tricks being introduced to you, some of the minor issues begin to become downright frustrating. Occasional lag in the frame-rate, the constant on screen reminder of special attacks, and the very poorly presented boss battles all begin to grate on you towards the end and it really does begin to show just why the Beat-em-up is an obsolete genre nowadays. It would be nice to say that at the last minute, the game saves itself but unfortunately, it won't resonate with you any more than you appreciate the combat. The final battle is as awkward as all the previous boss fights and if you're already tired of the fighting, you'll more than likely be done with Wolverine. I, however, immediately reloaded the game and started again, partially in order to pick up a few loose achievements but mostly to go back to the beginning of the game, more powerful than ever and really savour the violent way that Wolverine should have been depicted as long ago.

4/5