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I just finished what is quite easily the best Batman video game ever made.  This, of course, is not hard to say.  I could have played a remake of Shenmue where the main character was replaced by Batman, asking for directions to sailor hangouts for hours on end, and that would have been better than just about any other game to carry the Caped Crusader’s name.

The game in question is Batman: Arkham Asylum.  I’m a little late to the party on this one, but then again, I’m also relatively new to the PlayStation 3.  It’s got almost everything a Batman fan might be looking for: atmosphere, suspense, the best Bat-gadgets, lots of great villains, and perhaps most importantly, good gameplay.  Wrap it all up with a good story and you’ve got a recipe for some serious escapism.

His hate will become yours.

The game begins with Batman hauling the Joker back to Gotham’s infamous Arkham Asylum.  With Jim Gordon in tow, you help escort your nemesis back to his cell… but you get the feeling that this is just all too easy, and the Joker is in far too high spirits — even for him.  Before you know it, all hell breaks loose, Joker takes over the show, and now you’re forced to play by his rules if you want to save the day.  Along the way, you’ll run into other members of the rogue’s gallery, including the likes of Harley Quinn, Bane, Scarecrow, and Poison Ivy.  The plot has plenty of twists and turns, and I’d hate to spoil them for those who haven’t played yet.  To serve as a fun distraction, the Riddler has created a massive Easter egg hunt across Arkham Island, in which you can solve lots of different riddles along the way.

You’re also bound to love the voice acting if you, like me, were a huge fan of Batman: The Animated Series, as most of the characters are voiced by the same folks who worked on the show.  This includes Kevin Conroy’s Batman, Arleen Sorkin’s Harley Quinn, and yes, Mark Hamill’s superb Joker.  Without him, I doubt anyone would have taken the Joker seriously as the main villain… and if you can’t do that, then you might as well ditch the whole project.

The thing that makes Arkham Asylum truly great, though, is the gameplay.  There’s elements of exploration, stealth, and hand-to-hand combat, and it’s seamlessly done.  I’m a huge fan of stealth-based games (especially the Metal Gear and Syphon Filter series), so it’s a natural fit to have Batman’s tendency to stay hidden finally be brought into a video game.  Nothing is more satisfying than using stealth to intimidate a room full of armed thugs, picking them off one by one and listening to them become more and more frazzled.  Sometimes, though, you will walk right into a trap and have to fight your way through a dozen or so guys.  That’s where the simple fighting system comes in.  Rather than be like the slew of Spider-man games we’ve seen over the years that require you to memorize button combinations in similar situations, Arkham Asylum just uses the buttons to attack, dodge, stun, and counter your enemies.  The game is mostly linear in its presentation, but I never felt that the designers were holding my hand the whole way, either.  When another scenario opens up, you know what’s gotta be done, and you go on to it.

From time to time, though, things get clunky.  The over-the-shoulder view isn’t implemented as well as in some games, and Batman’s walk seems stiffer than that suit probably allow.  Still, these are the kind of things you can overlook once you get sucked in, and that won’t take long.  Before you know it, you’re looking back on a string of heroic feats, and can’t help but grin when you say, “I’m the Goddamn Batman.”

DUN DUN

Can’t wait for the sequel, Arkham City, which seems to deal with the aftermath of the events on the island.  The Joker will be back, but I’m pumped to see where Hugo Strange, Two Face, Catwoman, and hopefully the likes of Mr. Freeze or the Riddler will fit into the mix.  I’m sure I’ll be picking it up when it’s out in October.

Independent games are a passion of mine.  I follow the development and release of some really clever games that hit the PC, and for the most part they’re freebies.  Flash games, stuff like that.  Once in a while, one of these games will take on a life of its own, both in the development phase and with players.  I can remember a year or two ago first hearing about a game called Dwarf Fortress, an incredibly intricate “roguelike” that I found nearly unplayable; not due to its very old school ASCII graphics, but due to the complexities of the gameplay.  It really seemed like a game that I would love, being the kind of game where you build and let the population do as they will.  I’m a SimCity addict, so this seemed right up my alley.  It also seemed to have a real sense of humor about the game world.  But navigating the menus and deciphering what the symbols corresponded to ingame proved to be far too complicated for me to stick with longer than twenty minutes.

Jump forward to a couple of months ago, when YouTube was showcasing a lot of videos about a game that seemed to be very similar to Dwarf Fortress, yet something completely different.  That game would turn out to be something called Minecraft.  Developed by just one Swedish guy who calls himself “Notch” online, Minecraft is an open ended, procedurally generated adventure that is addictive, fun, and best of all, easy to pick up.

LOOK AT HOW MUCH FUN THIS IS

Minecraft is a very hard game to describe to someone who’s never seen it.  I recently tried explaining the game to a couple of co-workers, which went something like this:

Me: So it’s this first-person game.  The graphics aren’t amazing by any stretch, but that’s kind of what I like about it.  And you just show up on a beach like Leonardo DiCaprio at the beginning of Inception and you have to go and survive on your own.  You go and chop down trees and make wood and sticks out of it and then you go and start mining rocks and stuff but you have to mine coal too, so you can make torches, because pretty soon it’s gonna be nighttime and then monsters show up and they’re all really scary, so you need to build a shelter and light it up with the torches so they don’t creep up on you… and then the sun comes back up in the morning and the monsters all die in a fire and you go and start all over again.

Coworker #1:  Okay.

Me:  Yeah, and you start digging deeper and deeper and you find cooler stuff and sometimes there’s big huge caves miles underground with monsters in them and stuff.

Coworker #2:  Then what?

Me:  You just keep going.  You can build stuff if you want.  You can farm, too.

Coworker #1:  And that’s it?  You don’t beat it or anything?

Me:  Nope.  You just keep playing.  It’s all I can think about.  Right now  I’m thinking of what I should make the floor in my new house out of.

The game’s appeal is kind of hard to pin down, I’ll give it that.  I think the game appeals to the Lego builder in me, as you keep plopping down blocks you’ve mined to build a house, castle, who knows what.  You can make anything.  You can build a huge statue of yourself if you want.  You can even play online and build with other people, although I haven’t tried that yet.

Other little points to make about Minecraft that I’d be remiss to forget about:

• It’s one of the scariest games I’ve ever played.  I’m not kidding.  I’ve played Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, and I think they’re more fun (if not frustrating in their execution) and engrossing than scary.  I have yet to play Dead Space, a game which has given me nightmares by simply watching gameplay on YouTube, but Minecraft actually matches up as far as the atmosphere and danger are concerned.  Just imagine going far into a deep, dark mine not knowing if a zombie, bow-and-arrow-toting skeleton, or giant spider could be lurking in the shadows.  And don’t get me started on the Creepers – a video game enemy that may very well become as iconic as, say, Silent Hill 2‘s Pyramid Head.  When one of those green exploding bastards comes chasing you, you run your ass off no matter what kind of bad guys you’ve slain in other games.  The incidental music or ambient sounds that play in caves once in a while (sometimes just to scare you for the fun of it) doesn’t help.
• It will give you OCD at the very least.  The building process will drive you towards excessive symmetry or worse.  You’ll find yourself counting blocks as you build or mine, trying to maximize efficiency and get the most out of your resources.
• Oh, and there’s not just scary music.  There are a few lovely, if not a little melancholy, ditties that play randomly whilst you roam your expansive world, exploring for things you might find helpful in your quest to survive… and have a blast doing it.
• Mistakes will be made, and you will learn from them.  Digging directly under yourself?  You could fall to your death into a cavern you didn’t know was there.  Wondering if that weird-looking green guy is hopping around because he wants to give you a hug?  Have fun walking back to your house and find a crater with all your stuff in it.  Think it’s a good idea to go into an unexplored area without a sword?  Think again.  And you can also learn a lot from this guy:

That always makes me laugh.

If this all sounds like a good time to you, remember two things: first off, the game’s not free.  It costs ten euro right now (Notch is Swedish, don’t forget), and it’s still in the Alpha stage of development, so there’s plenty of bugs still to be worked out.  I mean, hell, I’m playing on Linux, which I think has led me to lose my game saves a few times already.  Don’t let that deter you, though.  My problem is probably because I’ve got a wonky laptop.  Join me and the thousands of players who have discovered the fun of punching trees and riding pigs in minecarts.  Especially before the price goes up when it’s officially released.  Go get yourself some Minecraft!

Creepers gonna creep!

It’s been about a month since Christmas and I’m still getting a real kick out of my favorite present. When I heard that there would be a new side-scrolling Mario adventure, I knew I’d had to get it. Call me a purist, but I think that Super Mario Bros. 3 was the series’ zenith. All these years later, downloading Super Mario World on the Wii was an incredibly underwhelming experience. This was it? This was the game that so many people I knew thought was so great? I don’t need to ride a cute dinosaur to have a good time. Give me a leaf that turns me into a raccoon, that’s all it takes to make me happy. I haven’t even bothered trying Mario 64 or any of the other 3D adventures since. That’s why New Super Mario Bros. was the one to watch.

Oh, HELL yes.

The thing that makes NSMB so good is that it gets right back to those basics while incorporating new elements in a seamless fashion. I’m too inept to deal with more than two buttons when I’m playing as Mario, so it’s great to know that stuff like the spin jump were not mapped to the buttons, but instead could be activated by shaking the Wiimote. Another thing I was VERY happy to see was the long-overdue addition of the wall-jump. Now I can save myself from dying in pits fifty percent of the time rather than watch helplessly as I drop off the screen.

The entirely new stuff is also a ton of fun to learn.  For instance, some new mushrooms have been added (as far as I can tell), like the Ice Flower, which lets you throw snowballs that freeze your enemies, the Propeller Hat, which lets you fly with a shake of the Wiimote, and my personal favorite, the Penguin Suit, which includes the snowballs and also lets you walk easily on ice or slide on your belly.

Of course, the game’s biggest selling point is the fact that you can now play with up to four players on the same screen simultaneously.  I initially assumed this would mean the game would use the Wi-Fi capability of the Wii.  It doesn’t, and now that I’ve played it with my sister, I can see that there is serious trolling/griefing potential with this game.  When it comes to Mario, you don’t want to piss anyone off, you just wanna have fun.

And believe me, there’s plenty to be pissed at when you’re playing.  Not in a bad way.  It’s just that the game is just diabolical enough to make you curse and try to throw your controller, before you remember that you strapped your Wiimote to your wrist.  You did read the safety advisory, didn’t you?  But you’ll be back.  You’ll come back, you’ll plan your jumps and maybe even get your friends in on the action, but just remember… when you’ve beaten one Koopa kid, there’s always another lying in wait.

I haven’t beaten it yet.  I only get the time to play a little here and a little there.  But I kind of like it that way.  I don’t like sitting around and plowing through a game, especially when there’s no replay value.  But even when I’m done with it, I’m sure that I’ll be ready to start all over again.  There’s always more hidden treasures to find when you go back.  And since I’m playing without a walkthrough right now,  I’m sure there’ll be a lot of good stuff waiting for me on the second run.

If you’re a Mario fan, you’re doing yourself a big disservice by not playing this.  If you’ve got kids, they’re going to love this game, too.  Play it with them and show them a thing or two about stomping goombas and dodging Bullet Bills.  It’s time to pass it on to another generation!

Click Here to Play the Game

I was recently introduced to a very addictive Flash game.  At first glance, it might look boring, but play a couple of rounds and you’re probably going to be hooked.  It’s just a simple aim-and-click game where you shoot baskets.  Might not look so tough, but if you like to actually play basketball, you’re going to see how realistic it feels.  Not to mention maddeningly frustrating.

... but Sega Genesis has Blast Processing.

Yeah, that’s it.  But things get better… because it’s multiplayer.  You can play the game with plenty of other people online, but like most online games, people are going to figure out a way to cheat.  Therefore, it’s more fun to play with people you know, or at least the ones who don’t cheat.  Essentially, it’s like playing Diablo.  That’s why I set up a room for the good people of NP1 Nation to play together.

When it comes down to it, this basketball game is a lot like the old classics “Gorillas” and “Scorched Earth” without angles and wind to judge.  Just pick a trajectory and let ‘er rip.  Scoring is simple enough, as the ball is placed in a random spot and it’s worth more depending on where the ball is placed.  If it goes in “nothing but net” it’s multiplied by two.  You have two minutes to score as much as you can.

Baines for two!

Hope I see some new high scores soon.  Good luck, suckers!

(PS, Fran pointed out how the scoring works because I’m rather oblivious.)