Best game in a long time

Arkham City is without doubt one of the best games I have ever played. I don’t say that lightly, I sincerely mean it. It has everything you could possibly want in a game, for starters you are Batman. But not some hobbled “I have had all my toys taken away from me and I won’t be cool till the end of the game” Batman but a “I am so freaking cool I can kill guys just by looking at them” Batman… which is nice!

You have great toys to play with and the actual mechanics of playing the game are exactly right. Fighting is at the forefront in this game and you will be doing plenty of it. But its fun, there are so many things you can do as you pound people it is just an endless joy. Then you get to throw in all your cool gadgets and you are set. But its not straight forward, do something stupid and you die almost instantly (that is a good thing as you still have to think rather than button bash).

The artwork and production value in the game is utterly stunning, the art-deco style of Gotham is extended into some weird and wonderful ideas but all of them feel at home here. While some of it is absurd none of it felt out of place. You are playing a man with no special powers but dresses up like a bat.. absurd was left at the door. On top of that the voice acting is superb, I have already mentioned my gripe so we will leave it at that. You have to praise the developers for not sticking with the established designs for the characters, they have taken some already great concepts and just improved on them with this game. It is worth playing the game just to get the the unlocks that let you examine the models in more detail (Kudos to them for including the design of Cat Woman from the animated series as a model as well).

But the standout thing here is the story. I’m not going to tell you a single thing about it that would only spoil it for you, but lets just say it was not what I expected at all and was just fantastic. There are plenty of older characters that make an appearance not just the Joker, Penguin or Riddler, and there are twists and turns all through the story. But at its heart it stays true to who Batman is and what he is about.

Final thought

This is just the perfect superhero game that I don’t you could ever really do with any other superhero. You know you are playing a great game when you finish it before you wanted and you want to start it again straight away.

*I will give you one little spoiler*
I got to beat up a shark!

Batman: Arkham Asylum was a surprise for me, I had seen it coming and it looked interesting. But when you look back at the history of super hero games it is not good. So a long time ago I gave up on hoping on a good super hero game, let alone the best one of them all Batman. How so very wrong I was, I think is has to go down as one of my favorite games of all time.. right up there with the likes of Super Mario World (SNES) and Street Fighter II Alpha 2 (Saturn).

For those that know me they know I don’t often complete games. I usually lose interest somewhere in the middle, put the game down, then never really come back to it. Arkham Asylum treads that careful line between game and cinema, an engaging story, great game mechanics, fantastic voice acting. I think between Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill you can’t not enjoy it.

You know a game is good when I have completed it a few times now and I am working on getting all of the achievements and extras.

On to Arkham City

Of course I have only had Arkham City for one day now, but it is very part the better of Arkham Asylum. Not only is the system better, new ideas have been added, but there are also all new gadgets to play with.

The city is sprawling and feels real and gritty with the various character nicely woven into it. Other reviews out there will go into the details but lets just say its great!

My only disappointment so far

The only thing I am disappointed in so far is Harley Quinn. Of course the character design is spot on, it’s just not as good as Arkham Asylum. Unfortunately they have also changed the voice, in Asylum it is Arleen Sorkin the one true voice Harley Quinn. In City they have changed it to Tara Strong. She is excellent but she is just not right.

For me Harley Quinn is as important as Cammy. She is not the most important character but she is one of the most interesting.

So I was looking through the list and there are some goodies on there like “The Andromeda Strain“, “28 Days later“, and “12 Monkeys” (I have always loved the work of Terry Gilliam). But a few from the top I came across “Pontypool” and from the picture alone I thought I need to take a look at that.

It made another appearance in the current SFX magazine special on zombies at number 39 of their all time greatest zombie movies.. so it has to be worth a look.

Something of a surprise

Like all good zombie films it starts innocently following the journey to work of former “shock jock” Grany Mazzy. It looks like its going to be just another day for Mazzy in the backwater hole that is Pontypool but strange things are already happening but no one has caught onto it yet.

Being the grizzled zombie film watchers that I am I thought it might be interesting but didn’t hold out much hope it would be up to much, after all I have never heard of it.

As soon as I started watching I knew something about this one was going to be good, it has a great gritty feel to it and the direction and acting are excellent. Like all really good horror there is a fair dose of comedy and you get a good feeling for the characters.

All the action takes place in the basement of a church where the radio station is setup, and you only hear about what is happening outside from broken reports and odd bits of news. This only serves to highlight the problem as it is so badly defined anything could be going on.

This is where the film takes a sharp turn from the normal zombie style film and adds its own twist to the proceedings. I am not going to tell you what it is you will have to watch for that, but it is a genius and terrifying idea and one that I can’t believe hasn’t been used before (that I have seen at least).

Not perfect

What is the perfect zombie film, only two spring to mind for me. Night of the living dead (the original George A Romero film the whole genre started from) and Shaun of the dead.

You are probably thinking “what the hell is this idiot saying?”, cool your jets! When I say perfect I mean in terms of character development, plot, pacing. All the things that are really hard in any film. They are not the best zombie films (close) but they are get well made films that hang together well. Most zombie films have problems with gaps in the plot or slow scenes that stop the flow of the film.

Pontypool doesn’t escape these problems but they are few and far between. You can forgive any film its minor moments and its worth powering through the few slower moments to get to the reward.

Does not reward stupidity

Something I have seen more and more in recent films is a tend to make them more appealing to idiots. Why have a subtle plot when you can put it in someones face? Pontypool I’m pleased to say doesn’t do that, if you are not following what is going on then you are out of luck, and the ending is sure to leave you confused.

Conclusion

Worth a watch, might not buy it but if you see it cheap or on the TV it’s worth spending the time.

It is ambitious and yet somewhat successful. I say somewhat because they have turned a space opera, a slow dramatic show that at times had me as close to tears as I’ve ever been since I saw Optimus Prime die in ’86, into a Hollywood style blockbuster.
How? why? well simple really, you can’t have anywhere near as many near destruction encounters as in the original. The Yamato doesn’t get heavily damaged and fixed again many times over, there just isn’t time. The pace of the film is understandably quick and there are many things that were cut out but I enjoyed the film and as a film it makes sense even if some f the changes may be a little hard to swallow.

What’s it about?

In the year 2199, mankind loses their final showdown in space against invaders from the Gamilas race. With human tech no match for the attackers, Captain Okita is forced to retreat to the radiation soaked Earth where humans live in underground cities after the surface was hit by radioactive meteors sent by Gamilas. Earth gets a ray of hope in the form of a capsule from Iskander, it contains a map and schematics for a wave motion engine capable of warping a ship through space and powering a canon powerful enough to destroy any Gamilus ship.
The defence force construct the Space Battleship Yamato using these plans, its mission, fight past the attackers from space and travel to Iskander and retrieve a device from the high-tech culture capable of purifying the Earth. Character wise it revolves around the hotshot ace pilot Susumu Kodai, the hard hitting love interest Yuki Mori and wise old Captain Okita and his passing of the torch to Kodai.

Modernising Yamato

The whole cg look of the film’s effects seems to be lifted from the 2005 Batlestar Galactica so it isn’t the best cg you’ll have seen but then this is a Japanese movie and budget-wise can’t be expected to compete with Transformers for cg budgets and effects.  The music is instrumental version of the legendary Yamato theme.  I’m too old school and mis the words but duing the film the music is just modern remixes of the classic theme which is perfect as the original’s music was a masterpiece up there with Star Wars.

As for some of the more noticable character changes:

Dr Sado, the Yamato’s chief doctor and drunk in the series was a small balding drunk who was always entertaining as he hung around with his cat, the analyzer robot and a bottle of sake. In the film he becomes, well a woman who doesn’t get to do much other than stand around with her cat and a bottle of sake in homage. Not really the best of changes but in this day and age you probably couldn’t get away with the old doctor.
Analyzer goes from being a red human sized robot with perverted tendencies that hangs around with the doctor lusting after Yuki to a ummm, an artificial intelligence living in a tablet pc operated by Kodai for most of the film (but this redesign is totally redeemed  near the end of the film with a super baddass upgrade).
Aihara was a guy who didn’t do much in the original series (but did more in later series), him becoming a she I can live with.
Yuki Mori has undergone some sort of personality transport and goes from lifestyle officer and nurse to fighter pilot… That said, it works for the film, if you hadn’t seen the original series you’d never know.  If you have, it’s hard.
Saito is a character who was lifted out of the second season of Space Battleship Yamato, he’s less obnoxious than in the series and actually a good addition.

The commander of Gamilus, Desla is a key character of the main story in the anime, in the film, yeah not much time at all and his appearance…  Well he was a blue humanoid before, he isn’t now…

Final Thoughts

Without giving too much away I’ll tell you that you can quite happily watch this film without having seen the original series, in some ways it may help.  What I will also say, is that because of the way it skips large events and actually takes large chunks of Yamato 2′s ending.  You can quite happily watch the series afterwards and be in for a thoroughly enjoyable story and you won’t be left thinking seen all this, you won’t have because so little of the original is in here.  Is that a good thing, I don’t know, but all things considered, I just don’t think it’s possible to compress the whole story into one film and have the same impact.  Instead we get a highly entertaining action packed version of Yamato which is either a great introduction, or a nice alternate telling of it for existing fans.  Either way, this is one anime to live action conversion that is *gasp* actually a good film!  I just hope it gets an official blu-ray release in the UK or more likely the USA.

You do not want to be on the receiving end of the Wave Motion Gun

Akira Collectors Edition Steel Book

Yet another edition of Akira you just have to buy. Talking to Sideswipe today this is this will be the firth time he has bought it, the third time for me.

A bargain too. Get it from Play for £17.99

As you may or may now know I am a dedicated lover of Akira I am very choosy about what Akira has to be in order for me to buy it. More specifically it has to be the original American dub of the film. I have seen the original Japanese version (makes a little more sense) and the improved dubbed version but I am not a fan or them. It has to be Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and most of that era or voice actors running the show. If I am not thrown back to my childhood when I watch the film I am just not interested.

What can I tell you? As far as I can tell Cameron Clarke is Keneda… that means this is the original dubbed version of the film, cleaned up, remasters and made better than ever. Check out Mr Clarkes bio on IMDB and give praise to him, he is your childhood and you don’t even know it.

The Incredibles

Probably my favourite of all of Pixar’s work is finally coming to high definition. There is very little I can actually say about it that hasn’t been said before, it is just a great film all around and takes the usual superhero’s film and turns it on its head.

Only £15.99 from play and I think that is a deal.

Superman: The complete collection

Who does not love Superman on some level? For a long time I really didn’t like these films. I don’t even know why, I think it was probably because they were on so often you just become sick of them. On reflection, having seen them recently after such a long time, I have come to really love them. The special effects don’t really hold up very well, it is filled with over acting, and the stories are not very good. But that doesn’t matter, there is a joy in these films from the cheesy special effects used in the titles when John Williams score picks up and you know this is not just a film, it’s a “Motion Picture”.

Not a bad deal on play considering its 8 disks, 3 good 1 crap film. But you have to have them all. £36.99

Don’t forget

There is a lot coming out at the moment, some of the other things I think are worth checking out:

• The Fifth Element (£13.99) – Always an amazing film that I wrote about it recently.
• Tangled (£15.99) – This is a surprise for me from Disney. Darker than I though it might be and actually a lot of fun. Not really a surprise when John Lasseter is involved.
• Laputa : Castle in the sky (£14.99) – All of Studio Ghibli’s work is being brought into the high definition world and its starting here. Saw this again recently after a long time and I had forgotten what a potent film it is. Saw this film for the first time on the BBC with my sister when I must have been about 10, stuck us both as an amazing film even then.

While it is mostly well done and the action is a lot of fun, it just doesn’t engage. The characters are interesting and two of the best you can get (Cameron Diaz and Christopher Waltz) are relegated to mostly background characters and never given the space to really show why they are stunning.

The legend of Bruce Lee

If there is one thing I really loved it was the few references to Bruce Lee. As you may or may not know “The Green Hornet” TV series is what made Bruce Lee famous in the US. He was already well known in Asia but had never made it in the US. He was given the role of Kato, very much a second fiddle to the lead. But Bruce made it his own and shown as the star he was. That broke him into the US market and the rest is history.

In the film there are two really great references. One is in Kato’s drawings where there is a whole page of classic Bruce Lee poses, the second is Kato doing the infamous one inch punch Bruce was famous for.

I hate 3D

This film has confirmed that I just can’t stand 3D, it is over priced rubbish. There is nothing in this film that needs 3D it would be perfect in normal 2D. But the cinemas around me have decided they want to con their customers and are only showing a lot of the current films in 3D, its a nice little extra for them for no additional cost.

I have come to the conclusion I am not going to see a 3D film again it is a waste of money, and if they want to play that game I just won’t see that film.

Update: See comments below. I come of quiet harsh against this film when really its my hatred of 3D that is the problem.

Hopefully this is old news to anyone visiting a site called Big Giant Robots but if you somehow have missed it thus far, then you should check out Super Robot Wars Original Generation: The Inspector (hereon abbreviated as SRW).  Why? well it features a diverse range of the nicest looking mechs of the year in lots of action sequences that are BEAUTIFULLY done in glorious HD with fights taking place over land and sea and air GI Joe is there! (my mind always plays the legendary opening theme to GI Joe the movie when thinking that phrase), not quite fitting into the song, there’s also space combat too.

It also has a huge cast that covers just about every type of character stereotype there is, from brooding guy to bubbly big chested girl and genetically enhanced kids… someone for everyone and whether you are after action, comedy or fan service, this show has you covered.

It is a follow on from the Super Robot Wars Original Generation series which sadly never made it over to the UK and is desperate need of being repackaged as a cheap thin pack in the US which was itself based on a series of games in Japan (and a couple in the US). Because it is a follow on, those who haven’t seen the original may worry that it’ll be hard to follow.  Seriously, don’t worry, it is enjoyable without knowing the backstory, anything critical they explain although if you don’t pay attention you may miss it.  With such a large cast, the show tends to rush through a lot of things but then the first series as well was high on action and low on slow deliberate story telling – the makers leave that for Gundam and instead concentrate on giving you as much action as they can and I won’t complain. It’s highly entertaining.

For those that do want to know what has come before, well to summarise everything would take me a long time so I’ll link to someone elses.  See the link below for a great introduction to the Super Robot Wars universe including what happened in the first series because knowing is half the battle (tehe more joe goodness), then head over to Crunchyroll.com and enjoy the series.

http://www.mania.com/guide-to-super-robot-wars-original-generation_article_125709.html

Watch the show
http://www.crunchyroll.com/super-robot-wars

And no I don’t know why I have GI Joe on the brain today. I guess I ‘ll have to add Action Force/GI Joe to the list of things I need to write about ^_^

This new show from Genndy Tartakovsky has only just started but it is already one of my favourite shows, fortunately for me it slots right into the “Big Giant Robot” theme perfectly.

How can you be sure this is going to be great?

Lets set aside the actual story and style for just a moment, I will come to those very soon. Lets also not focus on the fact the star of the show is a Big Giant Robot (how can that ever fail?) and instead lets just look at the man behind the show Genndy Tartakovsky.

If there are a few people currently making cartoons that I think are producing really interesting work he is one of them. Of course you have to include Matt Groening as the creator of the Simpsons and more importantly Futurama he is a huge influence. But if you look away from the main stream you start to see some of the really interesting shows being made.

Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky are the guys to watch. There work is cleverly disguised as kids shows, but they treat their audience with respect and slip in a few nods for the adults (As I write this I am actually watching McCracken’s Fosters home for imaginary friends). Between them they have made Dexters Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Fosters Home, Samuari Jack, Star Wars:Clone Wars, and now Sym-Bionic Titan. That is the sort of reputation you can’t buy, all of these shows are pure genius (I have warmed up to Clone Wars since the second series).

Samurai Jack is a greatly overlooked show, it is surprisingly deep and well written, the story of Samurai who is the only saviour for the world. Thrown forward in time to when his enemy is the all powerful ruler of the world he has to find a way back to his own time and save the world. Of course its not all the easy.

The most distinctive thing that always stood out to me was the style. Deceptively simple it is very expressive without being overly complex.

On to the show

That distinctive style is improved in Titan, carried off superbly it brings a great feel to the show. It has a very Anime feel but remains unique. Of course no matter how good the style is, it is nothing without story. Titan has story, setup, and ideas coming thick and fast, with enough left unspoken that you get the feeling there is a lot more to come.

The basic premise is Princess Ilana and her protector Lance escape from their plant under orders from her father. As the planet is over run he sends them to safety on a far off planet, crash landing they are presented with the earth forces headed by General Steel. Of course nothing is as it seems, and they are not as easy to defeat as Steel would like. Aided by their robot Octus they escape and need to find a way to blend into the population.

It is a classic set up, but watching does not feel forced or contrived. Although it is not all new, it feels fresh and it seems there is a lot of back story just waiting to burst through. Come the end of the first episode a huge fire monster has been sent after them. They are left with a moral question, should they face this threat and reveal their presence on the planet, or remain hidden and let the humans deal with the problem. They come through and you get the first glimpse of the Titan, with a neat twist that even Lance, Octus, and Ilana don’t know how to use the Titan.

The Titan transformation is very satisfying. You can feel the influences of classic shows like Robotech and Voltron coming through.

Great hopes

They are already up to episode 3 and I have enjoyed every moment of it so far. Some classic themes are coming through but all done with a unique feel. There has even been some surprisingly dark moments back on their home planet as the fallen hero Modula claims power.

I am looking forward to seeing how this will turn out.

Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crewes, Mickey Rourke, Stone Cold Steve Austin and cameo’s by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  It’s cast are all legends and almost all of them are used to headlining  their own movies.

Question:How can you possibly live up to that?

Answer: With some  good fights, lethal knife usage for brutal kills, lots of guns and a ludicrous amount of explosions.  The only thing Expendable about this is the plot which is vintage 80s storytelling (i.e. the story is more of an excuse than an actual plot and you know that’s deliberate here).  Oh and Charisma Carpenter has a small role in it and is still hotter than all of the explosions in the film combined.

The Glory

So much glorious content for action heads, although Arnie is only in it for a couple of minutes, he is a one liner machine in that time.  Dolph vs Jet Li, Stallone vs Stone Cold, when you’ve got fights like those, there’s no need to worry about plot, just sit back and make sure you’ve got plenty of popcorn as this film is an unashamed action film.  A reminder that simple can be brilliant.  There are highlights aplenty including Dolph being just plain awesome as a drugged up mercenary who’s gone way too far over the line, Terry Crewes with the biggest, loudest and most destructive gun there is and him doing an insane shot putt that has to be seen to be believed.  Jet Li deserves praise for showing more character than in a lot of his own films, he cracked me up a few times and still managed to crack the limbs of his opponents in usual fashion.  Stone Cold makes a helluva good bad guy and for the love of God just stop reading and go book your tickets.  Sly is Sly and that alone is worth watching a movie for, never mind with this kind of backup.  Randy Couture doesn’t get much character sadly but he is a beast of a fighter in it.  I wish there was more of him and Terry Crewes in it but hey, maybe a sequel, Stallone isn’t adverse to making those

Anyway, I loved this film and I really hope this does well enough to warrant a sequel because it was FUN, moreso than the A-Team, which tried to take itself seriously. The Expendables rocks and you really need a cinema sized screen and surround sound to do it justice.

Here’s a trailer because I can, and it’s great and I enjoy watching it..

The Expendables Trailer

The main story is that Shu is sent on a job to deliver cargo, which turns out to be a girl code named HW9 (Human Weapon 9) that is smuggled out of an underground lab.  She has a normal temperature of 40 degrees and has been modified to be super human in terms of speed, strength, recovery powers and senses.  Everything except stamina… Without medication every 5 hours she develops a huge fever and would have died but for the super awesome crazy doctor they call Doc, who develops a suppressant for her condition.  Even with this though, under too much strain, she starts turning to glass.  Indeed the 8 HW’s before her all turned to glass and shattered as do the ones after her.  An interesting side effect is that whenever a man touches her, they get a shock, only girls can safely touch her.  Anyway the bad guy wants his experiment back, the good guys want to protect her. City Hunter did the same story a number of times but this spreads out the body guard episode to 12  enjoyable episodes.

The Good

It should be noted that Doc and his assistant Monica are legendary.  They are an amazing combination of comic relief while still being incredibly important to the story.  Without Doc, the show would have struggled for sure. He is an unashamed perv in a slightly frightening way at the begining but any scene with him and Monica in is good, she is awesome herself as she loves to cosplay but seems remarkably adept at everything she cosplays as. In that she actually has real nursing and real commando skills and quite possibly others.  The Doc is nothing short of a genius and his past when revealed actually provides reason for his skills, impressive.

Porilyn is another homage to City Hunter which had parts of Shinjuku under the control of a cross dressing man.  Porilyn runs Ragstown and is good friends with Shu and is acting on behalf of a sponsor when he hires Shu to deliver HW9.  Much as in CH, he ends up being useful information source although he also has his uses as a sniper and comic relief due to his cross dressing ways.

Sara, aka HW shows she has some fight but is limited by her condition.  I like her and with more episodes she could really shine, also the any man that touches her gets a shock is played well throughout.

The Bad

There are two young girls in the series that it could totally have done without.  Manami is the loud obnoxious girl who talks big and fails utterly to back it up and if she wasn’t a girl would be in my top 3 anime characters I want to punch.  The other girl Ayaka is quiet and I guess could be useful if the series was longer as she seems ok with a computer and isn’t a female Scrappy Doo like Manami but in this, all she contributes is to get the cops suspicious of them.

The Final Verdict

After all is said and done, I loved watching this show. It is clearly inspired by my favourite series but is done well enough that I don’t mind. I just wish they had learned from CH that you don’t need kids or teenagers to make a series but at least they managed to make sure the lead and a lot of the supporting cast were adults which is under utilized.  While I wouldn’t call this a 5* series, it has good pacing, girls aside has an interesting cast (even the gruff old police chief and his rival in the SWAT team are handled really well and don’t seem like simple background characters.  Overall a very solid 4* show.  If they were to ditch the two girls and do another 100 episodes I’d be very happy indeed.  Should it ever get released in the UK I will pick it up right away.

In the meantime, you can check it out at Crunchyroll.

http://www.crunchyroll.com/glass-maiden