The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

The Dark Knight Rises was a perfect movie. There wasn't a single mistake. I put some spoilers cause I was so excited about how great this perfect movie was!

Chris Nolan used his signature subtlety to a whole new level, going as far as to put in flashbacks to the previous movies every time something is mentioned. I also love how natural the dialogue is. Never does anyone sink to our level by sounding like someone you'd meet in the streets. That just wouldn't be Gotham. Instead we get dialogue with forced subtext at all times. This really works for the movie because it adds to the realistic tone.

I've heard Chris Nolan described as the smartest kid in the class who is no fun to be around. I don't know what they're talking about. Based on the dialogue in this movie, I imagine he'd be really entertaining to be around. I assume that he would squeeze in contextual yet unfunny jokes in every 5 or so minutes to make sure that all of the normal people (like you and me) don't get bored. He would say things that sound smart, yet are really easy to understand, over and over again in an effort to make really challenged people understand and everyone else feel really smart for having figured it out a while before.

I'm really happy with the direction Nolan opted to take this series. In the first one he only made a few changes to Batman's persona and mythos, but by the time the Dark Knight came around, he decided to show us that Batman is a lame character and made him into something really awesome. I especially loved how Batman tackled Two Face to death before falling the same distance, stretching for a minute and riding off on a motorcycle while Gordon talked to his son in a completely believable way. In the Dark Knight Rises, we finally get to see the end of Batman.... NOLAN STYLE!

At the beginning of the movie, Batman quit for the past 8 years and hasn't been seen in action since he killed Two Face and overheard Gordon's speech about him being the cities dark knight because he can take it. I think Batman overheard Gordon's speech because it's realistic to theorize that Batman couldn't handle the pressure of all of that responsibility. Others say that Batman quit because of Rachel Dawes' death, and that makes total sense too, because she was such a beloved character who always talked with great charm and knew how to make Bruce Wayne smile. Seriously, whenever either actress playing Rachel Dawes was on the screen in the first two, I'd see the whole audience smiling and cheering for her great dialogue about justice and injustice...and justice. She even had that hilarious line about how Gotham's DA is always being shot at. I sure was sad that she wasn't in this movie...but I digress, I've gotten off topic. Anyway, Batman quit...cause that makes sense.

Now he's a smelly old guy who walks with a cane, locked up in his new mansion with a bunch of pictures and things (including his mothers pearl necklace, which he must have put in his pocket before leaving the burning Wayne Manor in Batman Begins...after repairing it...and putting a tracking device in it). For a while he has a real fun accent but soon enough he just goes back to the same voice he had in the other movies.

Bane is really cool in this movie. Having barely seen him in comic books such as Knightfall and Vengeance of Bane...and Secret Six...and Suicide Squad, it was really nice to learn what Bane's character is like. First off he has telepathic powers that send his voice directly to your ears. This is really useful for him if he's hiding in the dark, because you can't follow the voice to find him. I really like the way Sean Connery played him in this film, with an excellent physique that is truly intimidating. This totally makes up for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I also really like the way they stuck to his origin in the comics, where he was born and raised in a South American prison. I love the subtle nod to his comic book origin, with him being in a prison and meeting someone who was born and raised in a prison.... in India... while he is a white british guy (or whatever accent he's going for here). They also do a great job of showing how much of a badass leader Bane is. He's smart and calculating and can't be told what to do by anyone... until someone makes him cry and tells him what to do. I'm not gonna spoil who tells him what to do, but I'll give you a hint. Look for the worst acting you've ever seen on film and it's that person...

Anyway, what was I saying again? Oh yeah, this movie is perfect. Forget what I said about that bad acting character. They did a great job. There was even a part within 5 minutes of that character revealing that they were actually the big villain all along where they instantly die. The performance of this scene was so realistic it made several people in the theatre start laughing. Some people have interesting ways to deal with their sadness. You think that's the only big shocking twist ending? Hell no. Nolan is no slouch! He vowed with this movie he would put in more endings than Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

I especially love the big twist with the character of John Blake where he finds out his real name. It's great because this gesture just shows me that Nolan knows about the comic books existence, but it still reminds me that comic books are stupid and Nolan is better than that. It's weird I didn't mention John Blake until now. It's almost like his character didn't really do anything in the movie but fill in a spot that was needed, but never fleshed out. I probably feel that way because it's been a few days since I've seen this masterpiece. We do at one point see him barely beat up one guy. Maybe he could be the next Batman (I know the answer, but I don't want to spoil it for you). Still, if that did happen, it'd be awesomely realistic, because he has no training, no money and a bat costume that was made for a guy who is half a foot taller than him. Did I mention I love Nolan's realistic approach?

There are a lot more Batman gadgets this time around, which is good, because I keep running out of toys to buy. This time Lucious Fox early on says something about hey I need to show you our crazy technology that I've hidden away in this room. After they showed it, and talked about a new object called The Bat and it's lack of autopilot, I never thought they'd mention these things again, but Nolan is a wild sorcerer of genius and totally blew my mind by subtly using them a great deal for the rest of the movie.

Batman gets his back wrecked by something that happens. *SPOILER*: Bane breaks his back (or pops out a vertebrae) and locks him in an underground prison with a guy who fixes it in minutes. After Bruce finally manages to escape by only being able to make a long jump when not wearing a rope to show that he believed in himself (Chris Nolan avoids cliches at all turns). He voyages back to Gotham with a vengeance on his mind. He finally gets to Bane and has his awesome fight scene, and Catwoman shoots and kills Bane... What an awesome twist. I love that Batman doesn't accomplish anything in this movie except for flying away with a bomb at the end (with the fixed autopilot...that's why they mentioned it... HO HO HO.. GENIUS!).

Another great example of subtlety was a scene early on where Alfred basically tells Bruce to quit being Batman and eat lunch at this place in Paris. I almost fell out of my seat, when it turned out that was important. It's things like this where Nolan proves that he is the symbol for great filming like Gandhi is for peace (Ignore the fact that Gandhi was a wife beater...LOL).

Overall, this movie was perfect, except Batman was in it too much. It really should have focused on everyone else more and had Batman in it for no more than 20 minutes. The Dark Knight was the better movie because of this (and that awesome part with the two boats with bombs that plays out in Nolan's signature realistic way!). It's nice to have a movie finally show Batman off as the quitter I've always felt he should be (by always I mean since Chris Nolan invented the character of Batman properly...LOL).

I can't wait to see what shocking twists he puts into a movie next...seeing as I never see them coming from 2 hours earlier in the movie.

Masterpiece.


As an aside, I wanted to say that this theatre shooting thing is among the worst possible things I can imagine. The theatre is one of those places where you shouldn't ever have to be afraid to go. It's supposed to be safe, comfortable and fun. It seems to me, at least as of this moment, that this was a nearly unprovoked attack, but I still am hearing people talk about how they aren't going to see this movie or others any time soon because they are scared. I request that people don't let the actions of one lunatic ruin something you love. He will find his justice, and I hope in time that we all can find our way back to the safe feeling of the theatre. I also want to send respect and goodwill to the families of the victims, as well as the victims themselves, whom some of which are reported to have shielded and protected their loved ones. That's amazing and it's always sad when someone loses their life for doing the right thing.

American McGee's Alice (PS3/x360, 2000)

For years I've been hearing about this crazy dark image of the Alice in Wonderland story. As a lifetime console gamer it's one of those ideas that makes me consider a trip over to the PC realm, but I just never got around to it. Recently, I was at the store and found Alice: Madness Returns (which I'll be reviewing shortly) on the shelf for a great price. On the back, to my surprise, it said it had a coupon inside to play the original game as included DLC.

I need to reiterate that this game was originally released in the year 2000. Mind you, they clearly threw an HD remastering on it, but for a game 12 years old to look as good at this game does is really a feat. The controls also worked pretty well, though the jump mechanics can be difficult due to having trouble telling how far away platforms are. I understand that this game was originally designed for the mouse and keyboard, but personally, I felt right at home with my controller.

I would like to say that I am an expert when it comes to Alice in Wonderland, but that would be a filthy lie. All I have ever known of it was that there is a hatter who madly loves tea and a badass cat who smiles and instigates Alice at every turn. I also know that Tim Burton tried his dark take at Alice in Wonderland and made a billion dollars worldwide with what most people would call a terrible and typical Tim Burton movie with no respect for the source material. Oh well, at least Johnny Depp got to put on white makeup....again.

Where it is generally accepted that Wonderland is a place in Alice's mind, what happens when Alice's mind falls apart? That's the idea that this game plays with. This takes place after the original story, when one night while Alice is off in Wonderland in her dreams and a fire starts in her home. She barely escapes her home, but ends up hearing her parents screams as they burn to death. This drives her over the edge and leaves her in an asylum, where her only hope is to go back into her now deranged version of Wonderland, in hopes that she can reconstruct her mind. The whole game plays out as a very interesting story of PTSD and dealing with it in a dark way, and oh what a dark way it is.

Atmospherically, this game is one of the most impressive feats that I have ever encountered before. I found overwhelming dread the further into the game I got. What I found interesting about the character of Alice, is that she seems to think the world around her is strange for all sorts of the wrong reasons. Whether it be a character in a torture apparatus asked why he was put there by the Mad Hatter. The first thing that she suspects is that he is guilty of slurping his tea or talking while eating at the table. She's wonderfully oblivous to how crazy this world is, and instead of making this world seem unrelateable , it only serves to make the atmosphere draw you in. Near the end of the game, I found myself thinking differently to try to compensate for the craziness that is this version of Wonderland, and for a game to teach you how to think like an insane person, I have no other term for it than art.

I love this version of the Hatter.

In the end, the whole game comes down to Alice battling her inner demons, and it fits with the classic story in an unprecedented way. This game is a masterpiece and I recommend it to anyone who has the patience to play a game with dated controls, older graphics and a really high difficulty curve. If you value atmosphere, this is one of the very best games ever made.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge (PS3/x360, 2011)

There is an art to being tedious. If you are one of the people who believes that statement, this is pretty much your equivalent to Van Gogh's Starry Night.

The real selling point to this game, was the concept that it was an entirely coop campaign, and unlike many games, it's storyline was set up as such. This way, whoever was playing the second character wasn't just vanishing during storyline cut scenes and so on. The problem here is that there is pretty much no storyline at all.

At least Lucy Lawless voices this character, but I think the
sound was recorded in someone's bathroom, as it sounds terrible.

The 'story' goes like this:

1. 2 characters are lead to a town to go on a quest by Lucy Lawless showing up in their dreams. (My dreams with Lucy Lawless in them are so much better, but let's move on.)
2. They are greedy and want money for whatever reason (they never say why).
3. They try to convince you that they become heroic after a while, but they don't really try that hard.
4. The game ends with what can only be called a twist... maybe (again, there is no investment in these characters at all, so it's pretty much useless).

Fair enough. In this day and age, story is often the least important thing about games, after all, look how successful the Halo series is with it's whole go here and destroy this storyline that everyone raves about. Speaking of Halo, Bungie (the company who up until now has made all of the Halo games) has this mentality of creating the most fun 30 seconds you can have over and over again. This clearly was something that came through with the makers of this game, except instead of the 30 seconds of fun formula, it instead uses the 15 minutes of annoying enemies attacking non stop over and over again. It just gets old, and if you think about it, every chapter is probably 20 rooms with a metric ton of padding to keep you in each one before moving to the next.

From a game-play standpoint, this game isn't terrible, though the swordplay is a bit on the loose side and tends to degenerate into tapping the attack button over and over again. Fortunately, as you develop more powerful skills and magics, you probably can do without using a sword ever again. There is also a pretty decent bow and arrow/ third person shooter mechanic that works pretty well, with the exception of the arrows refusing to hit the targets some time. For example, you see an enemy, aim for his head and fire but another enemy walks partially in front of him. Instead of the enemy in front taking the hit or the enemy in the back taking the hit, somehow neither one takes a hit at all. This came up many times, and leads me to believe that you can only hit the one you are targeting.

Worst of all though, is the shitty comic relief jammed into the dialogue all through this game. You will likely hear the characters say something that is poking fun at how crappy the game's formula is.

Here are a few examples of this.

1. It's not uncommon to pick up a health potion and have them say, "You can never have too many health potions", which is bullshit cause you can only have 3.
2. They love to make reference to how you are always encountering yet another gigantic door to get to the next area.
3. "It's raining targets" one of the characters will say when you are under attack by endless enemies over and over again, which isn't funny because you've already heard this exact comment said about 35 times by the end of the game.
4. They refer to how the enemies never stop coming constantly, which again, you will be saying way before they will, so it's just annoying having the game say, "Oh yeah, the game designers totally knew there were too many enemies."

Overall, Hunted isn't a good game at all. I couldn't recommend it to anyone, and would suggest just steering clear of it all together.

Platinum trophy note: I managed to get the platinum, but the game has a really bizarre issue with it's trophy for picking up all of the crystals in the game. This little glitch made me have to play through the whole sodding game a second time. If you do intend to go for this platinum be sure to study the trophy guide on ps3trophies.org to save yourself several miserable hours of gameplay.

The Avengers (2012) *Non Spoiler*

I may gush a little about this movie, but I'm not blind. This poster is absolute shit!

*DON'T LEAVE THE MOVIE BEFORE THE CREDITS HAVE COMPLETELY FINISHED!!! TWO SCENES!*

First I want to give you a huge tip for enjoying this movie properly. In my theatre, it was preceded by a trailer for Tim (One trick pony) Burton's new movie, 'Frankenweenie'. If you want to not hear someone hyperventilating and squealing with chalkboard scratch sounding bliss through the whole movie, don't sit near any remotely emo dressed girls. Trust me on this. Life is too short.

It's been a long time since I've connected to a movie to the point where I've wanted to write something about it.  Of course, I've obviously been pretty heavily invested into this movie for quite some time, based on the last few of my game write ups. Avengers was hugely hyped in my mind to be the best superhero movie ever made, and I have to say for me, it totally lived up to it.

The comparisons with the Transformers movies have been unavoidable with the movie trailers, but I can happily say that this makes none of the mistakes that Michael Bay made. This movie takes what we already know from Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger and merges it together in a believable way that makes old comic geeks like myself feel giddy inside. Also, it's very easy to see all of the action as opposed to close up shots of what can only be assumed to a giant scrap heap rolling down hill, inter-cut with Shia Lebeouf (if I spelled it wrong, I don't respect him enough to figure out the right way) running away. Another thing this movie does really well that Transformers tries way too hard at and fails every time, is the comedy. This has to have some of the funniest movie moments that I've ever seen in an appropriate way. See it, you'll know what I mean.

The fight scenes in this movie get progressively more entertaining, and when we reach our final climax I actually felt satisfied, which is something I haven't felt with the end of any superhero movie to this point, with the exception of Batman Begins. As far as villains go, Loki is pretty top notch. Tom Hiddleston is genuinely enjoying himself with his belief that humans should all bow down to him. He's always several steps ahead of everyone and is fully capable of taking over the planet to finally be the king he believes he was supposed to be. His only flaw of course is obvious based on the last sentence that I wrote though, as his arrogance is as limitless as his potential (which really makes him a Marvel character through and through).

One complaint that I have is that I feel Thor was a little bit under used compared to the others, whom all very clearly had their place in the greater scale of things. The team dynamic is obviously important as they go out of there way to show that every member has their place. Captain America isn't nearly as strong as most of the other Avengers, but he's a great leader. Iron Man is brilliant and  able to fix tech like it's nobodies business. Hulk is the big gun, in that he probably could destroy anything in the blink of an eye. This is the issue for Thor. He's not the leader the tech guy or the big gun, he's just the villain's overly naive brother. Though, it is touching to see how much Thor obviously loves Loki and wants to help him get things back to how they used to be.

Marvel Studios took a huge gamble when they started this whole thing. If even one of their movies bombed this movie may never have happened, and even still the odds of this movie actually working were even lower. This movie genuinely puts any movie with a higher budget to shame, for having better action, better effects and about 20 minutes more of it than any other movie I've ever seen. It also completely shuts me up about every other Marvel movie always having a crappy final battle (especially Iron Man 2 with it's stupid beam high five). The whole thing is a bloody miracle.

What some may consider to be a slower bit, is during the first 20 minutes when SHIELD is going around to recruit all team members, wherever they may be. However for myself, I felt these scenes were exciting, fun and necessary. Everything in this movie felt so connected to the proper Marvel Universe and the crowd was loving it as much as I was. To me, that meant it worked. Perhaps it's time some other people in the film industry realize this and allow certain characters to be used closer to the way they are in the comics. It seems to work, as most of these characters who other studios are 'making relevant for movies' have already stayed relevant for the past 50+ years just fine.

That's how I see it at least.

I give it 5 end credit scenes out of 5!

Iron Man 2 (PS3/x360, 2010)

I honestly never thought I'd be able to beat and platinum Iron Man 2 in time for the Avengers to hit the theatre, but to my surprise I found myself eager to finish this game as quickly as possible. The platinum came in one evening of non stop playing, which I'm not going to lie, is a long time for the average person out there. In 7 hours, I was able to beat the game twice and then grind out level specific trophies. This is a classic sign of a crappy movie cash in. Where Thor and Captain America were both somewhat below the line of what I would consider being good games, at least there was obvious effort put into certain things, but ol' shell head got shafted hard.

First off, you may notice that Tony Stark/Iron Man is voiced by some guy doing a Robert Downey Jr. impression. It seems to take a lot of effort to do, as he is never able to sound engaged at all and talks too slow to really feel right. The cast however isn't entirely a wash out, as they oddly enough got Don Cheadle to be War Machine and Samuel L. Jackson to be Nick Fury. They both did fine, but the dialogue didn't flow anything like it does in the movies, so the whole 'Iron Man 2 feeling' was nowhere to be found.

The story takes place after Iron Man 2...I think. Someone attacks one of Stark's reactors, he goes after them with War Machine and SHIELD. The villain is potentially interesting in that it is a man who merges with a highly powerful giant robot that was created by Stark Industries before Stark swore off weapons. This allows for Tony to have a moment of grief over having to clean up all of the terrible things that he has brought into the world. If nothing else, there is a nice scene where Stark tries to talk down the iron giant (Ultimo) by saying he is sorry that this living machine has been given such a negative view on human kind by evil men, but of course it just goes right back to cookie cutter DESTROY YOU dialogue right after.

Crimson Dynamo!!! This is what Vanko's suit should have looked like at the end of the movie!

The shock here is that the story is apparently written by current Invincible Iron Man scribe, Matt Fraction, who seriously put no effort into this. I have a suspicion that what they mean by written is that it was handed to Sega on a crumpled up napkin. Either that, or they just ignored his script and credited him anyway.

An interesting part of this game, that I found somewhat surprising is that the soundtrack is entirely heavy metal music. Honestly, it's pretty unique, and I see why you would go with metal for Iron Man but...it is trying to tie itself to a movie and then avoiding the feeling of that movie at all costs.

Truth be told, the reason that movie tie in games have a bad name, is because of games like this. The final boss fight was a nightmare as I was trying over and over again to fly to a specific spot but the camera kept "adjusting" me to a completely different spot than I needed to get to. This is a really garbage game and I don't recommend it to anyone really. Go download the demo and play it if you are curious. That is 1/8th of the entire game and the rest only gets worse.

Oh well, Avenger's month is over, and I have two little fanboy sleeps to go!

Now, I'm gonna get back to my quest to figure out the best game of last year. I'm almost finished believe it or not.

Thor: God of Thunder (PS3/x360, 2011)

I'm running out of time, as the Avengers movie is almost here and I've made it my mission to play Captain America: Super Soldier, Thor: God of Thunder and Iron Man 2 (and earn their platinum trophies) before this Thursday's midnight showing. The pinch is on as I've only just finished Thor: God of Thunder last night.

First up, I need to drop a disclaimer for this review. I can't lie. I have a huge man-crush on Chris Hemsworth. It's not sexual, but I would love to hang out, eat a burger and talk about his hammer....ahem. Anyway, for Odin!

Thor: God of War....or rather, that's the title they clearly wish they were going by, is a pretty weak knock-off of Santa Monica Studios' epic masterpiece God of War. Seriously, it even looks like the PS2 God of War games. Right away, you notice the graphics are terrible, but as I often try to advocate, as a gamer from the old age, graphics aren't everything. So let's move past that. This game is flawed in so many ways that it's pretty easy to bash.

The story honestly works with the 'movie Thor' universe, taking place before the movie, where Loki works out a plan to trick Thor into going on an epic journey and waking up a super powerful being called Mangog to attack Asgard. This all works out well and good, but when Mangog get's to Asgard, Loki's big plan to look like a hero and defeat him doesn't work out. Mangog is a badass, and a really tough one at that. Ultimately, he needs to get Thor and help guide him back from his mission to clean up the mess that he has made, while Odin is trying to stand toe to toe with the force that he created many years before. Overall, this story, while definitely not breathtaking, fits the characters well and brings me great joy!

While I like the story, there are very few good character moments, minus the loving but scolding talks that Thor gives to his brother Loki...who is a huge f**k up, but still family. Thankfully, Thor is voiced by Chris Hemsworth and Loki is Tom Hiddleston, so they both know what they are doing very well, and put a great effort forth.

Where this game falters however is the atrociously inaccurate controls. Oh man, I almost flipped out so many times when I would tap the jump button and forward in an effort to jump forward, but instead just walk off an edge. In fact, so much of this game consists of delays. I recall one battle where I was fighting the douchebag pictured below, when it cut to a cut scene of him jumping to the platform that I was on, when suddenly I just heard the sound of Thor die. Apparently, I took a hit before the cutscene started, but the game was too busy checking it's fantasy football to notice. Stuff like this happened a lot.

In fact, that was both the worst and the best thing about this game. The game is pretty easy, but like I said, I like to go for the Platinum trophy, which meant that I had to play through on Valhalla difficulty. Valhalla is the equivalent to VERY HARD mode, 'cause Hard mode is for sissies! The final boss, ol' Mangog on Valhalla is legendary for being so ungodly hard, it's amazing. The fight can last about 20 minutes and does not have any checkpoints despite consisting of 3 different phases. This means starting over from scratch over and over again. I tried several time before realizing I have a girlfriend and she didn't want to watch me fight a big glowing asshole in armor over and over again. Finally, I found some time to take him on and it took me 2.5 hours of trying and trying to take him down, but oh man, was it satisfying. This is why I love Demon's Souls so much. You will really have to push yourself to not give up, but when you do finally win, you feel damn good.

Above is a picture of Thor and Mangog, which actually ends up having both Odin and Loki helping you too, which makes it seem like that much more of a big deal.

Overall, this game is not very good, but in no way shape or form do I accept the claims that it is the "worst game ever" and that "no one should ever play it". If it's the worst game you've ever played, you haven't played many games, and you're very fortunate. I kind of enjoyed it despite it's flaws and recommend it, very cautiously, to people who like the Thor movie and God of War and understand that it's nowhere near as good as God of War. Sometimes, just playing as a character that you love makes you enjoy it. If that makes sense to you, you know whether or not this game is worth a play, otherwise don't bother.

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse (PS3/iOS/PC/Mac, 2010)

I remember the show Sam & Max: Freelance Police being on TV when I was a kid. I honestly don't remember much about the tone or even what specifically happened on it, but I know I liked it. So, a while back, Sony's Playstation Plus membership gave out this game in 5 episodes for free, and I ended up with them sitting on my hard drive for about a year. Historically speaking, when Telltale Games makes a game, I don't bother with it, as my brain just doesn't usually work that way.

Basically, the method of these games is that you walk around, observe items, pick up things and talk to people. That's basically the entire game. The trick is, you need to use a twisted, borderline psychotic sense of logic to get around obstacles. For example, a giant is attacking the city. First thing you need to know is that this particular giant loves corn dogs, and after talking to people, you realize that if you get into his mouth, you may be able to stop him. Naturally, that means that you have to fill a giant pothole with water, by convincing the giant to throw a water tower at it, then have him throw your car into it too and then have him pick up a conveniently placed truck filled with corn dog mix and shake it over the mixture to turn your car into a giant corn dog.  It's nuts.

Where this game shines is by having one of the best senses of comedy that I have EVER seen. The characters are so funny and the gags are so clever. Sam is a pretty serious detective dog character who, I'm not gonna lie, is freaking cute! Max is a lunatic rabbit who truly embraces the art of madness and random thoughts. Max also somehow got super powers out of nowhere, which the game keeps making fun of how out of nowhere this is. These guys are the best!

I really like Telltale Games' release strategy. Basically, how it tends to work, is that you play $19.99 for the season. The seasons tend to be divided up into 5 episodes and every month you get a new one. They usually average in length at about 2-3 hours a piece and always end up with a brilliantly shocking and funny cliffhanger to make you need to play the next one. The sense of humor is ever present and the stories are some of the best that you can find. Since finishing this, I have gone on to download Back to the Future, which acts as a 4th back to the future movie. As of this writing, I have finished the first 2 of 5 episodes, and have become a fan of Telltale's methods.

Overall, I have tried many times to play Secret of Monkey Island (an old classic which is probably the best known example of this game type), but my brain just never worked that way, until Sam and Max trained me on how to think outside the box. I'm gonna go back for Monkey Island soon. Give this a shot. Even if you need to use a guide online while playing it, you won't regret it for the story and comedy within.

Captain America: Super Soldier (PS3/x360, 2011)

I am so super stoked for the Avengers movie, that it's a little bit unhealthy. The thought of seeing several of my favorite superheroes on screen together and fighting a villain that I can actually respect (Loki...not the stupid aliens) has me giddy with anticipation. To celebrate this absurd excitement, I have decided that I will play and write a review for 3 of the Avenger's solo games, consisting of Iron Man 2, Captain America: Super Soldier and Thor: God of Thunder. I am fully aware of how terrible this can turn out as most movie licensed games are beyond shit...but every now and again, a great game will sneak out (like X-men Origins: Wolverine, which was so awesome despite it's shitty movie).

First off, I decided to go with Captain America, cause playing as him sounded the most exciting to me. Here's how that went.

 For those of you who have seen the Captain America movie, this storyline seems to take place in the middle of the sequence where you see Cap kickin Hydra ass. The story is about Cap going in to a Hydra facility to stop the mad Dr. Zola and save several trapped soldiers of the good ol' U.S. of A. from his sinister experiments. Obviously, the plot isn't really the important part here as it's essentially your typical save A. from the evil B. The only really special thing about it is that even more-so than the movie, this game shows off how important Dumdum Dugan and Bucky are in the Captain America story. Both of whom help in their own ways, by saving the hostages. A great Captain America moment is when he goes into a specific battle, expecting to die and hoping to buy the others enough time to stop the enemy in a different way. Of course, he's Captain America, and selflessness is his thing.

This game is barely about the story though. You only play this game because you want to play as Captain America, and this doesn't disappoint. The combat is very similar to Batman Arkham Asylum, in the respect that you are able to fight large crowds all at once, while countering from all directions. It's pretty fun. The shield comes into play too, in that you can bounce bullets back at snipers who are far away from you and take them down. It's impressive to see Cap taking on 6 guys at once and then turning to bounce a bullet at a sniper before effortlessly getting back to kicking the remaining guys around again. It is all very smooth and very enjoyable.

From a graphical point of view, the game is very nice to look at, but in a more stylistic way than a graphically strong way. I would say it's like a very impressive PS3 launch title. Which is satisfactory, but nothing to write home about. Really, the whole thing is very impressive for a movie tie in from Sega, who fails on a regular basis at these things.

It is also worth noting that the music, while a little bit generic at times has moments of brilliance. I actually was left wondering if it was the movie's score, which would make sense, but I really couldn't tell. Either way, the music works.

So lets rank this up... the music works, the story is good enough, the graphics are alright and the gameplay is pretty good. This is a good start to Avengers month. I expected apocalyptically awful. There is one problem that I feel must be addressed though. The game is way too easy. In a way I loved that, after Deus Ex, it was nice to have a game I could just chill out with and play effortlessly, but if you are looking for a challenging experience, it's not likely gonna be here. Perhaps it's because Captain America is a bad dude, but I don't know. I didn't try hard mode, so that may have been the perfect fix. I recommend it for people who love Cap and Arkham Asylum, and just want to play something that isn't stressful at all for about 8-10 odd hours.

Oh, and by the way...you totally can throw the shield and it's wonderful!!

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3/x360, 2011)

There are many games that do style well, then there are games that do substance well. It's a rare occurrence that you get both. Tron Legacy has a remarkably cool look and an amazing soundtrack, but it lacks in story and it rarely gets you thinking. Still, I love Tron Legacy, entirely because it gives you a feeling that is unique. I would call it my favorite music video, and in that respect it serves it's purpose. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is pure style, and it really connects you to the world that you are roaming in, and it comes very close to mastering the story part of it too. It has a lot of character development, and a lot of interesting thought provoking ideas, mixed with the look of Blade Runner and the music of Michael McCann (which puts you in mind of the Dark Knight score, except significantly better).

When you land in a new location, be it China, or Detroit, or Montreal, you feel the mood change from wherever you were before. You walk the city streets, and see billboards on the buildings above advertising unique things that kind of subconsciously tell you what that individual place is like. I can honestly say, I don't remember the last time a world was so fleshed out for me and in that respect, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a masterpiece.

I  need to mention that on a graphical scale, this game wasn't terribly impressive, but I am not taking that as a negative, so much as a positive, which is what I believe Eidos Montreal did when making it. They decided to not make everything look super realistic and instead stylize everything...and I mean extreme style. The cyberpunk setting has never looked so good, at least, not that my eyes have seen.

Anyway, while I could talk about the stylistic visuals all day, and the overwhelming commitment to the main character's coolness, this game is a storyline game, so how does it hold up? The story starts off with you playing as all around badass Adam Jensen, who is the head of Security for a company called Sarif Industries. He is going through the security details of a very important press conference that is going to be showing the world great new advances in the field of cybernetic implants, which are already taking place in this world, but they are far from perfect. Suddenly the labs are under attack and before anyone can figure out how, Adam rushes into action to try and stop them and to save the lead scientist, his ex, Megan. It's important to note that Adam is just a man, and if you are playing on the highest difficulty (awesomely called Give me Deus Ex), you will get the most engrossing experience out of this game, as you will be very stressed every time you see a guy with a gun (which you will a lot). When Adam finally finds Megan, he gets beaten badly by some heavily augmented mercenaries and ends up nearly dead. This is where the game starts. 

At this point, Adam is now rebuilt from head to toe, without his consent. He's disappointed in himself, because he wasn't able to save Megan and the scientists who died in the attack, and worst of all, the details just aren't adding up as to what happened that night. Even though he is on a much needed medical leave, he is called in to deal with a terrorist attack on one of Sarif Industries' factories. It is at this point that he get's involved with something that leads him to a global conspiracy. That's what this series is all about.

Good sci fi to me is all about presenting morally grey issues in a specialized setting where it can make the viewer really think about it. In this story people are divided on augmentations as some think it's an abomination, while others think it's amazing. There are a lot of comparisons in the storyline to Icarus from Greek mythology, which I think is really applicable here and gives a message, which very few games bother to do.

Earlier, I mentioned that it was almost perfect for story. Where is the flaw? There are a few things wrong with the game, but to me, the biggest one is the ending. I'm not going to spoil anything but I will say there are multiple endings and the execution of picking which ending you get and the endings themselves are the laziest things I've seen in modern gaming.

There are a few things that this game did that really felt fresh in today's gaming climate. First off, so many games go with a morality system, where if are good you get good points and if you are bad you get bad points, and those effect you in some way or another. In Deus Ex, you really don't get the sense of that. It feels like the game puts you into spots where you can do a good thing, or a bad thing, or choose between two bad things, or two good things, or any other combination of that. The game just throws it's hands up and says, it's your call, and to be honest, it makes making decisions a lot harder and meaningful. Another thing I would be crazy not to mention is the augmentation system. As you play you will occasionally acquire enough experience to upgrade your body parts, and unlike a lot of games where you upgrade things that you'll never use, you'll find yourself playing differently than you were up to that point. Enemies will kill you super fast on the highest difficulty, so you need to get enhancements to know where they are. You can see through walls, or walk quietly, or you can detect which way they are looking, and all of these things, make it so that you can strategically deal with situations, without ever making the game easy.

Seriously, this game made me feel more like Batman than Batman Arkham City did. In fact, this is Metal Gear Batman. I snuck through the whole game and killed no one, unlocking the Foxiest of the Hounds trophy. If you are a fan of Metal Gear Solid, you can see that the guys who made this game were too. This is a worthy successor to the original Deus Ex, and I couldn't be happier with it. Hopefully if another one comes out they will put a little more effort into the endings, and the boss fights (which ultimately are shoot em up bits after sneaking and killing no one for a few hours), but they have created something amazing and I want more of it!

Resident Evil 5 (PS3/X360, 2009)

With the recent announcement of Resident Evil 6, I finally had the pressure on to get the platinum trophy on Resident Evil 5. This game has been something I've played with friends off and on for 2 and a half years now. Sometimes when I go for the platinum, it's a grind, sometimes it's for the sake of getting a platinum, but for the greatest of games it's all about wanting the platinum, to say you have fully experienced a game you love. Now, for those of you who don't know what a platinum is, games have recently, started a system of hidden rewards for doing things you may not try to do. I believe the purpose of this has been to make games more replay-able, and for me it has worked very well. Xbox 360 started off with Achievements and later the Playstation modified the format into trophies, which I personally enjoy more based on small details. The platinum trophy, only comes when you get EVERY trophy in the game (with the exception of post released downloadable content, cause I don't want that crap). Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that I wanted to squeeze every bit of life out of this game, and now I can say that I have.

Resident Evil 5 has been judged by many for being too action oriented for a series that defined the term survival horror. Fundamentally, the way of the old Resident Evil games was that you would find hardly any ammo, and the controls were horrible, leaving you totally horrified and vulnerable whenever zombies came at you. It really worked well and allowed for a lot of strategic gameplay, but it makes it hard to play those games in this day and age, based on how smooth controls have come. Resident Evil 4 changed everything and added more action and removed a lot of the horror, where you found yourself fighting giants and sea monsters...seriously! However it was universally praised for being an amazing game. The best of 2005 in fact, according to many.

Resident Evil 5, improved the gameplay making it less stressful, but still slightly impaired leaving you feeling claustrophobic at times and made a crucial error in making this game entirely coop. So much so, that if you are playing without a friend, you have a terribly controlled computer partner. This kills all scares completely as you are no longer walking through terror all alone. Because of that complaint this is a genuinely hated game by many...except for me. I love playing games with coop. Especially when it is split screen couch coop. Sure, the horror atmosphere is gone, but this is one of the best coop experiences that I have ever played. It has individual characters who are actually important to the story and it is fully built for it. That is what has made me play through this game so many times. Seriously, I've probably gone through the whole game about 6 times, because various different friends would want to play it with me.

My favorite thing this game had going for it, however, was it's unforgiving, matrix knock-off lead villain. Albert Whiskers...

Errrr... Albert Wesker.

This guy is so cool it's kinda funny. He can kick your ass, and you really don't stand a chance against him, because he keeps injecting himself with viruses to make him half mutated but not fully mutated (cause he's special). This makes him absurdly powerful, and half of the time, from the moment he shows up, you are
 trying to figure out how you could ever beat him. It's amazing to me that Capcom went with the weakness that they did for him, and I think it's flat out comedic gold. See those sunglasses he's wearing? Just kill the lights in the room you fight him in at the end of the game, and he'll walk around looking for you. This gives you a chance to hit him with a rocket launcher from behind. Seriously funny stuff! Kahn's weakness was his thirst for revenge. Wesker's weakness was the need to look super cool.

At this point, it's impossible to talk about Resident Evil 5 without mentioning the whole racism scandal. Let me see if you can figure this out. The game takes place in Africa... where people are being infected with a zombie-like virus on a grand scale. You're a white guy who's the member of a special ops team, who was sent in to stop it... do you see where this is going? I ask you, how could anyone argue with the fact that most of the infected would be black? Especially since a lot of the time, you are stumbling onto infected pockets of them who are more tribal. Don't get me wrong, the other half of the zombies, look like Saddam Hussein stand ins, but no one complained about that.

I figure the only way to get around that is to have your main character be a black person too, and that's what they did. Her name is Sheva, and quite honestly, she's treated very well by the story. You are also helped by an agent named Josh who is a black man. He too is a bad dude who saves you at times. I think the talk of this game being racist, is mostly coming from people who are looking for something to fight about. This is NOT a black person killing simulator!!! There is a really fun and interesting narrative, and quite frankly, I like it a lot more than Resident Evil 4, which I find nearly unplayable because of the left joystick aiming. 

If you like playing games with friends, that feature a storyline, look no further, and try to overlook the fact that it barely feels like Resident Evil 1-3 anymore. It's still a good game, if you can overlook the lack of being able to move and shoot at the same time.

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 (PS3/X360/Wii, 2010)

DISCLAIMER: I go off track a lot on this one and rant about a lot of things that piss me off that you may not particularly agree with. Feel free to tell me how stupid I am in the comments below.

Ok, I really hate Harry Potter. It's really overblown when at the end of the day it's just a children's book that hit a lot of people at a young enough age to give them the nostalgia factor. A lot of things don't hold up under those circumstances when viewed by fresh eyes. Harry Potter is a fantastic example of that, the same can be said of a certain other franchise that Lego has also taken on (not Star Wars obviously). If one thing can be said of this, it is that I was able to play through this whole game, so Lego and Traveller's Tales were at least able to keep it from being as lame as the movies were.

Years back on the PS2 I tried out Lego Batman. If you know me, you know I love Batman, but I didn't love or even like Lego Batman. It is essentially, too much of the same thing over and over again. Jump, walk, regular attack, special attack and that is it, over and over again. These games were something I decided I wouldn't bother with because they were for beginners of the gaming front, and not to sound like a snob, I need a little bit more from my games. However, when my girlfriend mentioned that she would like to try it out, I saw the opportunity to get her playing video games with me. Since we started playing this, I've been jokingly saying that her and I support game marriage. Which is great, because I'm a huge gamelord and this proved to be a successful mission. She enjoyed herself to play other video games with me and because of that, I enjoyed it too, to an extent.

Something occurred to me while playing this. This game is made for young children to play, and yet to my surprise, this game is a glitchy mess. It was honestly offensive. To make a game that suddenly kicks us out to the PS3 main menu while we were in the middle of play, is something I honestly hadn't seen anywhere else. It wasn't uncommon to get stuck in textures and to have the game freeze up. The game was pretty short, and we could only stand to play it for a few hours before stopping. Because of this, for every 1-3 hour play time, we usually had 1-2 freezes or glitches that would make us have to play through a level again or something like that. If you've read my Dark Void review, you'll understand that I am a pretty forgiving person to glitches, because with games as advanced as they are today, it's bound to happen, but for a game that is essentially a PS2 game with barely HD graphics to have even more bugs than normal, it spoke volumes to me about Traveller's Tales just not giving a shit. They made this game for stupid kids who like Harry Potter, "cause they won't know better". That's bullshit, and this is not ok. If this is how they handle their games, I'm sorry I ever bought one, and won't be buying anymore (except for Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, which I have already purchased with this game). On principle, I am not ok with pumping out bullshit for kids, but then again I suppose that is the standard for Harry Potter, isn't it? Harry Potter has more than proven that any story to a kid can be interesting or exciting, and nostalgia can be forever.

A fun experiment for me was that Indiana Jones was a series I somehow never saw as a kid. So when I finally went to watch them for the first time a few years ago, with no nostalgia at all, I thought Raiders of the Lost Ark was amazing! I then watched Temple of Doom, and thought it was amazingly bad. Then The Last Crusade which I thought was, not too bad, but nothing to write home about. I won't even go into my opinions of the newest one that nuked the fridge. The result of the no nostalgia factor has lead me to thinking that there is one good Indiana Jones movie, and the rest I could do without. Star Wars has never seemed to have that problem. To be good despite nostalgia is a sign of greatness (and no one needs to explain to me that Power Rangers is not a great show as I am aware that it's total nostalgia for me, but I'm not so jaded that I think it's the best thing ever).

I keep getting side tracked on this, but couldn't be happier that HP is done, and hopefully won't be having any more milking done with it anytime soon. If it does find a way to return, I wouldn't be surprised if the hardcore nostalgic fans of HP don't like it at all, because the nostalgia won't be there. As for this game, it blows, it's not worth the glitches as the gameplay isn't good and the storyline only excels when it's making fun of the source material (which it seems to be doing often). It has inspired me to play better coop games with my friend. We love sitting around playing with our joysticks like the gamelords that we are!

If you disagree with what I've said, tell me I'm wrong. I want to know other people's thoughts. I'm aware that my opinions aren't popular, but if Michael Bay's Transformer movies keep being "popular", then that's the last thing I want to be.

inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood (PS3, 2011)

inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood is a PSN title that to me seems like it was initially an inFAMOUS 2 expansion. In fact, they still refer to it as an expansion, but it doesn't actually expand anything and is downloaded and played like a separate game. Anyway, those details are irrelevant. I enjoyed inFAMOUS 2 a lot and decided, I should get this game as it was criminally cheap at the price of $7.99. Somehow, though, even at 7.99, I felt short changed.

The story this time around doesn't seem to connect with the actual story. It seems like it's a fun Halloween adventure set in an else worlds setting. Zeke is in a pub trying to pick up a girl, and he explains that one time he had to save Cole, the hero of New Marais. The girl is intrigued to here his story, and as he starts telling it, you start playing it. It's pretty cool in that respect, especially since it's such a bizarre ass story. Cole is saving people who got stuck in a catacomb....for some reason. When he gets captured by vampires... Uhh... what? Did I say vampires? Oddly, yes I did. They then drain some of Cole's blood into a coffin to resurrect Bloody Mary. Seriously, that is the plot of this game. Cole get's blood rage and starts having to drain people to keep powered up.

The only real point of this game is that Cole's powers change. Sure he still shoots lightening, but now he gets vampire senses (cause they turned him into one) and he can turn into a swarm of bats and fly across the city (this is a great addition). He has to kill Bloody Mary before sunrise or else he will be stuck as a vampire. This works out, because doing everything there is to do in this entire game takes about 3-4 hours.

Don't get me wrong, from a game design perspective, this is a very solid game. Just when the ending comes to be, you are left wondering what the point of the whole thing is. It has it's moments of charm, but the karma system isn't there, and the only side missions in the game are those frustrating user generated missions, where I would say lies the weakest points of the whole inFAMOUS series.

From an ethical perspective, I can't say that it's ok to make a super short 2 hour game and allow users to pad it out with their user generated content. Sucker Punch is a better studio than this and I feel like this was a cash grab in the most obvious of ways.

I don't recommend this game, unless it finds it's way down to 2.99 or something. Then it's a good very short time killer that let's you try out some fun vampire powers.

Man-Bat...seriously!

inFAMOUS 2 (PS3, 2011)

I need to be up front about this review right from the start. I loved the first inFAMOUS. It's fun to feel so powerful and hover down from rooftops to bust criminals. The simple mechanic of absorbing electricity from anything that had it to replenish your strength made you seem like a battery with limited resources. This allowed moments of dread when you walked somewhere where the power was turned off, and honestly makes you seem more badass for moving forward regardless.

I have played many games since I played 2009's instant classic, and I didn't quite remember various things about the story, but inFAMOUS 2 came along and reminded me of the story up to this point. It manages to walk a fine line by not being hung up on what has happened in the past, but not ever forgetting about it. Every now and again it will have a casual line in the dialogue that shows that the characters are still effected by the events of Empire City, but the big action of inFAMOUS 2 starts right in the opening seconds when you realize, that stuff before was nothing compared to the stuff now.

I need to get this out of the way too. Cole, our main character, has since had a change of  voice actor, and this is actually an improvement. Before it was a standard growly voice, but now it's a very unique voice that perfectly fits his face and has a lot of personality.

Where this game excels is definitely in being different than other games, and only now can I say that it has become a completely unique thing. In inFAMOUS, you had great combat mechanics, amazing powers and brilliant climbing, pared with a cool story that allows decision making. inFAMOUS 2 looked at the formula and said, "let's make what was good better, and give it all a whole new style that no one has seen in a game before." Simple things changed, like the location, from Empire City to New Marais (or New York to New Orleans) allow for beautiful scenery with swamps and bayous as well as beautifully designed New Orleans style buildings. Throw in some of the most original and incredible music from a more jazz and blues background and it changes the feel completely.

The story itself starts off shortly after inFAMOUS' ending where Cole defeats his alternate future self who came back to make sure Cole was ready with his powers in time to deal with "The Beast". Since then he has found a scientist from New Marais who can help him grow his powers so that he'll be ready for whatever this beast is. As he is getting on the boat to go to this scientist, the beast shows up and starts destroying Empire City. This whole first mission finds you flat out facing the beast in all out mortal combat, and draining most of your power just blowing him away. In the end, you find yourself nearly dead. Eventually Cole wakes up on the boat going to New Marais with the discovery that The Beast has just reformed himself and destroyed Empire City. A wave of destruction is moving down the east coast of the U.S. from Empire City to New Marais and no one can stop it. This game is about getting ready for when The Beast arrives.

This is not The Beast. The Beast would mess this thing up!

This whole game has a whole sense of dread to it, as you've seen how powerful this adversary is, and you keep hearing the news refer to it as a force of nature that is wiping out cities by the day. These places literally vanish with no one able to report it, so the government doesn't even know what is happening. On top of that, a plague has begun to spring across the country killing hundreds of thousands. That is a lot on your shoulders! It doesn't help that when New Marais flooded, it was taken over by a militia that was lead by a power hungry tyrant named Bertrand, who just has to be a superhuman himself. The whole story just glows as an awesome superhero story!

Another fun thing is that this time around, if you play the game as a good guy or a bad guy really does matter. In the past games have had certain things change depending on how good or bad you've played before it, but this game really has to take the cake with how big the difference is. I advise two playthroughs just to see how amazingly different the final missions are as well as the endings.

When Uncharted 2 came out, it changed gaming in a big way. Now people are really looking for honest to goodness characters. inFAMOUS 2 has learned from it too in a big way. The interaction between Cole and his best friend Zeke (who has to make up for some big mistakes from the first game), is at least as good as that between Nathan Drake and Sully. There is a mission that requires you to go hang out with Zeke and just watch a western on TV and drink some beers. It may sound dull, but it's played as hilarious as possible and this is what I feel games need more of. Make me care for these characters and I'll put more of myself into trying to do what's best for them.

There isn't much that is negative to say about this game. I'm even pretty fond of the user generated content that is added on, though I'm not entirely convinced that it really is needed for this game. Essentially that feature allows people to make their own missions for other people to play. Sometimes they are amazingly fun and other times they are so incredibly terrible that it's just depressing.

Overall, the missions do tend to eventually be a bit on the repetitive side, but I like it a lot. Both endings are great, but the good ending is perfect, and I'm very excited to see if there will be an inFAMOUS 3 as, I have no idea how you move on with either of these crazy different endings.