Feeling The Fury - Rob's Blog

"Chronicle" is the kind of film that explains why I love superheroes so much

2012-02-12T20:39:00.003Z

"Chronicle" is one of those films that owes its existence to some kind of freak miracle. It has no big stars, it's not based on any particular source material, but it has some of the most spectacular visuals I have ever seen in a motion picture about people with superpowers. But far more importantly than that, it's not a simple story about heroes versus villains. It's the story of a bunch of normal teenagers who get superpowers and what happens next.

Unlike most films like this though, the characters never go through any transition into the dashing world of capes and superheroism. Instead, they just sort of have fun with their powers for a while. Sure, everything goes wrong later on, but the sheer wonderment of what it would be like to have these powers, and examining all of the fun everyday things you could do with them, is what sets it apart from other 'superhero' films (I hasten to use that word though, because its arguable that there aren't any heroes in this film, in the traditional sense). It's the sort of thing I'd spend hours considering while playing around as a child.

The characters obtain the power of telekinesis from a mysterious alien artifact and throughout the course of the film, the intricacies of that one simple ability are explored. They can move objects with their mind, form shields around their bodies to make their skin impervious to harm, and (best of all), they can fly by pushing and pulling themselves into the air with the force of their power. The film follows a fairly strict pseudo-science though, in so far as the powers exist within the boundaries of the other real-life factors that would play into their use. For example, the guys can fly, but because it's so cold above the clouds, they have to wear heavy coats and gloves. One quick note about the flying in this film is that it is far and away the greatest flying scenes realised in a motion picture. The characters aren't just seen taking off, landing and lying in front of a blue screen (like in the Superman movies), they're seen ducking, rolling, hovering and dancing gracefully through the clouds. It's absolutely breath-taking and it never, ever looks like CGI fakery. You will believe a man can fly.

The film's plot deals with the interesting ramifications of how power can corrupt and unfortunately, the lead character Andrew eventually adopts the belief that as his power is greater and exceeds that of normal humans, that they are below him; he goes on a rampage (resulting in the greatest superhero/villain fight since Superman II). It's just a really convincing deterioration that makes complete sense in the context of how this sort of thing would happen to a person as socially and emotionally broken as Andrew Detmer.

The film's not perfect and some of the young actors aren't necessarily the most gifted actors. Sometimes the screenplay has slightly shaky dialogue as well as certain lines that border too close to hipster pretentiousness. Finally, some people might be a tad offended by the film's use of 'found footage'. The entire film is shown to use through the lens of cameras either wielded by the actual characters, or security cameras in the background. This is mostly explained by Andrew's desire to record everything that goes on in his life (followed by his desire to 'chronicle' the entire use of their newfound powers), but like a lot of mockumentary sitcoms (The Office, Modern Family, etc), some of the explanations given for the presence of a camera are a bit far-fetched.

Ultimately though, on a very personal level, "Chronicle" is an immensely satisfying film that fully realises hours of childhood musing about what having superpowers would really be like. The film is probably best described not as a 'superhero film' but rather a 'superpowers film' and it's an excellent one at that.

Trailer Wars: The Avengers -v- The Amazing Spider-Man

2012-02-11T18:56:00.000Z

During the recent Super Bowl (which surprisingly has nothing to do with any kind of crimefighting cereal), they showed a trailer for The Avengers and frankly, I think it's the first time the film has looked truly top-notch, as though it might actually live up to the impossible expectations people have.

It's interesting that the filmmakers have decided to go with what seems to be an alien invasion, particularly given the fairly down-to-Earth nature of most of the films (minus Thor). I just hope that the aliens have a presence that amounts to more than just providing the Avengers an appropriate amount of thugs for them to bash; given that they have an actual God and a green behemoth at their disposal, there would have to be a large amount of grunts for it to be fun on a superficial level. Nobody wants to see a movie where the Avengers have to use their mind to THINK of a way to defeat one big villain, for two hours. We want to see them pound some skulls. And what rhymes with skull?

For decades, the Skrulls have been the go-to alien army antagonist of the entire Marvel Universe. Given their shape-shifting abilities, they've also been incredibly useful at explaining away character deaths as well as giving writers the ability to instantly redeem characters who have seemingly gone rogue. If it is the Skrulls, we're probably going to see some kind of altercation between what would appear to be two of the Avengers, but later turns out to just be a mean old alien in disguise. ORIGINALITY!!

The other big trailer this week was for The Amazing Spider-Man, which also succeeded in making its film look interesting for the first time, pretty much ever.

Despite the fact that I still really don't dig Spider-Man's new threads (by which I mean his new suit; not his webs), I think this is shaping up to be a better film than what I had initially expected. Visually, I find Spider-Man's mechanical webshooters (which is the most immediately recognisable difference from the other movies, where web-slinging was actually one of his powers), really cool. It's awesome the way they light up every time I use them, even if that might be the greatest example of toyeticism (putting stuff in a movie so that you can sell toys based on them) in recent times. Andrew Garfield looks like he's going to be a really good Peter Parker and is already more in line with the Peter with whom I'm familiar from reading the comics for so many years. The only complaint I'd have about him is that he's far too pretty to be credible as a social outcast. However, in a lot of early Spider-Man, Pete is described to be quite good-looking, it's just that he's so removed from everything that's going on around him (because he's so busy worrying about his life as Spider-Man and his poorly Aunt May) that nobody has any time for him.

The only thing I'm not interested in, where the new Spidey is concerned, is the whole plot regarding the Lizard . He's one of the least interesting Spider-Man villains and he generally works better as an ally, or as a sub-plot than a real villain. I'm interested to see how Rhys Ifans approaches the character, but it will always remain a sore-spot that the actor from the Sam Raimi movies, Dylan Baker (he appeared in all three) never actually got to play him transforming into his villainous antithesis.

If I had to choose my favourite of the two trailers, I would probably go with the Spider-Man one, as it has completely revitalised my interest in the film; whereas I was always casually excited about The Avengers. Either way, I'm glad these movies seemed to be saving their best trailers for later on in their promotional run, as the earlier glimpses we got at the movies weren't nearly as enticing as these latest tastes.

The Last Straw: To All Employers Who Haven't Hired Me Yet

2012-02-10T22:17:00.001Z

Recently, I had yet another interview, which seemed like it was going quite well at the time and was ultimately unsuccessful due to there being another candidate "more experienced". Needless to say, this was an unpaid internship. They were more experienced at not getting paid?!

Unacceptable. I've had enough of this.

In the increasingly-likely scenario (no, seriously) that there is someone from any infinitesimally tiny strand of the greater media-industry spider's web reading this, I shall state the following:

My name is Rob Ó Conchúir; I'm a qualified journalist, a hard-worker and a very nice guy. Unlike a lot of journalism students, I have niche interests that nobody else has, I have succeeded and flourished in tasks and challenges that have beaten greater men than I, I also speak Irish fluently (oh yeah, I've also got a degree in that too), I've been published officially, properly in print, and I've got actual, programme-dependant studio production experience that I can GUARANTEE most of your other applicants do not have.

If you still don't believe me, read over my blog. It's rough in parts, but it's also highly entertaining, more so than a lot of people realise. If there's nothing here that appeals to you yet, stay tuned, because every day, for the next 30 days, I will have something significant, thought-provoking (or at the very least entertaining) lining this website, come Hell, high water or Hallmark Holidays.

There'll also be video content, and possibly a podcast as well, because I've got a pretty voice. The bottom line is, you need me, more than you realise. I will scrape the bottom of your shoe with my nose even as I put on the most embarrassing polyester drag-queen dress from the 1980s, just so I can go and buy you an over-priced multi-national conglomerate latte; if you will just give me a chance to prove myself.

No seriously, I'm not joking. My name is Rob Ó Conchúir, I can do anything, and I'm your man.

Now give me a job.

Why I'm actually REALLY excited about the "Smallville Season 11" Comic

2012-02-09T15:39:00.000Z

Last year, I spoke a lot about Smallville being in its final season. For ten long years I followed the interesting ups and the jaw-dropping downs of that TV show as it stumbled through a retelling of Clark Kent's ascension into superheroism, ultimately culminating in a very silly finale.

Well, this morning DC announced that they're continuing that particular universe of stories with a comic book that will act as a "Season 11" of the show. A lot of fans correctly see this as being kind of pointless. The whole point of Smallville is to act as a precursor to the story of Superman; surely a story where Clark is Superman is just a regular comic book? That's all well and good, certainly, but I think they're missing the point.

This show is certainly the wackiest, most bizarre Superman TV show ever (and that's really saying something). It started off respectably enough, only to sort of morph into a "Diet Superman" show where everything in the DC Universe and pretty much every conceivable story twist (however insanely illogical) was fair game, as long as Clark didn't put on the red cape. A lot of people felt cheated in the final episode when Lex Luthor had the sum total of memory from his entire life completely wiped, just so he wouldn't know Clark was Superman. Not to mention, we were never given a concise reason as to how all of those people who had seen Clark throughout the years as a handsome, courageous young man who didn't wear glasses and seemed to always be solving crimes, suddenly didn't suspect that this identical-looking man flying around Metropolis in a red cape was blatantly Mr. Kent.

The series just got so completely bonkers in its later years that it became wonderfully self-parodical. Unfortunately, on top of its ruthlessly lazy storytelling, it was hampered by budgetary restrictions and the ever-annoying inability to show Clark actually wearing the Superman costume. They tried to get around this by giving him the new identity of "The Red Blue Blur" followed by just "The Blur" when he got a darker costume; (and to be honest this actually made sense in a crazy sort of way), but they could never really get around the fact that they had no money to give us the epic stories we deserved.

So why am I looking forward to this comic book?

Because here, there's no budget, no TV executives, no filler episodes; only the writer and artist's imagination. Here, Clark is finally, fully, absolutely SUPERMAN in all of his glory. But best of all, given that this isn't going to be a comic that ties into the core DC Universe, writer Bryan Q. Miller (who wrote some of the most wonderfully zany episodes of the show, as well as some great comics) can pretty much do whatever the Hell he likes and get away with it. "Smallville" the TV show is over and this comic isn't trying to tie-in to the regular DC Comics universe. It's got an almost-guaranteed audience in the fanbase of the bizarre show, so why not just have some fun? "Smallville Season 11" could work out to be a great no-holds-barred Superman book that could make fun of the show while trying to resolve some of the nonsensical, unresolvable plot-holes they left us with (Lex's amnesia, Clark's obvious identity). They could even make fun of DC Comics in general, what with all of the revamping and rehashing of old ideas they've been guilty of, of late (eagle-eyed readers will note that in the picture at the top, Clark's not wearing the Superman Returns costume he wore in the finale; he's wearing his New 52 regalia; another story-opportunity!).

There's just so much potential for light-hearted glory with this book, given all of the daft story problems Miller is going to have to deal with. The great thing is that given the short-lifespan that this book is most likely to have (I supremely doubt it will still be on the shelves in the promotional run-up to the new Superman movie - which stars a different Superman actor), it can go in any direction it likes with its characters, possibly even developing them in ways contrary to anything that's been done with them before.

For once, there's no status quo that needs to be adhered to, all bets are off. Because really...what sacred cow could this book possibly slaughter that the TV show Smallville hasn't already mutilated, doused in ammonia and sold to Malaysian McDonalds outlets?

And on a slightly more serious note, it will be genuinely awesome to finally, (almost) properly see Tom Welling (sort of) wearing the Superman suit. That alone is worth the price of the first issue.

One more post about Arkham City: DLC Roundup

2012-01-30T19:57:00.003Z

Even though the Internet at large is pretty much finished talking about 'Batman: Arkham City' and have moved on to other gaming pastures (Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 pre-release discussion, playing outside, etc) it should come as no surprise to anyone that it still plays an important role in my day-to-day life and that I still spend a lot of time thinking about it (particularly in light of my previous review, which perhaps had too much of an unintentionally negative slant to it).

It's certainly the best Batman game ever made, and honestly while there were some awesome elements in 'Arkham Asylum' that were sadly omitted in its sequel (most notably the 'cinematic' look of the original, the camera was in a lot closer for the fights), I think 'City' comes closer to what I've always wanted from a Batman game. Mostly because of the player's ability to freakin' roam around an open-world Gotham (sort of) and has tons of familiar locations from the mythology.

But aside from that, there's the plethora of downloadable extra-content available for the game.

Frankly, DLC is a very new thing to me. As a tightly-budgeted student, it always took an extra effort to buy games at all, let alone shelling out more money for additional features. And honestly, outside of content for games like GTA (which became available on a separate disc later on, anyway) most DLC seemed incredibly hokey and over-priced. Not to mention that seeing as I didn't have my own credit card, it was just too much effort to go through the hassle of borrowing the money from my father and paying him back.

Well, needless to say I have my own credit card now (to be more specific, it's one of those "Why haven't these always been available?" Visa debit-card dohickey gadgets) and I've been purchasing just a LITTLE bit more DLC for my games. First and foremost though, has been for Arkham City.

Wisely taking note of the massively-positive fan reaction to 'Arkham Asylum', WB Interactive made the wise economic decision to stretch out the extras for their next Batman hit, by making players pay for almost half a dozen challenge maps (mostly in separate packages) as well as two additional playable characters. In fact, if you bought the game second-hand, you even had to pay to download Catwoman (who forms a significant, but not entirely compulsory portion of the game's story). Some people saw this as a bit of an excessively shrewd dick-move on the part of WB. Certainly, it wasn't very convenient for people who bought the game second-hand, but I just see it as a clever marketing technique.

Anyway, let's take a look at the different downloadable content available for the game. First and foremost, there's the "Iceberg Lounge VIP Room".

Like the free "Totally Insane" map for 'Arkham Asylum', this map is basically a non-stop combat-survival environment, where endless waves of enemies attack Batman, until the player is defeated. While the concept sounds monotonous (and probably looks it, to people who aren't actually playing), it's hopelessly addictive and it's not until you really start racking up a high score that you begin to realise just how innovative, amazing and utterly Batman-like the combat system really is. There's really nothing quite like racking up an x400 combo while you play Hans Zimmer's 'The Dark Knight' soundtrack in the background.

"The Joker's Carnival" is a similar map, but it develops and expands on the original idea of unlimited waves of enemies attacking you. In this map, there's a time-limit and a level-up system. When you defeat a set number of enemies without being hit, you level up and a new, more advanced wave of enemies attack you (basic thugs, followed by armoured thugs, followed by mystical ninjas, followed by one-armed scythe-wielding behemoths, followed by Titan monsters). Every time you level up, there's a set of bonus points that you can 'bank' (think "The Weakest Link"). When you 'bank' points, they're added to your overall score and you go back to Level 0. If you don't bank the points and you get hit, then you go back to 0 and the points are wasted. It's a lot less complicated than it sounds and it really adds to the enjoyment of a 'survival' mode when you can get more points in less time and the enemies get more advanced. The best part is that if you rack up an x100 combo (which is easy enough if you've played the combat challenges for a decent amount of time), the Joker himself jumps into the ring.

Other downloadable combat challenges include "Wayne Manor Armory" and "Freight Train Chase" that come exclusively with the Nightwing and Robin bundle packs, respectively. Wayne Manor is just another basic three-round combat set-up and while the environment is really nice and the enemies are decently realised, it's not really any more impressive than any of the combat challenges that come with the game. "Freight Train" is one of the most peculiar and interesting maps available for the game. Instead of the basic 360" third-person view, it takes the form of a side-scroller, with 3-D characters. It involves your character running from left to right to get to the end of the train and disable a bomb, all the while dealing with waves of enemies. It's an interesting idea, but it ultimately fails, as you have to contend with a camera that isn't fast enough to keep up with you, making it extremely difficult to get a Perfect score.

Among the downloadable Stealth Predator maps, there's "Wayne Manor Main Hall", "Black Mask" and "The Batcave". Of these three, Wayne Manor is my favourite, as it's full of interesting little hidden entrances and destructible walls and all kinds of funny little things Bruce Wayne's house would have in case of emergency. "Black Mask" is fun, but no different from any of the other Predator Maps. "The Batcave" was always going to be a disappointment, as it didn't include as many familiar elements as people hoped (where's the giant penny?) and it would have been more fun to roam through the cave at your leisure, rather than have to deal with irritating villains. It's a bit of fun though and it's nice that it's considered to be a training exercise and not a real mission.

As far as the downloadable characters go, they're all a lot of fun and they're a great inclusion to the game. It's a pity that you can't play as Robin or Nightwing in the main city section of the game and not simply the challenge maps, but that's always a possibility for a future update to the game. And at least you can play as Catwoman. As far as combat goes, Nightwing is probably the most effective of the new characters as he's incredibly fast and really easy to get to grips with. Personally, I've really gotten used to Robin though and I feel his smooth-handling is most similar to Batman's (who remains my favourite combatist in the game). Catwoman is fun to play as and her combat is probably the most unique of all the characters. She's definitely the weakest character of the lot though and sometimes it's harder to string combos together with her as she can be a bit more unresponsive than the other, more agile characters. It's fun playing as a woman for a change though.

The other most significant downloadable contents is the assortment of alternate skins available for the characters. Robin and Catwoman both get two skins, Nightwing gets one. Batman gets a whopping eight, including one that was released entirely free, as a thank you to all of the fan support.

Additional skins have ALWAYS been the cherry on top as far as superhero games go, particularly for long-time fans like myself. When you follow these characters for years, you tend to see them incorporate different visual motifs that end up tugging different heart-strings. So it's a delight to be able to celebrate as many of them as possible when you're embarking on simulations such as these. Most fans will agree that even the worst superhero games have been slightly bettered by the simple inclusion of a few extra outfits ("It's just like getting new clothes!" as my girlfriend so wonderfully put it) and when they're added to exemplary games like the Arkham series, it just makes a perfect thing even better.

I won't go into detail regarding all of the skins, but I will say that I think it's just terrific that the developers went to the trouble of putting skins in the game that resemble the Animated Series counterparts of all the characters. Admittedly, Robin's is a bit jarring-looking (his head is HUGE), it's a shame Nightwing's mullet was omitted and I don't think it was a good idea to cel-shade the outline around the Animated skins; but I think they're a great addition and it really feels like you're playing through an episode of the Animated Series, when you're using one of these skins; especially as Batman with Animated veteran Kevin Conroy's voice!

Other skins I really like include the excellent Batman Beyond skin (with pop-out wings instead of a cape, just like on the show!), both Frank Miller skins (Year One and Dark Knight Returns) and the aforementioned Free Batman Inc. skin. The Batman Inc. skin fits the look of the game the best and it's a much better use of Batman's alternate logo (with the yellow disc encompassing the bat emblem) than any of the other skins that feature it.

As for the other characters, I think the Red Robin skin is outstanding as is the Long Halloween Catwoman. Nightwing only gets an Animated skin, but I love his default skin so much that I don't really mind that there are no decent extra skins.

The only glaring omission where all of these extra skins are concerned is the oft-mentioned, conspicuous lack of any costumes from the Batman movies. It seems odd that there should be issues concerning rights to different 'looks' of Batman, when Warner Bros. own everything to do with Batman lock, stock and barrel. Personally, I'd go as far as to say that I'd be willing to pay €50 (the price of the actual game itself), if it meant we could get movie-skins for all of the characters. There's just so much potential there, between the various 'looks' Batman has had in the movies (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney and Bale have all had two Batsuits each and you're going to have to FIND me a Batfan who does not want to play as a pot-bellied Adam West), not to mention Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer, Julie Newmar, even Halle Berry), Robin (Burt Ward, Chris O'Donnell) and even, technically Nightwing (Robin's costume in "Batman & Robin" was basically a Nightwing costume and it was also the best thing about that stupid movie). While I'm happy enough with all of the costumes as is, a "Movie Pack" would bring the game to dizzying new heights of awesome and I for one would be more than willing to pay top dollar for it. Hopefully WB have something like this planned in time for the release of "The Dark Knight Rises" (particularly as there does not appear to be any tie-in game planned).

So once again, in case you didn't already know, "Batman: Arkham City" is compulsory for any fans who have ever wondered what it would be like to BE Batman. It's one of the most gripping and satisfying experiences I have ever had in nearly a decade of gaming and a lifetime of following the daring exploits of the Dark Knight. While it stumbles a bit where the story is concerned, it never ceases to amaze with its innovative, intuitive gameplay style and systems. I've never played a superhero game as thorough as it and I just hope the best is still yet to come.

P.S.: As far as the DLC goes, if you haven't downloaded any of it since you bought the game and you want to get it all in one go, you can download the DLC Mega Pack (it's called something along those lines) for the very reasonable 1,500 points on Xbox Live, which in real-life terms, comes to about a tenner. Given the hours of enjoyment you'll get out of "Iceberg Lounge" and "Joker's Carnival" alone, let alone the awesomeness of two additional characters (three if you don't already have Catwoman) AND the spectacle of the extra skins, it's well worth the money.

Bootleg Blogging: "Figures Warrior" is the Greatest Superhero Crossover Movie I've Never Seen

2012-01-28T20:23:00.000Z

While perusing through our fair city today, I happened across this astonishing gem of the action figure world for a meagre €2.

I'm utterly stunned by how completely epic in scope this figure-set is. Based on the image-saturated blister-pack, it seems to tie-in to a movie experience that not only teams up Batman, Spider-Man and Superman (played by Christopher Reeve, as seen next to Spider-Man's left arm) but also a whopping FIVE teams of Power Rangers (meaning that on at least two occasions, a Ranger is teaming up with himself). I find it odd that as such a rabid fan of all of these characters, that I've never heard of this epic movie. To think I was looking forward to something as mundane as "The Avengers" this Summer, not knowing that there had already been a gigantic inter-company crossover movie like "FIGURES WARRIOR: SUPER HERO"!

First off, let's take a look at the two heroes that come as part of this mighty set. First off, there's Batman, who's wearing some sort of 'West Coast Customs Batsuit' (with stylish, albeit utterly pointless decals), who does not appear to be in possession of a cape (perhaps the perilous plot that forced the hand of so many heroes led to the destruction of the Batcave...and all of his capes). Batman has a bizarre three-pronged design on his head, that almost looks like the head-ridges seen on the Klingon race. Perhaps this movie is so epic that it even ties into Star Trek, making this incarnation of the Dark Knight one of Bruce Wayne's half-human, half-Klingon descendants? It would certainly explain his unusually brownish skin-tone. This Batman is cross-eyed and seems to have extremely swollen lips; perhaps a result of the vicious battle which has just taken place?

Next, we have Spider-Man, but just like the not-so-caped crusader, all is not as it seems with our Webbed Wonder. Spider-Man has not one, but two Spider-Insignias on his chest (one for each pec). Perhaps again that this is some sort of descendant of Peter Parker's? Or maybe Peter himself was bitten by a SECOND radioactive spider, enabling him to do whatever two spiders can?! Just like Batman, Spider-Man seems to be appropriately battle-scarred, as the web-decals on his costume are faded and only cover the front part of his body. The blues are tinged with dollops of red throughout, possibly the blood of our relentless hero's enemies.

Both heroes are equipped with self-styled Justice-Bikes with extra stabilisation (they have stabilisers), with their names conveniently scrawled on them numerous different times. Batman even saw fit to draw a picture of the Animated Series version of himself on the side of his bike. Alas, there must have been so many units of this particular set shipped that on occasion the makers forgot to give the heroes their corresponding bikes, for the shop in which I bought this had multiple packs that featured two spider-bikes. The humiliation!

Between the two heroes and their mighty rides are a miniature army of Spider-Men; two black, three red. Perhaps one of this enhanced Spider-Man 2.0's powers include the mystical ability to duplicate himself into minimen?

Both heroes feature Crime-Stopping Chestlights to light the darkest corners of this Hellish new world wherein the Figures Warrior fight their epic battles.

The bottom of the pack promises that there are indeed "More items available" and that they have "Superior Performance". This has left me scratching my head. Does this mean there's a TWENTY-FOUR-FIGURES WARRIOR SET comprising the entire collection of Power Rangers and Christopher Reeve Superman? And that they have even more mystical, exclusive powers and costumes? If so, point me in the right direction to where I can buy this essential collection! I won't rest until my FIGURES WARRIOR: SUPER-HERO collection is complete!

A movie-screencap from "Figures Warrior: Super Hero"

I also really want to see the film that this action figure line seems to be based on. I'm stunned that they somehow managed to get Christopher Reeve to return for a fifth outing as Superman. I'm even a bit confused, as Reeve had long since broken his back and become paralysed from the neck down by the time the first Spider-Man movie came out, not to mention by the time most of the series of Power Rangers on display came on air. Perhaps they just stock footage from the many deleted scenes from "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"? Also, why did the producers choose to go with George Clooney as Batman when "Batman & Robin" polarised audiences so completely? Perhaps the unusual blend of Power Rangers and Superman, coupled with Clooney's ill-advised return was what led to this movie tanking at the box-office and never being mentioned ever again? Either way, I really want to see it and will pay top-dollar for the DVD.

Seen above are Batman and Spider-Man, riding their mighty Justice-Bikes (as best they can) enroute to the next perilous Figures Warrior mission.

Why everyone who owns a television should watch "Sherlock"

2012-01-18T16:20:00.005Z

Yes, I know, I haven't been around in a while. Between work, my birthday, Christmas as well as all of the wealth of interesting bits and bobs that I acquired for my birthday and for Christmas, not to mention my weekly writing duties for the Superman Homepage, I've let "Feeling the Fury" slip out from under me. I never even got around to fixing the new logo. I'm going to try and focus on posting something every Wednesday, as I had originally planned to do.

Anyway, let's get to the reason we're all here.

"Sherlock" is one of the best products of television entertainment I've ever seen.

To give you a bit of background, I wouldn't consider myself much of a "Sherlockian". I've read exactly one of the novels, none of the short stories (even though I have a complete collection up in my room) and with the exception of bits and pieces of the older Basil Rathbone films, the only Sherlock Holmes films I've seen are the only-okay Robert Downey Jr. films and the hilarious Asylum Films mockbuster rip-off where Holmes fights a robotic dinosaur (I have also seen "Basil: The Great Mouse Detective", like a million times; does that count?). At the same time though, as Holmes has held an unusually comfortable spot in the public domain (and has thus been referenced and included in countless types of other stories across multiple generations of popular culture) for the past hundred years or so, I'm fairly up to speed on the various trappings of his stories: private/consulting detective, deerstalker, magnifying glass, Watson, Baker Street, Victorian London, Moriarty.

This is all anyone needs to enjoy "Sherlock", BBC's fabulous reinvention of The World's Greatest Detective (sorry Bruce).

The intention of the show was to resurrect the original intention of the stories: to tell great detective mysteries starring an intriguing anti-hero. Most of us know that while Sherlock Holmes is certainly still joined at the hip with the term "detective story" it's also fair to say that at the sound of his name, we immediately conjure up images of a foggy London lit only by the murky glow of gaslight; the sounds of the clip-clop of horses pulling carriages on the cobblestone roads. The legend of Holmes has been unintentionally bogged down by the bygone era in which his adventures take place. And that's where "Sherlock" comes in. Where Conan Doyle's original stories were set in the troubled, cynical time of the 19th century, BBC's "Sherlock" is situated in the identically troubled, cynical era of the 21st century, gloriously fetishising all that makes modern life so much fun (smartphones, the Internet, shiny buildings, mp3 players, the insanity of the media, etc).

But simply pointing out the environment of the series doesn't really do it justice. It adds to the atmosphere that "Sherlock" lives somewhere we can actually believe in, but what of the man himself? The delightfully-named Benedict Cumberbatch (the fact that he has such an elegant name actually gives plausibility to the concept of someone being named 'Sherlock Holmes' in the 21st century) breathes new life into the sleuth, resurrecting all of his classic mannerisms, with a more appropriately relevant manner of speech. Cumberbatch's Sherlock is an incredibly difficult individual to put up with, as he (quite correctly) believes himself to be above and beyond all of the 'idiots' with whom he associates (even his closest friends and allies). One of the show's trademarks is how it presents us with Sherlock's unique brand of "Detective Vision" by stylishly popping text up on the screen so that we the viewers have some understanding of the web-like spasms of deduction that are bouncing around Holmes' mind. Cumberbatch is second-to-none and delivering lengthy conclusions and deductions at lightning-fast speed to the other characters; for a lesser-actor it would mean death-on-arrival for their career, as the speeches could potentially come across as boring exposition. In the hands of Cumberbatch, nothing isn't interesting; nothing isn't relevant to the case.

Possibly my favourite element of Cumberbatch's Holmes are his scolding remarks. In the first episode "A Study in Pink" (a loose update of the very first Holmes story; the one I actually did read the whole way through, "A Study in Scarlet"), while trying to deduce a killer's location, Sherlock shouts at everyone to stop moving and stop thinking, so that he can think. What really gets me though, is when he sick-burns forensic scientist Anderson (who hates Sherlock), asking him to turn around and face the wall.

While Cumberbatch is a grand, delightful, sexy star, beautifully English and thoroughly credible; the show needs a stronger foundation than just its title character. In this regard, Martin Freeman's John Watson is the secret weapon of "Sherlock". As the original comedy sidekick, Watson (like Robin, the Boy Wonder) has always been a bit problematic to portray in any interesting way. He's really only there as a talking-board, off whom Holmes can bounce ideas out loud. Traditionally, he's allowed us the viewers to have someone we can relate to, someone who's mostly clueless to the art of detection and criminology (in the original stories, most of them were actually written as if they were being told by Watson himself). He's the likable everyman, helping the dashing hero. He's Jimmy Olson, he's Rick Jones, he's you or me. At the same time though, Conan Doyle did envision him as something of a romanticised version of you or me. In order to make it remotely credible that Watson would accompany Holmes, he was given a past as an army doctor from Afghanistan.

The "Sherlock" series has expanded upon this idea by making him removed and isolated from everyday life upon his return from the war. Accompanying Sherlock has given him a new lease on life and has returned him to the adventures of war he sorely craves, despite himself. While John (as he is more commonly referred to, in this less-formal incarnation) does certainly provide comic relief, more often than not it's actually at the eccentric Sherlock's expense, rather than the other way around. John is the one who has to key Sherlock in on tact and decency; how to act around people without repelling them completely. A lot of the time, he also has to fill him in on elements of popular culture (Sherlock's never seen a James Bond film, according to John's wonderful meta-fictional blog; Sherlock and Molly have similar sites) and even basic common knowledge like the fact that Earth revolves around the Sun (borrowed from the original stories). John's real, human strength is his total devotion and faith in Sherlock against all odds, even in the face of death.

Just like the viewers, John never stops believing that Sherlock's going to save the day; but thanks to Martin Freeman's excellent, understated performance, we never have any trouble accepting John's alliance with him. If anyone deserves an acting award for "Sherlock", it's Martin Freeman. While Cumberbatch is tremendous at long, complicated, lightning-fast dialogue and wiry, electrified movement; he is still basically chewing big lumps of London scenery in every act. Freeman's performance has to remain quiet and utterly realistic at all times, while the viewers can never forget his military background. Everything in Freeman's performance is beautiful in its subtlety, from the way he moves and holds himself, to the way he restrains his speech at times.

Martin Freeman's earlier role as Tim Canterbury in the original version of "The Office" probably shouldn't go unmentioned, as John and Tim share many common traits. Just like Tim, John is the only recognisably 'normal' person in the crazy world of "Sherlock". Indeed, John Watson almost seems like the kind of man Tim Canterbury always dreamed of being, if he could ever get his act together and escape the dreadful Slough branch of Wernham & Hogg Paper Company. One last thing about Freeman's Watson is that unlike the devilishly sexy Jude Law or the cartoonish Nigel Bruce, Martin Freeman actually looks like the deceptively tough everymen you see on Sky News on the frontlines of Iraq or Afghanistan.

**MINOR SPOILERS (for people who haven't seen the First Series)**

The supporting cast of "Sherlock" are also great; all of them being memorable in their own way. Rupert Graves adds a little bit more competence to Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, who always came across as a complete buffoon in other incarnations. Una Stubbs is Mrs. Hudson, landlady and reluctant housekeeper of the dynamic duo of Sherlock and John, and effortlessly comes across as the kind of progressive, modern-thinking Nana everyone has. "Sherlock" executive producer Mark Gatiss actually plays Sherlock's shady brother Mycroft, leaning from comedic to very serious styles of characterisation. Mycroft's involvement with various branches of the Government both on British shores and abroad is what drives much of the over-arching story of the series (at least in the first two series, anyway). Finally there's Molly Hooper, an original character created for the series, played by Loo Brealey. Molly is the long-suffering, dreadfully sweet young girl who works at the morgue at St. Barts' Hospital and whose schoolgirl weakness for Baker St. detectives allows Sherlock to use her place of work as he sees fit. In a lesser programme, a character such as this would be used and abused as a throwaway plot device; however Molly is developed beautifully throughout the two sets of three stories.

Finally, there's Andrew Scott as Moriarty, the one point of contention for viewers, where the cast is concerned. Truthfully, I can see why people aren't enamoured with him, but I view him as an acquired taste. I might be wrong, but I believe Scott is the only actor to have played Moriarty who has actually been Irish. Not only this, but in "Sherlock" he is given the manner of a cocky, pompous young brat who stinks of money, privilege and excessive intelligence, the likes of which I encountered so many times as I grew up. For some people, he comes across as hammy, but for me, he never ceases to be sinister and always gives off creepy vibes of total insanity.

**END OF SPOILERS**

If there is anything I could possibly criticise where the show is concerned, it would only be regarding the actual plots of the 90-minute episodes. The first episode "A Study in Pink" had a wonderfully exciting, pulpy plot to it that was plausible, easy enough to follow and connected well with the other episodes. "The Blind Banker" however, was a lot weaker, much more convoluted and had a rushed feeling about it. The first series finished off with "The Great Game" which brought back the first episode's excellence and reminded us why this was such a high-quality series.

The second series has been a triumph from beginning to end. I liken the step-up in scope between the first and second series as similar to "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight". Like "Begins", the first series of "Sherlock" was a fun, character-driven adventure story that had us cheering the whole way through, certain that the heroes would emerge victorious. Series 2 of "Sherlock" was more epic in scope, with far grander villainous plots, greater stakes and a far lesser certainty that everything was going to turn out okay for Sherlock and John. I don't want to give too much away, but the finale "The Reichenbach Fall" was very similar both in story and tone to "The Dark Knight". Like "The Blind Banker" the only episode of the second series that could be regarded as 'filler' was once again the second episode, but luckily enough, it was an excellent filler episode at that, and a tremendous update of the most well-known Holmes story "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (renamed here as "The Hounds of Baskerville").

For me, the most frustrating aspect of "Sherlock" has got nothing to do with the actual series or its level of quality. It's got more to do with the fact that it exists at a time when another, very different version of Sherlock Holmes is conquering the silver screen.

Don't get me wrong, Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" films are a fun waste of two-and-half hours and there certainly are worse superhero films (I consider Holmes a superhero, the same way I consider James Bond a superhero, by the way). There's some spectacular action and combat in them and as much as I'd love to at times, it's impossible to dislike Robert Downey Jr. when he's onscreen. Unfortunately, unlike "Sherlock" and other versions of Holmes, Ritchie's movies aren't really detective stories. They're much more based in an adventure format, with fisticuffs and derring-do the main centrepieces; the focus on detective-work is usually only used to advance Holmes and Watson from one explosive setpiece to another, with no real mystery to solve. In a lot of ways, this reminded me of the kind of detective-work that takes place in a Batman story, where the question is rarely "whodunnit" but more "we know the Joker/Riddler/Two-Face/Whoever did it and we have to find them using DETECTIVE WORK". In fact, in the wonderful side-missions of "Arkham City" where Batman is trying to track down the mercenary Deadshot, there's a scene where he finds the remains of a sniper rifle Deadshot used and it's almost identical to a scene in "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" where Holmes tries to track the movements of one of Moriarty's cronies the same way. Again though, they're enjoyable films. It's just very frustrating that millions of people are watching them, and may not even be aware of the vastly superior BBC series. Indeed, I was having a conversation with someone at work recently about how much I enjoyed "Sherlock" for about five minutes and he agreed with me wholeheartedly, adding that it was a wonderful time in the cinema and he couldn't wait to see Robert Downey Jr's next film!

Returning to the topic of "Sherlock" itself, the creators have already announced that the third series is definitely happening, as soon as Cumberbatch and Freeman (who are deservedly on their way to Hollywood fame and fortune as the villain of the new "Star Trek" and the star of "The Hobbit" respectively) are available. Both stars have expressed an eagerness to return for more Baker St. hijinks. I'll be waiting with my hilariously-out-of-place deerstalker and my stylish £1,500 Belstaff coat at the ready.

By the way: Have I mentioned how awesome the music in the show is? It's awesome. Thanks to David "James Bond movies" Arnold for the epic opening theme and the awesome action theme that I have as my ringtone.

Becoming Batman: My Initial thoughts on 'Arkham City'

2011-10-25T14:40:00.000+01:00

So it's now a week and a half since Arkham City was released here in Ireland.

It's safe to say that my anticipation for this game was probably almost as intense as the kind of anticipation I've had for actual Batman movies; such was the extraordinary power of what this game promised. The overwhelmingly positive reviews only served to pump me up even more, as it became abundantly clear that not only was this going to be the greatest superhero game ever, but one of the greatest videogames ever.

So what do I think?

Frankly, the game and the overall experience is outstanding. But the story is completely retarded.

Let's look at what I really, really liked about the game. First and foremost, the combat is back with a vengeance. The last game's combat was incredible and possibly the best combat system I've ever experienced in a videogame. I never felt more like Batman than when I was battering hordes of henchmen with crippling slow-motion moves. This game has a similar policy of not just throwing endless waves of the same kind of enemies at you. Many enemies wear body armour, carry shields or brandish knives or broken bottles at Bamtna, meaning that the player has to think on the move about what the best move is, in order to defeat the enemy, just like Batman does. I do have a few minor complaints in so far as the camera has been pulled back in this outing, so it's arguably not as spectacular. Also, when Batman ranks up enough of a combo, he goes into 'Critical Strike' mode, much like the last game. However, in this game, the screen goes all weird and shimmery when this happens, seemingly to add to the pulse-pounding experience which is severely distracting. In addition to this, streaks of red fly in Batman's wake for some reason; compared to the streaks of black which existed in the previous game.

Ultimately though, the combat is just even better than in the last game. While some of the visceral larger-than-lifeness of the experience might be a little bit dissipated, the actual system itself is greatly improved. Batman can use all of his gadgets in fights now, leading to some really badass moments. It certainly takes a bit of practice, but when you pull it off, it's awesome. The best thing I can possibly say about the combat is that if you were really awesome at fighting in the last game, you will effortlessly carry over and expand your skills even more. It's a perfect 'sequelisation' of the system.

Another awesome aspect of the game is how Batman moves around Arkham City. It was also going to be a problem having the non-superpowered Dark Knight climbing around a free-roaming city where Superman can fly and Spider-Man can swing on webs. This game has come up with a really clever and exciting method, where Batman can combine his grappling gun and his glider-cape to maximise his momentum and soar through the skies, like...well...a bat. If you remember the scene in The Dark Knight set in Hong Kong where Batman infiltrates a heavily-secure building, you'll know what this kind of thing is like. And you use this for the whole game. It's really, really awesome and it's a huge step up from the last game.

Honestly, the gliding alone is almost a reason to buy the game. It's that much fun.

The side-missions are pretty terrific too, and make a lot more use of Batman's detective skills. The Riddler is back and you have to find his Riddler trophies all over the city, as well as solve his sight-gag riddles. Finding Riddler trophies isn't as simple as just going to random spots in the city and picking up a small icon. Often you have to figure out puzzles or use your gadgets to get at the trophy. This can get really frustrating, but it's a good kind of frustration. The fact that I was sitting on the bus yesterday trying to figure out some of his riddles when I wasn't even playing the game speaks volumes about how much this game really makes you feel like you are Batman. I'd go as far as to say that the way these games use the Riddler is possibly the definitive depiction of the character.

One of the main criticisms of the last Arkham game was that in spite of the efforts of Animated Series scribe Paul Dini, the story was really a bit of a let-down. After promising something that seemed like it was going to be something larger-than-life and intensely creepy, the plot basically amounted to Joker turning himself into a monster and threatening to break a few helicopters.

This new game is probably worse in that regard. The story starts off strongly enough, but takes a huge dive in the final few acts, where the final reveal was aggressively predictable, shallow and just lazy. I don't want to completely give anything away, but needless to say, much of of the eerie warnings from Hugo Strange in the trailers leading up to the game ("Tonight...it will end, where it began!") don't even really make any sense. I honestly think that these games would be better off without Paul Dini, after the embarrassing plot of this game. For the first time playing a Batman game, I really wanted to take all of the missions and characters and settings and just structure a different, more imaginative plot than the one used. Luckily, the voice-acting is tremendous, possibly better than the last game and Kevin Conroy is gloriously back on top-form as Batman himself, forever cementing himself as the definitive Dark Knight for all-time. I still can't believe how lucky Batman fans are to have the greatest Batman actor appear in the definitive Batman simulation.

If you can ignore the lazy plot of the game however, I simply can't recommend this game enough. It's a sublime videogame in its own right, but it's just the definitive Batman experience. The game rises above its insistence not to use any of Batman's vehicles and the gliding is so exciting that you end up being grateful that you don't have to drive some car around, when you can do this instead. The combat is elevated to the point of dizzy, dumbfounding brilliance and all of the wonderful stealth and detective elements from the last game are expanded and developed excellently.

Please buy this game.

Guerilla Warfare: Why George Lucas is a sad, spoiled little child

2011-10-18T17:35:00.000+01:00

Pretty much anyone who's ever bothered to come here knows who these guys are.

What a lot of people from my generation don't know is that everytime those guys show up in a new home video release, something is different about them. Since computer-generated imagery began to get more advanced and realistic from the early 1990s onwards, George Lucas has merrily added in dollops of the stuff to the Star Wars films, withholding the original, much-loved theatrical versions from being remastered in any way.

The very first time I saw Star Wars was in the Summer 1997. It was a relatively recent VHS copy (see above) we had rented not knowing that it was any different from the one that had recently been re-released to the cinema. We watched it so much that it we ended up being far overdue in bringing it back and had to pay a whopping late fee, as was often the case with films we really liked.

Admittedly, the first time I saw 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of the Jedi', I did in fact see the newer, CGI-ridden versions of them (I didn't see the theatrical versions until years later, when it was finally, shabbily released to DVD).

What comes to my attention now, as an adult is that not only are a lot of these changes kind of awful in how they end up effecting the characters in the movies, the original Star Wars trilogy remains one of the only extremely popular film franchises I can think of that specifically don't have their absolutely-original versions available with remastered video and sound. The only way you can watch and enjoy the same films that were released in 1977, 1981 and 1983 is if you buy either the original videos or the recent DVDs, that came with completely-untouched versions of the films (which unfortunately meant that they look like they were taped off a video and not remastered at all).

And this is kind of ridiculous.

First and foremost, let's dispel a few myths. George Lucas didn't direct every Star Wars film. He didn't direct Empire Strikes Back (which most people regard as the best in the franchise) or Return of the Jedi. He didn't design many of the characters (including Yoda) and he didn't even write the screenplays for the aforementioned films. He played a very important part in the production of all three in the original trilogy, but the fact remains that he left enough of the work to other people that the films cannot entirely be seen as 'his' to change. Not to mention the fact that hundreds of millions of people loved the versions they went to see in the cinema and were suitably outraged when those versions stopped being readily available to buy on newer home video formats.

As a child of the 90s, I'm inclined to say that the versions with which I most identify are indeed the initial 1997 digitally remastered versions, with the newly inputted extra scenes. There's enough of the original theatrical versions intact and I've become so familiar with some of the changes (like the song in Jabba's palace and the Ewok celebration - both of which are completely different from the original). But at the same time, as a fan of filmmaking in general, reading up on the original versions of the films and how innovative and imaginative they were at the time in terms of special effects; it greatly disturbs me that the originals aren't being preserved and saved for future generations - even if only for future generations of filmmakers.

This image explains it better than I ever could. It's far more interesting to watch the original movies in awe of what Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic were able to create with actual miniature models, make-up designs, camera trickery and the general principle of 'smoke and mirrors' rather than the idea that they just created everything on a computer. Ideas and imagination went into the creation of those special effects, rather than boring old zeroes and ones.

On the subject of that image, its creator was probably referencing the prequels as much as the 'redone' versions of the original trilogy. On the subject of the prequels, all I have to say is that they were what they were: out-of-touch and silly, focused more on selling action figures to younger fans than telling a compelling story. I have no real issue with the excessive CGI in those films, because it doubtless made more sense at that time to make the movies that way, rather than create elaborate soundstages and models. I generally just enjoy the prequels for what they are - inferior but fun additions to the story. Plus, George Lucas and wrote each and every one of them so he has much more right to change things around than before.

It's still annoying that the original version of The Phantom Menace won't be around for future generations, but at the same time, the changes aren't as drastic as in the other films, some of them are even welcome (Jar Jar has a newer, less annoying voice and Yoda's ridiculous model has been replaced with a CGI one) and it's also a pretty awful film so really, who cares?

Ultimately, it's just really sad and unfortunate that Lucas seems to be so ashamed of what were some of the most important fantasy adventure movies ever made. Warts n' all, the original ORIGINAL versions of Star Wars are fascinating pieces of pop art that really draw you into the zeitgeist, as well as transporting you into an alternate universe. With the newer, excessively changed versions of the films, they just become more and more like one of those drawings you started drawing as a kid, only to go back and rub it all out again and again trying to make it even better, only to end up with a mess of scribbles and worn-out paper.

The Dark Knight Lives: A Review of Batman LIVE

2011-10-01T01:11:00.000+01:00

It's only a couple of hours since I left the 02 Stadium where 'Batman LIVE' was showing its penultimate performance. And boy, was it something.

It doesn't take a genius to guess that DC Comics probably came up with the show in response to the troubled Marvel broadway show 'Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark'. But while that trippy, artsy, excessively expensive mess has done nothing but polarise fans of both comics and theater alike, 'Batman LIVE' is a sensibly well-rounded, fun-for-the-whole-family affair that will certainly please lifelong die-hards (like myself) and a brand new generation of young fans (of which the 02 stadium was teeming).

The plot is essentially a broader, more epic version of Dick Grayson's origin as Robin, with Batman's own history briefly explored as well. In the course of the 120-minute (ish) runtime, we see almost every notable Bat-villain brought to life wonderfully, including the Penguin, Catwoman (who looked as though she'd walked off the pages of Darwyn Cooke's 'Selina's Big Score'), Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Two-Face, the Riddler and of course the Joker himself. Impressively, there were times when practically all of the villains were onstage at once, with dozens of henchmen surrounding them.

The primary strength of the show was the high production values. The set ingeniously incorporated a massive screen for comic book backdrops, while the actual stage would change to suit the scene. The highlight of the whole show was the Batcave itself, which was absolutely breath-taking. Other notable 'locations' included the Iceberg Lounge and Haley's Circus.

The general tone of the show is geared towards a fairly all-ages audience and while it's no 'Disney on Ice', it's certainly not as dark or sinister as the Burton or Nolan Batman movies. The acting is fairly exaggerated and sometimes a little bit corny. In saying that though, I was surprised by how earnest and straight-faced it was. There was no breaking the fourth wall or winking at the audience. Even the characterisation of Batman was fairly spot-on as he was a serious no-nonsense character for most of the show and on the few occasions where he did crack jokes, they were genuinely cool and appropriate to the atmosphere. Being that it is an all-ages deal though, do expect a few moments that border on cringe, though, particularly involving the "Gosh n' Golly!" version of Dick Grayson they chose to use. The actor was good, though as were most of the actors. Batman himself was quite good, but predictably, the villains were the standout performers. The aforementioned Catwoman was pretty much perfect in every way, to the point where I wonder if Anne Hathawaye will do as good a job in The Dark Knight Rises (Spoiler Warning: She probably won't). The guy who played the Penguin was basically doing an impression of Burgess Meredith, but admittedly he was really good and his makeup was particularly impressive. The Riddler was only given a short amount of stage time, but in that short time he was pretty much everything Edward Nygma needs to be (and once again, he looked the part). The Joker had the most stage-time and the guy playing him was pretty much awesome, even if he did look weirdly like a bizarre hybrid of John Lithgow and Jay Leno. His voice was sort of a deep, raspy, demonic version of Mark Hamill's, with similar mannerisms to the famous animated series version. He occasionally dropped in a few of Heath Ledger's iconic tics as well. Of the villains, the only one who was done in a really dumb and disappointing way was Two-Face who did not have the benefit of a decent design, nor the assistance of a memorable acting performance. Other characters included Alfred (who was great) and Jim Gordon (who was not).Of all the actors on stage though, I really have to give top marks to the guy who played the Joker, who really just gave it socks.

The show wasn't perfect and it must be said that the first half, before the intermission, was quite slow to start. Batman didn't even show up for about twenty minutes in (although it was awesome when he did). Another weakness the show had was that the actors were so completely protected by safety harnesses and wires that when the extremely talented trapeze artists and acrobats were sailing across the very top of the stage - part of the intensity was lost because you knew that they would be completely fine if anything went wrong.

On the topic of the wire-work, at times the show occasionally really failed in that regard in terms of placing the audience in another world, rather than forcing them to use their imagination to piece together what's going on. One scene in particular, in the aforementioned first half; saw Catwoman and Batman battling against one another atop the skyscrapers of Gotham. Their fight sees them plummeting from multiple buildings - translated into the actors onstage being hauled around in a set pattern, while the screen-backdrop shows the buildings swooping by. It was an interesting idea, but the execution just didn't really allow for it to be anything other than confusing and fake-looking.

Some other reviewers have pointed out that the fights were a bit disappointing. I'd say that perhaps 30% of the fight scenes weren't really up to much, but the rest really were. Oddly enough, the Dick Grayson fight scenes were the strongest, perhaps because they had such a David-v-Goliath feel to them, as well as the fact that the actor playing Grayson was such a talented stage combatist. The best fight scenes saw multiple fights going onstage at once, just like in the old 60s TV show.

In conclusion, I'd have to say that I enjoyed Batman LIVE immensely. I went into it knowing that it wasn't going to be an extremely dark version of Batman and that I should enjoy it for what it was. That was a wise choice, although I was surprised by the level of writing and acting seen throughout the show and the story certainly took some surprisingly dark routes at times. The real value for money came in the extraordinary production values, the amazing sets and costumes, seeing a brand new Batmobile onstage and just the general awesomeness of seeing Batman kicking ass in real life. Really, I can't express how much Batman fans should just leave their snobbery at the door and just go along to this enormously fun, lovingly created experience. It's a version of Batman I won't soon forget.

Why Rocksteady Studios should make a Superman game

2011-09-21T01:54:00.001+01:00

Yes, indeed, it will be one of those posts, where I yammer on about Superman. DEAL WITH IT.

Most people know that the release of 'Batman: Arkham City' is kind of shaping up to be a focal point of 2011, for me. From what I've seen of the extraordinarily extensive promotional videos and behind-the-scenes interviews, the game will be tantalisingly close to being the definitive simulated experience of being Batman. While most of Gotham City is locked off in the game and you still don't have access to any of the Dark Knight's vehicles, pretty much everything else I could have ever want in a Batman game (including the bizarre, highly unlikely request of being able to play as the Animated Series version of Batman) has been plucked from my mind and placed into a vast, gothic playground with truckloads of classic villains and nods to the character's 72-year legacy in comics, movies and television. I cannot express just how much I am anticipating this game. Honestly, if I didn't have a girlfriend and a job (and Batman LIVE to look forward to), I'd probably have found a way to cryogenically freeze myself in suspended animation, until it was released.

I hate to say it, but the last time I was this excited for a licensed game, was in the run-up to Superman Returns.

Much like what Arkham City is promising, Superman Returns promised fans an open-world experience similar to the sublime Spider-Man 2 (which was also a tie-in to a movie), whereby you could fly around to anywhere in Metropolis, saving people and stopping crimes. This premise alone was enough to light a fire of insatiable excitement within me, as that's exactly the kind of Superman game I'd always wanted to play. Ever since playing Spider-Man 2, I'd desperately wanted a similar experience as the Man of Steel, soaring through the skies of Metropolis. I even remember having dreams about playing such a game, only to wake up and be pissed off that it wasn't real.

So naturally, when I started seeing videos like the one above, I got extremely pumped.

In the run-up to the game, the developers were promising everything. They claimed you'd have access to 'all' of Superman's powers, that there would be missions where you would play as Clark Kent, that there'd be dozens of villains from the comics who hadn't appeared in the movie and (most importantly) that you could go anywhere in Metropolis and use parts of the city as weapons against villains (like in the also-excellent 'Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction'). I even saw some videos online taken from e3 2006 showing other skins you'd be able to unlock in the game (such as a 'Red Son' skin from the comic of the same name). Unfortunately, large chunks of these elements were abandoned in the ultimately rushed game.

Sometime in the Summer of 2006, it was announced that the game wouldn't be released until November of that year, to coincide with the DVD release of the movie. This was strange news, as we'd been hearing about the game and its (supposedly complex and thorough) development for nearly a year prior to this. Nevertheless, in spite of my disappointment, this just instilled me with confidence that we were in for a real gem of a Superman experience. In this time, I actually saved up and bought an Xbox 360 entirely because of how excited I was for this very game. Another setback occurred when the developers revealed that [Actually no!] you wouldn't be able to use all of Superman's powers as the game wasn't going to feature x-ray vision in any way.

Well, when the reviews arrived, my heart sank. According to dozens of reviewers online and in print (and even on TV), the game was extremely mediocre and only worth a rental, if even. While Metropolis was large and intriguing and really cool to fly around in, there was just about nothing else to do in the entire game except fight hordes and hordes of stupid-looking robots and angry dragon-like beings. It was ironic really, because everyone complained that in the movie, Superman didn't throw a single punch, whereas in this game, there was practically nothing else to do except punch things.

The game did require you to rescue people now and again, but this was entirely optional and rarely (if ever) made any difference to the 'missions' (note the inverted commas).

Ultimately, more than anything else, the game just seemed bizarrely rushed. I have no idea how that could happen, given that the developers had almost two years to develop the game and were yammering on for months about how spectacular it was. It is loads of fun flying around as Superman in the game, breaking the sound barrier, etc. It's just a pity that the developers couldn't find anything else for the player to do.

Skip forward two years. Images started to pop up online of a new Batman game that would be available the following year. The game was going to be set entirely in Arkham Asylum and aimed to make the player 'feel' like Batman, using stealth and detection techniques. Honestly, I wasn't too excited, as I'd heard all of this before for the Batman Begins game. The more information that was released about the game, the more I suspected that it would be just another run-of-the-mill stealth/action game of which Batman had starred in many.

However, in the closing months before the game's release, it became more and more apparent that this might be the holy grail of licensed comic book games.

Sure enough, the game was a godsend. I don't think I need to go into any great detail as to what I liked about the game as I've done that before, but needless to say, I liked it a whole bunch. Aside from the already-excellent story mode, the replay value offered by the additional combat and stealth challenges is basically unlimited as the combat system is easy to learn, but nigh-impossible to master and two years later, I'M STILL TRYING. That's right folks; I still play Batman: Arkham Asylum quite regularly, over two years after its release. I may not be the world's most broadly horizoned gamer, but that's still something.

So that brings us to the title of this post. What has a great Batman game got to do with Superman?

To answer that question, let's take a look at Arkham Asylum's upcoming sequel, the reality-alteringly awesome-looking Batman: Arkham City.

In this game, Batman's not just confined to the walls of the Asylum anymore. Finally, seven years after Spidey introduced the concept, we have a Batman game that's set in an open-world city. Now, admittedly it's not quite Gotham City in its entirety, but 'Arkham City' (think of 'Escape from New York' in a game about Bamtan) does seem to contain most of the iconic elements we've grown accustomed to in 75 years of Batman comics (Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, Dick Grayson's former home, Haley's Circus, the Joker's birthplace Ace Chemicals and most importantly, Park Row or 'Crime Alley' where Bruce Wayne watched his parents get shot), so it doesn't really matter if we're missing some suburbs or a City Hall.

More importantly though are the abilities of Batman in the game. Taking a cue from his film incarnations, Batman's high-tech cape allows him to glide for extended periods, between the buildings of Arkham City. But unlike the last game, this ability is much more expanded upon. By combining potential energy, wind-power and the grapple-gun, Batman can almost fly in the game.

As in the previous game, Batman can see through walls using the special lenses in his mask and root out items or irregularities that warrant attention. Using his explosive gel he can blow up weakened walls. Even with the freeze-stunner, he can temporarily incarcerate foes so that he can deal with them in time.
That's flight, x-ray vision, heat vision (sort of) and freeze breath covered. It's almost like they're hinting that they're going to make a Superman game!

There's obviously a lot more to the equation than the aesthetic similarities I've listed, however curious they are. One of the most oft-mentioned differences between Batman and Superman is that Batman is 'just a man', whereas Superman is the most powerful man on the planet. When you play as Superman in a simulated experience, there is always (or at least for the next ten years or so) going to have to be some kind of restriction on what you can actually do, in the game. You can't fly to any other country in the world as Superman can easily do. You can't destroy every building in Metropolis as Superman could easily (but wouldn't ever) do. You can't use your x-ray vision to see Lois' bazoombas, because it's always going to have to be an all-ages game. The difference with Batman is that, as a simple human with all of the weaknesses that that implies, the sky is the limit. Batman can be bestowed with any fantastic ability throughout the game, because no matter how powerful his gadgets and weapons make him, he will always just be a regular human underneath it all. Superman will always need to be stripped of something in a videogame, and therein lies the challenge for the developers.

More importantly than the game elements themselves though, I think the key feature of the two Arkham games is the level of care and attention paid to the source material that I don't think any game based on a DC Comics franchise has done in the past. The number one problem that has plagued Superman's videogame history is that the developers have just never seemed to care all that much about the Man of Steel's literary heritage. I honestly didn't think we'd ever see a game as rich in the history and continuity of the Batman mythology as the Arkham games are. It should come as no surprise that I want to see the people responsible tackle the other great DC Comics hero. Personally, I think Rocksteady have proven that they have the ability to do the necessary research, invest the necessary manpower and game development technology and root out the best way to bring the Last Son of Krypton into the world of gaming in as effective a way as possible.

If you agree with me, join the Facebook page I set up and let's try and show them how much we want this to happen.

The Hall of Action: An Action Figure Retrospective

2011-07-26T23:23:00.001+01:00

In the late seventies, when Star Wars was all the rage, toy companies wisely realised that the elaborate vehicles and sets from the franchise would be too costly and cumbersome for 12 inch dolls. Thus, the action figure was born. Cheap, sturdy and miniature enough to be able to fit into larger vehicles (like the Millennium Falcon). Superhero action figures were released soon in the legendary 'Super Powers' line.

As a kid growing up in the 90s, action figures grew more and more expensive as their popularity increased. This meant that unlike kids in the 80s and 70s, I didn't actually have that many, and it was a pretty big deal whenever I got a new one, although I did have quite a few. A vast, massive majority of them were Batman-related figures, particularly from the Animated Series. I also got a handful of figures from other franchises such as Superman, Star Wars, Spider-Man and even stuff like Power Rangers (a lot of these have been lost over the years).

These toys meant the world to me and as a result of my lack of access to comic books (for the first half of my childhood, anyway) and the only occasional showing of cartoons like Batman and Superman, I would often spend hours dreaming up my own stories and scenarios, using miscellaneous figures as new characters. As far as I can tell, I was collecting and playing with action figures long after it was socially acceptable (which was a depressingly young age among my circle of friends).

As the years have grown on, I grew less interested in collecting figures, for the sheer fact that they don't make 'em like they used to. When I was growing up, action figures were designed to be sturdy and durable rather than painstakingly accurate to the design on which they're based. Nowadays, figures sacrifice durability and toughness for design accuracy and they're anything but cheap. There's also this weird spectrum where size is concerned. Figures for 'serious collectors' (the people who leave them in the box or in a display case) are 9-10 inches and the ones for 'younger collectors' (kids who want to actually play with them) are as small as 4-5 inches. When I was a lad, figures were just right at 6-8 inches.

With the advent of the Internet, the plummeting prices of DVD Boxsets, Graphic Novels and the growing realism and quality of video games, the question of whether kids are even bothered playing with toys anymore is a pretty interesting one. I know that if I had had a games like 'Lego Batman', 'Spider-Man 2', 'Arkham Asylum' (or a more kid-friendly version of it) or 'Batman: The Brave and the Bold' as a kid that I might be a little bit more inclined to want to be immersed in a virtual world of heroism before playing with bits of plastic. Maybe that's just the cynic in me, though. I've come to an interesting point in my life where I'm not really sure I want to keep my toys around anymore. Most of them aren't worth a penny, because they're so war-torn (plus, they're not in their original packaging), and some of them I just couldn't even imagine parting with, because of the sentimental value (even if it means they'll just be sitting in a box in my attic). The purpose of this post is to pictorially archive all the action figures I have left that mean anything to me.

On the left is 'Combat Belt Batman', the first ever action figure I owned and the first figure from the Batman: The Animated Series line and probably my most cherished action figure. I remember the day I got it (my fourth birthday party) and I remember my mum putting the accessories away for safekeeping (I lost them all very quickly). On the right is Robin (not sure what his full name was) and although it wasn't the 'standard' design from the cartoon (I wouldn't get that figure for another twelve years), I loved it dearly. I got that one for Christmas 1995. I played with these figures more than any other figure I ever owned.

On the left is 'Capture Net Superman' from the 'Superman The Animated Series' Line. I remember the day I got Capture Net Superman, I scoured all of Dublin looking for Superman figures from the cartoon, finally finding this one in town. The S logo got badly chipped as seen in the picture, and I tried to paint it back in, but the paint was too weak and just stained the figure yellow. I played with it, anyway. On the right is 'Heat Vision Superman' (I think) with a bit of modding. A common trick for toymakers and action figure lines was to put out a stream of different designs for the core character, to get kids to go back and buy the colourful alternate version. This often left me with a load of weird looking figures I got as presents that I didn't really know what to do with. I made use of the black-suited Superman and pretended that he was a youthful clone of Superman that was created when Superman was struck by lightning. Superman named this clone 'Electric Superman' or 'Ez' for short. They became partners. Little did I know, in the 90s there actually was a character called 'Electric Superman' in the comics, and Superman had a youthful clone (Superboy) around this time as well.

(Left to Right: Comedian, Iron Man, Nite-Owl (still in the box), Rorschach, Doctor Manhattan)

Not really sure why I never took Nite-Owl or Rorschach out of the box. I think I just liked the boxes and wasn't that pushed about taking them out. Iron Man, Comedian and Doc Manhattan actually belong to my brother (who is also at the end of his toy-collecting days, which makes me feel old).

Two identical Azrael figures from the classic 'Legends of the Dark Knight' line. Having no access to Knightfall comics as a kid, we always just referred to this figure as 'The Batman with no mouth'. Notice how I tried to give Azrael a new cape (it was lost years ago), using paper and a cape from another figure. Last Summer I found the figure on the left for a dollar at Toronto Fan Expo. I asked the guy if I could just buy the cape for 50 cents, but he made me buy the whole figure. In the background is the 'KnightsEnd' Azrael, the later, deadlier suit he used in his battle against the original Batman. I also got this at Fan Expo, for a dollar. Man, what an awesome place.

Robin and Nightwing. I bought the Robin on the left on eBay in 2008 and it cost something like €25 altogether. But I love it, because he's just such an interesting design. He's the only Robin figure from the animated line that got the proper yellow and black cape and even though the head sculpt looks like the character from the cartoon, the body is all wrong, with far too much detailing and the wrong belt. The reason for this is that the makers re-used the body from the 'Batman Returns' Robin figure (yes, they made a Robin figure, even though he wasn't in the film). On the right is Nightwing (Dick Grayson two years older), who once belonged to my 19-year old brother. I'm inclined to say he didn't play with it as much as I did.

The Riddler and the Penguin having the Bants beside the two Supermen. These were the first villain figures I owned from the Batman The Animated Series line and they've really stood the test of time. Unfortunately for the Penguin, I lost his coat, found a replacement years later from a friend who didn't really want it, only to lose it again, just recently.

Yeeearrgh! This is one of the kookier figures from the 'Legends of the Dark Knight' line. A pirate version of Two-Face. When I was a kid, I thought Two-Face was badass, and I desperately wanted the Batman Forever version of the character, to no avail. I was absolutely delighted when I got this figure even though it was so crazy and I played with it for years. In case you were wondering, Two-Face's left hand was originally a hook and a sword, but they both got snapped off. Years later, I got an animated series version of Two-Face and it was really badass and had two-guns...but I haven't seen it in six years.

The Batmobile from 'The New Batman Adventures' and the first Batmobile I ever owned. I got this the day of my communion in 1998. I got it in Forbidden Planet (which was on Dawson Street back then) and it was one of the greatest days of my life as a result. Twelve years later, my mum (who works in the Blood Bank in town) met a mother and her kid at work who were going out to Forbidden Planet because it was the boy's communion. That orange missile there went missing more times than I could count, because of carelessness. One time, it went missing for over two weeks, only for me to find out that it was stuck in the inside of the car. It also stopped firing properly for a while. My Dad and I unscrewed it and discovered that there was a bit of a cocktail stick stuck in the spring. It still works today.

The seating of the TNBA Batmobile was such that Batman and Robin had to sit back to back. I still thought this was awesome. I loved this so much that I used to assign specific functions to every button on the sticker panel as well as the other buttons that were located around the interior of the car. There were stickers that went on the outside of the car as well, but these were pretty pointless and I got rid of them pretty soon.

The very first Michael Keaton Batman figure from 1989. I bought this in Toronto in a comic shop for 5 dollars. He's sitting in the Batmobile from 1997's Batman & Robin, which I got for something like €2 in a school fair, a couple of years ago. I'd give anything to get the Batmobile from Batman Forever or Batman Returns.

Another 'mobile I bought only a couple of years ago, from the animated show 'The Batman' (not a bad show; not a good show, but not a bad one) from a few years back. The figure in it is a Bruce-to-Batman figure from the same line. I also got this car at a school fair, for piss-cheap. I actually think it's pretty cool, because while it is fearsome and intimidating-looking, it's also fairly discreet and looks like it would be a car someone like Batman would actually drive.

It also has pop-out guns on the sides of it which are pretty cool.

The Batwing from the Animated Series. Another eBay purchase, from just a couple of years ago. I think this is really cool and I really wish I'd owned it when I was younger. The only thing I don't like about it is the green glass (it was blue in the cartoon). This one also has the back-to-back seating of the TNBA Batmobile.

A load more figures. The brown guy on the left is Ducard (or the 'real' Ra's Al Ghul to those of us who've seen the ending of Batman Begins) and the green guy is a repaint of him. This was one of the last figure I broke my heart trying to find, only to find it months later for practically nothing. In front of the two Liam Neesons is a Bruce-to-Batman figure that doesn't really look like Christian Bale. An awesome Scarecrow is hanging back behind everyone. Notice a couple of Marvel figures in here. I used to have Spider-Man and Mysterio from the 90s animated series, but they got lost. The only remaining Spidey figures I have are from 2007's Spider-Man 3, which had a great line of affordable figures from the entire trilogy. We have Green Goblin around somewhere but in the mean-time, there's Symbiote Spidey, New Gobin and Venom. I love that Venom figure. He just looks so delightedly evil.

Lex Luthor and Superman's Robot from the 'Superman: Doomsday' animated film. I didn't really care for the design of Luthor in this film. Too much white. I love that they gave Superman a robot servant though. I always love the idea of Superman having robot servants in the Fortress of Solitude.

An Indiana Jones figure I got in Disneyland, Florida. He came with a whip, a pistol, a flaming torch and an emerald encrusted sword. Only the whip and the torch survived. That pistol was really cool. Wolverine there is from some Marvel line and came with a comic that was set in the future. It's a pretty renowned X-Men story that I'm sure other people reading this will know.

This Wolverine came with a giant robot battlesuit. I also got this in Florida in 2001 after begging my Dad to get it for me on the subject that I pay him back. The battle suit was crappy and fell apart after a few years, but I only really wanted the Wolverine figure anyway.

The Superman Returns Clark-to-Superman figure. I'm really glad this figure was so easy to find, as it's awesome. Superman has a wig attached to a pair of glasses, a shirt/waistcoat, slacks and shoes as a disguise. It's no wonder no one knows he's really Clark Kent.

Lex Luthor from Superman Returns, looking impressively like Kevin Spacey. This one was a lot harder to find but once it did start showing up, you could get it pretty much anywhere. He's holding a tube of Kryptonite and also came with a Kryptonian Crystal that you could squeeze into it, as Luthor did in the movie. He also came with a missile blaster that shot out the same Kryptonite missile from the movie.

This figure was just badass. It was from the 'Man of Steel' line from the mid nineties. It was called 'Anti-Kryptonite Superman' and was supposed to be a suit Superman wore to protect him from Kryptonite poisoning. You could take the helmet and the armour off. Funnily enough, the head sculpt of Superman looked an awful lot like Nicolas Cage who had been cast as Superman around this time (in a thankfully never-made Tim Burton film), which has made me suspicious as to whether or not the head sculpt was from a Superman Lives concept figure.

As I got older, I started taking better care of the accessories that came with figures. While a lot of them still manage to get lost, there's a lot of really cool stuff here.

A repaint of the classic Animated Series Batmobile (from before TNBA). This was another eBay purchase that I bought in tandem with the Batwing. I really like this, but again the green detailing spoils it and that silly glow in the dark logo is annoying. Still glad I bought it, though.

Terry McGinnis/Batman Beyond sitting in the 'Bathammer', one of the stupider vehicles from the third act of 'Batman & Robin', designed solely to sell toys. This was another school fair purchase. I'd never spend any real money on something as crappy as this. The figure in it is another story.

This is the 'Tumbler' Batmobile from Batman Begins. I got this for €15 about a year after the movie had actually come out, and it's awesome. It only fits one figure (and it doesn't do the Batpod thing from 'The Dark Knight') but if you push that middle button at the back there, weapons spring out from the side. The other buttons are sound and light buttons, which are also really cool. I never actually bought the Batpod one from the sequel, because it was one of those things where Batman was forcibly stuck to the Batpod and couldn't be removed. I always hated toys like that as a kid, because it took away from the fun if you couldn't remove the figure from the vehicle.

Another wide shot of all the figures. That other Batmobile is from Batman Beyond and also belongs to my brother. I never liked it that much, because of all the ridiculous stickers. At the far, far back is the Movie Masters Dark Knight figure, which is awesome.

All in all, I can't see myself parting with most of these. Hopefully, I can store them away safely until I have somewhere really permanent to display them or until the point where and if I live to have kids or nephews or nieces who will cherish them as much as I did growing up.

Why Walker, Texas Ranger is Exactly the Same as Batman

2011-07-25T21:10:00.000+01:00

Some of you might know that I have something of an affinity for the Chuck Norris Phenomenon that kind of died a death in 2006. Unlike most, however, I still get regular, nigh-daily pleasure out of this Internet wonder and his supposed omnipotence, rumoured hyper-fertility and his back-catalogue of hilariously cheesy action movies.

However, the Bearded One's biggest claim to fame was Walker, Texas Ranger; a stupendously distilled version of the Chuck Norris Experience. The show had a suspiciously similar premise to Chuck Norris' coup de grace 'Lone Wolf McQuade' (a.k.a. 'The Funniest Film Ever Made') in that it starred Chuck Norris as a member of the elite law enforcement agency The Texas Rangers who was always adverse to fighting alongside a partner until his superiors forced one on him. The show combined typical detective-show elements with martial arts that just seemed to get more and more insane(ly awesome) as the years went on. And Chuck Norris himself sang the fucking theme tune.

For eight mighty years, families across the world were graced once a week with a 45-minute television experience of sublime, action-packed badness. Because it was the 1990s, there was almost a mandate that the show get more and more outlandish, with weirder episodes showing Walker going up against ghosts and having the ability to communicate with animals. The strangely watchable show is unmissable, brainless hangover television.

But the best thing about it is that it's pretty much exactly the same as Batman.

Most of the main characters in the show have a direct correlation to the main characters in most Batman stories. In some cases, this is just a minor coincidence owing to the fact that most action/detective stories generally have the same group of stereotypes (the cypher, the sage, the love interest and the comic relief), but then there's completely WTF stuff that is either flat-out plagiarised or an hilarious coincidence).

Let's take a look at the cast of supporting characters and who they compare to,

James 'Jimmy' Trivette = Robin, The Boy Wonder

Trivette is Walker's partner and often joins Walker for the climactic fight scenes. Alas, he's not quite as tough as Walker and often leads to the bad guys getting away. This is quite similar to what happens with Robin in a lot of Batman stories. Trivette is also really good at doing some Computer Work! to help in a given case, as Robin is often known to do, especially in stories from the last thirty-odd years. Similar to Dick Grayson's past as a circus-acrobat, before Trivette was a crime-fighting Texan, he played football for the Dallas Cowboys. And when it comes to crime-fighting, Trivette is often shown to be something of a novice compared to the infinitely experienced Walker, who knows everything and can do everything, much like the difference between Robin and Batman. Trivette's greatest ability is his ability to answer phones and make phonecalls, which he is seen doing at least five times per episode. Sometimes, he doesn't even leave the office, because he's so busy making phonecalls, so in a way, you could also compare him to Oracle who can be excused for doing this, because she's in a wheelchair.

C.D. Jones = Alfred and Commissioner Gordon

Imagine if you somehow rolled Alfred Pennyworth and Commisioner Gordon and removed all of their wit, steely determination and seriousness and replaced all of this with Kentucky Fried Chicken. The resulting character would be C.D. Jones, the lovably ridiculous comic relief character who appeared in the first five years of Walker. C.D. Much like Jim Gordon, C.D. spent many years on the force (although Gordon was never a Texas Ranger) and despite his old age, he still has a lot of fight in him. Like Alfred, he always has a glib remark or a comment to make (although unlike Alfred, they're never witty; just retarded) and he's an adventurous cook whose culinary experiments are often too intense and foul-smelling for the other characters to appreciate. C.D. tragically died in one of the later seasons, as Alfred and Jim Gordon are sometimes known to do in various retconned stories.

Alex Cahill = Rachel Dawes

Alex is tricky, because up until the Christopher Nolan movies, Batman never really had a Lois Lane; a character who was very much on the side of justice and also wanted to have tickle-fights with him. Nevertheless, Alex pretty much is the precursor to Rachel Dawes in that she is a "Single-White-Female-Lawyer District Attorney". She initially scolds Walker for his harsh methods, only to change her tune when his manliness melts her cold heart. Much like Rachel Dawes, Alex Cahill is played by a terrible actress.

Sydney & Gage = Batgirl & Nightwing

In the later seasons, Chuck Norris was well into his sixties and his character was firmly established as being the toughest, most unstoppable sumbitch on television and he already had a serious girlfriend in Alex, so there really wasn't an awful lot they could do with him as a character anymore. But the show was successful enough that it had to go on, so it was decided to bring in two younger Texas Rangers, Sydney Cooke and Francis Gage who unsurprisingly engage in a tortuous back-and-forth exchange of "Will they, won't they?" for the entirety of their two years on the show. This is much the same as Batgirl/Oracle and Nightwing both on the animated series and in the comic book series of Batman. Similar to Walker, lazy writers often don't bother trying to write about Batman himself because "Everything has already happened to him!!" (or rather, Warner Bros. don't want one of their most cherished brands tampered with too much) so instead they just develop and explore his sidekicks, to the point of giving them new costumes, new superhero identities and even to the point of introducing entirely new sidekicks. Also, just like Batgirl and Nightwing, Sydney and Gage never were shown truly embracing a romantic relationship, which is why the good people of the Internet have used them for hundreds of raunchy Slash Fan-Fiction stories.

Now that we've explored the supporting cast, let's look at the big man himself:

Cordell Walker = Batman

Throughout the series, Walker is a sullen, brooding character who is rarely shown taking a break from crime-fighting. For some reason, he never needs a warrant to search anywhere (admittedly I'm not up on how much paperwork the Texas Rangers have to do) and he is often seen throwing the first punch. Walker rarely resorts to lethal force (although that's not to say he never kills anyone, which unlike Batman, he does fairly often) and usually only uses his gun to stun or disarm his enemies, similar to the way Batman uses his batarang.

Like Batman, Walker's 'look' is iconic and while he does wear different clothes all the time, they're usually a variation of the same shirt/jeans/cowboy hat combo just as Batman's different costumes all usually rely on the same symbols and features. Just like Batman, women find Walker incredibly sexy, even though he looks completely ridiculous. Similar to the Bat-symbol, Walker is never seen without his Texas Ranger badge except when he's off-duty. Speaking of off-duty, much like Batman has a secret identity, Walker regards his status as a Texas Ranger as need-to-know and in the rare occasions where he's off-duty and amongst people he doesn't already know, he keeps his occupation a secret.

When most people think of Batman, they think of him using his fists to fight crime. Unsurprisingly, this is what an awful lot of people think of when they think of Chuck Norris and Walker, Texas Ranger. In every single episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, there is an insanely awesome fight sequence of epic proportions, often with completely ridiculous 'sonic boom' sound effects.

Unfortunately, in spite of how well-known Batman's abilities as a martial artist are, practically none of his other-media appearances have done this justice with most Batman movies showing Batman awkwardly shuffling around, unable to turn his head or (in the case of the Nolan movies) picking off his enemies stealthily so fast and finishing them off faster than the camera can keep track. However, the sublime videogame Batman: Arkham Asylum is so similar to Walker, Texas Ranger that it's actually frustrating that you can't unlock Chuck Norris as a playable character.

Now, most of you are probably saying "Most of these similarities are just coincidental and in keeping with the tropes of any action story". Here's where the real shocker comes in.

When Walker was just a young boy, he watched as his parents were ruthlessly killed in front of him. The crime went unsolved for years. This trauma was what inspired him to become a Texas Ranger. In the third season episode 'Final Justice', Walker comes face-to-face with his parents killer, and this happens:

Look familiar? That's because an almost identical scene takes place in Batman 1989, although in that film, Jack Napier plunges into a vat of chemicals instead of being rescued. Hmm...

The Digital Knight: The Best Batman Games that AREN'T Arkham Asylum

2011-07-20T17:35:00.001+01:00

In Summer 2009, Rocksteady Studios, a relatively unknown British games developer gave superhero and comic book fans the first truly excellent game for this generation: Arkham Asylum. Such was the level of intricate detail put into that magnificent game that people have universally praised it as the best superhero game of all time. Sure, it wasn't quite perfect as you didn't get to venture out beyond the Asylum's gates, or drive the Batmobile or any of the Bat-vehicles. But nonetheless, everything you did get to do was just sublime. You had access to a wealth of Batman's weapons and gadgets, many of them cleverly resembling ones he'd used in the movies (even though the developers weren't explicitly allowed to base any designs in the game off of anything outside of the comics, elements like the zip-line launcher and the remote control batarang were surely inspired by the similar weapons used in the earlier movies). And the combat was spec-fucking-tacular. The combat challenges alone make you feel more like Batman than actually wearing a Batsuit.

But what of Batman's other ventures into cyberspace? It's well-documented that Batman has had a fairly murky history with games, as have most superheroes that don't shoot webs or deliver pizzas for Mister Aziz. In fact, the Superhero Game sub-genre is so maligned that it boasts one of The Worst Games of All-Time, Superman 64. The less said about that, the better. (SOLVE MY MAZE!!)

Honestly though, Batman's gaming history isn't all bad. There are some real gems from the NES era as well as the SNES/Sega Genesis era of gaming. Things only really got really dodgy when Batman games ventured into the troublesome third-dimension, but even there, there are some decent outings, even if there were no really good ones up until Asylum.

The wonderful world of game emulation has opened up all kinds of doors for me to discover the 32-bit era of gaming. The first game worth a mention is 'Batman' for Sega Genesis based off the 1989 film.

The game's graphics are decent, without being stellar but the game just does a really good job of taking the main action beats from the movie and turning them into a kickass platformer. Batman uses his grapple gun, batarangs and punches and kicks to defeat the Joker's criminal army (some of these guys are really cool. There are also two levels that feature the Batmobile and the Batwing, respectively. The game isn't that long, but is fairly difficult even with unlimited lives. It could have used a few more cutscenes to explain the story, as the bulk of it is told in a text-screen at the start, and unlike other games based on the 1989 movie (such as the other, also-decent, completely different one for the NES), there aren't any other classic villains that feature in the game. Also, while the music is fun and exciting, it's nothing to do with the Danny Elfman score from the movie (as is often the case with these tie-in games). Nevertheless, despite these complaints it's a really solid outing and a delightful platformer for Batman fans and 32-bit fans, alike.

Most seasoned Batman fans will agree that the best pre-Arkham Asylum Batman game is probably the SNES version of 'The Adventures of Batman & Robin' and I'm certainly inclined to agree. The game is a beautifully faithful adaptation of Batman: The Animated Series (which the game probably should have been called, as Robin's barely even in it and you can't play as him) with every level based on a particular episode.

Batman runs, moves and fights in the same fluid animation style as seen in the show and the music in the game draws extensively from the Danny Elfman/Shirley Walker collaborative style from the earlier episodes. The game even has a password and a cheat system, if you're a newer, lazier gamer like I am.

The only complaint I have against this game is that the combat isn't quite as streamlined and fun as it is in the above game. This is a minor complaint though, and this is definitely recommended for animated series fans.

Much like the other three of the original series of Batman movies, there are a number of different games based on Batman Returns. I haven't played any of them too extensively, but I do think that both the games for SNES and Genesis are worth a play.

The SNES (and the NES) version is just a basic beat-em'-up brawler in the Streets of Rage tradition. It's hard to get those kinds of games wrong and it's a lot of fun, but it gets very, very repetitive. The Genesis version is more along the lines of the previous Genesis game and uses a lot more of Batman's gadgets. It's blockier and less linear than the 89 game though and because of the eerie, twisted film on which its based, the aesthetic probably won't be too everyone's tastes.

The less said about the games based off Batman Forever, the better. Like Returns, one version for PSX/PSOne was a beat-em'-up arcade game which somehow managed to be quite a bit more mediocre and the other (for Genesis and SNES) was a platformer, which was just flat-out woeful and nigh-unplayable. Try it if you don't believe me.

There was a game released on PSX and N64 based off Batman & Robin and it was also pretty terrible. It had the right idea by letting you play as Batman, Robin or Batgirl and you could freely roam around Wayne Manor, the Batcave and certain sections of Gotham City as well as being able to use all of the vehicles featured in the film. Unfortunately, that was about it, as the game's controls were useless. You had to stand perfectly still to fight and turning around took almost five seconds. I remember I nearly completely gave up on the game when the Batmobile got stuck between two walls because I'd turned badly. It really is a pity that this game wasn't good, as we're still waiting on a Batman game that allows you to play as multiple characters across a free-roaming Gotham, with access to Batman's vehicles. Arkham City is almost there, except for its lack of vehicles.

The next two Batman games are probably the two most important before Arkham Asylum came along.

Batman: Vengeance was released around 2001 for PS2/Xbox/Gamecube and was once again based off the animated series (although this game used the updated designs of The New Batman Adventures). It was one of the first games to feature Kevin Conroy's voiceover efforts (although he did voice a couple of point-and-click Batman games that while awesome, don't really count) and like Arkham Asylum, it featured an entirely original plot about the Joker faking his own death so that he could destroy Gotham. Or something.

The plot was mostly decent enough, but the game's shaky cutscenes and poor audio levelling meant that it was sometimes difficult to follow what was going on. This bled into the actual gameplay of the game as well, as the game was often so dark that it was difficult to avoid pitfalls or find ledges that needed climbing, etc. Which isn't to say that it was a bad game. For the first time, there was a really playable 3-D Batman game. While the controls were a bit blocky (once again, the combat was pretty crappy), they were at least a lot better than they had ever been before. Batman's cape allowed you to glide across distances (an ability that appeared in other games, but here was the first time it was used to its true potential) and the Dark Knight had a vast array of gadgets at his disposal. Gadgets were used in the handy first-person mode, to allow for precision. You also got to drive the Batmobile and the Batplane/wing once again, although these were the worst, most depressingly difficult levels in the game.

Nevertheless, here was a delightfully playable Batman game and deserves a second look. The gadgets and the way they are used is the best part about this game and is almost identical to the improved method used in Arkham Asylum, which makes me almost certain that it was probably partly inspired by this game.

Batman Begins was almost an excellent Batman game. From the first images that popped up of it (many months before the film or the game's release), it was obvious that the game had the best graphics of any Batman game and it certainly excels in that regard, I think (even compared to some of the best PS2/Xbox/Gamecube games). It also has an excellent cinematic feel and the voiceover work is outstanding, with Christian Bale giving Kevin Conroy a run for his money. This game is probably Bale's longest outing as Batman as he appears to have more lines here than he had in either of the two movies (even though most of it is just exposition).

Even the combat and the controls are great (even if they're not quite as outstanding as in Arkham Asylum). The problem with Batman Begins is that it's such an excellent game that it practically plays itself. From the very start of the game, handy boxes guide you around the levels, inviting you to interact with them, essentially removing any real exploration or curiosity from the game. You might as well just be following arrows for the whole game. The game is based on the principle that Batman's enemies need to be afraid in order for him to be effective. A typical scenario sees Batman stealthy moving up towards a group of enemies, some of whom are armed, and causing some sort of distraction (for example, knocking down a weak girder). For some unexplained reason, this makes the enemies so frightened that they drop their weapons, leaving them free for Batman to intervene with punches and kicks. Even the gadgets can only be used when they flash up onscreen during a fight (although batarangs and the grapple are used throughout the game). While the game isn't quite as devoid of a challenge as I'm making it out to be and while it is a lot of fun to play through, it would have been remarkable had the developers offered the player a little bit more freedom.

The influence of Batman: Vengeance and Batman Begins on Arkham Asylum is quite obvious if you've played the former games as thoroughly as I did, growing up. Arkham Asylum relies heavily on stealthily picking off enemies and actually delivers on the promise of getting to be able to 'think like Batman' in stealth situations and use fear to your advantage, where Batman Begins so shamefully failed. Arkham Asylum also uses a gadget-system much like Vengeance's, except that you're not restricted to only use gadgets in the first-person mode and while there are fewer gadgets available, the limited variety means they're easier to access. And once again, the combat just about trumps every single game of its kind, maybe ever. I've never had as much fun roundhouse-kicking a thug in slow-motion.

The sequel to Arkham Asylum promises a bigger, vaster playground in which to fight crime and while it's not quite the entirety of Gotham, it does have a lot of the best parts in it (such as Crime Alley where the Waynes were killed, and Ace Chemicals where the Joker was born into madness). Like the dreadful Batman & Robin game, it allows you to play as the Boy Wonder (only in challenge modes, however) as well as Catwoman (who you play as in side-missions and some story missions). The one crushing blow to the game is that we still won't be able to command the Batmobile or any of Batman's wonderful vehicles, but I'm hoping that Rocksteady are saving that for the next Bat-epic. I'm holding out for the eventual 'Gotham Theft Auto' and it looks like these two games are a massive step in that direction.

Gothamite, Galway and The Great Unknown,

2011-07-11T14:46:00.001+01:00

As so many of you know, I now have my Bachelor's Degree, having hastily thrown together a thesis amidst the chaos of the Charlie Sheen Meltdown of '11, the existentially self-aware terribleness of Rebecca Black's 'Friday' and the hilarious revelation that one of my ex-girlfriends got married.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm in a tremendous mood of late. I just finished 12 weeks work experience with Nuacht RTÉ in the beautiful county Galway and in spite of a lack of employment or money, my social life is blossoming with vim and vigor usually reserved for mid-Semester 2. Not to mention I have Lightning Lass, but there is a story for another, grander day.

Now that I have a shiny new purpose (or lack thereof) in life, I think I should start taking 'Feeling the Fury' more seriously. To that end, I'm going to re-launch it as an independent blog site with updates twice a week. I'll need all the help I can get, so anyone who knows a thing or two about website design and wants to help me free of charge, will be reimbursed with a funny dance. Seeing as how there already (depressingly) is a feelingthefury.com, I'm inclined to think I'm going to go ahead with gothamite27.com. It's been my web-name for nigh a decade now and it seems fitting enough.

So there you have it, Furious Fans! Commencement! The end of one thing, the beginning of another.

Just Barely-Retro Game Review: The Spider-Man Movie Game Trilogy

2011-05-25T16:14:00.017+01:00

The years haven't been kind to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie franchise. The fan consensus has varied wildly in the years that followed the initially ecstatic reaction to watching Spidey pierce through the sky on the big screen, for the first time. People complain that Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst just don't match up well enough with their comic book counterparts, and that the repetitive "gotta save MJ" plots just don't do Stan 'The Man' Lee's classic interweaving multi-plots justice. Indeed, an awful lot of these criticisms are fair.

One thing that will never change however, is how awesome the games based on those movies are; especially the first two.

Spider-Man: The Movie

The first Spider-Man movie tie-in game was one of the earlier games for the PS2 generation of consoles. And as a result, it plays less like a PS2 game and more like a PSOne game with far, far better graphics. The graphics in this game are shiny, slick and sexy in a way that blew my 12-year old mind. The rest of the game just plays like a more fluid version of the old (awesome) PSOne Spider-Man games that were based on the comics universe. The gameplay is so similar in fact, that most of the attacks (including the exploding 'web-dome' and the strength-enhancing 'web-gloves') are carried over and expanded upon. Sadly, the embarassing flaw of those games is also present as Spider-Man swings seamlessly throughout the level-based sections of NYC, swinging from a seemingly invisible ceiling. It's embarassingly fake that the webs never seem to anchor to anything.

What's interesting to me about the first movie game is that it doesn't really resemble the movie that much. The style of the music is very different and very few of the key action beats are carried over. In fact, outside of the wardrobe and the facial designs of the characters, the game looks nothing like the movie. This is understandable as it was obviously being produced at the same time as the movie in order to correspond with its release. It's just interesting to think that the game developers probably had to conceptualise and design what they thought a Spider-Man movie should look, sound and feel like. It's a fair bit different from the actual movie.

The real coup de grace of the game however is something that a lot of people don't even know about. Goblin Mode. If you finish the game on 'Hero' mode (essentially 'Hard' mode; a step down from 'Super-Hero' which is nigh impossible for this gamer) you get to play through every level as Harry Osborn using the Green Goblin's suit, gadgets and glider (five years before he did something similar in the movies). An astonishing amount of thought and preparation went into this feature of the game, to the point where I wonder why they didn't market it as one of the main features of the game.

As the Green Goblin you can run at super-speed, throw a variety of pumpkin bombs and of course, summon your machine-gun-firing, dart-shooting, napalm dropping goblin glider at will. It's almost indecent how much fun this is. The only real fault of this mode is that the story doesn't really make much sense. There are almost no cutscenes to explain why Harry is travelling through the same scenarios as Peter/Spidey did a few weeks previously and there's no resolution to the story, either. This is the only small, unfinished error of this gloriously understated mode of playing. The game is almost worth buying just for this unlockable.

Seriously guys, if you own a dusty old PS2, there is very few excuses for not buying this game.

8/10: I would probably give it a 7 if it had been released three years later, but given the time in which it was made and the little help the developers seem to have received from the movie producers, I think this game's a real gem and well worth the shit-cheap price for which you can buy it, these days.

But there's no excuse for not buying the following game.

Spider-Man 2

By the time 2004 rolled around, the first Spider-Man movie had been released to rave reviews and the game developers must have had a much better idea of what gamers would want to be able to do as Spider-Man after leaving the theater. Not to mention the revitalised Grand Theft Auto franchise had grabbed the games industry by the balls and shown just how immersive gaming could really be. This new game recreates the Spidey game franchise from the ground up, abandoning all of the elements from the previous games ('Spider-Man', 'Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro' and 'Spider-Man: The Movie') and takes a hint from GTA by introducing a brand new element that would stick around for several games afterward: Free-Roaming New York City.

By now, everyone had played GTA 3 and free-roaming games were all the rage. Naturally, everyone wanted to play a super-hero version of one of these games and Spider-Man fit the bill. In this game, a distilled version of Manhattan Island is completely available for Spider-Man to swing around as he sees fit, through all of the famous areas such as Times Square, Broadway, Soho and so forth. You can swing, jump and climb up as far as the very top of the Empire State Building if you feel like it, or scrape Lady Liberty's nose, if you have time to grab onto a helicopter (which takes time and patience) and swing over to Liberty Island. And unlike the previous games, Spider-Man's webs have definite, realistic anchor points meaning you have to really think like Spider-Man when you're planning your route and moving through the city.

The game's version of New York City is buzzing with minor crimes and perils causing mayhem at every turn. The game employs two simple methods for doing these side-quests. Minor muggings, gang fights and break-ins will happen 'live' and will show up immediately on your radar and on the main HUD as a small purple blip. Other, larger threats will show up as a green-question mark above a pedestrian, with whom Spider-Man must communicate in order to figure out what's going on. These larger threats tend to be stuff like armoured car heists (with hostages), sinking boats and citizens about to fall off the side of a building (often from questionably dangerous heights).

Personally though, I think the real triumph of the game is the way it combines the awesome free-roaming 'living' city with its story. Like a lot of movie games, the story deviates greatly from the movie on which its based, completely abolishing the 'Spider-Man No More' element of the movie where Peter loses his powers and instead creates a brand new sub-plot with Black Cat befriending the wall-crawler and attempting to convince him to leave his civilian identity (and the relationship troubles that go with it) behind and focus entirely on his superheroic career. The intervention of characters such as Black Cat as well as villains like Shocker, Mysterio (who is given one of the most impressive reinventions of a comic book villain I've ever seen) and even Rhino (who only makes a justifiably minor appearance) makes the game feel an awful lot more like the Spider-Man comics and cartoons I grew up with than the actual movie did. Spider-Man for me, always worked best as a serialised story, with tons of story threads moving along at the same time. This is something the three-act movies have always failed to convey.

Another great part of the game is how funny it is. Tobey Maguire's performance is completely different to how he features in the movie. In the movies, Maguire portrays a socially awkward, slightly creepy Peter Parker and a blocky, stiff Spider-Man. The game gives him quite a bit more dialogue and far more of a personality akin to the character of the comics. Some of the quips Spidey makes at Mysterio's expense are among the most hilarious in the character's history ("Mysterio, you brilliant fiend!"). And then there's stuff like the mind-bendingly hilarious 'Pizza Missions', (which sees Peter trying to earn some extra money by delivering pizzas for the rotund 'Mister Aziz' as Spider-Man, to curiously located pedestrians all over the city, with as little as 2 minutes to meet delivery deadlines) which can never be praised enough.

"If I flip the pizza, Mister Aziz will FLIP-OUT!"

You can't order cheese as good as that on a real-life pizza. I really wish Maguire had been given the opportunity to play Spider-Man more like this in the movies.

Finally, just like the other two movie games, Bruce Campbell is present as the 'Tour Guide' providing witty voiceover duties in the training levels as well as hundreds of 'Hint Markers' located throughout the city. It's his biggest role in any of the games and wonderfully adds to the game's light-hearted atmosphere.

The game isn't without its flaws. A lot of it is down to the fact that it just hasn't aged awfully well. Some parts of NYC are a bit laughable-looking compared to what can be done with today's game technology. Times Square for example, is rather embarassing-looking compared to the real thing and Central Park isn't even as big as Marley Park (for the two Dubs who might be reading this). The other ever-present problem with free-roaming games (even today), is the fact that the console's engine just can't handle large amounts of pedestrians, meaning that most of the usually bustling NYC is very sparsely populated. The other problem is the dated combat system. As mentioned previously, the imaginative combat of the previous games is abandoned in favour of a fiddly counter-based system, that completely lacks any concussive projectile attacks (although there is one very useful disarming-subduing attack called 'Impact Webbing'). This becomes really frustrating in the boss battles, which are almost entirely reliant on small, pattern-based opportunities to attack the villain by using your Spider-Sense to counter the attacks. This feature is really fiddly and can be annoyingly unresponsive. The 'spider-reflexes' feature, essentially Bullet-Mode, was dated, even in 2004. There are some really stunning attacks though, to the point where by the end of the game, when you've collected all of the power-ups, you're as invincible as Spider-Man appears to be in the movies, and you can stylishly move through a series of thugs without taking any damage.

The only truly tragic thing about Spider-Man 2 is that the story mode has to end. The story mode of that game, with its blended elements of free-roaming and side-missions, is to date, the only thing that has ever made me truly feel like a living, breathing superhero going about their typical day-to-day routine in the city where their adventures take place (unlike say, Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is a more specific, unusual departure from Batman's usual urban haunts). Even though you have to follow the linear events of the story, it feels like it's really happening and it makes the side-missions more enjoyable. When the story mode ends and all you have are the side-missions, things get really repetitive, really fast. You can always start a new game, but this means sacrificing all of the new attacks and abilities you've gained over the course of the game, which severely chops up any momentum you've gathered. This is a common annoyance in free-roaming games of this kind, even GTA is guilty. Another disappointment with this game is that unlike a lot of the other Spider-Man games, there are no other playable characters or unlockable costumes. I desperately hoped we'd get a 'Goblin-Mode' sequel and I'd be able to tear through the expanded free-roaming streets as Harry Osborn once again, but alas it was not to be.

Still, Spider-Man 2 is a triumph of a game and exceeded every expectation I had for it. It set the precedent for superhero games, focusing on placing your 'in' their world, rather than just plonking you in a series of levels. Its influence was far-reaching, with games based on the the Hulk and Superman trying to recapture its glory (with varying levels of success) as well as unrelated free-roaming superhero games like the excellent 'Crackdown' attempting to expand on the superhero-in-the-city formula.

9.5/10: Time hasn't been kind to its flaws, but this is still a near-masterpiece and it set the bar for all superhero games to follow. As a game in its own context, it's a solid 8. As a Spider-Man game played by an obsessive fan, it's a 10 because I can't give it 11.

I'm still waiting for the Spider-Man game that beats this.

Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3, like the film its based upon, is a mixed effort and is probably the weakest of the bunch. It follows on in the tradition of Spider-Man 2, with a gloriously free-roaming NYC with vastly improved realism where the buildings and streets are concerned. Unfortunately where the first game placed its emphasis on light-hearted heroics and witty comedy, this game is a stuff, pretentiously 'dark' thriller to coincide with the themes of the movie. In this game, very few of the side-missions are based around actually 'saving' the citizens of New York. Most of them focus on delivering vigilante justice and wiping out the various gangs of New York a la the GTA franchise.

The game's combat system is now completely dependent on the counter-system, essentially meaning that it is impossible to hit your enemy without them trying to hit you first. The game also has a whole bunch of those absolutely sinful 'flashing button' sequences, where you have to accomodate a stupid movie sequence by pushing a bunch of buttons as they come up on the screen; essentially removing you from the narrative and demoting you to the role of event coordinator.This is extremely fiddly and frustrating and at times the artificial difficulty of the game takes you away from the Spider-Man experience.

Graphically, while the buildings and the environments look very nice, the characters are all bug-eyed and creepy-looking. Not to mention, NYC is generally bleaker and duller looking than in the previous game.

The big draw for this game was that you get to not only play as the traditional, red-suited Spider-Man, but you also get to play in his black costume, which gives you a different range of attacks, as well as the clichéd 'rage meter' which has appeared in dozens of games before this; which when fully charged, sends Spider-Man into a frenzy of strength and speed. Some of the nearly-impossible boss battles require you to hide in a corner and tediously charge this up by slamming down on the 'B' button; unless of course you somehow magically manage to master the game's stupidly difficult counter-attack system.

The game's biggest, most unforgivable flaw for me, however is the fact that it acts like the first two games never happened. Spider-Man encounters Rhino and Scorpion throughout the course of the game and acts as though he's never met them before, even though they appeared in the previous two games. Admittedly they are given better, longer appearances, but this is a bit of a cop-out, especially considering the continuity was so impressively kept throughout the first two games. If I can be even nitpickier about it, Spidey's battles with Shocker in the first two games are referenced; which means that the writers of the game knew what they were doing in breaking continuity, and just decided not to care.

The game also finally gave us the 'Goblin-Mode' sequel, although this time, because the events of the actual movie contradict the stuff from the first movie game, it's less of a sequel and more of an expansion of the movie's plot. Harry is not seen wearing the traditional Green Goblin uniform and is instead clad in his dull 'New Goblin' regalia. Unlike the first game though, you can't get off your glider, so you're stuck hovering around all the time, which not only takes away from the sense of realism and 'feeling' like you're really the Goblin, but it also detracts from some of the cool abilities you had in the first game (no super-speed running or jumping) and it also makes it fiddly and difficult to play. Also (and here's the real-kicker), Goblin mode isn't even unlockable, you have to pay to download it from the Xbox Marketplace. You still have to pay for it, four years later. And get this: When you go around NY performing the side-missions as the New Gobiln, the pedestrians still refer to you as 'Spider-Man'. Balls to that.

The game isn't completely devoid merit, though. Web-swinging is improved over the last game to the point where it's absolutely breath-taking. I also liked how the game finally introduced photography side-missions, which were always notably absent from the previous games. Having the Kingpin feature was a nice touch, although I would have liked for the writer to have reinvented him a bit (it would have been really cool if they'd made him the African-American Kingpin from the Daredevil movie). Also, while it was darn shame that they rebooted the Scorpion, the backstory they gave him was basically the same as it was in the first game, except it was excellently expanded on, showing how he was tricked and controlled by corporate masterminds. It's an interesting deviation from the comics that worked well for the quasi-movie universe.

6/10: Overall, Spider-Man 3 isn't as much of a must-play as the first two games, particularly Spider-Man 2. It doesn't do this generation of gaming as much justice as it should.

Final Word

Licensed tie-in games have a colourful history and it's not often that a game comes along in that category that can ever be described as 'good'. The first one of the games above is certainly 'good', maybe even 'great'. The last one just barely scrapes the minimum requirements to be a 'good' game. The installment sandwiched in the middle of these two games remains a game-changing phenomenon that still stands up remarkably well, even if there are elements that betray its age.

If you are a Spider-Man fan in any random, casual capacity, I can't recommend Spider-Man 2 enough. From start to finish, it's a delightful, energetic superheroic romp that instills a similar amount of realism and verisimilitude for superhero games as Richard Donner's Superman did for the movies. And like Donner's movie, other videogames are still trying to capture the magic of Spider-Man 2, with some successes (Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction) and some dismal failures (Superman Returns; which will be reviewed shortly).

So, in conclusion, I have just one thing to say: What are you waiting for? There are pizzas to be delivered and you are just NOW arriving?! GED THIS PIZZAS TO THA CUSTOMURS!

CGI Bomb Buzzes Metropolis: My Thoughts on the Smallville Finale

2011-05-20T13:20:00.000+01:00

After ten years, two wars, the Bush regime, the popularisation of mp3 players and smartphones, the beginning of the economic downturn and about fifteen superhero movies, Smallville has finally come to an end.

Some months ago, I wrote an overall retrospective of the series' whole. I stand by what I said in that retrospective. The series overall was an interesting experiment in blending together a traditional teen drama and the origins of the Man of Steel. This experiment was doomed to fail as soon as the series was picked up for a sixth season, however, as it began unneccessarily prolonging Clark's youth and dragging all kinds of other elements of the mythos way too early into the proceedings. The show should have ended after five years and yet here I am five years later.
But nevermind that, the finale we've waited a decade for, has finally arrived.

Let me give you a bit of context. I've always, always, always been most excited for this finale. For me, Smallville never needed to go on for as long as possible. I used to sit around when I was twelve, imagining how it would finally end, with Clark becoming Superman. And while the ending we've been given isn't a hundred million miles away from how I imagined it, it's certainly very different. In saying that, I often suspected back then, that given the very real, unexciting palate the series had (mostly back in its earlier years) that the producers would chicken out from showing the full Superman costume in the finale and that we'd only see some computer-generated glimpses of Tom Welling wearing the suit, in keeping with the conservative visual style of the series (this style was very much scrapped in the later years though, when costumed superheroes started showing up with costumes that were 100% accurate to their comics' counterparts).
I used to suspect that perhaps the writers would shoe in some sort of plot-driven amnesia for Lex Luthor, so that he'd never forget any knowledge of Clark in Smallville (thus preventing him from using this to his advantage when Clark ultimately became Superman). I even used to think that if the show went on too long, the producers might just say "to heck with it" and give Clark another, less theatrical super-identity.

Unfortunately, all of the gimmicky stuff I suspected as a 12-year old ended up coming true within the chronology of the series.

In the eighth season, Clark became 'The Red/Blue Blur', a sort of proto-Superman who moved around in the shadows, but whose existence was more or less known to the public, and whose exploits were reported on by the Daily Planet. This allowed the writers to do the classic secret identity stories, without having to skip ahead to the 'Superman' years. Clark even had awkwardly 'trendy' costumes in the final two seasons, including a knock-off Neo costume (which, admittedly, actually made a modicum of sense, given that he was going for a stealthier approach) and the infamous 'Thriller jacket' (which made no sense, whatsoever). This made it even more frustrating that so many other DC characters were showing up with appearances faithful to the source material.

And in the finale, Lex did indeed lose all of his memory and Superman was only seen in CGI form.

For the other 50 or so minutes the series finale was on, there was some butchering of Darkseid and Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters, castrating them to the point where they were merely shabby knockoffs of the black-smoke demons from Supernatural (a far, far better CW series), right down to the human characters' blackened eyes, signifying that they were posessed by demonic forces. Honestly, this stuff didn't bother me that much. This finale was about Clark becoming Superman. Whatever villainous McGuffin was required in order for him to do that was always going to be trivial and forgettable. It's just a shame that a bunch of great Jack Kirby characters had to be raped in the process.

Then there's the matter of Lois & Clark getting married, or not getting married as the case came to be. For the first forty minutes or so of the finale, the entire focus is on the angst and melancholy of Clark and Lois wondering if they should go ahead with the wedding, given Clark's importance to the world, etc, etc, stuff that's been done a million times before and better, etc. The wedding scene was done fairly well, but again, it took too much attention away from the real reason I was even watching. And as happens so often in Smallville, the whole thing turned out to be a cocktease, with the wedding being interrupted and ruined and rendered inert until the end of the episode (spoiler warning: they end up getting married years later, in some pathetic attempt to keep with the comics).

The finale also saw the return of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor and to be fair, he did a terrific job. His performance is one of the most developed of the entire series as he is now absolutely believable a version of the classic villain.

Unfortunately, the series' biggest storytelling folly comes in the aforementioned amnesia. I just can't believe the writers did this. I know why they did it; yet another desperate attempt to impossibly align the events of the show with the status quo of Superman, where most members of the supporting cast have little or no history of friendship with Clark Kent and certainly none of them (bar Lois) know he's secretly Superman. By the end of the seventh season of Smallville, Lex was not only extremely familiar with Clark Kent's heroism, but he had discovered that he was also not of this Earth.

Instead of trying to accomodate this knowledge by making this an exciting new version of the mythos, the writers copped out and ended up deleting seven years worth of character development. Not only this, but they erased Lex's mind. He wouldn't know how to hold together his bowels, let alone remember that Superman has a bunch of family members that Lex can kidnap and use to control his enemy. The fact that the writers went this route is a disgrace to the character, to past writers and to Rosenbaum's performance throughout the years. None of that means anything now.
But that's not even the worst part.

So, towards the end of the episode, Clark learns from the ghost of both of his fathers (don't ask) that he has completed 'his journey' and he is given the Superman costume. What happens next broke the heart of the 12-year old me.

Instead of donning the Superman suit and triumphantly flying towards the camera, up into the sky; Clark holds the costume and while he flies into the air for (sort of) the first time, the camera pans around one of the blurry crystals of the Fortress of Solitude, so that we can just barely see Clark awkwardly CGI the suit onto his body.

A small, humanoid blip buzzing into the sky suggests that Clark Kent is now Superman. After ten years, we get a small humanoid blip of CGI.

SMALL HUMANOID BLIP MY BALLS.

For the rest of the episode, we see mediocre CGI shots of Superman from a distance as he does various things, all admittedly bigger and grander than anything we've seen Clark Kent do during the course of the series. I wouldn't mind the average-quality CGI (it is TV after all), if we'd gotten at least one decent 'real' shot of Tom Welling in full Superman regalia. Instead of this, we simply get a bunch of closeups of the actor's head with his computerised cape flimsily flapping in the background.

I'm no filmmaking expert, but that seems like a very poor way to convey what is essentially, the birth of the greatest superhero in the world.

While watching the episode, I suspected that the lack of a suited Tom Welling was down to the actor's refusal to wear the costume. He's been well publicised throughout this long decade as saying he has no interest in playing Superman in costume and is only interested in the show as long as it's about Clark Kent's youth. Nevertheless, the changes in the imagery and level of fantasy in the show, specifically when costumed heroes began to appear in the series, suggested that we probably would see him in the suit.

Other theories suggest that the suit that appears in the Fortress throughout this season (which was a prop suit previously used in the Superman Returns movie) simply wouldn't fit Tom Welling, as it was designed for Superman Returns star Brandon Routh. Would it have been that hard to adjust it or make duplicates of the parts that didn't fit? I really can't buy this as an excuse. It would cost $100 max, to make a really good Superman suit that would look good for ten minutes of CGI-enhanced television. People would forgive you if it didn't look like a $100,000 Kryptonian suit of armor (which it was never supposed to be, anyway). Nevertheless, this kind of shameless laziness could be an actual reason.

One last, likely theory is that Warner Bros. don't want an iconic image of another actor as Superman, in the run-up to the marketing for their new Superman movie, starring Henry Cavill (seen above in a Photoshopped image, in case you're an idiot). I'll accept this, but it's still a fucking tragedy that this major cornerstone in the character's history had to be watered down because they were a little bit afraid of overlap. Would people really be turned off the new Superman just because they like the old one so much?
Anyway, at the close of the episode, the action skips forward seven years to the year 2018, where we finally get a good look at the familiar status quo. We see Jimmy Olsen (the real one, this time), we at least hear Perry White shouting out some dated catchphrase, we see Lois and Clark having familiar post-modern banter as a romantic couple and we see Clark remove his glasses (which, thankfully, he actually wears now) and perform a classic Superman-style shirt-rip, giving us the only truly iconic image we're likely to get of Tom Welling as anything close to Superman, while the familiar John Williams' Superman movie theme booms in the background.

I will say that in spite of my angry rantings about this episode, I did enjoy myself watching a lot of it. Even though it was a crying shame that they copped out on really showing us Superman, the wide-shots of him were nice to see (and the animation was pretty good, even if the CGI wasn't that convincing) and it was still cool to see him do all of the super-feats he did, like saving Air Force One (which he did in the first movie, in case you didn't know) and PUSHING AWAY A FUCKING HELL-PLANET CALLED 'APOKOLIPS' ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH EARTH.

Yes, that last feat was incredibly stupid, and an insult to the storytelling potential of Jack Kirby's Fourth World, but you can't deny the inherit coolness of Superman stopping an entire planet from colliding with and destroying Earth. Truly, a job for Superman.

And that's it. After ten years, we get an amnesia memory wipe and a bunch of TV-quality computer generated imagery. Honestly, it's maddening that it all ended this way, but really it's indicative of the crazy story decisions made throughout the history of the show. A story that made sense probably wouldn't have represented the kind of facepalmage the series initiated, over the course of ten years. I am really disappointed that the finale was so hit and miss, but then, the show was as well. But, in saying that, I can't really say that I didn't enjoy myself watching it. It may have been blood-boilingly stupid at times, but at other times, it was undoubtedly Superman. As much as I'd like to be a cynical perfectionist, demanding that every cheap TV show be as good as Christopher Nolan's epic cinematic ventures...I was pretty much cheering when I saw Clark finally rip his shirt open revealing the S. As wrong as everything else in the episode tended to be, that five seconds satisfied the twelve year old in me. But I'll always wish we'd seen something closer to the image below.

Over to you, Zack Snyder.

The Crazed Caledonian: A Grant Morrison Profile for the Layman

2011-05-04T02:00:00.000+01:00

Scotland has given us so many great auteurs. In Sean Connery, it gave us the coolest man in the world. In Irvine Welsh, it gave us the gripping visage of hedonistic hipster heroin addicts and their day-to-day conundrums. Even Simple Minds gave us one of the most joyously catchy one-hit-wonders with “(Don't You) Forget About Me”. But none of these famous Scots have quite managed to create something quite as jaw-droppingly awesome as Superman battling Solaris The Tyrant Sun while Jimmy Olsen transforms into the behemoth Doomsday, or Batman dying and coming back to life by clambering his way through time and space, battling cavemen and pirates, while his replacement has to deal with flying batmobiles, a new Robin and an array of circus themed villains.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Grant Morrison favours the high concept over the usually predominant “grit and realism” of most post-1980s comic books. He yearns for the days of whimsy and candy-floss-flavoured fun that was found back when comic books were truly popular and mainstream. However, unlike other misty-eyed nostalgics, he does so with a vengeance. Blissfully ensconced in the past as his stories may be, Morrison's projects (particularly his Bat-themed books) are visceral, gripping, disturbing. While the new Dark Knight flies around with Robin in a new batmobile dangling toad-men off the side, he's also dealing with violent new villains like the 'Professor Pyg' (think The Butcher Boy meets Professor Frankenstein) who is hacking victims to pieces and literally transplanting his victims' very faces onto unfortunate subjects; all the while conspiring for ultimate control with plots as fiendish as contagious airborne addiction.

Morrison has always been one of those revolutionary wildcards that pops up from this side of the Atlantic Ocean every few years. As so many others have done, Morrison made his name working on the gleefully unrestricted and gloriously inappropriate weekly British anthology that is 2000AD. Impressing the American market with his work, his trippy stylings were put to use on books like Animal Man, The Invisibles and a rather excellent run on JLA (Justice League of America, for the uninitiated) throughout the 90s. In the mid-2000s however, Morrison took the comic book world by storm when he re-energised the X-Men with the appropriately titled 'New X-Men'. Frankly, there was nothing really new about them; it was the same classic team that appeared in the movies and the comics. It was just a really good story, for a change. This positive output continued with the modern-day masterpiece “All-Star Superman”.

Placing the Man of Steel in a continuity unbound by the shackles of years of complicated story threads; Morrison focused instead on writing the most effortlessly fun and enjoyable Superman story, ever; while also focusing on examining the elements of why Superman and his supporting cast are so intriguing, seventy years after their inception. The resulting 12-issues is a heartwarming and beautiful tale of action, romance and tragedy; a must-read for anyone who has ever doubted the appeal of a story about a guy who flies around in blue tights and saves cats from trees as well as going toe-to-toe with mad scientists and sun-eaters.

Finally, there's Morrison's work on Batman. In the time the hair-impaired Scot has been writing the exploits of The Caped One, we've seen Batman finally become a father (to the pesky, often psychotic Damian), we've seen him battle a conspiracy trying to cripple his operation from within his own mind, we've seen him make the ultimate sacrifice, and we've seen him escape through time and space back to life, where he is currently going about installing Batmen (Batmans?) in every major nation in the world. To say that Morrison is churning out the same simple 'good-vs-evil status quo' stories is the disservice of the century. For Morrison's work is frantic, furious and fabulous in every way.

Top Ten Grant Morrison Works

Batman and Robin: Bruce Wayne is dead. But the Dynamic Duo lives on through former Robin, Dick Grayson and Wayne's troublesome son, the vengeful Damien. Together, the unlikely duo battle zany new villains and eerie conspiracies in a series that is something of a cross between the world of Hannibal Lecter and the old Adam West 1966 Batman TV show.
JLA – Earth 2: The Mad Morrison writes the typical 'evil counterparts from an alternate dimension' story and dares to make it work.
Arkham Asylum – A Serious House on Serious Earth: One of the most psychologically haunting and brilliant comic book stories of all time. Dave McKean's lavish artwork alone is worth the price, to say nothing of the creepy writing.
New X-Men: One of the Scot's brief flirtations with the Marvel side of things, this series put the Merry Mutants to great use focusing on re-examining the elements of their characterisations that made them so popular to begin with. Also, they received snazzy new costumes from frequent collaborating artist Frank Quitely.
All Star Superman: The one great contradictory work of Morrison's, and true to the titular character, this story can be enjoyed by three-year olds or 83-year olds. All the wonder and magic of Superman is brought to life in 12 issues that breathe new life into the first and greatest of all comic book heroes. Unmissable.

The Party Upstairs: A Big Ol' Post about Faith

2011-03-15T19:25:00.002Z

A lot has happened over the past two weeks. In fact, a lot has happened over the past few months.

That's not even what this is particularly about, per se, but it's always worth a reminder. With all the pondering and musing I do about whimsy and escapism around these here parts, The Real World is hurtling towards disaster in every which way. I thought it might be worthwhile to address that for once, while examining something that always seems to creep its ugly head for those of us who are outside these nightmarish circumstances, at times like this.

Why? If there's a God, what the Hell's he doing? Is this one of those terrible, 'Biblical' plague-type things we're witnessing? And if so, why is He targeting countries like New Zealand when there are countries guilty of far more treason, blasphemy and debauchery than them?

So let's get right to the point. I Believe. I Believe that before the whimper, before the bang, there was a very specific, gentlemanly finger-snap that caused everything to be. I don't have any real basis for this, other than that that's what feels like the case. I have a bunch of stories from my own life and times that where I believe there were cosmic forces at work. Coincidences are for the birds.

On the other hand, what specifically doesn't feel like the case is this notion that somehow, in some bizarre fashion, us mortals have somehow unlocked all of the answers to the Hows and the Whys of this timely finger-snapping and that we have it all conveniently summarised in a handy-dandy book about multiplying fish and walking on water. The Bible is a silly, out-dated book that was written by a bunch of fanboys a kajillion years ago. It's glorified fanfiction. Why do people take it as being the only possibility out there? Moreover, why does any religion take their view to be the right one? No matter how strongly I feel that there are Higher Powers at work, when you get right down to it, I'm probably wrong.

The beauty about the whole thing though, is that I might not definitely be wrong. And that's what faith is to me.

I believe that if there is a God, he exists to provide challenges and obstacles for certain lucky people to overcome in order for them to achieve happiness and contentment here on Earth. Essentially, God is probably a malevolent bastard.

He's probably all about sacrificing hundreds and thousands of purely innocent souls for the sake of social experiments and making it harder for sinners to want to keep going. Why else would tragedies like Japan and New Zealand happen? What's he got to punish them for?
He gives us layers and layers of crap all the time and it is our divine privilege to have to find a way to work through it all and do so with a smile on our collective faces. If we can do that, we might make it out on top. Depending on what He has planned on that particular week.

As for Heaven, yeah, I think that's there too. Supernatural (which has made me ponder and re-assess faith more than a lot of things) interpreted Heaven as sort of a cosmic, inter-dimensional, paradise version of The Matrix. You get to live through all of your fantasies and all of your most wonderful, rose-tinted memories as often as you like and experience all the same emotions you did when they first happened. But at the end of the day, none of it is real. None of it means anything. I have to say I quite liked this idea, because even if it's not necessarily what Heaven might turn out to be, it's still food for thought for lackadaisical Christians who drift through life, playing it safe, knowing that The Real Party's On Upstairs. As for Hell, Supernatural pretty much imagined it the same way it's been foretold for millennia. I'm inclined to believe in that too.

For all the great antics Upstairs, there's gotta be a bunch of hipsters downstairs talking about bands nobody's heard of. I'm inclined to believe that certain people are doomed to that place. What changes, all the time, is why.

Anyway, I'd argue that no matter what way you look at it, the 'real party' is on right here on the ground floor. Earth. Life. Mortgages. Bad weather. Justin Bieber. Even if you scoff at all of the interpretations of higher powers and men in white robes and long flowing beards, or even if you go to Mass every Lenten morning and go to confession every time you catch a brief glimpse of MTV, you have to accept life as being The Big Deal, rather than The Teaser Trailer.

Another realisation I came to recently is that I don't really think Christ played the most important role in shaping out my (admittedly malleable) moral code. There are others responsible for that.

I'm deadly serious.

The fact of the matter is that Batman is a character who is continuously written as being the ultimate personification of determination and relentlessness. He does things because he can't live without doing good. As Bruce Wayne, he gives millions upon millions of dollars to good causes, all the time. And he punishes the wicked and the sinners of society, both big and small, for their transgressions. And he "Never, ever, gives in. Or gives up." to quote Neil Gaiman.

Superman is of course, the same in a lighter, more upbeat way. He doesn't strike from the shadows, he descends down from the sky, helping people wherever he can because it's the right thing to do, while still roaming the streets disguised as human because he is so utterly delighted and surprised by humanity. He acknowledges that for all the amazing things he can do, nothing would be more exciting than just living a normal mortal life where you live and die and have to succeed based on the tools you were given at birth.

The big difference between Batman, Superman and Jesus Christ is that superheroes are accepted as fictional characters. Everything they do can be re-imagined and re-tooled for every new generation. Not a whole lot is sacred where they're concerned, because things change and audiences mature. The same is not quite as true of Buddy Christ and his purist subscribers.

And then there's the fact that Jesus ain't had nearly as much shirtless action as the Dark Knight.

So yeah, I believe in God. But more importantly than that, I believe in Batman. I don't believe in people who dress in black and go around telling people what to do while secretly molesting children. I believe in people who dress in black and go around beating up criminals and child molesters, while making out with Talia Al Ghul. Shirtless.

So rather than worrying about The Party Upstairs, I recommend instead that you just look around the ground floor and see what you can do to make it rockin'.

Charlie Sheen Has Won The Internet

2011-03-10T13:01:00.000Z

I've said this for a long, long time.

I promise I'll have something with a little bit more originality (i.e., not ripped from Facebook) next time around. I have a couple of College View bits and pieces I'm going to upload here as well just so other people can read them.

Jersey Shore is the Worst Television Programme Ever Made

2011-02-22T20:39:00.000Z

Just a filler today, furious fans. I wrote this on Facebook last week and it kind of got stuck in my head as something that should be maintained and preserved, here.

This sums up my feelings on this Televisual Travesty better than any of my words can.

Bane of the Bat: My thoughts on the antagonist of The Dark Knight Rises

2011-02-16T15:03:00.000Z

When Tom Hardy was cryptically announced merely as 'a villain' for Christopher Nolan's final installment in his trilogy of re-imagined Batman films, fans were unusually pleased. His casting in this new Bat-film ensured elegant grace, sharp British wit as well as the possibility of some good old fashioned cinematic testosterone. Internet speculation suggested that Hardy might be playing Hugo Strange or even the Riddler (which was admittedly, a long-shot for a burly English actor). Quite recently however, it has been confirmed that Tom Hardy will be playing Bane, a behemoth obsessed with domination, who uses cunning and skill to break his opponent down before finally crushing them with brute strength. Essentially, an evil version of Batman. The "what if Batman was an evil masterplanner" bit has certainly been played before, by other characters (Owlman, Prometheus and most recently Hush), but Bane has remained the most frighteningly credible exploration of this concept.

Bane's origins in the 1990s came about when DC Comics were attempting to stage an event for Batman that would hopefully match the mammoth, comic-selling powerhouse that was The Death of Superman. However, rather than killing off their two best-known characters, they opted instead to have Batman humiliated and defeated rather than simply having him die a traditional hero's death. The opening chapter of the staggering epic that is Knightfall sees a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum, where every single villain Batman has ever captured from the very beginning of his career is suddenly released. Over a number of months, Batman exhausts himself trying to hunt down and recapture each and every one of the insane inmates and return them to Arkham, testing his personal ethics and morality regarding the killing of criminals in the process. Finally, when he is completely spent, the villain behind the breakout reveals himself as Bane. Bane discovers Batman's true identity, destroys the Batcave and breaks the Dark Knight's back, dumping his barely-alive body on the streets of Gotham for all its citizens to see.

That story continued on for more than two years (in which time a controversial new Batman took over) to the point where it had well and truly trailed off after such impressive beginnings. But that opening still stands up as a remarkably credible take on just how someone could actually defeat Batman by wearing down his defences until he simply couldn't retaliate. After all, one of the themes so constantly returned to not only in the comics but in these films is that Batman is just a man. No matter how great this legend is that Bruce Wayne has created and no matter how athletically advanced he may be, he is just a man who can be defeated by a force greater than his own.

In the context of the next Batman film, one could speculate that the direction Nolan is taking the Bane character could be quite similar. Over the course of two films (which are only set within a few weeks of one another) all of the villains of Arkham Asylum have been released (not very many of whom seem to have been recaptured) an entire island section of Gotham has been driven insane by fear-inducing poison and the efforts of a madman have seen to it that Gotham's one last visible hope for lasting change has been lost. On the bright side, Gotham's organised crime has been more or else eradicated. Unfortunately, Gotham is now without a district attorney and is rife with freakish looney tunes.

Ra's Al Ghul sought to destroy Gotham City. The Joker sought to corrupt it. Batman has exhausted himself both physically and mentally trying to defeat both of these antagonists, only managing to parlay their efforts, at the cost of his image as a hero and the life of his first love, Rachel Dawes. The time is now ripe for a despotic pariah to come and rule what little is left of this once great city, destroying Batman in the process. Will the Dark Knight survive with only one film remaining? For the very first time, I'm not so sure.

“Somebody Save Me” A Smallville Retrospective

2011-02-15T23:09:00.000Z

In June 1938, the world was introduced to Superman. Powerful and patriotic, he was the ultimate hero; so much so that he created a new concept for popular culture: the super-hero. Superman found success in comic books, on the radio, television and even the silver screen. However, most of these incarnations focused squarely on The Man of Steel in his square-jawed prime. Some sixty-odd years into his life, someone had the idea that it might be interesting to delve deeper into the origin story of the character, highlighting his days as a boy growing up with a farm, dealing with the problems of homework, girls and red kryptonite. This is the story of Smallville.

It's almost staggering to think that the show has soldiered on for ten years of fluctuating quality. Certainly when it began, it was powerful, epic television with excellent characterisation. Clark Kent was truly three-dimensional with problems and character flaws to go with his heat vision. Lex Luthor was elevated from a cackling cartoon to a tragic anti-hero with father issues. And Jonathan Kent was surely the coolest Dad in the history of television.

It's fair to say that the series lost its way quite a bit around the fourth season. At that point, viewers were growing tired of the “teen drama” approach the show had modelled itself on (with good reason) and demanded more action and more relevance to the mythos of Superman. Suddenly, all kinds of characters began showing up with the introduction of Lois Lane into the show spear-heading this unneccessary revamp. It began to become apparent that the series no longer had any intention of chronicling the transformation of farmboy to Superman, but that it would instead continue on with protagonist frozen in mid-development dealing with whatever obstacles the writers could think of in order to stall his destiny, while finding ways to shoe-horn notable elements of the comics into the show. By the end of the eighth season, Lois Lane and the Green Arrow (think Robin Hood mixed with Batman with Tony Stark's personality) were main characters and major appearances had been made by Jor-El (Superman's biological father), Supergirl, Perry White, General Zod (whose youthful clone would go on to become the antagonist of the ninth season), Doomsday and even Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen. Probably the greatest, most unneccessary folly the series ever made was when Jimmy was killed off in the close of the eighth season with the subsequent revelation that it wasn't even Jimmy at all, but his older brother “Henry-James”! That's almost as cringeworthy as the infamous “It was all a dream” shower scene from Dallas.

All was not lost, however. In the opening of the ninth season the producers took the series in yet another direction. Recognising that the end was nigh, realising that the damage was done and that the show was never again going to be the traditional origin story it set out to be, they instead decided to open up the floodgates. This saw a complete abandoning of the visual subtlety the show had always favoured (the tagline had originally been “No Flights, No Tights”) and embracing the wild and wonderful world of the DC Universe. This farewell to arms saw appearances from characters who had never before seen the light of day outside of the comics. The likes of Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Stargirl and even the Wonder Twins (no need to bother asking who they are) were given affectionate, silly-but-fun treatment. Clark was now a costumed superhero on the show anyway, although instead of the traditional red-and-blue tights, he wore a more subdued and stealthy black trenchcoat. Initially, people saw this as being a sad attempt at trying to ride The Dark Knight's shadowy success and aesthetically that could well be the inspiration behind the wardrobe makeover. The writing however saved the concept, showing Clark as an active superhero afraid to step into the light for fear of persecution. His development over the final two seasons has seen him shun this approach in favour of being a charismatic leader of all the other superheroes that are popping up all over the world.

Lois Lane has also redeemed herself and the show has given the character a new purpose. Whereas usually, her sole motivation is in trying to figure out Superman's true identity and then living happily ever after with him; the focus here is how Lois is an anchor for Clark. She loves him dearly and will do anything she can to help him be the best person he can be. The ultimate girlfriend!

The success of this new approach allowed the show a swansong tenth season which has promised to conclude with Clark Kent becoming Superman. The emphasis of the series is now centred around forgetting about the mistakes of the past and not obsessing over the dangers of the future. Clark Kent is now coming to realise that if he is to become the greatest hero the world has ever known, he must free himself of self-doubts and focus on the present, creating his own destiny rather than following one that has been written out for him. What kind of college student can't relate to that?

Feeling the Fury: Legend of the Ghostly Update II

2011-01-27T17:52:00.000Z

Greetings loyal fans!

Apologies for the lack of any actual content here over the past while. Back in the early days of this merry site during lull times I'd be quite happy to occasionally post some aimless meanderings that didn't really have any basis in anything particularly important or interesting, whatsoever. Over time, I've found that the content here is getting more and more advanced (it's certainly getting longer) and posts like that are just a waste of time and space and don't really reflect what I want to do with Feeling the Fury and where I want it to go (if you'll forgive me for being so self-indulgent). Plus, Facebook was pretty much invented for complaining about cancelled lectures and giving snippet reviews of okay films.

Anyway, needless to say an awful lot has transpired in the time that I haven't written anything here. My birthday, Christmas and New Year's all came and went by with pleasant incidents and occurrences as well as some significantly crushing disappointments that changed some of my perspective regarding a few things, but let's not waste any more time on that.

Having to start work on my thesis pretty much immediately while juggling lectures, the student union and my part-time job means two things: the posts here will probably be even less frequent or more frequent than they've ever been before. I've always found that the very best stuff I write here comes as a result of frustration and procrastination during times where I really should be doing more important work. The beauty of the stuff I write here is that it may actually become more important in the future than the stuff I'm labeling as 'important' right now.

For the small handful of you who follow and read most of what I write, I'll tell you that I'm working on a new video-blog-type show along the same lines as CanadaQuest. The main problem with it so far is that CanadaQuest had a very specific theme and purpose whereas this new one is sort of inherently an excuse for me to faff around with Movie Maker and YouTube with no real documentary aspect to it, whatsoever. I think if you take it with a pinch of salt though and remember that the tongue is specifically in cheek where the show is concerned, it could end up being really fun.

Keep reading and please remember to feel the fury!

Superman, Mental Breakdowns, Lemon Meringue Pie and a Mule named 'Lily-Bell'

2010-12-14T13:08:00.000Z

It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that I'm something of a Superman fan. I'm tantalisingly close to having seen every single live-action interpretation of the character that there has ever been and I'm generally a walking encyclopedia on all things that relate to the Last Son of Krypton.

One of those things is the Adventures of Superman episode "Flight to the North".

Adventures of Superman has the honour of being the first Superman TV show ever (not counting the movie chapter-serials, which we will get to in due time) and had a very diverse six years of existence. When the show began, it was gritty and dark and full of misery and death. In the second season, it mellowed out a lot and by the time it reached the third season, it was pretty much didn't make any bones about being a campy kiddie show. Flight to North very much fits in that latter category. But is awesome. I don't know how how or why this most bizarre story ever came to be, and I don't care. The fact is, it exists and every time I think of it, it makes me smile.

The episode follows Louie Lyman, a gangster who has just been released from prison (where he was sent because of Clark Kent's exposé articles "years ago"). Louie apparently spent all of his time in prison waiting to have a slice of his childhood neighbour Margie's lemon meringue pie, which he claims is the greatest of all-time. His buddy disagrees and says that his aunt's is better. So they hold a bet, with their respective halves of their ill-gotten $20,000 at stake. That's right, folks. Superman has dealt with earthquakes, meteor showers, giant rampaging robots and despotic supervillains and the challenge that is being presented to him here is a bet about who makes a better lemon meringue pie.

That's not even the craziest part of the plot. So there's this hillbilly guy Sylvester, visiting Metropolis who just so happens to be nicknamed 'Superman' back home, because he's a strong fellow. He reads an ad in the paper about a woman who needs Superman's help and happily goes to help her out, with his mule Lily-Bell in tow. It turns out she needs him to bring a slice of her famous lemon meringue pie to her fiancee, Steve who is stationed alone, at an outpost in Alaska. Being that this misunderstood hillbilly is such a straight-up guy, he agrees to fly to Alaska for this woman (who thinks he's the real Superman, who can, as we all know, fly), to bring the pie to her fiancee.

So, needless to say, Louie shows up begging Margie to give him a pie. Here's where things get really crazy. Margie won't give Louie a pie, because she swore she wouldn't bake a pie for any other man than her fiancee. The episode has gotten crazy enough that they are tying in some kind of allegory for sexual fidelity. Louie finds out about the mistaken Superman going to Alaska with the pie, and sets out after him.

For some reason, Clark Kent goes to Louie's apartment, but the clerk informs that Louie's not there. Then this happens:

...which, if seen out-of-context, might be the most hilariously stupid scene of television ever filmed.

So we get to Alaska and we learn that Margie's boyfriend has gone bonkers and talks to himself in the mirror. Sylvester shows up with pie in hand and mule in tow and the two sit down to enjoy the coveted confectionary, which I'm guessing must be filled with some kind of gold-encrusted super-Heroin or something.

Throughout this exchange, Steve admits that he's sure he's gone completely crazy from isolation and is imagining the whole thing. At this point, it could be interpreted as the writers dropping hints that that's actually what's happening.

Louie shows up freezing his balls off and takes the pie at gunpoint. Superman arrives and saves the pie, delivering it back into the safe hands of Margie's fiancee. Here's where things get flat-out disturbing. Rather than flying the friendly Hillbilly guy home, Superman shoos him and the mule back out the door and...

What a dick-move on Superman's part. He basically tells Sylvester to go on home with an armed criminal in tow (through the freezing cold, until he gets to an airport and has to pay for a plane ticket for him and his mule), just so he can have more pie for himself. For a character who's supposed to be the focused totality of pure goodness, that's pretty damn selfish. He probably suspected that Steve wouldn't want any as well and that he could have the whole thing for himself.

So the story ends with Louie cancelling the bet with Buckets and Buckets coincidentally bowing out as well, because he also failed to get a pie (although he probably didn't stare an icy death in the eye while failing). Clark and Sylvester (presumably fresh off his flight) show up and kind of guffaw at the fallen mobster and Sylvester states that big city life is a bit too much for him and that he's going to return back to Skunk Hollow.

If Tim Burton had been successful in directing a Superman movie back in the 90s, I have trouble believing he wouldn't want to take that chance to adapt "Flight to the North" for the movie. The episode is one of the most surreal, bizarre and utterly brilliant things I have ever seen.