The Legends of the Dark Knight
Neal Adams, Paul Dini, TIm Sale and Brian Stelfreeze moderated by D. Clark. Neal Adams was asked how he revitalized Batman after the comic became too entwined with the television show’s campiness. His answer, “I went back to Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson. I also did two things. I wanted to make everything Batman was doing take place at night, instead of him walking down the street in broad daylight. And I wanted him to stop walking in through doors. [mimes opening a door] “Hi, I’m Batman.” Coming in through a window is much better.”

He went on to say that when an irked Julie Schwartz asked him why he thought his Batman was “the Batman,” Adams replied, “Because I know who Batman is. Kids know who Batman is. The only one who doesn’t know who Batman is is DC Comics.” A woman sitting next to me whispered, “That’s still true.”

TIm Sale was asked about what artist he admired and he said Neal Adams (Neal got a lot of love). “I read Marvel books, but when Neal put out a horror-type cover I had to have it.” Sale’s run with Jeph Loeb (The Long Halloween) pulled from gangster films of the 1930s and showed how Gotham transitioned from a mob town to a freakshow. Paul Dini was asked about how Harley took off and he said it was a combination of the fan demand and directors for the Animated Series who wanted her. Dini also said that he also went back to Bob Kane and Bill Finger for the Animated Series and that he tries to showcase Batman as a detective in every issue of Detective Comics. His House of Hush (current storyline in Batman: Streets of Gotham) will explain how Batman and Zatanna were able to reconcile after Identity Crisis.

Brian Stelfreeze mentioned the first time he drew Batman (for a comics journal), DC wouldn’t approve it and sent him a full page of errors he had made. Later he was offered to the cover to a Batman newspaper comics collection which didn’t need DC’s approval. This cover caught the eye of Denny O’Neil who brought him on-board as a regular cover artist.

Fanboy moment: Neal Adams said something along the lines of Batman resonating because each of us has a Batman inside him. He said, “I have Batman inside me and I know this guy [pointing at me] has Batman inside him, don’t you?”

Random Encounter
I met Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman today and got my picture taken with him. He was very warm and excited that I was interested in his books: Make Your Own Damn Movie, Direct Your Own Damn Movie, and Produce Your Own Damn Movie — which reminds me the amount of love fan films get at Dragon*Con is stunning. Browncoats Redemption was packed last night and a Hobbit fan film, The Fellows Hip: Rise of the Gamers, had an incredible line.

I also went back to Tom Savini’s booth today to get a signed DVD. The DVD was wrapped in plastic so Savini whipped out a dagger to open it. The dagger slipped while he was cutting it open and — in addition to being signed — the DVD cover now has the Unholy Blood of Tom Savini!

Burns was on the CourtTV/TruTV series Haunting Evidence where a paranormal investigator and two psychics investigated cold cases hoping to turn up new lines of investigation. After introducing his background, he then explained his philosophy of ghost hunting: mainly that it was important to be skeptical, not cynical and ghost hunting wasn’t at a place where it could meet scientific scrutiny so any investigation was ultimately inconclusive. He said that he preferred video cameras over standard cameras due to the problems that can crop into a single frame. However he said most of his effort went into collecting EVPs.

He then played clips from Haunting Evidence and explained some of the behind the scenes working and told us about evidence that didn’t make it into the final shows. He shared photos from one scene where an eerie mist was visible under infrared light and explained why it couldn’t be debunked as normal water vapor or expelled breath. Haunting Evidence is no longer in production, but Burns said episodes still popped up on rerun and it was available on torrent sites or Google Video.

Star Trek: The Next Generation
This panel started late because the TNG crew was at the wrong hotel. Trek Track organizer and Voyager crew member Garret Wang entertained the crowd with a bit of dancing and his Sulu impression (Oh my!) and then asked why we didn’t come to the Voyager panel. When the TNGers arrvied, Armin Shimerman — a little weird since he was on DS9. The panel was audience driven and these were the best exchanges:

Q: Do you watch other Star Trek series besides Next Generation?
Sirtis: When Next Generation was on, the Original Series cast would get asked this question and they would always say no. I never believed them, but it’s true. I haven’t watched any of the other series. Not even the episodes of Voyager I was on.
Shimerman: I liked DS9.

Q: (for Burton) Is there any change of Reading Rainbow coming back (asked by a librarian who was applauded by the cast and audience)
Burton: (leads audience in signing the Reading Rainbow theme)
Sirtis: (leads audience in humming Next Generation theme)
Spiner: (starts signing “It’s the Brent Spiner show”)
Frakes: (makes a comment and is shushed by the librarian)
Burton: Yes, it’s coming back as a web-based program with videos, games and a safe social networking site for kids.

Q: (for Spiner) How much make-up did you have to put on?
Spiner: Today? Just a little rouge.
Sirtis: I guess I’m the only one answering questions today. They put on a lot of white make up and then added gold flecks.
Spiner: It took an hour to put on and six hours to take off.

Q: Are you thinking of joining MyOuterSpace, the science Fiction social networking site started by William Shatner?
Sirtis: How much is he getting paid for that?
Spiner: He just shows up every once in a while and says, “My best, Bill.”

Q: What Star Trek invention do we need the most?
Shimerman: The medical technology. I hear from doctors who say they are working on developing Star Trek technologies.
Spiner: For my folliclally-challenged friend Michael Dorn, I think we need to go back to the original series for Shatner’s hairpieces.
Sirtis: Shatner is a wonderful actor. Really! I’m being serious! Do you know what show brought his career back? His appearance on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He was hilarious.
Spiner: I also hear he’s a wonderful social networker. Seriously though, I think Star Trek’s celebration of all people is what we need the most.
Sirtis: Except for Tea Partiers — sorry if you’re mad at me — but I don’t think we need to bring them into the future.
Frakes: Marina, are you going to be on Dancing with the Stars next season?
Sirtis: No.
Frakes: Bristol Palin is.

Q: Did you ever feel typecast after Star Trek?
Burton: I made a career out of playing blind black men.
Spiner: Strangely enough, so did I.

Q: If they were to revisit Next Generation like they did for the recent Star Trek movie, would you be okay with that?
Spiner: I’d hope we’d be dead by then.
Sirtis: It depends on who played me.
Audience: Megan Fox.
Sirtis: Could you name an actress?
Spiner: Megan Fox could play me.

Q: Did Star Trek open any doors for you?
Cast: We wouldn’t have met Prince Charles or Stephen Hawking, or been invited to NASA.

This was panel was an incredible experience heightened because sitting next to me were a father and daughter who bonded over Next Generation — a story I hear from so many Trek fans. Spiner ripped on Nemesis and his post Star Trek movie career. Frakes teased Crosby about her “wonderful career move” and then admitted “I never understood Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Sirtis urged an audience member to just ask a question after they mentioned episode after episode, “Yes, we know what you’re talking about, we made them.”

However, there was a weird (staged?) exchange between Frakes and Crosby where he repeated a story (too long to go into) and she seemed weirded out by it. Later on, the audience mentioned turning off emotion chips and Crosby asked, “Did I have one?” Frakes said,” Just the one on your shoulder,” and she left the stage — possibly for laughs, but didn’t come back. Then Frakes went after her. He returned briefly to tell Sirtis he needed a counselor, but never came back to the panel. Maybe Crosby just likes leaving things early.

Browncoat Redemption
Browncoat Redemption is a fan film set in-’Verse three months after Serenity. The Alliance feels the need to send a message to ships like the Serenity about interfering with the Alliance while — around them — their credibility is crumbling. Meanwhile the crew of the Redemption is pressured to take on a new pilot and their latest cargo run threatens to destroy the crew’s familial bond. The movie made its debut at Dragon*Con to a ballroom packed with over 1000 fans. The showing was actually delayed because they had to set up more chairs. Something like a review will follow later, but the audience enjoyed it. Laughing and cheering at the right points and ending with a standing ovation. The movie is available to watch free online, but sales from the DVD go to support charities designated by the Firefly cast. And the whole project has Joss’s support.

Random Encounter
After the Next Generation panel I hit the Walk of Fame, which is a ballroom where you can buy celebrity autographs. I wasn’t interested in paying $20-$30 for autographs, so I just got close and took pictures. Some stars had “No photo” signs over their heads, which makes sense because you probably need special film to capture Summer Glau, so I avoided those and tried other people. However, my wife really likes Aaron Douglas (as does Ruth), so I figured I’d give it a shot. I stood back kind far and started taking a picture when Aaron’s assistant (let’s call him Billy) waves me over. I hear Aaron say, “You don’t have to do this.” And Billy points at his badge and says, “Yes, I do.” So I walk over worried about what’s going to happen.

Billy says, “Look a lot of stars are really cool about having their pictures taken. Aaron is cool, but some of them aren’t. Lou Ferrigno will climb over the table and kick you ass, if you try it.” I apologize very sheepishly and tell them both I’m sorry. And Aaron shrugs it off and says he’s cool with it. So I ask him how cool — resulting in this photo.

Zombies vs Unicorns
This was a panel discussion aimed at the age-old discussion, who would win in a fight between zombies vs unicorns? Panelists included authors Beauchamp, Weston, Maberry, Duey, Brewer, Newsome. Mostly led by the audience, the panel dealt with important issues like whether unicorns could become zombies, would unicorns cure zombism, how would zombie Chuck Norris fare against the pro-unicorn Betty White, and more. Pro-zombie members asked why no one had written Unicorn Survival Guides, while Team Unicorn pointed out that the horn of a unicorn was enough to kill Satan in the 1980s movie Legend. While the argument eventually boiled down to the overwhelming numbers of zombies vs the magic of unicorns, panel members agreed that this was the weirdest panel they had been on and Duey now plans to write a story where virgins train zombies to fight unicorns and sharpen their horns to create cutting edges.

Random Encounters
I met Tom Savini! The only thing I wanted to do at Dragon*Con was meet Tom Savini! I also met Peter David, Mike Mignola, Tim Sale, Jimmy Palmiotti (who was in a small panic because Amanda Conner’s lunch was overdue) and Chad Vader.

The problem is that I’ve played a lot of really bad games. There was Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, a game where I had to navigate around fart clouds while wearing a cactus costume. Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, a game so horrible it lowered my Intelligence by 1. Alone in the Dark, a game so bad it not only became unplayable, it actually went back in time and made all the previous entries worse.

But the worst game I ever played was Hellboy. Not the 2008 game, though that was crap too, 2003’s Hellboy: Asylum Seeker (original review here). Asylum Seeker was a PS1 port of a 2000 PC game called Hellboy: Dogs of the Night. Now, a 2003 release of a PS1 game wasn’t just coming towards the end of that console’s lifecycle, it was posthumous release. This should have been a huge warning sign, but I’m a big Hellboy fan.

Asylum Seeker followed Hellboy’s adventures in 1962’s Czechoslovakia. A brief bit about Hellboy: he’s a demon brought to earth by the Nazis, but adopted and raised by the Allies. He works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, finding supernatural evils around the world and punching them with his Right Hand of Doom, an oversized stone fist.

Which was the first thing the game got wrong.

Combat was all kinds of terrible: lousy controls, clipping and poor collision detection, but the Right Hand of Doom was underpowered something fierce. One of the first battles was against a nurse (honestly) and she shrugged off punch after punch. Hellboy also had an oversized gun, but that fared even worse.
At this point, I remember few of the enemies, but there was one called the Zombie Champion. I don’t understand how zombies choose a champion and I wonder if term limits are involved or if it’s one of those lifetime appointments like the Pope or Supreme Court Justice. It’s never a good sign if mind goes to places like this in the middle of combat.

The game had pseudo-adventure elements, meaning that you’d spend a half an hour risking life and limb for an ordinary wrench, pick up strange objects and hope they’d pay off down the road and flip through occult books with the lame pun titles.

But the worst aspect of Hellboy: Dogs of the Night were the stairs.

If Hellboy came near a staircase he automatically walked up or down it – like some strange compulsion that came with his demon blood. Being a PS1 game, the act of traversing stairs was time consuming so it became really annoying when he’d repeatedly get sucked up a flight of stairs and you’d have to turn him around and march him back down – and then flee the area before he got sucked back up. Staircases off of narrow hallways became de facto minibosses, challenging the player’s patience and ability.

All of this combines to make Hellboy: Asylum Seeker (nee Dogs of the Night) the worst game I’ve ever played.

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.

Other takes:

Silvercublogger: It’s all about integrity

Yuki-Pedia: Love, thy name is rage quit

Master Kitty’s World: What were they thinking???

Zath: What’s the worst game you’ve ever played?

SnipingMizzy: What is there to love?

The Game Fanatics: What is the worst game you’ve ever played?

Pioneer Project: Making the best of a bad situation

gunthera1_gamer: The game I could have loved!

The Average Gamer: Gamer Banter: Worst Game EVAR!

Extra Guy: Battle Blaze — 700 pounds of ‘don’t do it’

Metro 2033
Developer: 4A Games
Publisher: THQ
Platform: Xbox 360 (also PC)
Released: March 16, 2010
Test Freaks’ Freak Score: 8.0/10

The Metro is also home to the Dark Ones – monsters that could either be mutants created by radiation, the Metro’s original inhabitants or something worse. They’ve gotten bolder in their attacks and Artyom, the player character, must travel to the main station at Polis to petition for help. Doing so means crossing enemy lines and traversing areas overrun with Dark Ones. His journey will also take him to the ruined surface, where a working gas mask is all that stands between him and radioactive death.

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter, but don’t approach it with a run and gun mindset. If you’re looking for a straight up shooter, there are better options out there, but if you’re looking for an immersive experience played out over the barrel of a gun, this might be the game for you. I say this as someone who felt like they were playing the game wrong for the majority of it.

To get the most out of Metro 2033 – to really appreciate it – you have to take on the role of Artyom. This means exploring areas, talking to people, and paying attention to the various tour guides you encounter in the Metro. My second tip is to consider whether violence is the necessary answer. Artyom has a very deliberate character arc which is easy to miss if you treat the game as a standard FPS.

But this is complicated by several factors. Metro’s morality system (it does have one) is hidden from the player so it’s not always easy to understand the results of your actions. And while many levels have a stealth option, Metro’s stealth mechanics are poorly implemented – one false step and suddenly every enemy in the area knows exactly where you are. Pure rage-quit material.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t times to simply open fire and Metro has a full arsenal ranging from slapped together assault rifles to silenced pneumatic spear guns. You’ll spend a lot of time scrounging for guns and ammunition, but dealers in the Metro station have better equipment if you’re willing to part with high-quality bullets, the game’s currency. And you’ll definitely want to have spare health kits and filters for your gas mask.

The art design in Metro 2033 shows a lot of thought put into what such a subterranean existence would look like. The various stations look appropriately ramshackle and they are populated with characters who aren’t clones. Level design is similarly impressive ranging from series of twisty passages to the ruined city above. There’s even nice differentiation between types of Dark Ones. My only complaint would be how dark some of the levels are, even with my fully-charged flashlight.

Audio is similarly impressive. Ambient music is haunting and in-game effects, like the howls of the nosalis or the sudden spray of gunfire are chilling. Best is the voice acting which is Russian accented without sounding like Chekov impressions.

To its detriment, Metro 2033 requires a lot from its players. As mentioned above, stealthy approaches can be infuriating and even basic combat can be frustrating. It didn’t take long for me to kick the difficulty down to easy and – even then – I saw my share of reload screens. However, playing through the game and replaying specific levels led me to truly appreciate what 4A Games has done here. In the end, I’d rather tough out an original game than play through a highly polished retread.

And I fell in love with the setting so much that I imported the original book by Dmitry Glukhovsky (translated). So look for that review next month.

Mass Effect: Redemption
Publisher: Dark Horse
Released: June 2010

Reading like a space opera with a noir twist, the Dark Horse graphic novel finds Liara at Omega, a massive space station in the Terminus system acting as the dark parallel to the Council-run Citadel. Here gangs rule, kept in check only by Omega’s pirate queen Aria. Like any good noir, it’s tough to tell who’s on which side keeping Liara (and the reader) on her toes.

If you wondered about Liara’s personality change in Mass Effect 2 and her obsession with the Shadow Broker, Redemption sets it all up. This is a Liara who blames herself for Shepard’s demise and who lashes out quickly and violently at anyone who gets in her way – displaying a range of biotic powers which would have been really useful in the first game.

The story is by Mass Effect 2 lead writer Mac Walters, making this more than a marketing tie-in and the art by artist Omar Francia and colorist Michael Atiyeh is impressive – especially the numerous action scenes and displays of biotic ability.

Thanks to Rosalind and everyone else who entered!

Also, Silk Scarf Shoppe now has more gamer scarves in stock so check out their selection!

As a 15-year-old, Benny Imura will no longer be supported by the town of Mountainside. Instead, like all adults, he must find a job to earn his rations. But faced with career choices like testing the fence separating the town from zombies or sitting in a watchtower all day, following his bounty hunter brother Tom out into the Rot and Ruin becomes his best option.

Tom is loved and respected by the town, but Benny remembers Tom’s actions on First Night and has hated him ever since. Besides, Tom isn’t anything like Charlie Pink-Eye or the Motor City Hammer, bounty hunters adored by Benny and his friends. But out in the Rot and Ruin, Benny learns Tom’s philosophy about zombie killing and fears that the real monsters might be on the wrong side of the fence.

Rot and Ruin continues the recent trend of imagining society in the wake of zombie apocalypse. In Maberry’s world-building, monks live in the wastes caring for zombies, scouting programs include intensive combat training and kids collect zombie trading cards. And, in spite of the threat of the living dead, Maberry also conveys the complications which simply come from being fifteen.

Jonathan Maberry’s Rot and Ruin is an expansion of his novella “Family Business” published earlier this year in The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology. What struck me then was his poignant take on zombies. This expanded version retains the poignancy, but also ups the action and horror quotient making this a page-turner, even as it becomes more grim and reflective.

Other takes:

Silvercublogger: Don’t Cover The Art, Unless…

The Average Gamer: Cover Art

Aim for the Head: Browsing the Aisles

SnipingMizzy: In the eye of the beholder

Extra Guy: On Books and Covers

Zath: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?

carocat.co.uk: Cover art? No, thanks!

Pioneer Project: The game box’s big moment

Man Fat: How Important Is A Game’s Cover Art?