Now this is what I am talking about! WB Games has announced the collectors’ edition for Batman: Arkham Origins and it is a beauty. The set will run you $119.99 and come packed full of goodies. Here is the rundown:
-Nine inch statue of The Joker with full LED effects
-80 page art book
-Two pieces of GCPD evidence in crime lab wrapping
-Wanted poster for Batman
-Glow in the dark map of Gotham City
-Wayne family photo
-Intel dossiers on all eight assassins
-Batwing schematic
-Anarchy logo stencil
-First appearance Batman skin from Detective Comics #27
-Deathstroke Challenge Pack
-Necessary Evil documentary
-Knightfall DLC pack (PS3 only)
That is quite a haul for a collectors’ edition. Having purchased both previous sets for Arkham Asylum and Arkham City I can easily say this is the best of the three and that statue is worth the price of admission for me.
How about you? Is there enough here to warrant a $120 purchase?
[amazon_link id=”B00C7103DO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Batman: Arkham Origins[/amazon_link] releases on October 25th.
I am a Batgirl fan. Actually the more appropriate statement would be I am a Batgirl addict. I have statues, comics, graphic novels. I can not help but watch every episode of the Adam West batman when Yvonne Craig would be on as Barbara Gordon in Season 3 (seriously, do you not know how hot she was?).
Now Batgirl is the second of four DLC characters for [amazon_link id=”B0088I7L76″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Injustice: Gods Among Us[/amazon_link]. Here we have a video of Barbara taking on The Joker and showing off all of her moves.
And yes, The Joker is wearing his beach attire from The Killing Joke. Please let this be part of the DLC. For a bat fan like me, that is worth almost the price of the game.
In case the news did not pass you yesterday, a rather huge event happened in the Bat-universe with the death of Bruce Wayne’s son, Damian. Now, the current Robin was certainly a dick for most of the time the character has been written, but really wouldn’t you be also if you were raised like he was?
Over the past year through the different Bat titles he has gone through a maturation process and embraced his role as Bruce Wayne’s son and what that meant in the legacy of the Wayne family name. So when a character turns a corner like this, the next logical step is death. Hey, it’s comics. Damian was killed by his mother Talia, well to be more specific by her monster soldier named Heretic, who was acting on her orders. For those of you who did not read Batman, Inc. #8, Damian went out like a champ making the beating Jason Todd took from The Joker look like a love tap session.
So where does Batman go from here? Yes, we understand this is the world of comics where characters can come back on a whim and death is never…well, death. But this is a life shattering event in the life of Bruce Wayne. When Jason Todd was murdered it scarred Bruce Wayne for the twenty or so years until Todd was brought back as Red Hood (again, comics). This should, and better, have a bigger resonance with Bruce. While he has always treated every Robin as his own son, this is his ACTUAL son. A test tube one yes, but Damian came from him nevertheless.
The next few issues of Bat titles will be interesting to read and see what direction this takes the Batman character. The first title to handle this will be Detective Comics #18. The title has been in the middle of a big Penguin storyline that honestly is going nowhere for me, so I hope the team of John Layman and Jason Fabok can bring their A game.
Photo courtesy comicbook.com
The title I am looking forward to the most in this post-Damian world is easily Batman and Robin #18. I bet you thought I was going to say Batman with my love of Scott Snyder right? Sorry to disapoint, but the reason I say Batman and Robin is that Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason’s title is easily my second favorite of all the Bat tiles and the one that has truly explored the father/son dynamic of Bruce and Damian better than anyone. They have tackled the issue of Damian taking his first life and shown Damian’s love for his father by sending him on a worldwide trip to rediscover Thomas and Martha’s love for each other (even though he used that to dress up as Batman). And the team is doing something unique for their upcoming issue #18.
Batman and Robin #18 will be a completely silent issue. No words will be spoken. Peter Tomasi is leaving the entire issue to artist Patrick Gleason to show how Bruce deals with the death of his son in art alone. After that, Tomasi plans to take Bruce through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and then the title will be renamed with whichever member of the Bat-family is in the issue at the time, like Batman and Red Hood, etc.
Ironically enough, Damian’s death is coming off the huge Death of the Family story arc spearheaded by Scott Snyder, who brought The Joker back more sadistic than we have ever seen. As Batman #17 ended, it seemed that as Bruce was coming to trust everyone with more secretive information, but The Joker put a crack in their trust in Bruce and have started to distance themselves. Will Damian’s death be a catalyst for them to band together for Bruce’s sake?
Exactly how Damian’s death will be handled in other titles are not exactly known at this time, but needless to say this should rock Batman and the entire family to the core.
The characters keep coming for next year’s DC-based fighting game with Green Arrow, The Joker and Green Lantern being added to the roster.
Green Arrow was unveiled with a character video which shows off Oliver’s quips and some pretty awesome use of his arrows in combat while the boxart for the game is not that kind to the marksmen as you see Superman and Batman fighting while Green Arrow lies dead (or knocked out since there are no fatalities?) beside them. The cover also confirms the rumors that The Joker and Green Lantern will be up for the fight as well.
Take a look at Green Arrow’s introduction below and some of the other character videos below. [amazon_link id=”B0088I7L76″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Injustice: Gods Among Us[/amazon_link] will be released April 2013.
Lego Lord of the Rings may be getting a bulk of the Lego love this fall but Batman has a huge new set coming soon.
Releasing in January and only costing a cool $160 this Arkham Asylum set contains 1,351 pieces and is the largest set Lego has made for a superhero. It is based off of the Lego Batman 2 game from earlier this year. Now the only questions are:
1. Where do I find the space for this?
2. Where do I find the money to purchase this?
3. Where do I find the time to build this?
4. How do I purchase this massive box of Lego’s in public without people thinking I am a complete weirdo?
Can This Animated Film Stay Faithful To Frank Miller’s Legendary Work?
To say that adapting The Dark Knight Returns is a daunting task may be an understatement. Frank Miller’s 1986 classic is considered by most to be one of the greatest Batman graphic novels (along with Miller’s own Batman: Year One and Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke) ever published. DC Animated has already adapted Year One and did a good job of it but The Dark Knight Returns is a different beast. The “futuristic” dystopian feel of a Gotham fallen back into a state of hopelessness ten years removed from the last sighting of Batman has such an identity in the comic as well as involving a group of Batman’s and DC’s most iconic figures you begin to think that this could become a lost endeavor before you begin to watch.
The movie opens just as the comic does with Bruce Wayne involved in a horrific wreck while racing F-1 cars in Gotham and right off the bat I am thrown off by the lack of internal monologue. It plays such a huge role in Miller’s work that it will take a few minutes to get past the exclusion of it especially if you know a lot of the source material by heart. But after a few minutes you become involved with the story that you know so well that it becomes an afterthought.
As Commissioner Gordon prepares for his retirement, Gotham is being overrun with a string of murders, rapes, kidnappings and robberies by a gang known as the Mutants. Their leader broadcasts their hatred for the law and that the will kill Gordon and take the city. Thankfully for the purists the Mutant gang’s weird speech type has been left in tact as well as their distinct look.
The smartest thing that DC did was to split this feature into two parts. The story is such a large event that it would have felt bastardized trying to fit it into 75 minutes. Even with two parts there is still so much story to digest in part one. Harvey Dent’s release from Arkham with a new face and new lease on life that doesn’t last that long, Carrie Kelly taking it upon herself to pick up the mantle of Robin and prove herself to the returning Batman, all of the interspersed news coverage showing the political and cultural overtones of Batman and what he represents to society and the caped crusader’s pair of fights with the hulking Mutant leader. It is all handled well in the movie with a few slight changes to the story that are subtle and only will be noticed by avid fans but none of them really had me cursing at the screen yelling ” YOU RUINED IT!”
The animation is on par with every other DC release over the past few years. It’s mostly clean looking but sometimes feels like a little more care could have been given to it. I was excited to see what they could do with the look of Gotham considering the source material but was left feeling disappointed when it looked like a mostly bland city instead of the dirty, neon filled streets from Klaus Janson’s art style. The look of the characters is mostly intact with the only noticable difference being how young The Joker looks when you finally see him full frame at the end of the movie.
The voice cast is good, not great. Gordon’s light undertone voice takes a few minutes to get used to but Carrie and the Mutant leader are pretty close to how I imagined when reading the graphic novel. Robocop himself Peter Weller has the opportunity to voice Batman and it is a mixed bag. During some scenes he seems to just be reading lines as Peter Weller, with no inflection or emotion at all but then will deliver one of the classic lines from the story and have you thinking “so that’s why they hired him”. Don’t worry Kevin Conroy, you still have nothing to worry about.
A few minutes into the movie I was beginning to wonder if this movie could attain the lofty goals it set for itself by taking on such a beloved and legendary work. But the more I watched, the more I became engrossed in the story that I have read time and time again and by the time Batman gives his “This isn’t a mud pit. It’s a operating table” line near the end of the movie I was sold that despite a few missteps the animated department at DC took a chance and it paid off with a good feature that does have me looking forward to the second part.
Well that and wanting to see an old Batman completely kick the s*** out of Superman.
I know what you are initially thinking, Lego games are a dime a dozen. From Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and later on this year with the Lord of the Rings, Lego and developers Traveler’s Tales have invaded every facet of movies and pop culture. Some have been winners (Star Wars) and others have seemed like cash-ins (that’s Captain Jack Sparrow to you). With Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes the developers have truly gone for broke and crafted an open world Gotham that is as much fun to explore as it is to complete your missions. And by adding in other playable heroes (Justice League!!) the game never grows into the repetitive battle and Lego building that has plagued the games before it.
Now I won’t try and fool you. You are still going to be doing your fair share of button mashing and collecting Lego pieces but now that you are given the option of doing that or just roaming around downtown Gotham opens up the gameplay so much. In most Lego games when I would become bogged down from the repetitive feeling of the game I would simply shut it off and move on for a while but here I find myself driving, flying or racing my way around the city to blow off some steam…or just keep listening to the sweet soundtrack.
That’s right since this game was released under the WB games branch it means you get Danny Elfman’s awesome Batman theme blaring through your speakers and that is not all. When you finally get to take over playing as Superman you are met with John William’s iconic Superman theme. As a nerd this adds so much to the game that it is hard to describe the feeling of when you take flight and the Superman theme hits and all you want to do is fly around Gotham City living out your childhood dreams, just in Lego form. Even now I am getting a few goosebumps thinking about it.
Gameplay wise you are not going to find any huge leap forward to the action genre. You are going to be hitting punch….a lot. As well as jump, then jump and punch to execute an air attack. See where I am going here? The real meat of the gameplay, as with any Lego game, is by using the different characters in your party to open up the locked off portions of levels for the rest of your team. This is accomplished with the finding of a huge variety of suits. Batman has an electricity suit, a sensor suit (for stealth use) and many more. Robin, likewise, has and acrobat suit, magnet suit, etc. I could easily lie to all of you and say that I breezed through the game without thought but there were many times I was standing there examining a room and thinking just how in the heck was I going to use the suits to get to the next available area. None of the puzzles are mind numbingly hard but some will give you pause for a minute or two.
Even though the game is subtitled DC Super Heroes you will play the majority of this game as Batman and Robin so don’t go into this thinking you will just jump right in and fly around as Green Lantern. But the sections that you do get to play as a Justice League member offers a great break in the gameplay especially when you are the Man of Steel. I don’t mean to short change the rest of the playable Justice League members here but I really don’t see how we as gamers have yet to get a quality Superman title yet everything he does in this game feels exactly right. If I could tell any developer that wanted to make a Supes game how to go about it I would just say play this game…..and do that.
This is also the first Lego game that has featured full voice acting. That’s right, no more reading facial expressions this game has an actual script and it is actually pretty dang funny. Batman is super serious to a fault, Robin is a crackly voice teen that makes mistakes and Superman is a tool. The even managed to bring in Clancy Brown from the Superman animated series to reprise his role as Lex Luthor. I found myself laughing out loud on many occasions in between levels. I am happy to say that the voice cast make this game so much more complete and give me new hope that when The Lord of the Rings game releases this fall it will be another winner like this title.
With it’s new open world style, quality voice acting, hilarious script, fewer camera problems than other Lego games and side missions to keep you busy for hours on end, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes not only raises the bar for Lego games, it takes the bar and goes up, up and away.
