I've finished Batman: Arkham Asylum now. Well, I've finished the story line, gotten all the upgrades, and found/solved all 240 of the Riddler challenges. What's left is getting "gold" on the various challenge maps, which I probably won't do.

For my fellow friends working through it, please allow me to save you about three hours of frustration. All cut for spoilers.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best version of Metroid: Prime that you will play that includes the Goddamned Batman.

Fer realz, dog.

Have you ever said to yourself, "Self, I sure do wish there was a third-person stealth game where I played the goddamned Batman, trapped on Arkham island, fighting all of the major baddies like Bane and the Scarecrow, where I could hang upside fucking down from the rafters, watching thugs and seeing their fear levels, only to swoop down on top of them, grab them, punch them in the nose, and leave them hanging, trussed up like a thuggy pig?"

If you ever asked that question, prepare for an orgasm, baby, because this game is the answer to your . . . needs.

I cannot begin to describe the visceral thrill that engaged my spine as I took out a room of ten thugs without any of them ever seeing me. You know that scene at the docks in Batman Begins where he takes out all the goons in darkness? One of them shouts, "Where are you?" and Batman just whispers, "here." Bam.

It's like that. YOU GET TO DO THESE THINGS.

But hey, say you're not so into the creepifying ninja type stuff. That's cool, too. You can just swoop into a crowd of goons and go to fucking town. You're the fucking Batman, right? So you can do this, and do it well. Combat is both absurdly simply and absurdly complex. If you do it right, it's a fluid, bone-crunching ballet of broken noses, busted ribs, and cape-swirl induced stuns. If you do it wrong, there's still a lot of bone-crunching.

As you progress in the game you get more . . . bad-ass (I was going to say "more lethal" but the Bat is never about killing). Your initial equipment load is "just" unlimited batarangs and the grapple gun (which, by the way, never gets old). As you progress, you'll unlock new abilities (throw multiple batarangs, better combos, armor, etc.) and abilities (grappleclaw, detonation gels).

These ability increases are where the "Metroid" bits come in: you'll see areas you can't quite get to. Yet. Once you have the grappleclaw, you'll back track to where you saw that grate up high on the wall and pop it open, which opens new areas to explore and be a predator in.

But all that shit seriously fucking pales in comparison to "Detective Mode". Detective mode is a switch, like one of Metroid's visors. Flip it on and all of a sudden your perceptions of the world change. You have better night vision, for one. But you know, that thug lurking in the darkness over there? Now you see him bright as day (though in a skeletal form). Further, you get a read out of his emotional state, whether or not he has a weapon, etc. Grates, doors, other special things start standing out.

Previous Batman games had focused entirely on fighting, which, you know, makes sense given that Bruce is a fucking ninja. But the most important bit to Batman - the thing that makes him the Baddest Dude Walking - is the fact that he's the world's greatest detective. And that's hard to put into a game and make "fun." But Arkham Asylum pulls it off, and does it well.

For example, early in the game, you'll have to track down a guard. You cordon off a "Crime Scene" area and do some investigation. Eventually you find his hip flask, sample the booze, and then, using the bad-ass detective mode visor, can follow the scent of the whiskey in the air to find him.

And then there's a whole series of Riddler-based sidequests. These run from hidden-package collectibles to real "riddles". Find the solution, take a photo, bam, XP. Hunting down Riddler quests alone is half the fun for me.

The boss fights are hella good, too. I mean, like, fighting Bane is pretty typical (dodge his charges, jump on his back and fuck up his venom injectors, etc.) but he's kind of a super-strong thug. The Scarecrow boss fight is clever as all fuck. I haven't run into the Joker yet but I shiver in anticipation.

The voice acting is gold-star all the way. They got Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin to reprise their roles from the old Batman: The Animated Series. Since each of them have played those characters longer than anyone else in history, they're kind of definitive. I love me some Heath Ledger, but Mark Hamill's Joker is a different breed, and Kevin Conroy is the best Batman.

(It also doesn't hurt that the story was written by Paul Dini, who masterminded the DC Animated Universe.)

What I hate: Nothing. This is one of the best games I've played in many moons. You will love it.

Plus: The Goddamned Batman.

K. Done now.

ITEM!
I've watched The Dark Knight now about ten times and the "pencil trick" just keeps on being awesome. I ended up getting trapped in the Wiki Rabbit Hole last night about Batman. Partly this is because Lego Batman has eaten my soul the past couple of days.

I am nearing 100%/1000gc on it.

ITEM!
Metallica is playing in Oakland on December 20th. Tickets are a bit expensive (60+), but I could easily be convinced to go if there is anyone else who wants to rock out. Opening: The Sword and Lamb of God.

ITEM!
Today, my father scored his sixth hole in one while playing golf. The odds of an amateur hitting a hole in one are 12,500 to 1, which is pretty long. I remember that his handicap used to be around 5 or so, but I asked him today what it was and he texted me: "Well, it has risen from 8 to 16 over the past two years. I don't know what's going on with that because it *surely* can't be old age."

ITEM!
Thursday night several people gathered in my place to watch the Vice Presidential candidate debate. Also to eat lots of pizza and consume lots of alcohol. It took us over three hours to watch a 90 minute sequence, because we kept pausing it and talking about what was just said.

It was much fun, and I'll probably do something similar on Tuesday.

So, I've had Lego Batman for a couple of days, and since I absolutely loved the previous Lego video games (Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones) it was inevitable that I pick up one about the Goddamned Batman, who is and shall be one of my favorite characters, forever and ever, amen.

I am enjoying the game immensely, though I find it has flaws.

( Click for Nerdity )

My succinct review of The Dark Knight:

....


Seriously, that's about as simple as we can get. And it doesn't say anything, because trying to describe the . . . experience . . . of the film is probably nothing that can be accomplished in the English language.

Well. The Joker would understand, maybe. He seems to be looking at things on a different plane.

I'm going to try to be spoiler free here, but I never really remember which parts of the Batman mythos are "public knowledge" and which ones are "geek cred". So.

I'm going to start by saying that I love Batman Begins. It is one of my favorite films and I probably watch it at least once a month. I feel that it is the first time that Batman was taken seriously on the big screen (the animated series of the 1990s did as well, but the 1980s/1990s movies turned to camp and crap).

I loved every frame of it, beginning to end.

So I am (almost) sad to say that The Dark Knight turns Batman Begins into a lesser film by comparison.

You know how The Empire Strikes Back is head and shoulders above Star Wars? It's like that. And this film is absolutely Batman's Empire: it is dispassionate and unrelenting in the way it assaults our hero, his loved ones, and his world.

Make no mistake: this is a dark film. It is darker than Revenge of the Sith - and that film is about the hero turning to evil, slaughtering everyone he loves, murdering his wife, having all his limbs chopped off, burned alive, and ultimately rebuilt into a grim machine of death.

It is darker than that.

I seriously do not know how they got away with a PG-13 rating - especially with Two Face's makeup.

Much has already been said about Heath Ledger's performance in nearly every media outlet on the planet. I don't really know what I can say to add to it save this:

Watching his Joker is mesmerizing in the way that watching a King Cobra dance is mesmerizing.

He owns the screen. Every twitch, every word, every shrug. He moves like broken clockwork and speaks hypnotically. At one point, he explains to the Batman his philosophy about rules and freaks and it comes across so bold and so well that he made me believe. Every breathe is filled with . . . well. I don't want to use the word "menace" because that's not right. "Menace" implies a moral code and an intent to evil. Ledger's Joker has neither a moral code nor a motive of evil.

He simply is. He is a force of fucking nature. And that force just happens to be pretty damned evil. He is a terrorist, and he sure as fuck knows how to make a pencil disappear (This is quite possibly one of the best bits in cinematic history. You'll know it when you see it.)

All the Jokers before him: Cesar Romero, Lennie Weinrib, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Kevin Michael Richardson - they are mere stewards to the role. Ledger is, and probably always shall be, The Joker, forever and ever, a-men.

But the Joker is only half of the story. The rest of the story begins and ends with the White Knight, Harvey Dent.

Dent's story arc is wrought with the care and detail of a Fabergé Egg. It is the pinnacle of tragedy, and (forever and ever, a-men) the ultimate victory of the Joker: the corruption and destruction of the most noble human being ever to walk the streets of Gotham City.

He is handled brilliantly by Aaron Eckhart (who looks disturbingly too much like my friend JQ). Through three quarters of the film, I was sucked in by his words and deeds. I believe in Harvey Dent. So does Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon - which makes what happens to him so much more a tragedy on the scale of Romeo and Juliet in the end.

This is a grim, dark film. But it is, I think, an important film because at its core it is not an "action" film nor is it a "comic book" film. It is an exploration of the psyche, and the limits that people are willing to be driven to. We watch as Bruce Wayne teeters across the edge, violating each of his principles one by one in order to combat his polar opposite: Batman is the representative of pure order; the Joker that of pure chaos. And the further Bruce falls from his ideals in order to defeat the Joker, the closer he comes to being defeated.

It is a film about the Prisoner's Dilemma (and, in fact, this scenario is visited several times, but most blatantly during the film's climax).

I will absolutely see it again.

While the film is rated PG-13, I. . . I disagree with that rating. It is an R rated film in PG-13 clothing. So think very carefully before bringing children to the show.

I have obtained ten (10) tickets for the midnight showing of the Dark Knight. It's at 12:01 AM on the 17th at the AMC Van Ness 1000 (which means a Wednesday night, the 16th).

The film is two and a half hours long, so plan on coming into work late the next day.

Tickets are sold out every where near the city. The only reason I was able to get these is because they are not sold through fandango.

If you wish to attend the showing, speak the fuck up, and do it soon. Two tickets are already claimed, and you, my little sock monkeys, you get first pick.

Edit: four tickets are now claimed.

First, I am the fucking Wolverine, bitches.

Second, I am the goddamned Batman.

And you fucking know it.

Went and saw The Bank Job with Maynard tonight and it far exceeded my expectations. I'm not entirely sure that I buy the "true story" part of it - though much of it was true, as far as my memory goes (e.g., Michael X did indeed put a slave collar on some dude - it was a big scandal - and he was executed for murdering an Englishwoman in Trinidad). But as to whether or not the entire thing was over some porn shots of Princess Margaret in a threesome? Dunno.

Anyways, still fun. Plus, English slang from the 70s is totally awesome.

I am now reading 52 at the suggestion of crisper, who call it (and I quote), "one of the very very rare times where a story-by-committee actually pulled it off". Since Mr. Elderdan has a bit of a pedigree when it comes to the DCU and the Justice League in particular, I plunked down the 70 bucks or so to get the entire run.

If he makes me regret it, I'll. . .well. I don't know what I'll do. But "butchering a couple hoboes" is pretty high on the list.

But that's like, a hobby anyway.

So far it's good, though. The storyline follows a bunch of minor characters that I never really got into (like Booster Gold) and sort of peels them apart. Not sure what I think of the "Batwoman is a lesbian" bit - that feels tacked on and forced so far (but then, turning Montoya into a lesbian felt tacked on a forced, too, so what are ya gonna do).

( rant/tangent on characterization in comic books )

Oh, yeah.

Happy Easter.