I’ve joined last.fm and put all of my music up on it. That way, people can stream it instead of downloading zip files (that frequently do not work). Check out my page at:
http://www.last.fm/music/Brandon%2520Abley?ac=brandon%20abley
Superhero-themed media products have a poor legacy in media outside of the comic books they come from. Since the invention of cross-media synergy, consumers have been lured into an endless string of mediocre movies, television series, etc. Video games have suffered the most; other than superhero games that have nothing to do with established franchises (like Infamous or City of Heroes), I cannot name a single exceptional superhero video game. For the most part, comic-book branding on a particular video game has been a good reason to avoid it - that is, until now.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best superhero game ever made. That’s a minor achievement, so here’s another: it’s one of the best action-adventure titles of 2009.
The star of the show in Barman: Arkahm Asylum is its well-realized atmosphere. The entire game takes place within the confines and grounds of a 19th century-style insane asylum, with all the attendent trappings of gothic architecture, grimy floors, and bad lighting. It’s a creepy place, and it is the game’s most interesting character. It also represents an unusual juxtaposition; it is a prison in which the unreformable are locked away, but it is also a lair for evil. It’s a place where absolutely nobody is welcome.
The titular asylum is moody and dark.
As a video game, Arkahm Asylum is a triumph. It’s major achievement in this regard is that it is never repetitive. There are several distinct scenario archetypes - including from detective work, platforming, espionage, and kicking people in the face. Generally, these scenarios are divided up by physical area - passing into the next room usually means that the game will switch gears. The gameplay does not take on a disjointed, minigame-collection feel, as one might fear. Each scenario is seamlessly integrated into a logical flow that makes sense within the game’s overall framework: the player is Batman, and Batman has many different methods and tools to tackle many different situations.
The best of Arkham Asylum’s game types are truly exceptional. My favorite segments are the predator scenarios, which play like a stealth action game. When confronted by men with guns, Batman has to be careful; he does not have a gun of his own, and he is not bullet-proof. An enemy with a gun will kill the player in only two or three shots. The player is tasked with sneaking around the room, dispatching enemies silently and one-by-one. Many creative options are available to the player, ranging from choking a guy out, laying a remote-control mine, or hanging him upside-down from a ledge. The enemies react dynamically to the events around them, terrified by whatever madman who is stalking them. As their numbers dwindle, they scream at the darkness and fire their guns at every shadow. It’s extremely satisfying, even though it seems a little cruel.
Most of the other game modes are decent or better. Brawling hand-to-hand with gangs of thugs is technical, exciting, and discourages button-mashing. Searching for hints hidden by The Riddler is a blast. Platforming with Batman’s glider cape and grappling hook is at least as good as most platforming games are. The player has all sorts of different things to do in this game, and they’re always at least “good enough”.
Arkham Asylum’s major weakness is that it non of its gametypes are exceptional, and all of them are riffing on styles that are done better elsewhere. When it is a brawler, it is decent, but it’s no Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry. Its stealth segments are very good, but they are not as good as Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell. Platforming is fun in Arkahm Asylum, but it is more fun in Prince of Persia. As a complete package, however, it’s much more than what it is any given time.
The game’s story deserves criticism also. It is has a great setting, a creative premise, and a colorful cast of characters, but a stupid plot. However, Arkham Asylum’s writing isn’t about its plot, but about its characters. The events driving its action are only a means to get its excellent characters standing in the same room and having exchanging taunts with each other. Even still, it would be nice if each individual plot action was not so contrived.
On a final note, this game’s character design is in step with recent trends in American games. This means it’s really bad. Aside from The Joker, who is svelte and wiry, all of Arkahm Asylum’s characters are hyper-masculine and weirdly chunky. Batman, and the thugs he routinely locks horns with, all weigh 350 pounds each, and they seem like they might trip over their own biceps. This extends to female characters, who are clearly intended to be sexy (one of the major villainesses is dressed like a gothic prostitute, and the other is in her underwear). In reality, they look strange; it’s hard to identify exactly why, but something about them looks distinctly “wrong”. They certainly aren’t sexy! In fact, The Joker has the most believably feminine build in the game.
The graphics technology is excellent, but its characters are way too buff.
In spite of its weak plot, Batman: Arkham Asylum is excellent as a complete package. Its setting, characters, and varied gameplay scenarios will keep the player engaged until the very end. Its faults are few and minor, and it it’s easy to overlook it’s half-baked plot and weird character design in favor of the overall experience. As one of the best-action-adventure titles out there, it’s an easy recommendation to nearly anyone.
Rating: 
/ 5
Some of the best video games are the ones that don’t expect anything from anyone. They’re the forgotten, poorly-marketed or poorly-reviewed titles that find their way onto the aisle endcaps at department stores. They might have a half-dozen bright orange “CLEARANCE” stickers crudely pasted one-over-the-other, each sticker chronicling a new chapter in an ongoing tale of relentless price markdown. They might be found in disorganized stacks with last year’s sports titles and returned, open-item headphones whose packaging is held together with staples and clear tape.
Ninja Blade is one of those titles. Much like Armored Core: For Answer, I bought it for very little and expected just as much entertainment. Its appeal to me was that it allowed me to play as a ninja, and it was cheap. It surprised me on all fronts. I may be persuaded by its bargain price, but Ninja Blade is one of the most fun games I’ve played for months.
Ninja Blade is stupid. Its story is terrible, and its dialog is even worse; it conveys a bad story even more badly. It features gigantic monsters who belch up flaming motorcycles and use them as projectile weapons. Its most exciting scenes are minimally-interactive quick-time events that leave the player wishing that he could make his on-screen ninja do things as awesome as the cutscene director does. These types of things tend to bother gamers. They can get under a person’s skin.
However, Ninja Blade’s stupidity is key to its barely-tangible charm. For example: as a reward for completing the first mission, the player unlocks a zebra-striped ninja suit. This allows the player to, through every over-blown, stereotypically-Japanese quick time event featuring oversized swords and dramatic character posturing, dress his ninja in a ridiculous outfit. Ninja Blade’s low-rent storytelling is more entertaining when the main character is dressed like an idiot.
Ninja Blade is not a bad action game, either. It is not delicate and technical, like Ninja Gaiden or Devil may Cry, but it is violent and challenging enough to maintain player interest. Its boss fights are old-fashioned in that they have identifiable patterns and single solutions, but they are fun to reason through. A character upgrade system allows the player to customize which weapon and skill areas his avatar specializes in. Its rank-based reward system encourages the player to finish each encounter with style to earn as many upgrade points as possible. The core featureset is old hat - character action games have been structured exactly this way for a ten years - but it’s competent enough to keep someone playing. It’s eventual climax is worth the trip, puncuating the adventure with exactly the right types of poetic melodrama and misplaced symbolism.
Ninja Blade is not a visionary title. It’s a decent one, though. If the customer approaches the title the same way he approaches EA sports titles - regarding it as this year’s annual ninja game - and, of course, finds it in a bargain bin - he might find it just serviceable enough to fall in love for the weekend.
But whatever you do, don’t buy it for full price.
Rating: / 5
The enthusiast buzz on Dawn of War II is that it is a sort of streamlined stripped-down Real-Time-Strategy title that introduces new ideas to the RTS genre. While I will not speak for the multiplayer game, I can say it is not an appropriate description for the game’s single-player mode (note that DoWII single-player and multi-player modes are different genres of game).
Dawn of War II is a squad-based tactical title. It has much more in common with Silent Storm, Fallout Tactics, or X-Com than it does Starcraft (other than the art style, characters, races, setting, and scenario that Blizzard appropriated from the original line of Warhammer miniatures in the late-90s). In that regard, it is probably similar to the original miniature wargame.
Dawn of War II focuses on tactics in a sequence of combat scenarios, not overall strategy during a large-scale conflict. A typical mission places the player on a map where he must maneuver to an objective and capture it. Along the way, the player will encounter countless enemy encampments he must fight through. The catch, as it is in all tactical games, is that the player does not have access to many new resources. He can not, for example, build a base to generate more troops. The focus thus shifts from killing the enemy, to keeping one’s own troops alive. While lost squadmates can be replenished at occasional checkpoints, and fallen troop leaders can be nursed back to health, there is very little margin for error in the heat of combat. Dawn of War II also features defensive missions, where the player’s small troupe is dug in and defending against waves of enemies. Again, it is paramount to keep one’s squadmates alive in this scenario, as reinforcements are not easy to access.
Dawn of War II plays more like a traditional RTS in multiplayer mode.
RPG-like character progression, reminiscent of other tactical games (mentioned earlier: Silent Storm, et al), provides a strong thrust to the game. Each squad leader has an array of areas to specialize in, special abilities to unlock, and equipment to shuffle around. The focus of speciality, as well as equipment load-out, can completely change the role of a squad in combat. For example, the scout leader can be equipped with a shotgun and focus on high movement ability to function as a shock troop, or alternatively the same squad leader can be equipped with a sniper rifle and cloaking ability to function as a sniper. As in other games with character progression systems, Dawn of War II provides a feeling of ownership and accomplishment as the player’s squadmates are powered-up customized.
The statregic map view in-between missions allows the player to choose which missions he would like to go on, and in which order. Game progress is ultimately linear, but the feeling of relative freedom is welcome. Dawn of War II frequently presents optional missions and optional secondary objectives as well.
While I like Dawn of War II’s gameplay, I do not like its personality. I am not compelled by its steroided, too-masculine cast of heroes. I am unsurprised by its generic, insect-like alien race, or its other generic, orc-like alien race. I don’t like my stay in its bleak, bombed-out urban battlefields. There is not much to its canned science fiction story that is told without the slightest hint of irony or self-awareness (warfare is the solution to every problem). I am neither grossed-out, nor thrilled, by its particular brand of staid violence; be prepared for the same chainsaw swords and fountains of blood gamers are now well-accustomed to. I may have found these things compelling when I was a teenager. It is easy to look past Dawn of War II’s unlikeable exterior, though, because there is a good game underneath.
Dawn of War II is engineered in such a way as to ensure people have some reason to explode when they are killed.
While Dawn of War II presents a boring personality, it does so excellently. A powerful game engine fuels the action, and applies all the right shaders and post-processing to give the title an expensive-looking sheen. It ran well on my PC when it was a mid-range system, but ran even better at high settings after an upgrade. Dawn of War II has music, but nobody is likely to remember it.
Dawn of War II is an excellent squad-based real-time tactical game. It is well-designed and rewards subtlety and planning. Even though its art style and story will disappoint anyone outside of the hormone-powered 12 to 16-year-old boy demographic, the game plays well enough that it’s a well-advised purchase for tactical fans.
As a footnote, Dawn of War II requires both Steam Activation and Games for Windows Live. These services require internet access upon initial installation. Both are excellent services, and I am personally more than obliged to participate. However, not everyone wants to install third party software, and Games for Windows Live does not always work as intended (for example, I could not get Dawn of War II to load my profile in Windows 7 due to conflicts with my wireless card, so I could not play the game). Note that Steam Activation extends all the benefits of Steam games (save backup, ability to download the full game at any time, etc) to the retail CD version of the game.
Rating: / 5
RMNCast: Episode 8.
http://www.rmncast.podbean.com
RPGmaker.net’s official podcast. This episode covers Exit Fate, Wilfred the Hero, and other amateur games. RPGMaker.net community events in the month of February are also covered. Hosts: Brandon Abley and Matt “McDohl”.
Stream or subscribe at: http://rmncast.podbean.com
I was recently interviewed about my music and amateur game-making at www.Gamingw.net:
http://www.gamingw.net/item.php?id=77267
Primarily we talk about my music catalog, my influences, and Wilfred the Hero. Carius is a good interviewer, and if you are interested in me or my work, the review is worth checking out. I was really surprised by the superfans that crawled out of the woodwork to say good things about me in the comments! I have always known I have a few listeners here and there, but I didn’t think I was popular at GW at all.
There are personal reasons why I am ambivalent about this interview, but I am sure my (limited) blog audience is probably interested in it.
Also: I am sure you have noticed I am updating more frequently. This will probably continue. A new layout is in the works - it doesn’t seem appropriate to keep using Teo’s art for the layout when he and I aren’t working on a game together anymore.
RMNCast: Episode 6 exclusively covers Release Something V, an event where amateur game-makers release their current projects (whether finished or not) at RPGMaker.net. Hosts Brandon Abley, Matt “McDohl”, and Devon “Legion”/”Max McGee” Oratz discuss almost 30 game releases.
Stream or subscribe at: http://rmncast.podbean.com
Also: My website is not agreeing with the new version of Firefox! I will see what I can do to correct this, but please deal with the broken layout for now.
I have finally updated my site to reflect my complete portfolio. There are now reliable links to all of my previous work that I want to put up on my site. There are some things, like my very early music and the prototype for Wilfred the Squire, that I do not feel like putting up. You can probably find them on the internet if you are persistent! You can find those pages on the right, or, alternatively, you can access them here:
RMNCast: Episode 6 should be up within one week. We are recording tomorrow.
This week we discuss the amateur classic game Aurora Wing by DFalcon, as well as things happening around the rpgmaker.net community.
Hosts Brandon Abley and McDohl return, along with cohosts WIP and RCHolbert.
This episode is dedicated to R. Cholbert.
We are still using PodBean because RMN3 is not yet finished. Through podbean you can subscribe in itunes.
Episode 6 will cover Release Something and will be published Monday, Dec. 29.
Also, a word about Dragon Fantasy 2 by Ephiam:
It is super good. It is a Dragon Quest clone. I really like it. If you like Dragon Quest as much as I do, check it out:
http://www.rpgmaker.net/forums/index.php?topic=2701.0
Subscribe or listen to RMNCast Episode 4 at:
There is a lot of overlap between anyone interested in my blog (not many) and anyone interested in amateur game-making. I have been too busy with school lately, so I will just post material that I produce for RMN here to keep the blog alive. In this case, RMNCast: Episode 4.
I still cartoon, and I am still not very good at it. Creativity is on my side however.
In RMNCast Episode 4 we discuss SkyE as well as various things happening around the community. Regular hosts Brandon Abley and Matt “McDohl” return, with Tim “Feldschlact IV”/”Mog” standing in. We are still using PodBean because RMN3 is not yet finished. Through podbean you can subscribe in itunes.
Also, I am working on soundtracks to amateur games and might continue work on my own game over Christmas break.
