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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

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 player can move while shooting, after all.

Dead Space is cleanly divided into two modes: adventure and butchery.  There is no blurring between the lines.  When the player is shooting things in Dead Space, it is all he is doing.  When the shooting is over, he will promptly return to exploring and puzzle-solving after picking up the money his adversaries were mysteriously carrying.  In a way, its battles are set up like a turn-based Japanese RPG with random encounters.

The title’s monsters certainly sneak up on the player in a similar way to NES RPGs: a horrible caucophany of dissonant instruments replaces the traditional psychedelic swirl of colors as the onset of a combat scene is announced.  Instead of browsing through command menues, the player defaults to running backwards and aiming at the nearest enemy limb.  When the carnage is over, the floor is littered with loot - including currency - which the player will spend at the next vending machine to buy weapons and armor.  Much of what propels Dead Space forward is rooted in the same things that propel Dragon Quest forward.

The enemy monsters in Dead Space are terrifying, because they never stop coming at the player.  Dismembering an enemy’s head has little effect on it; some of the stronger creatures won’t miss a beat.  Blasting their legs to bits with a rocket is only a minor inconvenience.  Without legs or a head, they can still crawl, and they still have claws.  Dead Space’s monsters need to be completely destroyed before they will stop.  Complicating the issue is that the monsters are cruelly spindly and skinny; the player needs to shoot their arms off, but their arms are hard to hit, and they keep waving around erratically.  As a final, poetic note, there is only one weapon in the game that is actually a military gun.  All of Dead Space’s other weapons are mining and maintenance implements.  They carry with them the quirks of tools not designed for killing.

Dead Space carries its scripted scenarios with meticulous design.  No two fights against the monsters are the same.  The earliest fights are in corridors, where it is easy to shoot the enemies down while they are running straight forward.  The game graduates to corridors with air vents, where, suddenly, the monsters can come from any direction - even straight above - and putting one’s back to the wall does not ensure safety.  There are later battles in massive, zero-gravity hangers in three dimensions, and there are the same battles in outer space, where the player is as threatened by suffocation as he is poisonous barbs or exploding globs of acid.   So, while Dead Space’s action scenes are as obviously-engineered as its sliding block puzzles, they are well-made enough that over-designing works in its favor.

As an added bonus, Dead Space features boss fights, which many modern action games leave out.  Some are better than others, but the best are some of the most exciting battles in action gaming.

My largest issue with Dead Space is its overwhelming sense of hopelessness.  The game takes place in a run-down, slime-soaked space station with dismembered corpses and angry monsters in every direction (there is an obvious parallel to Resident Evil’s famous mansion).  There is no positive imagery in the game.  Almost every other human being in the game world is doing something disturbing, such as shooting herself in the head, or nursing the wound that has impaled him to the ceiling (in the latter example, the player can hear his pathetic moans for twenty-five minutes while exploring a ransacked cargo bay).  The game’s other characters - the people who are there to construct a narrative, and not to make the game gross - are either: villains, insignificant to the story, or are going to die soon.  Dead Space is a truly, unrelentingly depressing game.

As dark as it is, Dead Space is as good as horror-action video games can be.  Even though the game somehow makes the player feel strangely unhappy as he plays it, it rests assured that he won’t be able to resist coming back for more.  Not only are its action sequences phenomenal, but the technology powering it isn’t too bad, and its simple puzzles are pretty creative.  It might be a little bit like Resident Evil, but it’s a little bit better.

Rating: / 5

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

The Armored Core series is characterized by two disparate elements that aren’t often seen in the same game: lists of numbers with layers of statistic, and tight action characterized by exploding buildings and enormous laser cannons.  Most players typically look for either a statistics game or an action game, and are not often interested in both at the same time.  The Armored Core fanbase is thus understandably limited.

Armored Core is not so much an action video game about piloting gigantic, humanoid battle robots, but a simulation of the experience of being an owner-operator of such a robot.  It, more or less, seems exactly how a mercenary might spend his time about 1000 years into the future.  During missions, the player wrestles complicated controls to perform spectacular maneuvers, fires batteries of missiles at aggressors, and takes down enormous walking battle tanks.  In between missions, the player shops for replacement parts, applies new paint or decals, and tunes the power output of tiny correctional rocket boosters on the knees or elbows of the mech to optimize its turning radius.

This is the least complicated of several dozens of charts and menus players will have to navigate.

There is no story in Armored Core.  There is some establishment of setting, but it doesn’t have any tangible impact.  There are mission briefings, but they are extremely formal.  There is some radio chatter during missions, reminding the player there are human beings in that enormous futuristic fortress, and they are burning to death.  However, there are no characters - there are only people.  The life of a dystopian far-future mercenary-for-hire does not have room for friendships and rivalries.  It may be the game’s presentation, but there is something eerily and intangibly non-violent about Armored Core, even though it is a game about never-ending wars in which millions die.

The amount of number-crunching and detail is engaging to people of a certain personality.  Some may delight in rationing their bullets during missions, because the player has to spend money on ammunition once the mission is over.  Even during the most intense firefights, the player must diligently crunch numbers, running cost estimates, lest the current mission ends up incurring more fees than its bounty can pay.  It is easy to win in Armored Core, but it is challenging to win with style.

That is the problem with Armored Core - it is too cerebral.  The game’s packaging shows a giant robot, with an equally giant gun.  This promises explosions.  While Armored Core delivers in that regard, it demands that as much time is spent preparing to make explosions as is spent creating them.  It makes few concessions to the player, also.  While a lengthy tutorial thoroughly tutors the player in the fairly complicated controls, it does little to teach him the nuances of the game’s economy.

Armored Core’s mission design is not always perfect, either.  There are just as many scenarios that can be cheaply ended with a single precise laser sword strike as there are extended, hair-raising  robot duels.  Its fits and starts are not consistently satisfying.  While some missions are exhillerating and brilliantly-designed, other missions are are tedious, and a few are frustrating.

There are, indeed, battles pitting enormous robots against each other.

The graphics look well enough, and the sound listens well enough.  Armored Core’s media is strictly serviceable.  The environments are completely destructible, however, and it is a thrill to see an enormous complex fall to pieces as errant rockets smash into them.  A few missions demand that the player does everything he can not to harm the environment - these are a pleasant diversion.

I personally like Armored Core: For Answer.  I like brutally violent action games as much as I like turn-based construction simulators, and I feel like Armored Core has enough aspects of either gametype.  I bought Armored Core at a significant discount, and I feel that is a key factor - I would probably not be satisfied if I had paid full price.

Rating ( /5):

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

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.

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.

RMNCast: Episode 6 should be up within one week.  We are recording tomorrow.