Batman (Part 4)

So the Dark Knight Rises has been seen and verified as awesome! No matter where the Batman film franchise goes from here, it's safe to say there are 3 more cracking films to go with the 80s/90s ones. Tom Hardy was as good a Bane as he was a Shinzon (cracking) and bar a few suspensions in belief and one cheesy bit, the film was really good, but you know that as by now you would have seen it too. You haven't? What's wrong with you, get down the cinema. Don't make me come over there...

Anyway, as I said this final post in a stupidly over long series of posts is to do with the aspect of the Batman stuff I've probably spent the most time with, games!

I can only comment on the ones I've owned/played obviously so here we go, I'll start on... SNES!

Batman Returns: It's 1993 and 16 bits rule the gaming world! Movie tie ins were frequent and shitty, but this film was great, could the game be? They took Final Fight (a classic) gave it a Batman skin and a driving stage and voila, awesome game! Good work guys!

It controlled well, looked and sounded good and was fun to play. Can't ask for much more than that! Quite fancy getting it again for my SNES now...

Batman Forever: OK, the film wasn't as good, but use essentially an updated of the game and it'll be ok, surely! Well not quite, this game was more based graphically and by the way it controls on Mortal Kombat and could be a dark, cryptic pain in the arse at times. Still looked ok, but didn't play anywhere near as well.

You'd not quite know where you could walk, enemies would seemingly take a week to put down. Not good at all, a waste after the last game. There was a Batman & Robin game, but I can only imagine the shit that was, I never had a ps1 so never played it.

I had a bit of a gap then, I did play the PS2 Batman Begins briefly and it didn't seem great although not a total write off, nut I never got going on it. Then the games and film went their own ways and we were presented with:

Batman: Arkham Asylum: Mark Hamill is an awesome Joker voice isn't he? And this is an awesome game! Giving Batman an almost open world set up to roam and complete missions in, good, giving him loads of gadgets, doing well, big selection of enemies (Ivy, Joker, Scarecrow, Croc, Bane, Riddler etc) outstanding, the Scarecrow levels being possibly the best thing I've ever played, bonza! I could carry on, for days!

Graphics were good, sound was good, voice acting was superb, the hidden puzzles hard but achievable, that's what I'm talking about! There's something quite satisfying about silently clearing a room of armed 'goons' so they never knew what hit them. 

If you wanted to pick holes, the difficulty wasn't always steady, Croc was a piece of piss for example, and the combat could be got by on through a bit of button mashing, as opposed to learning the various tricks that are available, but some would say in that way the game is what you make it.

Not played this? For shame, get on with it, and get the 3d version. Bound to be cheap by now.

Then there was:

Batman: Arkham City: I know, lets take Arkham Asylum, work of art as it is and ramp it up so it's bigger, more headline bad guys, more puzzles, more gadgets etc... ummmm ok then!

Arkham City is essentially the same as Asylum only bigger and better. The plot is superbly written, there's so much to do (maybe too much with the riddler trophies). I'm sure I've gone on about it before so I won't overly extend this blog.

Some of the same moans exist, the fighting is similar in particular. You get variable characters, this time you get to play as Bruce Wayne (yes I know), Batman, Catwoman and (in an expansion) Robin in the main story. This then becomes the exception that proves the rule that Robin spoils everything.

Going forward? There are cliffhangers in Arkham City so a 3rd game is inevitable, I for one welcome it as it'll be awesome. Just hope it's not next gen though, I'm not keen on shelling out for new hardware. 

Anyway, lets leave it there, no more Batman I promise!

Batman! (Part 1)

Of all the superheroes created by graphic artists/geeks/propaganda campaigns over the years, I can honestly say Batman is my favourite and by some distance.

So, with The Dark Knight Rises due out on Friday and my IMAX tickets booked for Sunday (baby permitting) I thought I'd share my thoughts on stuff he's been in, today... films!

He had been represented on screen many times over the years with a varying degree of success. I'm ignoring the 1940s serials, as I've not seen them, and I'm ignoring animated stuff as there's bastard loads of them and I can't be arsed.

Anyway to the 60's!

Batman: The 60s TV series is a thing of legend, its was good fun and spawned a 1966 feature length version, which wasn't great quality, but is fun to watch and contains some very funny scenes, particularly the 'Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!' line

Genius!!

Adam West was... special as Batman and will always have that kind of funny/campy interpretation to himself, it fitted the tone of the series and the time perfectly. The series itself is still very watchable and will remain so, the film struggled quite a bit and is relatively poor, feeling like an episode stretched out for twice the length.

The film just had a blu-ray release, £8 on amazon. It is tempting... Very tempting...

Batman (1989): Enough of fun Batman, this was the birth of 'dark' Batman, and good it was too! Michael Keaton was and will always be my favourite Batman, he plays off the bit of a rich cock Bruce Wayne and the moody Batman superbly and Jack as the Joker isn't bad either!

The plot is good, the casting and acting bang on. Tim Burton does a fine job directing, as to be fair he usually does. The film came out when I was a massive 7 and it was one of the films I grew up watching, that may make me slightly biased towards it (and it's sequel, but patience), but everything here felt right

Some would moan that Batman kills in this film, where in the comics he doesn't. Well he used too, so maybe that's hankering back to old comics. Yeah that'll do. And the fact the joker has a name? Shouldn't really happen, but hey, minor points.

So... have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Batman Returns: 3 years later and Keaton was back for the sequel, and in my opinion the best of all the Batman films. I'm not entirely sure where Batman was returning from, but he did indeed return!

Penguin and Catwoman provide the enemies, but hats off to a stand out performance from Christopher Walken as Max Shreck, the man's awesome.

Look at him, he even looks deranged!

The plot is darker than the first film and was considered more mature at the time, but it's still good comic book action. Having 2 (well 3 with Max) super villains working together made it a bit more frantic. It had some memorable scenes, my favourite being the, 'It could be worse, my nose could be gushing blood' line!

Go on Danny, take a bite!

Once again under Burton's direction everything about the film works and feel right, the dark tone suits Keaton perfectly. All of the positives of the first film carry over, and while neither De Vito or Pfeiffer play it as well as Jack, combined they work just as well.

This is my favourite and while Friday's release has the potential to take over, it's a tall order. Who knows!

The 4 Blu-Ray boxset of the first 4 films is justified by these 2 alone, they are superb films and the standard all superhero films that followed has to live up too.

Anyway that's all I can be arsed with for today, part 2 tomorrow (or Thursday) and there will be swearing as I venture into Kilmer/Clooney territory...