Arkham City: More of a digital comic than a video game (Game Review)

In Arkham City you become the Dark Knight in every sense of the word, with the occasional disguise as Bruce Wayne.

The game's visuals are stunning and the environmental detail is amazing. As an appreciator of art and a fan of Batman, I was floored. The environments that one can explore are enhanced with a great soundtrack and a neat feature that's introduced at the beginning of the game: eavesdropping on the conversations of Arkham City's prisoner population. Everything about the game gives the impression that your partaking in something great, with one exception, the game-play.

Arkham City immerses the player in a universe that is subtly menacing. Criminals wax nostalgic about cutting people in half and assaulting powerless women, while at the same time fantasizing about rising to power via torturing Batman. It provides one with a solid rational as to why the Dark Knight is so dark and angry. At times you'll catch yourself in the middle of performing a morally questionable action, but any sense of repulsion is discarded once you remember what your goal is and who it is that's in the way of achieving that said goal. Like the Dark Knight, you'll be forced to examine your actions and even sometimes wonder what your own true motives are.

You'll break bones, cripple, and become the reason that criminals are afraid of the dark. You'll also go toe-to-toe with almost all of Gotham's most notable criminals - no matter how obscure they happen to be. On a personal note, Arkham City served a dual purpose: 1) Catch me up with the goings-on of the Batman world, and 2) allow me to re-visit what I had already known about the series (you can actually explore the alleyway where Bruce Wayne's parents were killed).

Arkham City is a massive game with what seems to be too much to do. It's main story is magnificent and has great voice actors lending their superb talent to the project. The one area that the game falls short in is combat and clumsy action controls. There were times that I meant to punch someone and ended up pushing a button that I was next to, resulting in me/Batman getting shredded with bullets from assault rifles. At other times I was making a hasty dash across roof-tops and instead of climbing a fence parkour style, I ended up rolling off of the roof. 

In game, the Bats seems to dole out punishment randomly with some criminals going down at the flick of wrist (Is Batman really that strong?) and others requiring about ~30 fist slams (Is Batman really that weak?). I'd pull away assault rifles from would be assailants with a grappling gun only to have them pull another gun out of thin air to continue firing at me. I'd try and stealthily take out watchmen one at a time only to have another watchmen instantly know that his comrade was down without even being close to the point of my attack. All these things added up and really made the Dark Knight seem like a clumsy baby on the battlefield. That being said though, combat was still relatively easy. Maybe too easy. I found myself many times foregoing the use of the many gadgets in Batman's arsenal (probably because of the clumsy controls and game-play), and just going fist first into a group of 12 henchman without a worry. Sure I'd get hit every now and then, but when I accidentally unlocked an achievement for racking up a 40 hit combo, I started to scratch my head (Aren't achievements supposed to be somewhat difficult to unlock?).

For all of these reasons I would claim that Arkham City feels more like an interactive comic than a video game. It's a story that you just so happen to be pacing with your play-style.

I give Arkham City 4 Sickles out of 5.

It's a game that pleases despite it's control issues.

Dark Souls: A study on challenge and thanatophobia (Game Review)

Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to the 2010 PS3 exclusive game Demon Souls, is a hearkening back of sorts to the games of old where you'd play a game for several days before moving past the first level. It's an action RPG type of game that touts itself as being the hardest game ever made. The producers even once considered making the game unbeatable.

Remember when beating a game meant something? When getting to the 8th level of Mario Brothers (without skipping levels or cheats) was something to be prideful of? When beating a game wasn't imminent? I do. I remember spending 1 year playing Ninja Gaiden II, shelving it for another year, pulling it back out and spending yet another year completing it. I remember spending 4 years playing Batman Returns for Sega Genesis before beating it (damn that game was hard). Games like this just don't exist in the volume that they used to. I'm not trying to sound old here, I'm just saying that I miss being challenged when playing a game. All too often games are dumbed to in order to "introduce the next generation of players to the field." But what about the seasoned veterans of the gaming culture? Dark Souls is the answer. 

Allow me to restate: Dark Souls is one hell of a difficult game, but only in comparison to the relatively easy games of today that tell you were to go, when to go, how to go, and only require you to press one button to do EVERYTHING (Yes, I'm talking about you Arkham City). That being said, for all of Dark Souls' difficulty, the reward for overcoming obstacles is awesome and great. As a game I praise it, but there's something more to the game than just playing it. I think it makes an important statement about life and death itself. As I mentioned before the producers didn't even want to make the game beatable at one point. What does this really say about the game?

SPOILER ALERT

Dark Souls is set in what is considered to be the "Third World." A world between life and death. An alternate dimension where souls travel to once a person dies. The Third World, to which light (a perversion of death) was brought long ago, is going dark. Ultimate death will soon consume all of the land.

Many of the souls/personalities that inhabit this Third World are twisted and corrupted because they have not been allowed to die - they are undead. Even the character you control is not immune to this effect; which incidentally makes for an interesting game-play device (when you die, you're revived at a checkpoint with all armor and weapons collected, but none of the experience collected that's needed to truly progress and become stronger). The true goal of the game is to die for good. But to achieve death you must not only beat the game, but beat the game under a certain condition: do not activate the last checkpoint in the game before the last boss. For if you do, you still fear death.

The game tries everything in it's power to psychologically break you down, to make you give up, to keep you "living". They want to "corrupt" you as they have stated in past interviews. The producers even hope in some way that you "keep living, wondering the world [they] made forever." As stated before, the goal of the game is death. The tag-line of the game is: "You WILL Die... Over and Over Again."


The game makes and interesting point in making this the ultimate goal of the game: The only way to PROPERLY die is to face death with confidence. They also make an interesting subtle point: To claim mastery over anything, you must suffer... repeatedly.

Death should not be feared, for it's a natural process in life. Perpetually living is the true thing to fear, for you will lose everything, even yourself eventually, if you do. In death, the promise of new life lingers. Death is life's change agent - It's needed to keep the world progressing, and in some sense it's also needed to progress through the game and ultimately "win."

I give this game 5 Sickles out of 5.