Blog Update

Hey guys. I know we've been slow posting lately. Both Tyler and I have been extremely busy for the past few weeks and while I was hoping Thanksgiving would give me more time to post, that really wasn't the case. Finals are coming up and I'm about to move out of my house.

That's the reason for the low post amount lately and the reason why, if you listen to our podcast live at Webster, there won't be an episode this week.

With that said, my plan is to give a few news items tomorrow in a few different posts and on Friday I'll FINALLY upload my Dark Souls review. If time allows, I'll have my review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim up next week as well. I've also begun playing Skyward Sword so if you want updates before my review, follow my Twitter account and you'll get them.

Hopefully will pick up more steam soon and we hope you enjoy what we give in the meantime and understand our time constraints. Thanks for reading.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - Combat Trailer

Every trailer that I've seen for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning makes me more and more excited for this game.

Today I watched a trailer for the combat system. Claudia Black returns to erotically narrate how the system works and I'm salivating looking at it. The combat system looks in-depth and varied with a lot of different combinations of attacks to attempt. I can't wait to see the different possibilities of mixing magic, and physical (melee or ranged) combat, or the different amount traps to try.

At the end of the day each trailer that I've seen shows off a deep and enjoyable role-playing experience. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning comes out on February 7 in North America and February 10th in Europe. It's going to be a great start to the year for me.

Compsoles Podcast #9 - Popularity = Suck?

Here is the 2nd one. I hope you guys have time to listen to all of these. This one was really fun. Some of the stuff we talked about included...

Mass Effect leaks
XCom Delayed
VGA announcements (BioWare, Alan Wake)
Call of Duty shenanigans
Call of Duty Elite Issues
MW building in MW3
$1,725 for Call of Duty
New AC and Call of Duty in 2012
New Dead Island Game
New Saints Row already announced
Possible God of War IV in September 2012
Revamped Xbox.com coming soon
WOW subscriptions falling
The Simpsons arcade game rated in Australia
Skyrim to get day one patch
Skyrim offers infinite quests
Skyrim street date broken in Austrailla
Steam forums hacked
Experience Loophole in BF3
Battlefield 4 announced
Borderlands Fan put into game
The Madden Curse
Xbox rumored “loop” runs on windows 9?
Minecraft sales exceed 4 million
MinecraftEDU
Impressions
Disney Universe
Sonic Generations
Lego Harry Potter Years 5 - 7
LA Noire Director
Mars Sim Members Play Counter-Strike to Stay Sane

Compsoles Podcast #8 - Review Scores

I finally got time to post these podcasts. Here is the first one and the other 2 are underway. Some stuff we talked about includes...

Battlefield 3 sells 5 million in week (fastest selling EA game ever)
However, a lot of German returns
Mass Effect 3 enemies and co-op species
R18 rating may be two years away for Australia
Assassin’s Creed Revelations Tower Defense
Silicon Studios does major lay-offs
Mechwarrior Online Announced for F2P and PC
GTA V Teaser Analysis
GTA V Multiplayer
Devil May Cry in alternate reality
Skyrim leaked on 360
Ubisoft obtains developer of Trials HD
LOTR: War in the North
Resident Evil: Revelations EXPENSIVE
Limbo developer says retail model is broken
GEARS 3 maps free on thanksgiving
DC Universe Online Free
Rainbow 6 Patriots
Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition
500 million downloads for Angry Birds
Joe Danger on XBLA
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West on Xbox On Demand

Grand Theft Auto V Debut Trailer

I really should have put this up earlier but it just kept on slipping my mind. Again, if this was my job, this wouldn't happen.

Anyway, here it is now. The debut trailer for Grand Theft Auto V.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - Fate and Destiny Trailer

NOTE: This trailer is about a week old and I'm finally finding a little time to put it up.

Every single piece of information I see about this game makes me more and more excited. It looks like so much fun. It comes out on month before Mass Effect 3 which puts in perfect purchase territory for me. Every trailer and image that I've seen has impressed me and really want this to succeed.

A new trailer came out about a week ago where we hear the orgasm-inducing voice of Claudia Black narrate the trailer as we get a look at some of the RPG mechanics of the game. I have also heard that she will be the narrator of the main game and voice a character in it. The mechanics look in-depth and enjoyable and it gives me even more reason to be excited for this.

Quick Pick of the Month - November

Hey guys, you might have noticed that I didn't give my pick of the month for November. There are a few reasons for this. The big one is that I'm still looking for a site that can accurately give out all of the releases in a month. Second I'm trying to think of ways that I can change it around and that also goes into the third reason I didn't make one. I've been busy as hell. I haven't really had time to think about things and just completely forgot about doing it.

If I don't think of a way to redo my pick of the month by December or find a reliable site for releases, I will continue doing it just the way I did for October.

I'll say that my pick for this month was between Skyrim and Skyward Sword. At the moment I'd have to say Skyrim, though it's close. Can't wait for Friday and you can expect my first impressions a few days later.

Batman: Arkham City Review

In 2009, the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum shocked everybody. I thought it would be mediocre at best and even those who thought it would be at least good were still stunned by it's incredibly quality. It had a good focused story, excellent design, spectacular gameplay that perfectly encompassed nearly all of Batman's abilities, great gadgets, tons of fanservice, and outstanding voice acting from Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill among others.

If I haven't gotten the point across, Batman: Arkham Asylum was a far better game than any licensed comic book game has a right to be. It had some flaws such as the movement and navigation sometimes feeling a little sluggish, an over dependence on the detective mode and of course, the Killer Croc stage. But at the end of the day it wasn't just good, it was a shockingly excellent game all around.

For this reason, the hype for Batman: Arkham City has been enormous. I even named it my 3rd most anticipated game of 2011 in my first blog post back in January (and that was before Mass Effect 3, which was 1st, got delayed). I've been posting a lot about it and now it's time for the real moment of truth.

Does Batman: Arkham City truly live up to the hype and its predecessor? Let's dig into the review and find out.

STORY

The story for Batman: Arkham City is, without a single doubt, the single most ambitious story I've ever seen for a superhero game. The gist is that after the events of Arkham Asylum, the former warden Quincy Sharp (who is himself a sociopath which only Batman knows), has become mayor and uses those events as well as others to propose and greenlight the construction of a superprison called Arkham City, where the prisoners will have free reign as long as they don't try to escape. The prisoners are not just psychotics but regular criminals and even those who have a criminal past that they've already served time for. Think Escape from New York with Batman.

Meanwhile, Professor Hugo Strange has been placed in charge of Arkham City and has sinister plans, not helped by the fact that he knows Batman's identity. As Batman attempts to figure out what Strange is up to, the Joker appears to be dying from the Titan formula at the end of last game and is also at war with the Penguin. Catwoman is also in Arkham City with a beef against Two-Face, and finally the Riddler becomes more sadistic than ever in his attempt to best Batman.

What is Professor Hugo Strange trying to accomplish with Arkham City? This mystery will keep you hooked throughout the game.

That's just the set-up and what we already know going into the game, and it only gets juicier from there.

As for which game's story is better, Arkham Asylum's or Arkham City's, I'm divided. They both have separate strengths and weaknesses. Arkham Asylum's story was well-focused but lacked a lot major twists and turns and overall ambition. Arkham City on the other hand is much more ambitious and has a greater feeling of urgency, but it als has trouble with its focus especially with all of the sidequests and villains packed into it. This can also lead to some villains getting shafted with much less attention than they deserve.

However at the end of the day, while it's debatable which story is actually better, I enjoyed this storyline more than Arkham Asylum. Partly because of the ambition of the story and how many twists and turns there are and there is a lot of foreshadowing for these twists which makes their impact that much more awesome.

And while some of the villains get the short end of the stick others get a great spotlight. The most shocking one was the Penguin who was probably the most vicious version of the Penguin I have ever seen.

You have probably never seen a more vicious Penguin than this one.

Meanwhile, while the sidequests can get in the way of the narrative they also have some great references to the Batman universe with more obscure villains and characters that is pure and beautiful fanservice to fans of Batman.

So while the story isn't without its flaws, it still manages to be a very enjoyable and pretty well-written storyline that will keep you hooked from beginning to end.

GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN

Of course the big change from Arkham Asylum is in the title: Arkham CITY. As I said, Arkham City was created by cordoning off a section of Gotham and you literally have free reign over the entire map. For this reason, gliding has been refined and is much less restrictive and you can glide HUGE distances especially with the improved grapnel boost, which you can use in mid-glide unlike in Asylum. After completing some sidequests you get an upgrade to the grapnel boost which allows you to continue gliding right after using it.

Gliding through Arkham City is a rush and incredibly fun.

The environment may not be as big as New York City was in Spider-Man 2 but I feel like there's more to do and what you do is given more meaning behind it. The sidequests are expansive and interesting and there is a lot to see including a few nice easter eggs.

If there's one flaw with the sidequests, it's that they lack major gameplay variety I feel. There are some new things thrown in like tracing a phone call, and they are still interesting, but I wish they would have put more out-of-the-box thinking to a few of them. This also leads to detective mode which I still feel is overly important and relied upon which can take away from the atmosphere.

The Riddler is back in town and this time has left 400 trophies to find, riddles to solve, objects to break, and physical challenges to complete (plus another 40 with the Catwoman DLC). Unlike the first game, you can't just find a trophy and pick it up (usually). You have to solve a small puzzle first. I really liked this as it gave it a real Metroid/Zelda feel, even moreso than the first game had.

The riddles themselves are great as every time you solve one (minus the positioning ones) you get a little bit of backstory on the creation of Arkham City and the different characters' relations to it. This was really cool to see and made me want to solve the riddles even more to get more backstory.

After finding enough riddles, then the real fun begins. The Riddler has taken hostages and put them in incredibly elaborate deathtraps like he were Jigsaw. You have to find out where the hostages are and free them. These are among the best highlights of the game and will really make you want to solve as many riddles as possible.

The Riddler returns and rescuing his hostages is one of the highlights of the game.

If you played Arkham Asylum at all, you know how the combat system works. It's a very simple system: one button attacks, another counters, one stuns, and one jumps away. It still works and forces you to really rely on reflexes. Easy to pick up and play but still requires practice. However, Rocksteady has added a few more pieces to the system.

In the first game you could use a quick batarang and batclaw. In this one you can incorporate the batclaw even more into the combat as well as use a few of the new gadgets like the freeze blast and remote electrical charge (we'll get into those in a minute). You can also use explosive gel but I found it to be one of the flaws of the combat, as it's very unwieldy and difficult to use and you can also be caught in it and ruin your combo.

Of course the predator sequences also return and Batman is still just as vulnerable to bullets as the last game. Like the last game, it is so much fun to slowly pick them off one-by-one and see the guys left start pissing themselves. The addition of the new gadgets gives a lot more ways to frak with their minds.

As for gadgets there are quite a few new ones. You start the game with your batarang, batclaw, explosive gel, remote batarang, and cryptographic sequencer. From there you expand your arsenal with things like smoke bombs and a freeze blast. The smoke bombs are particularly badass during predator sequences. Dropping one and coming down, taking out two guys real quick, and swinging back up out of sight absolutely kicks ass.

The smoke bombs are badass.

As for the boss fights, they're definitely improved from last game and given less emphasis so the lackluster ones don't take away as much enjoyment. One boss fight in particular is quite cool and requires you to constantly change your tactics as he always learns and makes sure you can't do the same attack twice. But there are still some weak boss encounters in here.

Challenges return with both predator and brawler levels but there are a hell of a lot more this time around, and there are also separate challenge runs for Catwoman and Nightwing (who's DLC I haven't downloaded yet).

On top of that there's a New Game+ which starts you off with all of your upgrades but makes more difficult enemy configurations with no warning that they're about to attack you. It's a great addition and makes a second playthrough worth it.

As for the Catwoman DLC, it's fun but it also feels like it interrupts the flow of the main story (I know different section) and while Catwoman is very fun to control in a fight, she's nowhere near as fun to navigate with. This isn't really Rocksteady's fault as it just comes with the character.

There's a lot of content in Arkham City and a lot of stuff to do, especially if you're one of those people who wants to see and do everything. Arkham City is going to take a lot of time and the game is so addicting. Mixed with the incredibly fun and satisfying combat, it makes for a combination that will make you feel like you definitely got your money's worth.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

The graphics in Arkham City are not the finest technically. The textures are not the best and just like the first game, some of the character models just don't look all that good.

However, artistically the game looks great. Arkham City is truly a wonder to explore and seeing the skyline of Gotham in the background almost makes you wish you could swing into Gotham as well. The architecture looks fantastic with obvious inspiration from the Burton films and the animated series.

The voice acting is stellar. Mark Hamill delivers his swan song performance, stealing the show with his terrifying portrayal of the Joker in arguably one of the best performances of his career. Kevin Conroy is also excellent as Batman and shows how good he's gotten with the character. Grey DeLisle is great as Catwoman though I feel she lays her dialogue a little too heavy at points. Coming from someone who normally loves her work, I feel that she's done better before. Stana Katic also delivers a great performance as Talia Al Ghul in her video game debut. It's an excellent cast and it drives the story well.

Mark Hamill's swan song performance as the Joker steals the show and is one of the finest of his career.

Finally, the soundtrack is outstanding. While the environment design seemed to be taken from the Burton films and animated series, the music is definitely inspired by the Nolan films and it kicks ass.

CONCLUSION

I believe that every year, for each person, a game comes out that defines that year and is good to that person, that they can overlook almost any flaw. Last year for me, it was Mass Effect 2. So far this year, it's Batman: Arkham City. I expected a great game, I did not expect one of the finest action/adventure games in recent memory. Any other game that comes out this year is going to have its work cut out for it.

If you have any kind of love for the action/adventure genre you owe it to yourself to pick up this game NOW! It's fun, addictive, fulfilling, and all-around just an amazing experience and at the end of the day, it's just so much fun to be the Bat. It's a definite buy.

Podcast #7 - Top 10 Scariest Games

Time for our Halloween special that we have been talking about. See how different our top 10 list of scariest games are plus some more Battlefield 3 coverage. Don't forget to pay attention to the blog this week as my impressions of Battlefield 3 will be up this week hopefully.



Just some other things we talked about:

10th Anniversary of GTA III last Saturday
GTA V announced (and on Jack Thompson’s disbarment anniversary)
GTA V rumors
Resistance 3 not doing so well
Devil May Cry HD Collection confirmed
Halo Kinect features revealed
New XIII game coming in November
Bioshock Vita troubles
Soul Calibur V EZIO
Assassin Creed movie deal is close
NFL Blitz getting revived
New Xbox in 2013
Battlefield 3 standard def 360 problems
Commit to a year of WOW get Diablo 3 for free
Mists of Pandaria
Mass Effect 3 Demo
Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer preview
Mojang/Bethesda Suit
49% of console gamers don’t buy DLC
Portal 2 DLC
Arkham City releases on PC on November 18 (and sells 2 million in a week)
No southpaw mode for Skyward Sword
No single-player DLC for Uncharted 3
Minecon
Mario Kart 3DS Wheel

Podcast #6 - Horror in Video Games

Number 6 coming a little late as is number 7 however they are well worth it. Listen to us talk about horror in video games and also a little news.



Along with horror in games we talked about these other things:

Mass Effect 3 co-op confirmed
Potential Superman game
Bethesda doesn’t enjoy being forced into Mojang lawsuit
Team Bondi owes ex-employees around $1.4 million
Dragons in Minecraft
EA is behind Wii U
STALKER 2 might get always-on DRM
DICE believes there’s a market for Mirror’s Edge 2
Netflix scraps Qwikster
Silent Hill Downpour delayed to 2012
Diablo 3 beta keys on Facebook
Skyrim manual leaked
Sony hack attempt thwarted
Red Dead Redemption not having a PC release date
Modders add Waluigi to Brawl
Vita games in Japan show cheaper digital price
Project Z Zynga
New Wii Model with Mario Galaxy Soundtrack and new super mario bros
Xbox 360 beta dashboard signups
Uncharted 3 includes starhawk beta
Burnout crash headed to IOS
Scribblenauts coming to IOS
GTA III getting IOS Port
Daytona USA coming to XBLA and PSN
320 GB harddrive coming to xbox
New Tribes game beta announced
Rage gets patch
Infinity Blade Arcade