Sunday, May 27, 2012

5 movies that would have ended in court



It is not unusual for movies to skip certain legal proceedings. But this is especially true when said proceedings get in the way of a happy ending and those sweet, sweet credits. However, if you think about it, harsh and long legal proceedings might be the only natural outcome of a great many movies. I'm going to leave it at 5, though.

The Unborn
"Look lady, I am a demon coming to posses your body, but I'm not going to until you start wearing your own size."

The unborn is a stupid movie about Jewish exorcism.. You might think it's scary if you think upside down heads are scary, and also you are 5.
Kicked out of most doggie shows on suspicion of surgery.



In order to cure our protagonist of her Nazi-enabled demon possesion(I warned you it was stupid!), her boyfriend, a Rabbi, a Reverend and a small group of paranormal researchers/documentary crew/fodder exorcise her in a creepy abondoned building. In this cleverly chosen place, most of them meet their end, either because they where possesed and had to be killed, or killed by the possesed.
YOUR MOTHER IS A RESPECTED MEMBER OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN HELL!

In the end, the priest and the girl are the only survivors. A Few month's later, we see the girl checking a pregnancy test and...

...no. You don't get to leave a building with 7 bodies and no alibi that isn't demonic possesion by Nazi demons. That's how you get arrested for murder!

If you think the cops are gonna take a bunch of bloory footage of people screaming as evidence, stop thinking. Most of the supernatural occurences happened offscreen, and the girl has a history of mental illness in her family. Put together with the recent deaths of those she knew and let's just say she'll have an uphill battle  proving her version before a jury.

Above the Law
Or maybe it's not this movie. I don't know!


Steven Seagal is Steven Seagal, a cop accused of a crime he didn't commit, and so he sets out to track down the real culprits, prove his innocence, and get revenge. There may be other films with this plot.
"Are you guys done shooting, I neet to snap all your arms and legs before my break."

In the nd Steven breaks into bad-guy villa and kills everyone, as he is wont to do. His superior walks into the scene and just goes "good job", like it was a baseball game and Steven just scored 10 points.

Yeah, not so good, Steven. Now he has to, in addition to the original charges, face evasion of justice, various counts of murder, illegal weapon possesion, breaking and entering and many, many more. He can't say he walked into the manor not planning to kill everyone.

But if the Chief is to be believed, Steven Seagal is Above the Law. Maybe the cops will illegally cover all the crimes of a fugitive if it's a guy they know.After all, these are criminals he killed.

But criminals have families too. If the state doesn't pursue, they will probably face a huge class action suit for every goateed thug's neck he snapped. No matter how moch they are riding on the ponytailed antics of Seagal, they'll probably rather fire him than face the enormous cost of backing Seagal up.

This guys became a rap mogul just by getting a severe beating.   If Steven Seagal was a real life person, he's be the new president.


Matilda
Not being loved by your parents is an adventure!

Matilda is a little girl who gets no breaks from enyone in th efucking world, including her parents and at school. She also has telekinetic powers. Before she can grow up into a Carrie, she finds a sweet teacher called Miss Honey, who isn't a complete monster to her.

Eventually her parents are sought out by the law for several minor crimes, and they need to leave the state. Ms. Honey an Matilda convince them to quickly sign over adoption papers to hand over Matilda to Honey.
Hey, maybe in a couple of years Tim Burton might remake this movie...

Needless to say, adoption does not work like this. Matilda is not a car, and if she was, it's take more than signing 3 sheets of paper in 1 minute for the exchange to occur.
What I'm saying is if Ms. Honey was played by Kathy Bates, it's be at least an open ending.

Matilda's parents, in this case, are in a state of lawlessness  and in no position to leave their child to anyone. If it was that easy, what's to stop an accused child abuser of giving his victim  to someone who was willing to trade the child back to him? The state would at least want to investigate what resources and background Ms. Honey has to take care of a kid. It's way more likely instead that Matilda would go through several temporary homes. With her rotten luck for authority figures, her fate is most likely two bags markes "evidence".

Collateral
Tom goes crazy without his Rogaine.
Collateral is a movie where a hitman(Tom Cruise) and the dumb driver he kidnaps to drive him to several hits(Jaime Foxx). Early in, Cruise remarks how one can die in the subway and no one might find out.

See, becomes ironic later in the climax, where Cruise shot dead by Foxx in a subway and gets away safely. Never mind that for it to come to that, Foxx just had to crash a car, kidnap a cop, steal a cellphone, break into a building(using bullets) be chased by an armed Tom Cruise into a Subway, where they shot at each other until Tom Cruise decides to die.
Did I leave the oven on?

Oooh, and no one will die because he's dead in the Sub! They'll think sleeping out his massive hemorrage, right?

No, what will happen is that Foxx will do time for kidnapping and murder, as soon as an unlucky train employee finds Tom's body and they quickly link it to Foxx's spree through obvious forensic evidence and eyewitness corroboration. Self Defense has limits, yo.

Free Willy
Thanks kid. I'm off to torture sea lions before killing them!

Free Willy follows a boy's heroic quest to free his penis an Orca whale from it's evil owner's at Not-Sea world. And if you where born in the western world before 1991, you know he was succesfull in this endeavor.

If not,   quick summary. The boy met the whale in an illegal vandalism excursion, during which he was caught. He is put to work assisting in the aquarium, and he soon becomes good friends with Willy.

Once he learns of  the parko owner's plan to whack his precious willy, he, along with consenting adults, break out the whale from the aquarium on various vehicles.
You can't fuck wit our whales, motherfucker!

Now, I'm not saying it's wrong to free an animal that is going to be killed for it's insurance money. But i'm pretty sure it's illegal to haul around an Orca whale on tha back of a truck without some kind of permit. Because sure, this guys are heroes if the whale lives, but if their transmission gives out and Willy dries up, that makes them reckless thieves.

So adding to the boy's rap sheet further breaking and entering charges, destruction of property as well as enviromental charges, he's probably, he's likely to face juvie hall. Allthough perhaps a local celebrity would intercede for him. Unless he's a whale hating cyborg. Then no.


Tuesday, May 22, 2012

8 franchises that became fighting games (and quickly regretted it)




Big deal, Persona. So you're ditching your RPG roots for a little one on one 2d fighter Combat. Pfft. I'm tired of you lording over everyone how cool and new you are because of it.  You know what? You're not even the first.  This here franchises entered the cage with triumphant smiles, and left the genre with their tails between their legs, never knowing what happened.

Of note: I'm not including fan-made games in this list. I like M.U.G.E.N too, but no.

Dynasty Warriors
But where is my Dynasty fighitng game?

As far as "historical games", I've never understood the Dynasty Warriors series.  Crazy dance numbers and supersoldiers bursting through 1000s of troops aside, shouldn't one warlord just win the war and get it over with? How long WAS this unification war? Either way, the series carries on, even spinning off into Samurai and Weird Anime Pirate spinoffs.

What you may not know, is that really early on the series, they tried branching off into fighting with...Dynasty Warriors, the first in the long list of DW games. Because the only thing more realistic than one guy killing  hordes to  decide which family will rule the crown is solving it  in round based one on one deathmatches with spears and  swords.  However, after just one entry, Koei went back to slashemup action with the series.

Now, I'm not saying the franchise doesn't have enough characters for a fighting game. They're on, what, the 16th game? But even with that, the Dynasty crew seems a bit bare compared to what I'm guessing is the closest peer on that age: Soul Edge. Sure, Koei spiced up some guy from Chinese history. He's  still not as cool as mostly made up characters like Mitsurugi or Sophitia.

Final Fight

Serve it cold. To the dogs.

Final Fight was supposed to be a sequel to Street Fighter, but things turned out differently and  the game became a beatemup. However, the series has become inexorably linked to Capcom's  main fighting franchise through numerous cameos and even a cancelled crossover game.

That said, Final Fight had it's own attempt at the genre with  Final Fight Revenge, a game that brought  most of the crew back for  sort of a fighting game, only you could use weapon pickups. It would probably be considered the worst in the series, if Streetwise didn't have it's back.

Star Wars
I like how the name of the obscure martial arts is subdued. Star Wars: Masters is a good name, anyway.

Before Episode 1, there weren't  a gazillion known Jedi in Star Wars movies. There was Luke and Darth Vader. Even the Emperor wasn't a Jedi yet. Which is why, when Star Wars: Masters of Terras Kasi rolled around, it just did what any one of us would have done: put most of the main characters in the franchise in there to fight  you know, Han Solo, Princess Leia, one of those pig guys...

Awkwardness of the concept aside, it's the execution that has earned this game it's infamy. What's sadder is that apparently Capcom had  been commissioned to make  a Star Wars  fighting game, but when the license was taken away, Capcom went on to make Star Gladiator, a game that you don't have to squint too hard to see the Star Wars influence. Also, people don't  vomit expletives furiously when they remember it.

Sonic the Hedgehog

The gloves are off. Except they're not.

Sonic has always, be it on purpose or accidentally, followed on whatever the Mario franchise is doing, but usually with less success. Mario had a successful racing series, Sonic had 3 serieses. Mario had Tennis, Sonic got on that a couple years later.  Mario had a party series, and Sonic had a ... a thing. It's the nature of a company mascot to be in this kinds of games.

On the other hand, on  one thing Sonic had the jump on over  the mustachioed menace is having a fighting game. It wasn't even a party fighter, you fucking purists. It was straight one on one fighting title called Sonic The Fighters.

However, since Virtua Fighter had just met great success, Sega decided a 3D game that benefited from the finest polygons the mid 90s could offer was in order. By my estimation it should have been some kind of fast paced 2D fighter. But I guess that's why I  am not a big shot Sega executive.

The results are unseemly, as Sonic's familiar crew(who back then could fit in a living room) and some fresh new faces(now buried forever) sidestepped, punched and bored each other.

That said, because Sonic gets to try everything twice, there was a 2d party style fighter for the Game Boy Advance called Sonic Battle.  Kind of not the right console for a party fighter, eh?

Jurassic Park
Try a sick combo!

Look,  I'm a fan of dinosaurs fighting. When I rented Turok, I spent most of it trying to get dinosaurs to fight each other. I watch Jurassic Fight Club more than  regular Fight Club. I popped some quarters in that shitty Primal Rage game. But there's no way I can pretend that a  Jurassic Park fighting game makes sense. Just...no.

However, rather than settling the feud between Dennis Nedry and  Samuel L Jackson via dragon  punching, Jurassic Park: Warpath follows several dinosaurs with a grudge to bear in a fight...to the deth!  Fans of actual dinosaurs need not apply, as even the Raptors are roided up to huge size so their fights with the Rexes make more sense. Even plant eaters become killing machines!

However, since this IS using the Jurassic Park license, you  should know that even thought dinosaur accuracy is gone fishing , the game has several nice depictions(PS1 standard) of Jurassic Park places, including Islas Nublar and Sorna, and even San Diego! If you're wondering how this is canon to the movies, you should go out and get some fresh air.

Lobo

Lobo is the Deadpool of the 90s(I know: wait until I make my point!): An attempt at satirizing dynamics of the  comics market that got out of control in a very good way for the company that made him. Also, he was an insane gun for hire who got into crazy adventures and got under everyone's skin, just like Deadpool.

However, one must wonder what element of the murderous, gun toting, space Hawg riding, cigar chomping crazy exploits of a space bounty hunter lent themselves to a fighting game. But Ubisoft certainly must have felt they had the answers, as they developed the game for the SNES near the end of it's run.

How was it? It wasn't. Then game was cancelled, even though it was basically done. The system works!

Castlevania
Oh, my go! This series is so fat...


Konami, whose biggest success in the genre is a non-series of multi-console licensed titles about the Ninja Turtles, must have been having some kind of mid-life crisis when they decided to take Vampire whipping simulator  Castlevania through that crossover bridge that leads to the arena, where I'd like to imagine they met with Soul Calibur and Guilty gear going the other way, but headed for the same place: failure.

Castlevania's Fighting game has been called many things, but good isn't one of them. Boasting undead demons, breast obsessed little girls, succubi and those lovable vampire slayer Belmonts, the Wii fighter is looked back at with disgust and regret by fans of the series. Everyone else just didn't look.

Batman Forever:

Harveeey!


No, Batman Forever wasn't really a Fighting game. It was just a shitty Beat Em Up that tried to apply the old Mortal Kombat controls to an adventure game.

That said, the training mode had Batman/Robin face up against holographic goons in a mat in the Batcave. Or you could actually use most of the bad guys from the game as holograms beating each other up as well, in what I'm guessing is some sort of Batman masturbation aid. You could even play 2 player vs! I think that covers most of the requirements, right?

In my mind, what happened was, they planned to make a fighting game from the get go, until someone  told them making a fighting game based on the Batman Forever license was a terrible idea. Unwilling to scrap all that awesome mocap work, and with a deadline to meet, they quickly built a retarded, badly controlled adventure beatemup around what they had. See? The system fails!

Monday, May 21, 2012

I might lose the PR

If I can make it there...I can make it someplace else, just as well.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

How Mass Effect 3 should have ended.

With my excuses if this is how it does end. Haven't played it myself.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Son of a Pitch: A Mild Mannered Super Hero Game


Super-Sock em!






As I played that awful Batman Game y'all where talking about, a thought started to grow on me: Superheroes videogames still have room to grow.

Sure, we've outgrown summer movie license superhero games universally sucking. We're even past the time a videogame based on Batman just HAD to be terrible. But there's  still aspects of Superheroes that aren't being covered. This is a bit of a general pitch, but it could apply to any number of franchises out there. Or a new one.

First up: why aren't secret identities ever a factor in this games? Hardly ever does a new Superhero story begin in a new comic or a new movie already decked up his or her supersuit. This applies as equally to Batman Begins and Sailor Moon. And you know why? Because even the worst of super hero stories still need to be stories. With identifiable characters. And conflicts that aren't always physical.


But I guess videogames, that have been battling cancer stricken critics for the self imposed and illusory title of "art", can't be stories. They need to be actionous, right? Here, Spider-Man, go punch the Skulls gang so you can learn a lesson about responsibility.

Now, you may balk. What  kind of gameplay would being Peter Parker, or Bruce Wayne or Barry Allen entail? Well, the answer is already among us.


You could have like an adventure game, where you have to figure out how to manage to keep a "real" life while still having to kick the crap out of robots. The Secret Identity parts could be anything, from quick timer events to minigames, to pretty much an RPG type of thing.  The important part is that, instead of throwing players into a sequence of action events, you could get the player involved in the story, with supporting characters and love interests all playing a significantly higher role than expositionary NPCs.
No follow-through, there, web-head.

Picture a huge open city, where on one end is that date with Mary Jane, and on the other, and attack by Mysterio. It'd be like the Sims and  Shenmue all rolled up into one. Only you have to change out of view.

Speaking of which: as long as we're expanding the story, why not give the titular hero a choice of love interests? I mean, most of the known Superhero franchises have at least more than one, and romantic tension is one of those elements of Superheroing that is missing from all this games. You got your Gwen Stacy or your Mary Jane, your Lois or your Lana, your Catwoman or your Talia, your Steve Trevor or...mumblemumblemumbble.

Of course, it doesn't have to be all dates. You could investigate while on civilian mode, so  you can be more prepared to fight the threats. You could engineer better crimefighting tech, if it's Batman or Ironman.  You could maybe try and work as a typical newspaper.

Another avenue that isn't often explored is  choice. But I guess in Superhero games it's kind of hard to put in that "light side", dark side" bar you think I mean by "choice". No, what I mean is that, several of this characters have been through enough phases that you could easily assign them a type of reaction. Let's take Batman, trying to defeat a warehouse full of goons. You could have the "Ninja master of the night" approach. You could have the "drop out of a skylight"  and announce yourself approach. You could even have the "gun them down" approach.  Maybe each type of approach could earn you points towards being more Silver Age, or more current age or more Issue 1 Batman. This eventually morphing the  character or the world more to reflect that. Sort of like the original, crazy promises of Fable. 

I don't want all this to be misconstrued as saying I don't like  action superhero games. I do. But at the same time, with the focus on story that games like L.A. Noire and Heavy Rain have proven can actually move units, why can't we have something like that on other games? The superhero fantasy is more that just punching and huge chins and brass heavy orchestra. Surely such a project would take a lot to get right and on time and to sell. But if done right, it could be the greatest superhero game in history and up the bar.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Fighting Hero of the Galaxy



I just want to quickly, and offhandedly announce my intention to publish a book. It will be a remake of the movie Star Oddysey. I talked about ot once. Remember?


While this might seem like one of my many unfinished projects, the only thing this one is missing is a cover and some promotion. So, I'm beggining to work on promoting it.  

Some pre-viz. What? I'm a visual person.


The book will be called Fighting Hero of the Galaxy. I'm making it available after July. I take the original, silly template of Star Odyssey and turn it into a full-bore space thriller.   I don't want to let on too much, but let's just say I infused it with mordern sci-fi dynamics while subverting many conventions of the standard space story. I wrote it, then translated to Spanish, because I can.  Just stay tuned. I think you'll like it.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Batman: Arkham Shitty




Oh. Acclaim. Why am I not surprised?

I heard you, guys. I wasn't on the internet, but I heard. You where talking about Batman Arkham City, the first game that apparently succeeds at the whole "Now you're Batman, in a wide open city, beating up  goons" thing.

I mean, let's face it, most Batman games have been deeply ingrained in preexisting genres like "Beat-Em-Up" or Racing"". That doesn't make them BAD games (being bad games made them bad games), but in terms of immersing you into the cowl and tights live of the Goddamn Batman, it felt a little...lacking. That is, until someone finally tried to give us the full Batman experience in  1998s movie tie-in "Batman and Robin" for the Playstation.

Hey, I said "tried". TRIED.

The interactive spawn of the filmic marketing machine that  put the lucrative Batman franchise out of theaters for 7 years, Batman and Robin  is a full on sim, with Bat Computer antics in the Batcave,  Batmobile driving down Gotham Park,  and the actual score from the actual movie. That last part is sort of amazing in the context that Spider-Man games always had this...stock music that felt like a slap to the face to the tunes Danny Elfman strung together. And hey, I do like Eliot Goldenthal's score for Batman and Robin. So sue me!

Be nice to the new neighbors, dear. They just went through a reboot...


However, the game is so poorly constructed, that any joy, even ironic, that could be derived is quickly smashed under the weight of some pretty garbage gameplay.


The game opens to a CG Full Motion pre-rendered Video of Gotham, where Mr Freeze is coming from underground in his Freezemobile as his minions  also drive recklessly in the streets. I guess this isn't crazy, considering his plan is to  burst into a museum to steal a diamond, Ice skate for a bit,  then use a rocket (with a bomb in it) to blast  off into the sky, then glide down on butterfly wings. He should have gone to Africa, where there's lots of diamonds and no Batman. Oh, well... there is one now, but not back then.


He did give me a sign. Now... to wait until he hits me more time.


Then Batman is in the Batcave, which immediately leads to you controlling him. You can press a shoulder button to switch between  running and "the batman strut", and another to switch between "detective" and "insecurely punching" modes. Detective mode has the option to jump in it, for some reason. And it also has the gadgets you would want to throw at a villain's faces.

Eventually, the player wanders into the vehicle platform, where  Batman(or Robin, if you so felt inclined, by wandering into the Robin ensigned closet.) and drives of in one of the vehicles into the big city.  The city itself is sparsely populated, and most of the citizens are, as expected, eccentric  criminals. Weird clowns and dominatrix gymnasts(but not THE Weird Clown or THE Dominatrix Lady Gymnast) are loose and stalking Gotham's two other inhabitants, while the police don't even bother. Luckily Batman's car is armed with a mosquito machine gun, and he  can blast away from the safety of his cockpit. Until he runs out, that is.

However, Mr Freeze isn't just after mere jewels, and has declared a holy war on  the Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder.  Every  half a mile two cars from the movie, a motorcycle, or a kamikaze ice cream truck will try to Benazhir Bhutto your ass. Unless you get off. Then they leave you alone. This would add entertainment and excitement to what otherwise would be a quick drive to the grocery store(of crime) if it weren't that the controls for driving are awful.

Ice Cream! Death to the Batman And Ice Cream!

Seriously, the get 'into the Batmobile and drive there' part is one of the worst  virtual driving things ever. I mean, I would rather play Multi Racing Championship than drive in this. Getting your car to drive straight is an unachievable goal, and you forget about Robin's motorcycle. Forget it. You'd think since they put the effort of putting it in the game and making it a significant part of it, they'd have put the effort into making it not fucking suck.

Eventually, after finding "clues" and  picking coins out of payphones  to put them in newspaper dispenser machines to get health(yes, BILLIONAIRE playboy Bruce Wayne isn't gonna fucking pay for his own newspaper) you get into the Museum, which doesn't fully exploit the over the top scene of the movie. Mr Freeze isn't even there. It is here that, if you haven't yet been killed by Ice-cream trucks yet...you will see this.

Aww... he got a shorter one just for Barbara!

That's the game over screen for the game. One of them, at any rate. You will see it every time more than 3 of Mr Freeze's men catch you.  Every time you  press an attack button, you should hear George Clooney ask the U.N. for permission to attack the person in front of him within the next decade as long as Venezuela puts half the money.  But whenever 3 of the Freeze Faithful gang up on you, they begin what is known in fighting game culture as an "an infinite" and to your local Gamestop as "why we still sell controllers". There isn't enough health(which comes in the form of floating double helix strains. Yes, Batman is going into town picking up people's genetic material and putting it in his mouth. Why do you ask?) and the controls aren't reactive enough.  And again, since  a significant amount of options that would be useful in combat, such as jumping and drawing gadgets are on detective mode, you will have to rely on the combat actions or learn to quickly change into detective mode to get out of trouble. And the movement is tank-like, yet imprecise.

What Killt de Dynasoars? Dere Ar Diffrent Teeorees about Dee Ecksackt CAUSE but mohst scientists agrree it didn't involve DEEICE AYGE!!

Eventually, The Caped Crusader or his Loyal Liege secure the diamond before the Iceman gets to cometh. Which leads you back to the batcave, where you have some pretty useless clues about where  Freeze will strike next. The next mission is a sordidly designed jewelry store, where you are supposed to  wait until the bad guys arrive so the mission can be done. Not waiting like , at a stake out, or perched and watching the people. Waiting as in, wander around an empty jewelry.  Go ahead and trip the alarm. Then it's waiting...with an alarm blaring.

This game is stubbornly obsessed with time. With making you wait. With making you get there in time. With  clues having to be at a particular moment. I kind of get why one would do that...but in a game this poorly constructed, it just adds another layer of confusion and frustration. This is Batman and Robin, not fuckin' Shenmue!

Hurry up and die! Gotta pick up the kids at soccer practice.

But the waiting isn't the hardest part, as Mr Freeze finally shows up to grab the gem and kill the heroes. Yes. Kill them. Yes. Yes. As I stood there, in front of a shuffling model with a pixelated Arnold Schwarzenegger face on it, whiffing away,  watching him do gymnastics, I was wondering what the hell was going on.  It is then that I realized that the fighting system is truly broken. He won the first one, of course. And the next few ones, too.  Then it hit me like a thunder strike: third person fighting rules had abandoned me. Everything I knew was a lie. The only truth is that  he needed to be a good sport about me kicking him and not hit back, because my hits are no good here, but his hits  affect me. Life isn't fair, Batman.

But, yeah, our heroes steal another diamond, yet Freeze...flies away.

I actually lost the next mission. Yes, you can lose and move on, like in True Crime. I don't see why the fuck you would want to lose, but in my case, I had no choice, as wandering the latest labyrinthine jewelry store aimlessly lead to a glitch in which Freeze's  henchmen who was supposed to steal the thingie froze(ha ha) there, and made the stage unwinnable. I could have tried again. But I could also have made this paragraph  a loosely put together  chain of profanities. I didn't want to do either.


And he's single. Ladies.

However the next mission is  exactly the same, but without the glitch, and I get my chance at revenge on fucking Frosty. I don't get what difference it makes who gets a diamond or not. And why are the jewelry stores so apart?

The a small release came. I wandered behind the Robin ensigned closet and noticed yet another closet, which enabled me to play as Batgirl. I thought she would be playable in a later moment, but I guess she was here the whole time. Though her vehicle, the Batcycle, is the humblest looking of the 3, it handles the best and has the least problem surviving  the sudden goon strikes that haunt the player. That's right: in a stunning reversal, Alicia Silverstone's Barbara Pennyworth  is the least bad part of Batman and Robin: the game. Sure, she looks like Pagan and sounds like Maya, but anything that makes this experience less bad is good.


No jokes about women drivers here. Unless you consider this a joke and this thing here a woman and the steering in this game driving.

After getting myself lost AND caught saving after the game was winnable, I found the botanical garden scene. You know, I'm not a bigshot game designer, but if you're sending the player looking for something called "Botanical gardens" in a city full of flat doors...maybe don't make it look like a garage door. I've been to a Botanical Garden, and it didn't look like  that at all.

Still, big scene. You don't get to bid over the toply for a woman that came out of a monkey suit, but you do get to fight scores of henchmen. And there's icicle mines. Also, there's some thing making the floor blue that kills you. Oh, and the bad guys like to attack with grenades now. And sometimes, they come out of unexpected places. I actually came in with full health every time, and they just knocked it right out of me. I discovered blocking and rolling. Still dying. It's like a very deep game of chess where all your pieces are pawns and kings and the other player has a shotgun. Then FROSTY shows up again. I thought he was in jail? Isn't Vivica A Fox gonna show up? She's in this movie, too!


So, if you can somehow brave the crazy fucking odds...you get your shot at Mr Freeze again. And this time, he means it! He's got a device that shoots ice randomly, he's building big ice pillars atop a giant hand, and he's not afraid of kicking you into the ground and freezing you before you get up. Your first instinct might be to run up to his face and beat the shit out of him. Mine too. It failed. He can easily destroy you in 2 seconds if he gets  3 hits in. Then I tried using the batgadgets to wear him down first.  It did not work particularly well. You might try patiently trying to gather gadgets from afar to wear him down. But if you wait too much, the machine explodes and you fall down for no good reason. Touching the device hurts you. Falling is easy and sometimes you can even fall through floors. His health goes down slooow, and there's two bars that each respond to different types of attacks. There are no indicators as to what you have to do. There is no strategy here: if you won, it is a series of coincidences that strung themselves together to enable your victory. It is the perfect boss fight. For the boss I mean.

Mah emoshons mede me wick!
Or is it? Will I be able to beat this? Am I going to quit and go back to playing enjoyable games? Find out next time in Batman: Arkham Shitty 2!

Continued in part Two!