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Game Review — Batman: Arkham Asylum

Nov 20

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Computer, Games, Reviews | No Comments

batman_begins[1]Batman:  Arkham Asylum — Rocksteady Games

Rating:  4.5/5

I’ve played a lot of FPS-type games (including tight over-the-shoulder 3rd person games) over the years, starting with the original Doom.  It’s not my favorite genre — I tend more towards role-playing games, interactive fiction, and turn-based strategy.  It takes quite a bit for an FPS to impress me these days, but Batman:  Arkham Asylum has what it takes.

The premise is fairly simple.  You’ve just captured the Joker and are carting him into Arkham Asylum for the usual ineffective treatment.  Unbeknownst to you, however, the Joker has already salted Arkham with inmates that are actually his goons from a nearby prison, and has a plan in motion to bust out and take over the island.

You, as Batman, must stop him.

The game gives you a very impressive range of gadgets with which to play.  From the Batarang and Batgrapple to the late-game Batline and Batclaw, you always have tools to support what you want to accomplish.  These gadgets support not only different movement options, but also give you great tactical flexibility in combat.  Explosive gel can be used to set traps for enemies or blow open thin walls.  A cryptographic analyzer can short out security nodes and allow access to otherwise-inaccessible areas.  The Batclaw can disarm enemies and pull them toward you, and the Batarang can knock them out.  You can fly with the Batcape, as well as stun enemies with it.  And, of course, you can beat the crud out of enemies with the good old Batfist.

Speaking of combat, the game does an excellent job of hybridizing the “shooter” and “sneaker” genres.  Batman can simply wade in, fists flying, and take out almost unlimited numbers of unarmed goons.  However, armed enemies give Batman more trouble, and for these he is often better off swinging between gargoyles up in the rafters, maneuvering behind the guards in order to take them down silently, in gameplay that’s like an amped-up version of Thief.

Another facet of gameplay leverages Batman’s legendary detective skills.  You can enter “detective mode” at any point, which highlights objects you can interact with, lets you see through walls, and distinguishes between armed and unarmed enemies.  In detective mode you can also use environmental analysis, which allows you to detect, say, a trail of Harley Quinn’s fingerprints or trace levels of alcohol breathed into the air by a treacherous guard.  My only real complaint about detective mode is that it was so useful that I spent the whole game using it, which means that I didn’t see enough of the beautiful environs of Arkham.  If they do a sequel, I’d suggest integrating detective mode more with the natural view of the environment.

Of course, no Batman game would be complete without a selection of big-name enemies for Batman to fight.  This game’s big baddie is the Joker, supported by a host of classic Batman villains including Bane, Szasz, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, the Sandman, and Poison Ivy.  The Riddler also makes a cameo, having littered the grounds of Arkham with secrets for Batman to find.

These supercriminals usually fall into one of two categories — big bruisers that Batman has to defeat using superior agility and tactics, or more traditional “bosses” that must be defeated in a particular, scripted scenario.  Both these types of fight are done well, although the “Batarang-and-dodge-the-charging-brute” tactic tends to get old by the end of the game.

The environments are very well-rendered, and most areas are visited more than once, since the additional mobility options you get later in the game serve to open up areas you couldn’t get to on the first run-through.  The result is a game that feels open while it subtly guides you, and where you get to learn the lay of the land early on so you can use it to your advantage in the endgame.

I was a bit let down by the final battle, particularly after the high bar set by the rest of the game.  But really, this is a very good title if you are a fan of Batman or like tactical or sneaky combat games.  I’d have no qualms recommending it.

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Book Review: The State of Jones

Nov 18

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Books, Reviews | No Comments

e3d7591a-a5f3-489b-88bb-d872f2b52269img100[1]The State of Jones — Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer

Rating:  4/5

The State of Jones is a Civil War history, but one from a fairly unique perspective.  The main focus of the book is Newton Knight, a barely-better-than-subsistence farmer in Jones County, Mississippi.  Mr. Knight’s grandfather was a slaveholding planter with a moderate-sized plantation, but his father was opposed to slavery and struck out on his own.  Newton grew up in a Primitive Baptist milieu, with a doctrinal emphasis on the equality of man and a distrust for the hierarchy of politicians, planters, and preachers that helped stabilize the institution of slavery in the Southern states.

It comes as no surprise that when the war came, Newton was opposed to it, but the groundswell of support for secession ensured it would take place regardless.  Newton was conscripted and served in the Confederate Army through several harrowing battles, until finally, after the particularly insane slaughter at Vicksburg, he deserted and returned home to Jones County.  He hid out in the swamps along with other deserters and runaway slaves, avoiding dogs and patrols sent to root them out and return them to service, eventually forming a band of deserters into a pro-Union militia and effectively driving the Confederates out of Jones County for a period of time.

After the war Newton Knight’s star rose high for a while.  Reconstruction-era elections ensured that the Republican party was in power, and officials sympathetic to what he had done in the war were able to reward him in certain ways.  As the North withdrew and suppression of the black vote started to turn the political tide, however, Newton Knight was increasingly put on the defensive, and eventually he stayed on watch at his family farm, presiding over two families — a white one with his wife, and a black one with Rachel, a former slave who had helped him in his swamp-running days.

The book does a great job of characterizing Newton Knight, thanks to some oral interviews he gave near the end of his life.  It also does a nice job of providing historical context for the events of the book — we know that the “Twenty Negro Law”, which effectively exempted rich planters from military service, correlated closely with an increase in desertion from the Confederate Army, as soldiers realized that the law made official what was widely known already:  that the conflict was, in the words of one soldier, “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.”

The book also goes into fairly extensive detail about the devastation inflicted on the South during the war, both by the direct assault of the Union armies and through confiscatory policies imposed by the Confederates themselves.  The effects of both of these were brutal to the farmers (mostly women) left behind to survive and try to raise families with their men off serving in uniform.  The fact that so much of this oppression was self-inflicted is particularly tragic, and the authors pull few punches in describing it.

The last section of the book, however, is the most fascinating, describing Newton Knight’s dual family and what happened to his descendants in post-Reconstruction Mississippi.  This section of the book contains much that probably seems absurd to 21st-century Americans, but should serve as a powerful reminder of the oddities and cruelties of race relations in the recent past.  One of the scenes examined is the miscegenation trial of one of Newton Knight’s descendants, which hinged on an exhaustive legal examination of how much African ancestry Rachel actually had, with witnesses asked probing questions about, among other things, how kinky her hair was.  Perhaps the most powerful image of the book is the final one:  Newton Knight, over 80 years old, still camped on his porch every night, a rifle on his lap, on a silent vigil to protect his large family from the unpredictable threat of racial violence.

This is Civil War history at the scale of individual humans, and also the story of a fascinating, obscure personality.  I think it succeeds on both levels, and I have no qualms about recommending it.

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Erfworld Relaunch

Oct 28

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Humor, Reviews, Websites | No Comments

BLOWUP_nomnomnom_640[1]I follow a few webcomics.  They make great bite-size reads when I’m waiting for a compile at work, or while eating an in-cube breakfast.  One of my favorites is one called Erfworld, created by Rob Balder and Jamie Noguchi.  Erfworld follows the adventures of a gaming nerd who is summoned to a fantasy world as the “perfect warlord” that a hard-pressed, losing faction desperately needs.  The fantasy world follows all the conventions of a turn-based wargame, including movement points, levels, attack bonuses, and so forth, and Parson Gotti (the protagonist) has to learn all the details as he goes.  Unfortunately for him, his boss is both crazy and dim, his forces are vastly outnumbered, and no one trusts him.

The writing and art were both excellent, and as a gamer myself I was constantly laughing at the dense layer of in-jokes and game references almost every update.  Unfortunately, after completing the first installment of the comic, artist Jamie Noguchi got overcommitted and eventually decided to step down from illustrating Erfworld.  Rob Balder kept up with text-only updates, but they were sort of just marking time.

It looked like Erfworld was heading for a slow suffocation, but recently Rob announced that they will be relaunching today, October 28, with a new artist.  They’ve already revealed some of her art and it’s excellent!  I can’t wait to start the new installment of the comic; it looks like Rob is pushing the writing to deal more with the social ramifications of living in a world patterned after a fantasy-themed board wargame, which are pretty bizarre.  In turn, the concepts of free will and human rights Parson is importing seem just as alien to the Erfworlders.  Add in a major war to test Parson’s strategic chops, and this second book looks like it could be pretty awesome!

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Book Review — The Twilight Series

Aug 11

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Books, Reviews | 2 Comments

twilight_book_cover[1]The first step is admitting you have a problem:

“Hi everyone, my name is Matt.”

“Hi, Matt.”

“I’m a 39-year old straight man, and I like Twilight.”

(applause, heckler yells “are you sure you’re straight?”)

***

The Twilight Saga, by Stephenie Meyer

Rating:  4.5/5

Although I’m pretty sure there’s not a 12-step program for Twilight addiction, I must say that this series was a true page-turner.  Stephenie Meyer has bitten into a genre that I would have said was pretty drained of potential — the “supernatural romance” — and produced what will probably (and rightfully) be seen as its preeminent work.

Vampire fiction has been popular since Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and there’s always been an element of forbidden lusts and sensual temptations involved from the outset.  Modern writers such as Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton have tended to deal with the supernatural primarily as it relates to itself — Rice’s internecine feuds and vampiric politics, Hamilton’s disturbing soft-core forays into werewolf/vampire/necromancer ménage à trois, the secret wars of the Underworld movies and the World of Darkness RPGs, etc.  Humans figure in these works primarily as food, fools, or foils — seldom anything more.

Meyer takes us back to a more Bram Stoker-ish approach in the first novel of this series, Twilight.  Isabella Swan, or “Bella”, as she prefers to be called, has just moved to Forks, Washington, to live with her father Charlie.  She decided to do this, despite the fact that she hates Forks, because her flighty mother has decided to run off and tour with a minor-league baseball player and practical, independent Bella didn’t want to be the one to stand in her way.  She’s dubious and angsty about this decision partly because she’s sure she won’t fit in, partly because it means moving from a big city to a small town, and partly because Forks is one of the rainiest, most perpetually-overcast places in the country.

All this changes, though, when she first visits the lunchroom at Forks High, and encounters the five enigmatic Cullen kids.  They’re movie-star gorgeous, filthy rich, and impossibly aloof.  Aloof, that is, until Bella locks eyes with the unattached Edward, who happens to sit next to her in Biology and who seems simultaneously enraptured with and repelled by Bella in a way that is unique in her (and everyone else’s) experience.  Of course, she falls madly in love.

I’m kind of in a tough spot here; I don’t want to blow any significant plot details, but I also want to review the whole series.  It’s not really a secret that Edward and his family turn out to be vampires, or that his issues with Bella arise from a heady mix of fascination and desire, both for her self and her blood.  The Cullens have to balance their lifestyle and their need for secrecy against Edward’s growing romance with Bella, and the first three books do a good job of exploring the complexities of this relationship as Edward masters himself and Bella learns more about the supernatural world she yearns to join.  Of course, there are other factors that keep this from turning into an unopposed love story, and vampires aren’t the only monsters lurking in the dark…

And then there’s the fourth book, Breaking Dawn.  I found this last book to be by far the best of the four in terms of sheer addictiveness — Meyer has grown a lot as a writer over the five short years it took her to get these books published.  However, it’s the one of the four that leaves the concerns of the human world far behind, so it’s somewhat of a shift from the earlier novels.  And although it weighs in as the longest of the four novels, it probably should have been longer still; she left a lot of loose ends untied and there were some sections of the book that could probably have used more explanation.  Ideally she would have split it into two volumes; there was a really good breakpoint in the middle that would have served well for this purpose.

Of course, she might be holding back on us for possible sequels or spinoffs, as would be her right.

Meyer’s greatest strength, in my opinion, is her excellent use of dialogue and her vivid characterization.  There are a lot of characters in these books, yet they are all distinct, with clear motivations and well-realized personalities.  The supernatural itself doesn’t do the heavy lifting in these stories — the characters’ human (or inhuman) motivations and feelings are the real drivers, which gives these books a subtlety that other supernatural fiction lacks.

She also does a solid job with setting, plot and pacing — there really aren’t any significant weaknesses in her writing, although I wouldn’t put her in the top tier as a stylist.  Her research, on the other hand, has a hole or two — there are some passages about genetics where I think she was confused about the differences between genes and chromosomes, but that’s a very small speedbump in an otherwise excellent novel series.  All in all, I am very sanguine about recommending these books to anyone who enjoys strong character-based fiction, well-realized female protagonists, and/or supernatural novels.

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Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Jul 29

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Movies, Reviews | No Comments

rDV7kyzWPor2jdoulS0RAEkKo1_500[1]Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Rating:  4/5

We did get out over the weekend to see the newest Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Ultimately I found it to be a very good movie, well worth seeing, but one that was in the end merely evocative of the book rather than a true, faithful adaptation of the book.

The movie starts with Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Harry’s guardian and mentor, arriving to take Harry with him on a trip to recruit a new professor, Horace Slughorn, after which he’s dumped off near the Weasley home prior to heading off to Hogwarts.

Harry Potter’s sixth year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry starts painfully, as his attempts to figure out what the secretive Draco Malfoy is up to lead to him getting roughed up fairly badly, even before he gets off the Hogwarts Express.  From there, we’re whirled into the events of the book, with Harry discovering an old Potions textbook heavily annotated with spells and advice from someone enigmatically referring to him- or herself as “The Half-Blood Prince”.

The students plot and scheme with almost equal fervor to both unravel the plans of the Dark Lord Voldemort, and to pair up romantically.  Romances are shuffled and tested as Harry struggles to obtain a very vital memory from Professor Slughorn, a memory he is loathe to part with.

All the standard elements of the Harry Potter movies are here — a Quidditch match, classroom scenes, Professor Snape showing outrageous favoritism to his chosen Slytherin students, Hagrid waxing sentimental over some hideous magical creature only it’s mother (and Hagrid) could ever love, and some magical duelling.

I was disappointed both in scenes left out (anything having to do with Dumbledore’s Army, along with all but two of the Pensieve memories and the funeral at the end) and the new scenes tacked on (the assault on the Weasley home being the worst).  We didn’t see much of anyone but the main three characters, and many of the professors may as well not have been in the movie at all for the minimal screen time they got.

The acting was very good — Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have matured into excellent actors, and although Rupert Grint’s performances are a bit too slapstick for me, he does have a gift for comedy and reliably gets me to laugh at the appropriate times.  Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn stole the show as far as I’m concerned, except when Helena Bonham Carter was chewing scenery as Bellatrix Lestrange.

In the end, though, although I think the movie has many, many strong points and is overall very faithful to the spirit of the novel, I don’t think it stands on its own as an adaptation, as some of the earlier movies did and as the Lord of the Rings movies did.  At best, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a great vehicle for reminiscence, each scene reminding you of the fuller, more complete events from the book, but forcing you to supply the extra details to knit everything together in your own head.

I’ve talked to a few people who have not read the book but have seen the movie, and their reaction has generally been confusion.  There’s just too much going on in Half-Blood Prince for it all to make it cleanly into a 2-1/2 hour movie.  Thank goodness Deathly Hallows is going to be split into two installments.

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Movie Review: The Proposal

Jun 24

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Movies, Reviews | No Comments

TheProposal_02[1]The Proposal

Rating:  4 out of 5 stars

This is a light and light-hearted summer romantic comedy, and for the most part delivers the goods, although it’s not without its problems.

Sandra Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a bitchy Canadian book editor, who terrorizes her serf/employees and walks all over her assistant, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds).  All this comes to a screeching halt, however, when she’s informed that her visa application has been denied and she’ll be deported to Canada and lose her job unless she comes up with a way to stay in-country.

At that moment, Andrew walks into the office, and Margaret comes up with a plan.  It should be pretty obvious what her plan is.  Margaret and Andrew negotiate terms, and a bargain is struck.

The fly in the ointment is the friendly neighborhood INS agent, who smells fraud and vows to prove the two are in cahoots in order to keep her in the U.S.  In order to get him off their back temporarily, Margaret commits them to flying up to Alaska for his grandma’s 90th birthday party.  Grandma is played by the scene-stealing Betty White, and is as funny as ever in this role.

While in Alaska, they meet the rest of Andrew’s family, declare their engagement, and slowly fall for each other for real as they fake it for the family’s benefit.

I would apologize for blowing the plot, but it’s a summer romantic comedy.  They’re as predictable as sunrise, and this one is no exception.  The chemistry is good, the writing is pretty sharp and funny, the supporting cast is good, there’s an interesting twist in that the normal gender roles are somewhat reversed here, and ultimately that’s enough to make it a very enjoyable movie.

On the negative side, much of the time the movie seemed choppy and over-edited, and I got the sensation that some fairly important scenes got left on the cutting-room floor.  The excellent Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson were underused, and I thought quite a few opportunities for exploring Margaret and Andrew’s relationship in more depth were missed.

But overall this is still a good movie, well worth seeing if you get a chance.

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Cinema Suites

Jun 23

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Family | No Comments

002_12327414a8340bd1_1-0-feed[1]Robin and I went to see The Proposal for the combination of Father’s Day and our anniversary (review to follow in a day or so).

The movie itself was great, but what was even better was the Cinema Suites seating at the theater.

The major AMC theater near us not only has an IMAX screen, but has shifted about a third of their screens over to a “dinner and a movie” combination.  There are two different levels — “Fork and Screen”, and “Cinema Suites”.  Fork and Screen costs $5 more than a regular ticket, but you get a voucher for $5 worth of food, so if you are planning to eat at the theater, it comes out even.

Similarly, Cinema Suites costs $10 more than a regular ticket, but you get that $10 back as a food voucher.  So really, if these options are available they are pretty good deals.

We’ve done Fork and Screen several times in the past, and enjoyed it.  The seats are standard theater seats, but having a better grade of food available is really nice.  Being able to get an appetizer like mozzarella sticks and a water beats the usual theater fare of popcorn, Milk Duds, and a Tub-O-Sprite cold.

Cinema Suites, though, is a substantial upgrade even from that.  Instead of regular theater seating, you get large, overstuffed recliners (pictured above — the center armrest is removable for couples) that recline almost to horizontal, and the food is brought directly to a swiveling tray by your seat.

It’s almost sybaritic; all we were missing was a bunch of grapes to snack on while the ushers stood by and fanned us.  Come to think of it, I’m sure we could have bought the grapes off the appetizer menu if it came to that.

Our only complaint was that it pays to order finger food, as the trays don’t always come over as far as you might like, and we had a few dropped food incidents in the dark while eating.  Other than that, Cinema Suites gets a big thumbs up!

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Movie Review: Up

Jun 16

Posted by Matt Wigdahl in Movies, Reviews | No Comments

up_pixar-2[1]Up — Disney/Pixar Studios.  Rating:  5/5 stars

Sunday we went to see Up, the new movie from Pixar.  I went in with high expectations, considering the massive 98% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.  It didn’t disappoint.

Up is the story of Carl Fredericksen, an elderly man who dreamed of exotic, foreign adventures as a boy but who never actually went to the places he dreamed about.

Similar to the otherwise totally different Watchmen, Up uses an emotionally powerful montage approach at the beginning of the film to bring you up to speed — in this case, up to speed with the character of Carl, who without the background might appear like an irredeemable jerk.

But with that background, you can’t help but sympathize with Carl in the situation he finds himself in — to sympathize, and when he finally casts off into the unknown on the marvelous adventure of his dreams, to suspend disbelief and take flight along with him.

There’s plenty here for everyone; although it’s a cliche, it should appeal to folks from six to 106.  As my friend Forest said, “If you understand English, you’ll like this movie.”  And in some cases, that might not even be a requirement.  The movie is visually stunning as well, and the probably-not-quite-aged-two toddler sitting next to us in the theater was remarkably quiet and raptly watching the beautifully-colored scenes throughout the movie.  I think Thomas may have made more noise than she did.

There is lush wilderness, a pack of talking dogs, a hilarious mother bird, a nuanced villain, and plenty of action and laughs.  But under the surface there’s a lot more going on.  There are strong yet subtle messages about how life works — relationships, materialism, reputation, what’s important and what’s not — and about the dangers of obsession and trying to lock yourself away from the curveballs and change-ups you encounter in life.

In the end, Up is a fine adventure — possibly not the same one you thought you were going to get going into the theatre, but maybe all the better for it.  See it!

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