Yahtzee Likes It. See I'm Not Crazy!

Ok.... so that doesn't really prove anything, but it does make me feel better.

Arkham Asylum: Lock Me Up And Throw Away The Key

Games for me are divided in to three camps. 1) Games I play once or twice, never finish and don't really enjoy 2) games I play forever, never really getting to the end because I'm just picking away (but enjoying anyway) 3) and games I can't put away, play right through in one sitting, play again and again, talk about at length until everyone within a 20 mile radius signs a petition in an attempt to get me to shut up about the fucking thing already. Camp 1 has been displaying a "no vacancy" sign for years already but new titles keep showing up and demanding entrance while Camp 3 has always had shitloads of room for its very few occupants.

Well, after a long dry spell I have a new favourite game.

Mondays are my day off. I usually reserve them for doing a whole lot of nothing. Nothing important anyway. It's my day to sleep late, do a bit of shopping, make a dent in any personal projects. That sort of thing. Last Monday I woke up with a plan to play Arkham Asylum for an hour or two, get dressed and get a few things scratched off my list. That was at about 10am.

I got dressed at 9pm. After I finished the game and only because I had plans to go to a movie with my brother.

The game is awesome. I don't think I could have asked for more out of a Batman game. Or any other game for that matter.

Kevin Conroy has always been my favourite Batman voice. Maybe because (other than Adam West) he has been the Batman I've known the longest so I was giddy when Batman opened his mouth for the first time and it was him. I was equally giddy when I hear Mark Hamill's now perfectly familiar Joker joining him. Mark Hamill being, much like Kevin Conroy, forever ingrained in my brain as being Mr. J jumping effortlessly from manic insanity to menacing psycho in less than a beat.

The supporting cast was no less amazing. An army of bad guys, a ton of references, the game is littered with little gems. The only one I really want to mention (just because I really do love her so) is Harley. What would a game with Joker be without Harley Quinn to back him up? Arleen Sorkin's airheaded, drawling, obsessive, psychopathic, hopeless Harley is what made me love the character in the first place. Oh and she's got a new look... goddamn, no one pulls off that look like dearly devoted Harley.

The game itself is fantastic. The game play is awesome and engaging. The story line opens it up to so much. Batman stuck on Arkham Island with every crazy and criminal lose and out to get him. What's not to love?

One of my biggest complaints with some of the games I've been playing is the controls. I don't think every game should be pong-esque in control simplicity but lately it seems like game designers have nothing better to do with their time than to make the controls for every game as complicated as humanly possible. I'm all for options and cool shit but I shouldn't need a magic decoder ring to figure out the diagram explaining the controller set-up. Arkham does really well at giving you lots of cool shit to play with and still keeping everything manageable.

The overall look of the game is really spectacular. Everything is Batman from top to bottom. It captures that universe so well and dumps you in the middle of it. It's not campy Batman either. It's dark. Deliciously dark. People die, bad things happen, criminally insane mass murders live up to their reputation for mayhem and Batman slogs through it all with his typical style.

It's a game I happily played from start to finish in a sitting but what makes it great is that it's so full I can happily do the same again and again. A game that is only good once is hardly a good game. I do love me game with serious replayability.

If you've thought about playing the game, if you're a Batman fan, if you have some spare time just play it already.

Would I lie to you?

Here I Am

I know, you were all worried about me. Right? Right?
Yeah, I thought so.
Well I'm back. I'm not dead. I mean, I'm not quite what you'd call "alive" but then, I never really was. So you know, back to sub-normal. And no, I haven't contracted some rare and exotic new disease they will name after me once I keel over, once and for all sealing my fate as being synonymous with a slow and painful death (which would be eight shades of fuckin' awesome, by the way).
I have however acquired a new addiction. By which I mean I bought a new addiction. It came in the form of a PS3. There was much giddiness and giggling. By which I mean I managed to not kill anyone in EB Games including the fucking skater prick, asshole, douche bag, fucktard who decided that the hundred or so other people crammed in to the approximately thirty square feet of store space were simply not as important as he is and tried to jump in front of me in line WHILE THE SALES GUY WAS HELPING ME. But the happiness (or what I would assume from other peoples descriptions of happiness, that emotion was) of getting my hands on a backwards compatible PS3 AND Little Big Planet (finally!) kept me from dismembering him slowly before a cheering crowd of onlookers who had all become so bitter and jaded by the post-christmas rush to consume as much useless shit because it's on sale** and were tired of self-centered wannabe oppressed minorities (ie. rich white kids with no real brains or purpose for being) acting like they own the whole fucking planet.
I brought my new bundle of joy home and have spent endless hours since sitting on my couch and playing. I've been bouncing between LBP, Tomb Raider: Underworld and God of War II (which I might actually like as much or more than the original). I actually played them so much I was even dreaming the game play in the scant few hours I slept between playing.
Little Big Planet, by the way, is wonderful. I keep trying to come up with an adequate description of the game for people and I'm at a loss for words. It's not really all that hard, but it's fun. I don't know how to make that sound better, but it is. Much. I can't remember the last time I got a new game and I really had fun. I mean, I always enjoy a new game but to just have fun in the most child-like sense of the word. Just to enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it. I'm also enthralled by the details of the game's overall look. It's just so damned... pretty. And unlike a lot of games, it's something I can see myself playing over and over again.
Underworld is also good, but a little buggy which is disappointing. I haven't had any major fuck-ups yet and believe me, you will hear about it if I do. Despite the bugginess it's been lots of fun to play. Overall the look of the game is amazing. Everything is beautiful and who doesn't love watching Lara Croft jump around exotic locals wearing almost nothing? Bouncy, bouncy, right? She even gets all glisteny after she goes for a swim. I can't imagine how these games ever got popular...
Anyway, I'll try and get some pictures of other ill gotten booty or ill booten gotty I got from people I know soon as some of it is rather awesome and other stuff just defies any clear explanation.


**The only reason I went out was because EB informed me they only just had the one backwards compatible PS3 and they could only hold it until the end of the day and I'll be damned if I was going to let it slip through my fingers and in to the hands of some grubby fucknut who just happened to wander in to the store. Crowds be damned, I wanted my fucking Playstation!

23 Hours And Counting *UPDATE*

Firstly, wow. I just reread what I wrote earlier and it's both worse than I'd hoped and better than I thought it would be. But then I should probably point out that since my last post I only managed to get one hour of sleep. Sort of.
I mean that I fell asleep on the couch watching Mission Hill and kind of half napped half just stared at the TV in some kind of weird sleep-deprived stupor. So we're getting on to about 35 hours on one hour of sleep. Which might not be so bad really if it weren't for the fact that I'm at work and I have to drive myself home in a little bit. (did I mention it's -30 outside with the wind?)
None of this is really making it very safe for me to be out and about. In fact, this is probably the stupidest thing I've done in a long time. Not that staying up was my idea. What else are you supposed to do when you can't sleep? Stay up, right? Yeah.
Secondly, I finished God of War which makes part of me sad because I really wanted there to be more game. The other part of me is way too excited that I beat the shit out of that game. That Kratos is one bad-ass Motherfucker.

23 Hours And Counting

In a little less than an hour I will have been up for a full day. Don't ask me why. I'm really not sure. Insomnia is a cruel master. The kind of cruel that some people pay money for in dimly lit, houses of ill repute and sticky floors where everyone wears black leather, it's not uncommon to see people being lead around on leashes, the floors are sticky but no one really wants to know why and no one should ever see fully lit. (At least, that's what I imagine those places are like.)
Insomnia coupled with a handful of painkillers and a new video game. It was just more than I could possibly have stood a chance against. I mean, honestly, I haven't even had any coffee. I just wasn't tired. (Although I did take out my contacts a little while ago, my eyes were starting to hurt.)
I'm starting to feel it now tho. I'm having trouble thinking clearly and speaking coherently. Also my arms are feeling distinctly waterlogged but then so are my legs. I guess, at least, I have a matched set. Right? Maybe I'm actually tired. Maybe it's the drugs kicking in. Maybe I'm dying from some new and exotic disease. Who knows?
If it is indeed the latter, I would like to leave my coffins to Janna, my cats to Robin, my bills to Amanda and everything else to Cole. Enjoy.
Oh and by the way, since I mentioned the new video game - God of War is so fucking awesome it hurts my brain. I'm just sad that I'm nearly finished it. I wish there was more. Kratos and me, we make one hell of a team. He's one fuckin wicked dude. We spent all day yesterday and all last night killing all manner of evil shit. And, goddamn, did we ever fuck the minotaur's shit up.
Boo-ya.

IT'S HERE!!!!!!

It's not often I check for mail (like actual mail type mail... you remember... a person delivers it to your house) and end up squealing like a schoolgirl and giggling like a maniac. But today, today was different. At first I was confused because, though the package had my name on it, I had no idea who it was from. Plain brown envelope, not a sender I recognized, I certainly wasn't expecting anything. Hmmm...
So I sliced it open and slid out a clear CD case that has become the highlight of my day, possibly my year.
SKULLMONKEYS! YAY!
I bought it off eBay ages ago and had been waiting long enough that I had stopped compulsively checking my mailbox every ten minutes. But now it's here and it's all mine!
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should be ashamed of yourself. And once you've become sufficiently shamed you should seek out and play it because it is the greatest game in the world. (With the exception of the Neverhood.)