Mystic River

Dennis Lehane is the writer behind a lot of those Boston-set movies that came out over the last few years- Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone Baby Gone are all based off of his books. Somehow I had never heard of him until finding that Ryan owned most of his stuff, and as such it's been added to my log. I haven't seen the movie adaptation of Mystic River before but vaguely knew of the premise- something about trio of young boys in 70s Boston surviving an abduction, setting the stage for one of their daughter's murder 30 years later. While never presented as a simple whodunit, I found the actual mystery at the heart of the book very compelling- I really didn't see the ending coming, but Lehane sprinkled plenty of small hints throughout. In addition to the murder, Lehane explores some deeper issues- gentrification, the philosophy behind organized crime, and the long lasting but unspoken effects of child sexual abuse. Despite delving into some pretty gruesome details, the book was a pleasure to read so I'll get some more Dennis Lehane books posted here soon- Gallagan has like 6 of them.

The Subtle Knife

The second piece in any trilogy - or more specifically, the middle act in a three act story - is often the most thematically and philosophically compelling part. The world, conflict, and principal characters are introduced in the first piece while the final showdown and its aftermath occur in the third and final installment. That leaves the middle section of the tale as the one that clarifies the stakes and questions, or at least explains, the motives of those involved. The third movie in The Lord of the Rings may be the most grand and epic in scale and in length, but it's that Helm's Deep battle (and specifically, the preparations for the battle) in the second movie that earns the most emotional resonance with the audience. We see old, wounded men and what must be eight-year-old boys getting fitted for armor as their female loved ones, scared shitless, must wait out the battle underground with no real idea of what's going on. We realize, here, that this is humanity's last stand against the evil forces, and even though we can really just jump right into the third movie from the first one without missing a whole lot of plot points, doing so would rob us of enough emotional beats to make the story's climactic resolution more or less irrelevant. If you've seen the movies, you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, you really should. Anyway, I just finished the second of three books that comprise His Dark Materials after reading the first one (The Golden Compass) more than nineteen months ago. When posting about that book, I lamented that it wasn't very exciting until the very end, and by that point I had become so bored by the book that I wasn't quite sure which characters were doing what, or even what the overall conflict was. Before starting this sequel, I took a brief Internet-based refresher course on the characters and events of the first book. And as I alluded to above, this book was far more thematically heavy - and thus more interesting - than that first one. Where there were Gypsy caravans and polar bear fights in the first book, there were biblical allegories and parallel dimensions in the second. The Golden Compass contained a series of adventures and misadventures that the main character went through on her way to the deep Arctic where she intended to investigate a mysterious substance called "dust." Here, in The Subtle Knife, we actually learn some useful things about this "dust" and also learn of a much larger conflict involving rebellious angels plotting to assassinate God. Other thematic territory, such as childhood innocence and coming of age, is also explored. I can't pretend I found myself any more invested in the characters here in the second book, but at least the story overall seems to be shaping up to something larger than I was giving it credit for a year and a half ago. Good. I did say, even back then, that I'd reserve final judgment on the series until I'd completed it in its entirety. I look forward to reading the next book, but can't promise I'll get to it any time soon.

Entourage: Season 7

Since Entourage is a stupid, vapid, hollow excuse for a TV series, I won't waste any time talking about Entourage. Instead, let me try to explain why I ever purchased Season 7 of Entourage on DVD. I'm a completionist. I know that isn't even a real word, but it's true. If I own one season of television on DVD, I need to own all of the seasons of that show on DVD. It's irrational and strange and not the best minor obsessive compulsive habit to have in wallet terms, but I've learned how to live with it while suffering minimally in terms of money and time spent. The first and easiest rule is never to buy these DVD sets at full price. What costs $40 or so MSRP will usually cost something like $30 on release day. The price may then fluctuate between $25 and $35 but almost every DVD set will eventually go into some sort of fire sale. This one retails at $50 originally, but I got it for something like $18. Now, on the one hand that's eighteen dollars wasted. On the other, that's better than $50 wasted. Right? Now, rule number two - how to watch. Something shitty like Entourage that I've both already seen and also have no real desire to watch again is something that makes for great background DVD viewing whilst browsing the Internet, reading a book (double-log-tasking!), or trying to fall asleep at night. I know, it's kind of silly. I've got this mission at hand to watch everything I own, and yet I willingly only half-watch some of the stuff I willingly buy. I guess deep down I know that someday, probably sooner than later, some TV show that I own several seasons of on DVD will just not come out with a DVD (or Blu-ray) of some season. My hand will be forced and my completionist streak broken. Whatever. There are worse ways to spend $18, right? Okay, maybe I should stop seeking my readers' approval. I have a disease, and can no longer pretend I don't when I'm spending $18 on even the shittiest of TV seasons on DVD.

Louie: Season 1

I'm going to try something different here. Louie is a very unique show, and even in only a thirteen-episode first season it managed to be a whole lot of different things both tonally and thematically. Rather than try to summarize the season with one long-winded and wavering paragraph, I want to go through it episode by episode as I re-watch it on Blu-ray so I can touch upon not just the season in general but how the different pieces (episodes) add up and leave us with a very distinct show that does a lot of things well, but still may have taken a while to really "find itself." My goal isn't to recap episodes or highlight specific jokes or gags, but to spend however long is necessary on each episode to discuss the way it helps lend definition to the show as a whole. I'll be using the present tense as if I'm seeing each episode for the first time, but with the understanding that I have full knowledge of what comes later on in the series. (I've now seen two full seasons' worth, after all.) This may be a terrible idea, but I'm willing to try it. I hope you find it informative or at the very least readable and somewhat interesting.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

You may recall two things that happened a year and a half ago. One, I played through (and absolutely loved) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. And, two, Disney released an action movie also called Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This game, which is not called The Sands of Time, was also released a year and a half ago. Coincidence? Of course not. Gigantic marketing gimmick. But because I loved that PS2 game so much, I went ahead and bought all of its sequels, including this very obvious marketing gimmick. I'm very pleased to say though that this game was just as fun as I remember Sands of Time being a year and a half ago. What could have been a clumsy movie tie-in was instead thankfully a game very much in the same vein as Sands of Time in terms of gameplay. Once again, I spent about eight hours running around a gigantic Persian palace fighting off sand warriors and climbing the walls, swinging on flagpoles, and generally flinging myself about. I was worried that this game, being one of those movie tie-in marketing ploys, would be terrible. But the only signs of shoddy creation work were a few physics glitches where I fell through walls or got stuck in beams. Other than that, the game flowed smoothly and looked great. And my biggest problem with Sands of Time, the slow combat, was fixed here, replaced by a bland and generic (but effective!) hack and slash system. I still have three more Prince of Persia games in my backlog: the two PS2 sequels to this game and Sands of Time in addition to one other cel-shaded spin-off. I look forward to all three; so far the first and last game in the series have both been awesome, and how could the other three possibly be any less than good? No telling whether I'll rush right in or hit up some other game next, but either way I hope I don't end up waiting another year and a half to play Prince of Persia again.

Friday Night Lights: Season 5

It is a rule of thumb in television that even the greatest shows can't stay great for very long. Most shows are never all that good in the first place, and even the ones that are often succumb later on in life to overly convoluted plots and characters acting out of character just to mix things up. And because great shows are often highly-rated (at least in theory) you often see a show pass its prime and stick around for several years in which it slowly degrades into a shell of what it once was. So what is perhaps most amazing about Friday Night Lights is that even in this fifth and final season, the show felt as fresh and warm and enjoyable as it ever did. I understand why it had to come to an end, and if anything NBC was extremely generous in even giving it more than one season. But I maintain that if the ratings had been there and if the cast and crew stayed interested, this show could have gone on for several more years without suffering a drop in quality. (Maybe it's for the best that I'll never have to see if I'd been right or not, but still. Just an opinion here.) I mean, Friday Night Lights already did jump the shark, way back in Season 2, but thankfully that season's sloppiness and terrible stories got swept under the rug with the writers' strike and the showrunners were allowed to do a hard reset for Season 3. I think what allowed Friday Night Lights to be successful (critically, if not financially) and good for so long where so many other high school dramas fail to do so is that Friday Night Lights did what so many other shows are too afraid to do; it allowed its high school student characters to graduate and move on, and it replaced those characters with new characters. You still had old characters showing up every now and again, visiting home during breaks from college (as is realistic), but it's not as if the same kids who were playing football in Season 1 were still doing so in Season 5. The central characters of the show, the anchors, were Coach Taylor and his wife and daughter. And even the daughter became a recurring character in Season 5. All in all, Season 5 may have been the second-best year of FNL ever. (Season 1 comes first for me, and Season 2 is last and Season 4 is fourth - what I can't properly place is where Season 3 belongs, as I've only seen it once.) Since this is the final season of Friday Night Lights, I should end this recap by reflecting on its overall legacy. And without question, FNL currently goes down in my top ten favorite dramas of all time. Perhaps top five, although its quiet and dignified portrayal of small town America just doesn't compare on an "epic" scale to shows like Breaking Bad and The Wire. Still, whereas a once-great show like Lost was addictive for years, but went out with a total whimper, FNL quietly remained consistently touching and engaging in its understated way for years. Great show, great final season, and I'm looking forward to watching  it all over again someday on my DVD sets. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

The Last of the Mohicans

Whenever you read an older novel or watch an older movie or play an older video game, you expect it to be dated in some way, and do your best to judge it accordingly. The original Legend of Zelda, for instance, is hideous to look at, clunky to control, and completely void of story. But because it's nearly prehistoric (by video game standards), it gets a free pass for all of those modern-day sins and when people rave about it today they do so because it is, all things considered, a fun game to play. Still, those shortcomings do exist. They do affect just how enjoyable the game can be in this day and age. Even if we can forgive it for being dated, The Legend of Zelda is dated all the same. Most readers of this blog know that I often struggle to get through a lot of nineteenth century literature because of how thickly and heavily worded it can get. The Last of the Mohicans, published in 1826, is no exception. In an effort to write an American novel that would be respected overseas by the British, who still considered themselves to be culturally and intellectually superior to their former colonies, author James Fenimore Cooper uses the thick and heavy prose that was in vogue in Britain at the time to romanticize the American frontier and wilderness. The result was a novel that was incredibly popular on both sides of the Atlantic, but critically panned as well for lacking tonal consistency. An extremely outspoken critic of the book, and of Cooper in general, was Mark Twain some fifty years later, who wrote a lengthy essay detailing all kinds of "offenses" Cooper was guilty of, especially regarding fluctuating personalities of the main characters and greatly exaggerated superhuman feats. To be honest, I didn't notice many of these issues, and if I did they didn't bother me. Late in the book, once character dresses up in a bear suit, and the idea that other people were buying his disguise seemed a bit far-fetched to me, but other than that I had no real issues with the plot or the characters. My usual gripe about unnecessarily heavy prose notwithstanding, my biggest problem with this novel was a race-based one. Specifically, I'm still not quite sure what Cooper's stance on racial segregation between whites and native Americans was. It seems complicated at best. On the one hand, the novel's hero, Hawkeye, is a white man who befriends and lives with Indians and who adapts their ways as his own in order to survive to in the wilderness. On the other, that same hero is unabashedly proud of his pure white heritage, and maintains a number of times that just because he's adapted many Indian ways does not mean he has any Indian blood in him. Further complicating the racial overtones of the story, a white man falls for a white woman who has a mixed race half-sister. And the father of these women accuses the man of racism for favoring the white one over the mixed one. But the mixed one, herself, falls for a Native American. And Cooper implies that she does so because something about her own mixed-race-ness makes other non-whites appealing to her. Meanwhile, the chief antagonist of the novel, Magua, seeks to plant his seed in the mixed-race daughter in an act of vengeance against her father; Magua knows that "tainting" this man's bloodline with Indian blood will psychologically torment the guy. But thsi is the same guy who has already fathered a half-black daughter, and who has accused the white daughter's white suitor of being a racist for ignoring the half-black daughter. Confused? Me too. Maybe Cooper was trying to pull off a novel in which he offers some progressive ideas but also plays into his audience's fear of Indian assimilation. And ultimately the mixed-race daughter and both of the Indians who wanted to put it in her end up dying, leaving no more mixed-race would-be couples, so is Cooper himself suggesting that mixed race couples are doomed? Or does he use this threesome as a group of tragic heroes who we're meant to empathize with? It sounds like either way, Cooper was progressive for his own time, but his racial ideologies seem fairly discriminatory here and now in the modern day. So I return to where I began this post, and posit that while it's easy to acknowledge the datedness of certain works, it can also be difficult to view them without a present-day bias of some sort; I have no idea what The Last of the Mohicans is trying to convey on the racial front, and as such, I have no idea whether or not I found its themes engaging and agreeable. I did love the 1992 Daniel Day-Lewis movie though. That musical score was absolutely awesome.

Grizzly Man

There's a good chance you've heard of the "Grizzly Man," a guy who spent thirteen years living with grizzly bears who was ultimately killed an eaten by one along with his girlfriend. His name was Timothy Treadwell, and this documentary tells the story of his late life among the grizzlies and his - some would say inevitable - death. Before I go any further, I have to point out that this was quite a disturbing movie. Not only is it haunting to watch a man rave about how much he loves grizzly bears literally hours before he gets killed by a grizzly bear, but the graphic details of the kill scene, found a day after the attack, are provided as well. Timothy's mangled head, part of his spine, and one arm remain. When park rangers kill a bear and perform a necropsy on it, they find its stomach filled with clothing, fingers, limbs, and human hair. Worst of all, Timothy's camera was running during the fatal attack, and while we're spared the audio of his dying cries and his girlfriend's desperate screams, we witness the documentary's director and narrator, Werner Herzog, listening to the audio on headphones, and can see how deeply disturbed and shaken he is. It was like watching a "Two Girls, One Cup" reaction video, only far more macabre and chilling. And speaking of Werner Herzog, his cold and thickly German-accented narration only further serves to create an air of unease throughout the documentary. The film is really primarily a character study of Timothy Treadwell, and plenty of time is spent on interviews with his parents, some ex-girlfriends, and some of the local authorities - park rangers, helicopter pilots - familiar with Timothy and his work. His work, for lack of a better word, was to film and study grizzly bears. It's very clear that Timothy holds a special place in his heart for wildlife. This love for animals ranges from "cute and normal," like when he befriends a family of foxes who frequent his campsite, and "mentally deranged," like when he openly weeps over the beauty of a big pile of bear shit. The cynical nature in all of us - filmmakers and interviewees included - makes it easy to say that a man who spent thirteen years trying to befriend grizzly bears had this coming. That a bear is a bear, incapable of love or friendship or kin, and that one day a big old bear decided it was hungry, or maybe just annoyed by Timothy, and did what bears tend to do, and killed and ate him. But to dismiss Timothy as a nutjob is far too easy, and is also to miss the point of this film. "Crazy" is a strong word, and while Timothy certainly did and said some very crazy things, I don't know if it's entirely fair to call him a crazy person. A foolish one, definitely. Blinded by his passion for grizzly bears and either oblivious or far too careless of the dangers involved with living among them, Timothy is difficult to feel complete sympathy for; he was one of the foremost grizzly experts in the world, and knew exactly what they were capable of. In that regard, perhaps he was like Steve Irwin in that both men had a tragic demise brought on by an intense passion for wildlife and the risks associated with close encounters with said wildlife. It's hard to believe Timothy didn't have this ultimate end in store, but it's also hard not to still feel sorry for him and his plight all the same. Perhaps the most tragic figure in the entire tale is his girlfriend, Amie, who died at his side in the grizzly bear attack, and who never even liked bears a lot to begin with. According to diary entries made by the pair of them, Amie was very uncomfortable being around the bears so often, and often demanded that they leave or at least relocate. She must have had some sort of passion for wildlife of her own to even tolerate Timothy in the first place, but she absolutely comes across as an innocent victim, a woman caught in the middle of Timothy's obsession whose biggest mistake was not making good on her threats to leave. Adding to the depressing nature of the whole story, the pair were killed just one day before their scheduled departure from the camp after spending an entire summer there. All in all, this was a somewhat moving and very disturbing documentary, and while I'd watch it again and give any interested party the green light on seeing it, I can't say I slept easy last night, tossing and turning and unable to get bear attacks out of my head. I've seen scarier and more harrowing movies, but this documentary was just plain chilling.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Season 6

This is the third time on this blog that I'll be reviewing a season of Always Sunny. For my Season 4 post, I kind of loosely described the show and why I enjoy it. For Season 5, a season I still consider to be my favorite season, I made a lengthy post in which I described and rated each individual episode. This time around, I just want to offer a belated half-apology to Season 6. Last fall, perhaps because it had to follow Season 5, Season 6 just did not impress me in the least. "Sunny got bad!" I lamented, and wondered if the end was near for the show I'd loved throughout my college years. Having just re-watched the season, I can now admit that maybe I was being a bit overdramatic, because Season 6, like so many other Sunny seasons, had its share of hits and misses. Without doing another lengthy episodic breakdown, let me run through the season with some loose grades real quick. The opening pair of episodes, involving gay marriage, regular marriage, and divorce, I would give a C. The boat episode gets an A. "Mac's Big Break" wasn't an instant classic, but was a perfectly decent Sunny episode: B. The one where the gang tries to break into a member's only pool? A-minus. The one where Mac and Charlie's moms move in together was something of a B-minus. Then came the best episode of the season, "Who Got Sweet Dee Pregnant?" This Halloween-themed episode used the Rashomon effect to allow the guys to piece together their own partial memories, or "brown-outs," to figure out which one of them banged Dee at a costume party. Easy A. (Ugh, just thought of Webber's favorite movie.) Anyway, moving on, next up came a loose two-parter in which Dee became a substitute teacher and Charlie took a custodial job. Part one dealt with the gang acquiring a new member, and was a C-plus. Part two involved the gang's homemade Lethal Weapon 5 movie, and I imagine I would have enjoyed it more had I seen any of the Lethal Weapon movies. For now, it gets a B. The three episodes that rounded out the season were the one where the gang forgets Charlie's birthday (B-minus, saved by the "denim chicken" and "Vermhat" at the end), the one where the gang gets lost in the woods (A-minus), and the finale in which Dee gives birth (a solid B). For those of you not keeping track - and why would you be? - that breakdown amounts to the following twelve-episode line of C/C/A/B/A-/B-/A/C+/B/B-/A-/B. No need to do any actual math here, but that's a GPA of about 3.0 on the semester. So yeah. All in all, not such a bad season after all. (Looking back, I think Season 3 and Season 4 were weaker, actually.) And the current season has been very average so far. One definite clunker, two or three gems, and the rest very average overall. I'd say "Sunny's back!" but in truth it may have never left in the first place. I suppose I'll be back in another year with some Season 7 analysis to offer.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Rarely does a movie, book, or game contain a subtitle that can stand alone as the name of a holiday, and it only seemed fitting right from the moment I purchased Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day back in March to wait eight months to watch it on the actual All Saints' Day. Now, fulfillment of that gimmick aside, there was really no reason for me to watch this movie (or any other movie) last night. I was tired and my girlfriend was a little bit sick and all signs were pointing straight to "early bedtime for all." Instead, I stubbornly attempted to get through this two-hour movie and fell asleep for about fifteen minutes early on, forcing me to re-watch half of the movie after finishing it just to make sure I hadn't missed anything of note, only further delaying bedtime. Not my best "weeknight free time" decision. Anyway, let's discuss Boondock Saints II, which we can only do by revisiting the original 1999 movie. For those of you who never saw it or can't remember, Boondock Saints was a low-budget independent film about two blue collar Irish-born brothers living in Boston who turned into a pair of vigilantes after killing two Russian mobsters in self-defense. They then methodically took down the Russian mob with their wise-cracking friend while being pursued and later aided by a gay federal agent. The movie was a failure both critically (17% on Rotten Tomatoes) and at the box office (grossing less than $250 thousand worldwide) before defying all expectations by becoming a home video cult classic, grossing $50 million in DVD and VHS sales. I first saw the film in what must have been 2003 or 2004 and, along with several friends, enjoyed it, and eagerly anticipated its rumored sequel. Seriously, there was an IMDb page for a "Boondock Saints 2" for the better half of a decade. It was the Arrested Development movie back when Arrested Development was still on the air. And by the time the movie became a reality in 2009, the same peer group that was dying for it in early high school was now ready to graduate college, and if I may speak for all of the fans of the original for a moment, we simply no longer cared. (In hindsight, maybe The Departed fulfilled everyone's desire to see another Boston-based crime movie.) Regardless, I always did have interest in seeing this follow-up, even if I knew it couldn't live up to the original simply by virtue of the fact that I had expectations going in this time. To its credit though, this sequel did everything it could to be the exact same movie as its ten-year-old predecessor. Rather than trying to up the stakes, it spent two hours showing the same two brothers murdering criminals associated with the same Russian mob family. They were once again aided by a (different) wise-cracking friend and were once again pursued by a (female, not gay) federal agent, who once again decided to help rather than hinder the brothers. And there were plenty of Mexican standoffs and action-filled crime scene reconstructions and all in all it really did feel like a two-hour extension of the original movie. Unfortunately, as I had known it wouldn't all along, it just didn't make an impact or resonate the way the original film did. The first Boondock Saints is an interesting and entertaining movie because of the firefights and unique characters, but it's also a philosophical movie that asks - even if a bit too bluntly - whether or not vigilantism is a good thing. On the one hand, the brothers are cleaning up the scum that seeps through the legal system. On the other, they're engaging in criminal activity themselves and can very fairly be compared to terrorists. Boondock Saints II by contrast features next to no reflection on the morality of the protagonists. They start the film, spend the film, and end the film as vigilantes who have both fans and detractors, and that's all there is to it. Rumor has it (again!) that there may end up being a third Boondock Saints installment, perhaps in the form of a TV miniseries. I'd watch it if it got made, but I'd also hope for some sort of deeper conflict beyond "brothers vs. lawmen" and "brothers vs. criminals." Not necessarily "brother vs. brother," since one of the most touching parts about the "Saints" is their unwavering brotherly love, but what about "brothers vs. equally morally righteous person who takes issue with their vigilantism?" What about "brothers vs. selves, finding it harder and harder to live with their ever-increasing kill count?" There are still intriguing places to go with a third movie. Of course, even if it happens, it'll probably just be another two hours of fan-service, another two hours of firefights and interesting characters. I guess I'm okay with that, too.

Batman: Arkham City

Incredible. Astounding. This is the perfect game in the history of all games in all the known universe... and even unknown.

Reading that statement over again, I think I may have gone a little over the top. Let's try again. Batman: Arkham City is fun.

Ugh... Still not doing it for me. Whatever. Let me just explain my experience and allow you to judge the game for yourself.

First combine the movies Crank and Escape from Los Angeles (Escape from New York actually works a little better for this example, but the sequel had Bruce Campbell in it... enough said) and throw them into the Batman universe. You've got the premise to this game. Wait. Any hands for those that have seen either of John Carpenter's Snake Plissken movies?

I'm going to assume there's a "no" out there somewhere. Let me explain: There a series of films about one bad-ass dude with an eye-patch (Kurt Russell)...

BOO-YAA!

...who's consistently sent into these giant, urban prisons to rescue something valuable the government wants but can't get. Do your best to ignore that, though, it's the prison you should be interested in.

Like in those movies, Gotham, under a police-controlled state, has sectioned off a portion of the city to be essentially a giant prison with very little to no security within it's walls. The first scene in the game has Bruce Wayne arguing out against this design before he's suddenly arrested by Big Brother (I forgot the organization's actual name... uh, the government?) and thrown in Arkham City. You run around as Bruce for a while - beating up thugs and learning the controls - before Alfred drops some equipment your way and you begin to find the dude (Hugo Strange) who had you locked up here as Batman. Oh, Hugo knows that Wayne is Batman - not sure how. That might play an important part in the motivation or something or other?

On route you stumble past a dying Joker. Poisoned by the Titan formula in the previous game, the Joker is on his death bed. While Batman goes to check on - what looks to be - a dead Joker, he's tricked as stabbed with a syringe injecting him with the same poison - see the Crank reference at play here? The only thing worse is that Joker is also in the process of dispensing the Titan formula into they city's drinking water. Joker needs a cure for this disease and now Batman has no choice but cooperate to save his own ass and Gotham's.

The game unfolds a lot like many sandbox games. You zip around the city (gliding from building to building is extremely satisfying) looking for the main storyline or side-quests to activate allowing you the chance to level up Batman and make him more badass while fighting... and you need to look bad-ass while fighting. When you get to the combat in this game, it becomes more like God of War. It's blazing fast hack-n-shlash that's not too difficult (I was on normal difficulty), but I don't feel that the challenge is what's important here. It's how cool look as you ram your elbow into some goon's temple while simultaneously round-housing the two gents behind you. Once again... satisfying.

Wait-a-tic, Batman. One of those fellows has a gun! RETREAT!

Yes, guns in this game will kill you very fast - even when fists, knives, and baseball bats don't. Time to go all Metal Gear Solid stealth. You go classic scary Batman and pick off enemies one-by-one without being seen. From what I can tell, all of the combat systems are actually similar, if not identical, to the last game. If you've played through Arkham Asylum already then I apologize for wasting your time. Just scroll down and I'll explain the true reason this game bowled me over.

Growing up I was an avid fan of The Batman and Superman Adventures. It was on every afternoon on the WB when I got home from school. This cartoon was the shit and I'm going to assume you all agree with me. Well, like the last game this one is still voiced by a majority of the same vocal talents (i.e. Mark Hamill as the Joker). In fact, Hamill supposedly came out of retirement to do this role one last time finishing the Joker's story. Does that means he dies? Does Batman finally break his own rule and kill that damn Joker?

Fuck spoilers. Yes. Joker dies by his own hand and it's a very moving scene.

In whole, that game is fast-paced, not too difficult yet still challenging (especially when trying to 100% all side-quests), and fun as all hell. Oh, and although I found this to be fairly small and insignificant to the majority of the game you do get to periodically play as Catwoman. It's only four simple, easy missions. Don't even bother leveling her (you do have that option), it won't matter. Just focus on making Batman more bad-ass. Remember... BAD-ASS!