Batman Arkham Asylum DLC

Does not include Bale's throat cancer voice

Eidos has previously announced DLC for Batman Arkham Asylum, in fact there will be more DLC coming. However until I heard what it actually would be, it didn't pay to report about it.

Well that has thankfully changed with the assurance that all DLC SO FAR for Batman Arkham Asylum will be free. On September 17th, the Insane Night map pack will be available, which will test you in your abilities of stealth to take out enemies.

Personally, I couldn't see how to really expand on the game with DLC. But the idea of making more challenging stealth missions is pretty cool, I happen to like the stealth oriented moments and the DLC certainly could help boost the already amazing sales. 2 million copies is nothing to sneeze at, although the idea of a sequel doesn't appeal to me. Leave the game alone, let it become a legendary moment of success in the Batman history of video games.

5 movies you have to see

This is a list of 5 movies from my life that I really recommend everyone sees. Some of these are probably in the back of your minds, and if not go see them.

1. Rookie of the Year
Henry Rowengartner (Nicholas), a 12-year-old Little Leaguer, has dreams of playing in the major leagues. One day, Henry breaks his arm trying to catch a fly ball and has to wrap it in a cast. Once the arm is healed the doctor removes the cast and discovers Henry's tendons have healed "a little too tight", thus enabling Henry to cock his arm back and fire it forward with incredible force. In celebration of the cast's removal, Henry's mom presents him and two friends with tickets to the day's Chicago Cubs game. At the game, Henry and his friends catch a home run hit by the visiting team. In keeping with Wrigley Field tradition, they decide to throw the ball back onto the field. Henry takes the ball and, because of the way the tendons healed, launches it from the outfield bleachers all the way to the catcher standing at home plate (which is, as according to the radio announcer played by John Candy, about 435 feet). The crowd, players on the field, and even the members in the owners box stare in astonishment at the throw.

Directed by Daniel Sterns, the guy classically known as Marv the robber from Home Alone, this is one of those movies with so many clever twists. There were a ton of baseball movies in the 90's and this is one of the more under-appreciated films because the cast is nothing big but the light paced humor and the ridiculous baseball moments are things to smile at.

2. Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
The story begins at a wedding, after which the family has to leave for San Francisco in California for an important trip. They can't take the animals with them, so they leave them at a ranch belonging to an old friend of the wife's. Shadow becomes worried about Peter, the oldest boy in the family and his best friend, so he decides to go and find him.
Disney has made some stupid live action movies in their log but they have good ones too, the funny thing about this movie is that the original didn't have the animals talk by telepathy. So its a remake with a fresh idea, and it seems to charm more than the new movies with CGI to make the animal's lips move. Plus, when you have a great cast including Don Ameche (last film he made), Michael J Fox, and Sally Field, there is some fun chemistry here.

3. Mr. Deeds goes to Town
In the middle of the Great Depression, Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), co-owner of a tallow works, part-time greeting card poet and tuba-playing inhabitant of the hamlet of Mandrake Falls, Vermont, inherits the enormous fortune of 20 million dollars from his late uncle, Martin Semple. His uncle's scheming attorney, John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), locates Deeds and takes him to New York City.
A Frank Capra film, I saw this movie after seeing the dismal remake Mr. Deeds with Adam Sander. The original is a far superior film in my honest opinion, but the remake was really trying to be close to the original in some ways. Having said that Mr Deeds Goes to Town is a funny, meaningful movie that teaches its viewers about individuality and society. It also has some nods to the Great Depression and how hard working people will always be around and criticize our continued pathetic state of "Redistribution of Wealth" in that the rich don't need the money they have.

4. The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is based on the true story of housewife Evelyn Ryan, who helped support her family by winning entries in jingle-writing contests
A nostalgic film of the 1950's American Family that had issues, unlike today where you can put a mean member in his place, at this time most things were kept secret. When issues got in the way of the Ryan family, the mother supported her children through jingle contests that were popular during the period. Julianne Moore is an actress I appreciate, and her performance is an honest representation of Evelyn Ryan. Watch this movie, appreciate what you have, and learn from her how to keep going strong in uncertain times.

5. Batman: The Movie
When Batman (West) and Robin (Ward) get a tip that Commodore Schmidlapp (the final role of actor Reginald Denny) is in danger aboard his yacht, they launch a rescue mission using the Batcopter. After a tangle with an exploding shark, Batman and Robin head back to Commissioner Gordon's office where, through deduction and wisdom, they figure out that the tip was a set-up by four of the most powerful villains ever (Joker, Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman), who have united to defeat The Dynamic Duo once and for all.
For those of you like me who constantly watch The Dark Knight, hate the 90's batman movies and are either a fan or not a fan of the 89 film by Tim Burton, see this one as well. This is a completely different batman focused on the campy 1960's batman tv series, its actually pretty entertaining. You may not like it, but its so ridiculous at times and so campy its great. No it's not a bad movie in any sense, but it doesn't try to be as serious as the new ones. It's the real kid's adventure batman that drove him to be an icon in American Culture.

New Batman movie in IMAX?

IMAX COSTS MONEY YO!

I have to say, I didn't see the difference between the IMAX and the regular scenes in the Dark Knight because I couldn't tell the difference. And with the bloating budgets for some of these big movies, to add a SUPPOSEDLY high quality IMAX camera for the whole film when we can't tell the difference between the scenes seems stupid.

I mean really, I HATE HATE HATE paying 10 bucks for a ticket sometimes, even more for IMAX. If the third batman movie is filmed in IMAX and i'm content with a regular theatre why should I have to pay more. Yeah I understand it's great for others, but a WHOLE MOVIE filmed in IMAX is going to force/tempt Warner Brothers to raise ticket priced to..god I don't know 20 dollars a ticket.

Take another movie praised for its visual beauty, Terminator Salvation, that didn't quite get critical acclaim this year. So by that, visuals aren't everything.

Batman A. Asylum Demo Impressions

I have been on and off about this game, but I had to play the demo regardless of how many hours it took for Xbox Live to let me download it. It's a hefty download at 1.5 gigs for maybe 20 minutes of gameplay, but it was worth the wait.

Arkham Asylum has never been a heavily defined area in the Batman franchise in the batman films and probably not in the TV series, regardless the story signifies that Arkham has become technologically fortified to the point that even the joker quips over how hard it is to break out. But the Joker also hints in the demo that why would you want to escape such a fortress when you could control it instead, that is established quite a bit in the story.

I have to say, hearing the TV series batman who doesn't have throat cancer like Bale's makes you really enjoy playing batman. Batman looks pretty cool, as well as the art style of the game even though it does a lot of gray and black. There is also a lot of interacting in the game in terms of talking with A.I.'s in the game, and oh man detective mode. I like the idea of detective mode for two reasons, the first is because it lets you see around the corner and see how your enemies and friends are reacting. That is helpful if you are trying to be stealth oriented, it also helps when attacking enemies because the demo only allows the glide kick. Say the detective feature lets you know that one of the enemies is nervous, you'd think its just anecdotal information but no, I attacked someone nervous and I ended up taking damage. The Detective mode helps you be inventive of your surroundings but also allows the psychological element of the game to help you predict enemy behavior. Attacking a nervous guy has him on edge, so when I attacked him he panicked and shot me a bit. The first guy in the room was calm, and when I attacked him it was a silent covert operation and nobody noticed till they found his unconscious body.

Thats all good but, as you could see from earlier walk through videos this is also a beat 'em up game. I had played Turtles in Time reshelled earlier today and stressed how boring and bland the combat was, Batman only had a little bit of straight on combat in the demo. It was satisfying in slow motion finishing movies, it has silent takedown moves and the glide kick as well as your bat-a-rang working good as a cudgel. But the end of the demo, the terribly short demo as far as i'm concerned, hinted that there is much more beat 'em up variety than the demo demonstrates. How do I know this, well first of all the next enemy the joker throws at you knows your there and the Joker is there too. So we know batman isn't going to run and hide after trying to chase down the joker since the beginning of the demo. But at the end of the demo you are shown this guy (or something like him):



YOU KNOW THERES ALOT MORE VARIETY IN THE COMBAT!

Seriously, that is a guy you take head on. So there is some serious head on combat with art in the combat as well as batman's gadgets. And the demo for the little it showed presented so well I was damn near at tears when the demo was over. Well I gotta say, this game is on my list again. Someday I will have it, but try this demo and decide for yourself. As for me, i'm sold on it.

Bale's Dilemma

I never usually post somewhat random youtube vids, but this one has to do with batman and was pretty hilarious so I felt the need to post it. We've all heard about the psychological paces Heath Ledger had to go through while playing the joker, but what about Christian Bale's psychological issues? This movie covers Bale's psychological stigma of implied homosexual subtext and overwhelming fear of being ass raped by Heath Ledger. If you liked this one, check out the users channel. He has 3 other dark knight parody videos that are all funny in it's own right. Just click the video, then click the user's name and bam you there.

Batman on NES

Earlier in the week we briefly mentioned Batman: Arkham Asylum on our podcast, and touched on the fact that most Batman games have sucked. Because there isn't a memorable Batman game that stands away from the large amount of poor Batman games, I decided to delve back to Batman on NES to see if the first attempt on a console worked. It didn't

Batman on NES has "messy" graphics, I'm okay with that. But when enemies come after you, all you have to fight with is your fists. And it is a pain in the neck when you have those robotic contraptions at your feet hurting you every time you kill one. I've avoided taking damage a few times, but mostly have gotten hit. What's even more stupid is that the enemies don't represent any henchmen like resemblance to any Batman enemy I can think of. The enemies are so stock and random. 

Only later do I realize that because select is start, start changes your attack from punches to bataarangs, a gun, and other stuff. The sad part is most of the weapons are useless, the gun only shoots straight, the bataarangs are okay, and I don't like punching everything unless its one guy repeatedly. 

So does this Batman game stand out as good? I think it's easy to say it doesn't. It's really flawed, but i'll try to beat it without getting too annoyed. 

I give it a 1 out of 5

Am I saying Batman: Arkham Asylum will suck too? No, but gamers have played enough of them to be uninterested. I hope it defies expectations to suck.