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.