"I still believe in heroes" - Nick Fury (The Avengers)

In all the excitement of The Dark Knight Rises, I forgot how incredible The Avengers was. This clip reminded me.

CHEESEMINT NEEDS YOU!

In anticipation of The Dark Knight Rises, I was going sit down and write a blog post about Batman. But that can wait until tomorrow. I’ve got something more important that I feel like I need to talk about.

If you know me fairly well, you’ll know that I’m part of an amateur film group called Cheesemint Productions. Myself and some friends founded the group nearly three years ago. It all started back in August 2009 when my friend Matt and I were pratting around in our friend’s living room and someone happened to film it on their mobile. It got a few laughs on facebook and we all decided to parody a recent viral music video. The result was met with a high view count on Youtube and a lot of positive feedback so we decided to keep going with the filmmaking by making more short films and a web-series called ‘Unlocked.’

Fast forward two and a bit years and we’d come a long way. We released three music videos, eight short films and a six episode web series. Some of us even got to go to MCM Expo (London Comic-Con) and help promote Unlocked on a panel and on the show-floor.

But working creatively with friends is tough. Differences of opinions and visions for the work can get in the way, almost destroying the friendship you had in the first place. And so two friends left Cheesemint to pursue other projects and passions.

With a new era of Cheesemint, the remaining members decided to freshen things up a little. Not ignoring or forgetting what we had achieved in the past but learning from it. We also thought about what we wanted to get out of Cheesemint in the long term. We’d been approached by youtube in the past to become a partner and monetize our videos but didn’t pursue it because a lot of the films we had made had third party content in them.

So, we updated the logo, giving it a bolder, more adaptable look. We decided very early on to create a new youtube channel so everything we put on there would be 100% owned by us or use content that we had permission to use or had paid for. 

We also thought long and hard about Unlocked. With the first series on the old channel, we wrote the new series in a way that wouldn’t alienate new viewers but wouldn’t bore the audience we had already built. We bought new equipment including a fancy new camera and proper audio equipment. We wanted to equip ourselves with everything we needed to make professional looking films so people would take us more seriously.

We spent months writing the new series of Unlocked. A lot of the groundwork had been laid before the change in members so we had a core idea of the story we wanted to tell but we wanted to be a bit bolder, a bit braver and ultimately create something incredibly entertaining. We introduced more characters, locations and special effects. Of course this meant spending more money and more time on the series. Which created some problems.

I don’t think I’ve made this clear. There are five full-time members of Cheesemint. Four of us work full-time. Two of those work weekdays. The other two work in retail and often work weekends. The other member is a student and works weekends and often evenings. It’s tough enough getting us all together, let alone getting the extra cast and crew free too. None of our jobs pay that well either. All the equipment was bought and paid for by us out of our own pocket. Then there’s costumes, locations, props, petrol etc. The list goes on.

So. We came to a crossroads. We could either carry on as we are, scraping money together where we can and filming at sporadic times. Or we could try and make things easier on ourselves and ask for help.

We decided to up our game. Take things even more seriously. Like we said before, if we take ourselves seriously, everyone else will treat us the same. So we made a bold and potentially life-changing decision. We registered the company. Cheesemint Productions Limited was born. We all became managing directors. And then we launched a crowd-sourcing campaign on Indiegogo asking for a small amount of $500 to cover some of the costs we’re facing. We’re making a six episode web series that, in total, is nearly two hours long. That’s the length of a film. A film would normally get millions of dollars and take months on end to film. We don’t have either of those luxuries.

$500 is nothing compared to what most of these kind of campaigns ask for.  We’re not taking the piss, we just want some help. And there are even perks to donating, we’re taking something and giving nothing in return. We’ll show our gratitude with gifts!

Filmmaking is all I’m good at and all I want to do. I feel so grateful for being fortunate enough to end up with a bunch of friends who are as crazy and ambitious as I am. We’ve come such a long way since our first video and the stuff we’re making now is still a little rough round the edges but it’s a learning curve and hell, we’re doing this in our spare time but treating it like’s a full-time job!

And even though sometimes we snap at each other, it’s only because we all care so much about what we’re doing and what this to succeed no matter what it takes.

I can only pin my hopes on the lottery so much so I’m asking a massive favour of you, whoever you are, taking the time to read my crappy little blog post. Please donate some money if you can. Anything you can give will be appreciated. I know that’s the kind of phrase you hear all the time but I genuinely mean it. Every single penny will help.

If you can’t donate then there’s other things you can do. You can tell other people about the campaign. Sharing something on the internet is so powerful. You sharing it could create a chain reaction that changes our lives forever. Cheesey, yes, but also true. Rebecca Black didn’t get anywhere on her talent did she?

But the most important thing you could do for us is also the easiest thing. Just support us. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. Watch our videos and most of all, enjoy them.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the support we’ve received so far. To everyone that’s donated and helped spread the word, thank you so much. You rock.

Let’s see how far we can push this.

28 days to go.

Check out the campaign over at Indiegogo - http://www.indiegogo.com/cheesemintunlocked?c=home

Find us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CheesemintProductions

Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Cheesemint

“Thirty-eight of New York's finest, versus one guy in a unitard.” George Stacy - The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man - A Review

As soon as they announced they were rebooting the Spider-Man film franchise I was torn. A part of me was like, “It’s too soon you money-grabbing douchebags!” and another part was like “Anything to wash away the mess that was Spider-Man 3!” As we got closer, I got more excited and more convinced the film was going to live up to the name. The costume looked incredible, I knew Andrew Garfield would nail the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and I had every bit of faith in Marc Webb after 500 (Days) of Summer. But I walked out of the cinema half an hour ago and I’m having seriously mixed feelings.

Peter Parker lives with his Aunt and Uncle after his parents mysteriously left in a hurry when he was a child. Now at high school, Peter has found clues about the kind of scientific work his father was involved in. This leads to him to Dr Connors, a man who hopes to develop a cure for all the set-backs mankind suffers, including his lack of a right arm. While visiting Dr Connors in his lab, Peter gets bit by a genetically engineered spider, becomes the web-slinging hero that we all know and love. He then manages to start dating Gwen Stacey,( the daughter of the police captain who is intent on bringing Spider-Man down) and tries to trying to solve the mystery of his father’s work. Oh, yeah. He takes photos too.

It was a beautifully shot film. The scenes with Spider-Man swinging around were captured perfectly and the scene on the bridge was particularly well handled. However, I’m still not convinced the 3D adds much value, even to something on this scale.

Just as I thought he would be, Andrew Garfield was spot-on as the guilt ridden Peter Peter and the witty, charismatic Spider-Man. Emma Stone was great as Gwen Stacy and Martin Sheen and Sally Field were well cast as Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Rhys Ifans’ Dr Connors was well portrayed. But they all struggled with a weak script and weren’t given a lot to work with.

Because this is a reboot, I was hoping they wouldn’t focus on the Spider-Man origin story as much. I knew they would weave their own tale (pun intended) because otherwise people would assume the origin story of the original film would still be the origin for this Peter Parker. Instead they focused on the origin bit too much by trying to tangle it in with Peter’s own origin and his relationship (or lack of) with his parents. But as soon as he becomes Spider-Man, his parents are forgotten about and the questions that we were promised would be answered remain answerless. Which wouldn’t be a problem if we were getting swept up in the plot but the film was so slow in the first act that I just kept thinking to myself that we’ve seen all this, we know he becomes Spider-Man so let’s just get this all out of the way so we can get on with some real plot!

The ‘real plot’ was Dr Connors and his dream to be able to use a knife and a fork at the same time. I understand his motivation. Who doesn’t love having two hands? But I don’t get why he was so evil when he became the Lizard. He was perfectly nice before. Are all lizards inherently evil? Then he had the problem that the villains in the first two Spider-Man films faced. They had no-one to talk to! How does a villain share his evil plan with the audience if he isn’t sharing it on screen with anyone? 

In the first film, Osborn spoke with the Goblin (which makes sense). In the second film, Doc Oc spoke with... his tentacle-claws (pushing it a bit.) In this film, Dr Connors first speaks to a camera (which worked well) as he conducts more science but later on, he just talked to himself. Which was painful to watch. It felt so cheesey and forced. At least it was in his head I suppose. But as soon as Spider-Man stops his plan and Dr Connors returns to normal, he’s a nice guy again and saves Peter’s life. Which is bullshit. If the guy had been showing some remorse as the Lizard, some kind of guilt but convincing himself he was doing the right thing, I might have bought it. Instead we’re forced to assume that just because he’s big, scaly and got claws that he’s a naturally going to be a bastard. But this is a problem a lot of Spidey’s villains have. They’re generally nice guys who have something they can’t control and WHOOPS now they’re evil. Whereas, for example, most of Batman’s villains are just evil or evil with proper motivation. The Joker? Insanely evil. Bane? Grew up in a prison. That’s going to make you a little evil. But just because a guy is big and green doesn’t make him bad. Look at the Hulk!

I might be alone here but I really liked Danny Elfman’s score for the previous films and I was keen to see what they would do with the new film. I had no idea who they had on board for the score this time round. Around half an hour into the film I remember thinking, “Jeez, this music is bad. It sounds a hell of a lot like the score from Titanic.” Low and behold, James Horner did the score and he did a terrible, terrible job. Half the time it was felt like the music was building to something that never happened and half the time it felt like the score to a daytime soap. The piano music that was played while Gwen nursed Peter’s wounds was close to ruining the entire scene for me.

It might sound like I didn’t like the film at all. That’s not true. I really enjoyed it and a lot of that was down to the cast and Stan Lee’s cameo was his best yet. But I’ve spent months convincing people that it wouldn’t be the same as the first film, that we’d get something different but the first forty-five minutes to an hour felt far too familiar. I think the sequel (as with the original sequel) will far out-strip the first film and really find it’s own ground. They’ve already started planting the seeds with the un-answered questions about Peter’s parents, Dr Connors involvement and of course, Norman Osborn who turned up at the end (although it’s not confirmed it’s Osborn, all we know is that he has a hat and had some kind of authority over Connors and sounded EXACTLY like Willem Dafoe). Obviously depends on how much money this film makes but I’m sure it’ll do well enough to warrant a sequel.

All in all, a welcome return for the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I just wish he’d turned up a lot quicker so we could have seen more of him and less of what we’ve seen before.

7/10

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." - Leonardo da Vinci

When I was younger, most of my dreams were about flying. In these dreams I would spend a lot of time running around and jumping, getting a bit more air on each jump until finally I’d be up in the air, soaring over everyone else. In one dream I had to have a foot in a bucket and hold onto a spade. I’m not really sure what that meant but I bet Freud would have a field day. Anyway, the point is, I dream about flying. A lot. And as I’ve got older, I have these dreams less and less. There’s probably something metaphorical about growing up there.

So when I was presented with the opportunity to skydive for charity, I couldn’t say no. It was something that came up through work. Myself and my friend Hannah had to raise around £700 between us for the Norwich City Community Sports Foundation in just under three weeks. It was a huge task and the reward was jumping out of a plane.

Leading up to the event, people kept asking me “Are you nervous? You couldn’t pay me to do it!” The thing is, I wasn’t nervous and I’d pay to do it in a heartbeat. I kept thinking I’d get nervous as they day drew closer, but I didn’t.

The day of the jump was gloriously sunny but bloody cold. My Mum, Dad, sister Alice and her friend Lucy and my Nanny and Grandad turned up to watch me. There was a lot of waiting around as we got a safety briefing and watched other people jump. A couple of hours later, it was my turn. I climbed into the very small plane with my instructor and the other jumpers and we bundled together underneath the wings. I just kept telling myself to take everything in. Everything. The plane, the take-off, the view. You could see for miles, almost the whole of Norfolk in plain sight. We climbed to 13,000 feet and then the door was opened. I thought I’d finally get scared when I hung off the edge of the plane and looked down at the ground. But I didn’t. We tumbled out of the door and rolled backwards and I got a view of the plane getting smaller and smaller and I suddenly thought ‘Bloody hell! We’re falling out of the sky!’ but that was just for a second and all of a sudden you don’t feel like you’re falling. You feel like you’re flying.

I’ve got the bug now. I want to learn to skydive properly. I want to have my own helmet with a camera inside it. I want a wing-suit so I can glide across the sky. I want to skydive all over the world. So the next step is to get qualified and become a licensed skydiver.

We’ve raised loads of money but are just shy of our £700 target. If you’ve got a few quid spare, please donate here. It’s for an awesome cause. 

"Nulla e reale; tutto e lecito. Requiescat in pace." - Ezio Auditore (Assassin's Creed II)

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations - Review

The Game

After discovering the location of the Apple Of Eden in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond was forced to stab his would-be-girlfriend Lucy and then suffered a mental breakdown and slipped into a coma. To save his mind, his Assassin pals put him into a special area of the Animus called the Black Room, or Animus Island. Desmond wakes up on this island and Subject 16 tells him to save himself he must separate himself from his ancestors, Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. To do this, he must work his way through their memories until they have nothing left to show him. Well that’s convenient because this game happens to end Ezio’s story! So, in 1459, Ezio Auditore is on the trail of Assassin history. He’s left Italy in search of secrets about the Assassins Templars. He ends up in Altair’s old neck of the woods and starts tacking down the Masyaf Keys to Altair’s library which is said to contain something very old and very powerful. 

The Campaign

Myself and the Creed haven’t always seen eye to eye. When I first saw gameplay of the original Assassin’s Creed I was so excited, it looked incredible. An open world where you could run across rooftops like a free-runner and take down targets with blades that came out of your wrists? Sold! But although the premise was great, I felt that the controls were sloppy and the missions were repetitive. Altair was a dick and on top of that there were crappy cutscenes in which you could weirdly change the camera angle and the fact that if you tried going faster than 3mph on a horse you got attacked by nearby soldiers. Because if you look like you’re in a hurry you must be a criminal and deserve to be stabbed. All of that was enough to make me put down the game controller. Which for me is saying something. I mean, I managed to finish Prototype.

But after many recommendations I decided to give the second game a go. And it was breathtaking. An incredible game from start to finish. Then Brotherhood came along and I liked that even more. And now Ezio Auditore’s story comes to a close in Revelations... Will Ubisoft manage to entice me a third time despite our rocky start?

Well... mostly. Assassin’s Creed Revelations is a very good game, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not a great game by any means. It feels like a very long piece of DLC. After an action packed opening you arrive in Constantinople, a city which has fallen under Templar control. Experienced Creed players will know that the game is built around DNA sequences. Several sequences make up a game and many missions make up a sequence. The first sequence usually acts as an intro, letting you get to grips with the control and features. You’d think with this being the fourth Creed game that the tutorials would be be pretty short and the game would get going quickly. You’d be wrong. You reach sequence three and you’re still playing missions that involve some kind of training. In fact, the game doesn’t ever stop treating you like a complete novice. Everytime you need to locate a target it reminds you how to use Eagle Vision. Everytime you need to do a long jump, it tells you how to do it just in case you’ve forgotten how. It’s so patronizing and worse, it’s distracting. You’re meant to be an Assassin Master who rebuilt Rome in a few days! It’s ridiculous!

What makes this even more insulting is that the gameplay has barely changed at all. There are two significant differences. The Hookblade and Bombs. The hookblade allows you to climb faster, travel across ziplines, pull down scaffolding and er... trip up people. Which is cool but hardly revolutionary. Bombs come in three different types. Lethal bombs, diversions bombs and tactical bombs. Each type can be modified with different cases and ingredients and all have different effects. Once mastered they become a welcome addition to your inventory. They really help out on missions during which stealth is essential. However, everything else is more or less business as usual with a Turkish twist. The Borgia towers from Brotherhood are back but are called Templar Dens which you have to retake. Which, by the way, makes no sense. You kill the Den Captain and then you climb the tower and ignite it. Apparently, this lets the Templars know to flee. Why? Why would they flee just because funny coloured smoke is coming from the tower? Surely that would be a sign for ‘We’re under attack. Grab your sword and get stabbing.’ But nope. They flee and that Den is yours. But maybe not forever. If go round causing a lot of ruckus your notoriety will go up and then the Templars will attempt to retake Dens. You then have to go back to the Den and play a game of Den Defense. Den Defense is a real time strategy mini-game. You control various units of attack and defense and try to fight off attacking Templars and reclaim the Den as your own. To begin with, its incredibly frustrating as it isn’t explained very well and you’re thrown into it without any real warning. But the more of these that you play, the more fun it gets.

Once you’ve taken over a Den you can rebuild that area of the city by purchasing various shops and buildings. Just like in Brotherhood. In Brotherhood it made sense, Rome was a mess and you needed to fix it. But in Revelations it’s just a repeated idea to make up for lack of an actual game. Mercenaries and Thieves are back but the Courtesans have been replaced with the Romani. Which are exactly the same. And these three factions add no value to the story or the game in anyway. During one mission, Ezio makes an effort to get to know the Romani to get them on the side of the Assassins. Nice one Ezio. Except for the fact they barely feature after that.

Tombs return again. We had the Assassin Tombs in Creed 2, the Lairs of the Romulus in Brotherhood and this time we just have Hidden Tombs which contain the Mysaf keys. However, the tombs are built into the game this time round rather than being a side mission which is more evidence to the fact that there is nothing going on in main game. The first couple of these tombs are pretty dull but the last two get quite exciting and offer a nice change of pace. Elsewhere, there’s plenty to do. If you like doing the same thing as we’ve done before that is! 

You can recruit and train Assassins and then send them round Europe completing missions. That sounds familiar.  You can spend money in shops and collect items like books. Which you can do NOTHING with. You can collect Animus Data Fragments (which replace the flags and feathers we’ve seen previously.) However, this time around collecting these fragments does something a bit different. They unlock extra missions on Animus island that explore Desmond’s history. These missions are Portal style puzzles. You have to reach a point and you use blocks to get there while Desmond recites his life story. It’s interesting but repetitive and sometimes very frustrating and since there is only four of them it’s over pretty quickly.

I think the real problem with the story mode is that there isn’t really a story. Ezio is just keeping busy collecting the equivalent of Assassin Pokemon cards. Saying that, I love the fact that that Ezio is almost doing what Desmond is doing. Exploring his heritage and trying to discover the purpose of his actions through Altair’s memories. The Altair missions are great but they are far too short and infrequent, especially since him coming back was a major selling point of the game. To be honest, I was surprised they brought back Altair. I assumed that since they moved onto a new character in the second game that they’re couldn’t be much more to do with him. But what made me actually laugh out loud with self-righteous glee was Altair’s bio in game. “Thanks to the memories stored in Altair’s five Masyaf Keys, we can now get a good glimpse of the man himself, instead of settling for vague glimpses through the Templars’ (frankly quite primitive) Animus 1.28 avatar projection system.” They’re basically admitting that they did a poor job with the storytelling in the first game and wasted Altair’s character. I love being right.

What Ezio lacks in this game is a real enemy. The Borgias and Cesere in Brotherhood were brilliant. You hated them and wanted to stop them. In this game you’re just fighting some soldiers that you’re told are Templars. I bet even the soldiers don’t know that they’re Templars. Eventually, you get a real enemy with a name and face but why does he end up being your enemy? Because he threatens Ezio’s girlfriend. Wow. That’s some clever writing. The game plods along at such a slow and dull pace and suddenly picks up speed at the end. The last few missions are brilliant and exciting and really show off what a Creed game is all about. But then it’s over and you feel like it only just began.

This game set out with two main purposes. To end Ezio’s story and provide many Revelations about the Creed universe. Ezio’s story does end but he basically just retires. The trailers for the game made it look like Ezio was making a final stand, that he was all in and might end up sacrificing himself for the Creed. But all that was in the first five minutes of the game. That should have been at the end surely? A build up to an inevitable but noble end for Ezio? But no. 

As for the revelations in Revelations, well, maybe I wasn’t following it too well but it made no sense to me. I’ve always maintained that although books and comics about a game’s universe are great, a person should only need play the games to understand and follow the story. I had no clue what was meant to be going on in the fancy cut-scene at the end of Revelations. The world used to look different and then imploded? Something to do with aliens? Where do wrist-blades fit into all of this? It’s all a bit of a mess really. And speaking of Revelations, what the hell happened with Lucy? We hear from the disembodied voices of Danny Wallace and Whatshername that Lucy died after Desmond stabbed her and that she was buried outside of Rome. Do they know Desmond wasn't in control of his actions? Is Desmond in trouble? Why did the aliens want to kill Lucy? What was the point of even killing her off? IT MEANT NOTHING FOR THE PLOT! It’ll probably get wrapped up in Creed 3 but I don’t care. This isn’t Lost. I don’t want little hints of plot that span across games. Things need to have purpose and be clear from at least game to game or it makes it all pointless.

On top of all that, the game engine is looking very dated. The cinematic animation is almost embarrassing. There is one particular scene where Ezio is in a graveyard with his Assassins and he’s trying to inspire them with a final battle speech. But it was like a badly dubbed advert. His lip movements didn’t match up to what he was supposed to be saying and it looked more like how a Muppet talks than anything else. I know graphics aren’t everything but when we’ve got games like Gears Of War 3 and L.A Norie, developers should really be aiming higher.

The Multiplayer

The Multiplayer portion of Creed makes a welcome return. There’s nothing like this anywhere else. It’s the best game of hide and seek ever. It rewards patience and style. Although it’s essentially the same concept there are some new game modes and a few twists. You now earn credits over time than can be spent on new abilities. You could spend these credits on customising characters but this is a complete waste of money because you the changes are so subtle and each character is pretty dull.

My main gripe with the multiplayer is the menus. They are incomprehensible and throw information at you that means nothing. I’ve been playing since the game came out and I still have no idea what Friend Points are.

The only real complaint I have about the multiplayer is that it can be quite hard to pick up and even harder to become a pro at which can mean that new players don’t stick around for long. This means that the game becomes rather exclusive which is a bit self-destructive.

The Achievements

One thing that I can really praise here is the achievements. There’s an excellent blend of mission specific ones, weapon based ones, side mission ones and more. Most can be earned randomly just by playing the game and some need to be worked on but ALL of them are achievable. Highlights include ‘Most Pit’ which involves you having to have 10 Guards poisoned all at the same time. Low points include ‘Tax Evasion’ where you have to get your money from back from a Tax Collector. The reason this achievement is terrible is because it’s completely random. A Tax Collector will randomly appear on the map and you have to chase and trip him to get your taxes back. I’d completed the campaign, most of the side missions and was mopping up some odd achievements when I saw first the Tax Collector. That’s after hours and hours of gameplay. What if he had never appeared? There’s nothing you can do to trigger his appearance so it doesn’t seem fair. He should be at least be more common if nothing else.

Finally, Ubisoft have got the multiplayer achievements right. I personally don’t think there should ever be mulit-player achievements in any game. You can’t guarantee that people will continue to play a game online so achievements shouldn’t be tied into that portion of the game. But in this case, the achievements are all fairly simple so you can get them quite quickly. The only real tough one is unlocked by reaching level 20 but you rank up so fast anyway so it doesn’t really cause an issue.

The Verdict 

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is a pack of crisps. You know tea is coming but you just can’t wait, so you have a packet of crisps to hold you over. This game is just the filler while we wait for Assassin’s Creed 3. It gave Ubisoft the chance to tie up some loose ends, Ezio was a great character but I’m glad his part in the saga is now over. This series needs a real shake up. It needs to be redesigned almost completely. Because at the moment, everything feels a bit stale. It’s still miles ahead of a lot of other games but it makes me think that while time is being invested into Assassin’s Creed 3, money is being made by these cheaply produced, in-between game sequels and I feel a bit cheated for it. Entertaining but lacking in diversity and excitement.

7/10

"Had you ever considered that all this is your fault? Your presence creates these animals..." - Professor Hugo Strange (Batman: Arkham City)

Batman: Arkham City - Review

The Game:

I'm pretty sure that right now, there's some big Marvel executive sitting in a conference room with a bunch of scared looking employees, shouting "WHY DON'T WE HAVE A DECENT VIDEO GAME?!?" It hasn’t been all bad for Marvel, there have been a couple of good Spider-man games and the Ultimate Alliance games were good fun for a bit but it’s mostly been film-tie-in crap. For some reason, Marvel haven't been able to produce a video game like DC has.

Back in August 2009, Rocksteady released Batman: Arkham Asylum and no-one expected it to be the hit that it was. It was a huge financial and critical success and more than that; it was a proper Batman game. It was faithful to the comic books and had the bat-geeks (like myself) foaming at the mouth. So a sequel was inevitable.

Enter Batman: Arkham City. Batman managed to return order to Arkham Asylum after the Joker took over it. However, warden Quincy Sharpe took credit for Batman's work and soon became Mayor. He then went ahead with his plan to expand Arkham Asylum into Gotham and create a super prison, Arkham City. The show is being run by the shady looking Professor Hugo Strange. What's worse is that he knows Batman's true identity is Bruce Wayne. The caped crusader will stop at nothing to shut this prison down but before he can do that, he has to deal with all the inmates like the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face and Mr. Freeze to name but a few. It's going to be another busy night...

The Campaign:

I'm going to warn your right now. There be spoilers ahead. Lots of spoilers. I can't review this game without talking about the plot. So if you haven't finished it yet, run off and complete it and then come back and read this. OK?

Through a series of events, Batman manages to get himself into Arkham City to try and shut it down from the inside. You soon learn that every villain wants to carve a little of Arkham City for themselves. The Joker, the Penguin and Two-Face control different areas but for these psychos that’s never going to enough... Besides, the Joker has more to lose than anyone else.

The Joker is sick. The Titan formula he injected himself with in the first game is having some very nasty side effects and he's dying. But this is the Joker we’re talking about, he’s not going to go out easy! He manages to get some of his blood in Batman and in the Gotham hospitals, forcing Batman to find a cure. As evil plans go, this is pretty clever but as a way of driving a game forward? Not so much.

It feels cheap. An easy way to force Batman to deal with every criminal who might have a scrap of information. I really felt like it affected the gameplay too. Arkham City is supposed to have an element of freedom to it. There are loads of side missions in which you can help Bane recover Titan containers, track down Deadshot, discover a face-stealing serial killer to name but a few. But in the back of my mind I kept thinking, if Batman is on death's door along with most of Gotham, is he really going to really be helping Bane right now? I'm not stupid. I know that Batman isn't going to die just because I do a side mission but the fact that he doesn't have a lot of time left is so integral to the story and something that you're told by Alfred, Oracle and the Joker time and time again that I feel like I shouldn't be doing anything but focusing on the story. Which made no sense since I was being reminded all the time that there's loads more to do. Maybe it's because that's how Batman truly is; torn between helping so many people and ultimately having to prioritise.

There was one other element of the story that I had a problem with and that was with the exchange between Mr Freeze about two thirds of the way through the game. The Joker lets Batman know that only Freeze can create the cure they both so desperately need. So, through a series of events Mr Freeze makes the cure for Batman, only to lock it away in a safe and then start attacking Batman, demanding that the Dark Knight gets his wife Nora back from the Joker. That I can almost understand. Mr Freeze is a bad guy and Batman’s health is not his priority. What follows is a brilliant and tense fight between Batman and Freeze. Batman beats Freeze (unless you suck at this game) and he opens the safe only to find the cure has been stolen from the other side by Harley Quinn. Straightaway, Mr Freeze is all like “What are you waiting for? Go after her and get your cure and stop the clown.” Hello? You just screwed me over! If you’d given me the cure, I could have beaten Joker, saved your wife and then I could've taken you both out for tea and cake. Instead, you messed everything up. But Batman doesn’t say that. He says “I promise I’ll get Nora back for you.” WHAT?!? This guy just fucked up everything for the both of you and now you’re all hugs and promises?!? SHEESH! It makes no sense at all. It makes me think that Freeze was a loose end that the writers had no idea to deal with. They desperately wanted to give the player a chance to fight him but also wanted him to be a good guy.

Before I stop talking about the story, I have to talk about the ending. The ending that I didn’t see coming. Batman manages to recover the cure takes some for himself before the Joker shouts for the cure. Batman almost debates giving it to him just before the Joker jumps on him and stabs Batman in the arm, causing him to drop the cure and the vial smashes to pieces. The Joker tries to lick up the cure but to no avail. He asks if Batman is happy now and Batman says, “Do you want to know something funny? Even after everything you’ve done. I would have saved you.” The Joker dies laughing and then, in an incredibly moving scene, Batman carries him out of Arkham City with everyone watching, mirroring the painting seen right at the start of the game. It's so well handled. I don’t know of any other villain whose death could invoke that kind of emotional response. He’s a complete psychotic bastard but there’s something about his character that you just love. There’s a scene where Batman believes the joker has been shot and killed and Batman actually seems distraught that he’s dead. Really, a huge weight should have been lifted from Batman’s shoulders but for Batman it would never feel that way with the Joker gone, as much as he would like it to.

Moving on from the story, Arkham City builds on everything Arkham Asylum offered. Although the city isn't as big as I hoped, it's much bigger then the Asylum. Nothing makes you feel more like Batman than running off a building, diving at the floor and then breaking into a glide before dive-bombing at some poor, unsuspecting in-mate. Like the gliding, the combat has been refined too. It feels more accurate this time round, offering more moves and animations then ever before. A favourite move of mine is the ability to break enemies 

weapons. You relieve an opponent of a gun and then snap it half. Brilliant and very Batman. All these fancypants moves have to be unlocked though. The experience you need to get your hands on these new moves and gadget upgrades is given to you by beating up goons and finding Riddles. That's right, the Riddler is back and he's really upped his game since last time. Some of his trophies are in cages and you have solve puzzles to try free them. But the Riddler has taken it one step further again. He's taken six hostages and placed each one in gauntlet style traps. You solve enough riddles, he'll give you a location of a hostage. Which is tricky, because there are hundreds of riddles this time around. I felt like giving up on it at one point. But then he mocked me and I saw his projected image laughing at me, calling me stupid. And that was enough to push me on. I kept going until I had solved enough riddles to save the hostages and reveal his location. Taking him out has to be one of the most satisfying parts of a video game of all the time.

The Catwoman content gives a change of pace but only for four short periods of time. Which I’m glad of. Fighting as Catwoman is fun but she’s so slow at getting around Arkham City compared to Batman. It’s almost painful. What’s worse is Catwoman’s character. I know she’s always acted a bit slutty but this version of her is something else. Everything she says is full of cheese and innuendo. It makes her so bloody annoying that you wish you could beat her up as Batman. I’d much rather have been playing as Robin or Nightwing in the campaign. Catwoman can bite me. I bet she would too.

Once you complete the game you the unlock New Game Plus. New Game Plus gives you the chance to play the game again with all the gadgets and moves you’ve unlocked but the game is more difficult from the get go and you don’t get any counter indicators when the enemy tries to attack you. You don’t realise how much you rely on those indicators until they’re taken away. It makes the game so much more of a challenge and gives it credible extra replay value.

The Multiplayer:

Although there’s no multiplayer, the challenge maps are back. I’ve always had a love/hate with the challenge maps in Batman. They’re great fun but ultimately frustrating. They’ve mixed things up this time, creating campaigns that consist of a mix of combat and predator maps. It’s basically just another way to play the maps but it gives you different multipliers to apply and this helps change the dynamic quite a bit. You get to choose whether you play as Batman or Catwoman and there is now DLC with Nightwing and Robin as playable characters. Each character feels unique and they all have different moves and weapons. However, since Nightwing and Robin are only useable in the challenge maps, they feel quite expensive for what are essentially just fancy skins. But if you’re a massive Batman fan like me, that won’t matter.

The Achievements:

The story achievements are great. A real mix of easy and difficult ones. There’s the usual plot ones, ones for the side missions, the Riddler related ones and more. What's great is that all the story ones are achievable. Some more so than others. One of my favourite achievements was ‘Catch’ in which you have to find someone to play Batarang catch with. One of my least favourites was ‘Story Teller’ in which you have to have 12 murderous dates with Calender Man. He has a calender next to his cell with twelve dates circled on it. You have to go see him on every one of these dates. I knew there was no way I was going to be playing this on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day or bloody Labour Day. So I had to change the date on my console, load up the game and speak to him and repeat the process another 11 times. I got the achievement but for only 10G it hardly feels worth it.

The challenge map achievements are ridiculous though. You have to get all the medals as all the characters to get all the achievements. With the Predator one’s this is fine because you can take your time but the Combat ones? No chance. I would have to play it day and night to get good enough to unlock all those achievements, so they're write offs more or less straight away.

The Verdict:

Batman: Arkham City is an amazing game. It caters to the Batman fans and to fans of action games alike. Even though the plot has it’s problems, I know I’ll play it through several times more. Even though I’ll never get those Challenge map achievements, I know I’ll keep coming back to try. You can't stay away from Arkham City for long.

What’s great about this game is that is that it doesn’t try and replicate Christopher Nolan’s films and it doesn’t try replicate everything in the comics for the sake of it. It respects the source material but it finds it’s own footing and takes this incredible franchise and it’s huge array of characters and makes it it’s own. I mean, they killed off the Joker!

I don’t know where they would go with a sequel but I really hope they make one. It’ll be odd without the Joker but I have faith in Rocksteady. They’ve made two superb games and I’d be very surprised if they didn’t have a few ideas for a third.

9/10

"Oooh! What did you sneak in, Bats? You can tell me. Batarangs? Batclaws? Batsnacks?" - The Joker (Batman: Arkham Asylum)

Over the past few years special editions have become more and more commonplace in the video game industry. The bigger, blockbuster titles now offer something a bit more unique for the dedicated fan. Of course, nothing comes for free and these special editions can sometimes leave quite a hole in the bank account and they're not always worth it.

In the months leading up to the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum I was keenly anticipating the special edition of the game. All I really knew was that it came with a batarang. A few days after release, I pulled the money together and planned to try and find a copy. I mentioned this in passing to a friend who quickly warned me against it. A colleague of his had purchased the special edition and while the game was incredible, the batarang that I had set my heart on was less incredible. In fact, it turned out to be nothing more than a lump of plastic in the shape of a batarang. No thought put into it whatsoever. 

So, I decided I wouldn't fork out the extra cash for it and just bought the standard copy of the game.

It goes without saying that when the special edition for Batman: Arkham City was announced I was a little more cautious. Or so I thought! I pre-ordered the Robin Edition from Game which came with Robin downloadable content and had a different cover. However, my good friend Matthew Stogdon pointed out that the Robin DLC would be available for everyone a few weeks after the game was released. He suggested that I, like him, buy the collector's edition instead which was only available online. So I did. And this is what I got.

After a horrible wait for the delivery man I opened the parcel and it looked like this. All very neat. Note the fantastic art-work on side featuring the Joker. Then you take the plastic off...

 ...and it unfolds rather neatly. But then...

You find all this! Included is a Batman statue. (With sharp, pointy bits.) A book with concept art and poster art inside as well as the game disc. There's the soundtrack. The Gotham Knight DVD. The Iceberg Lounge challenge map DLC, the Catwoman DLC which includes The Long Halloween and Animated Series skins and finally The Dark Knight Returns skin.

Quite a lot for only £15 more than the standard version of the game don't you think?

I have two problems with it though.

1) The soundtrack. It's not a disc, it's a download. I'd rather have a disc because it's physical and something I can actually have. Everyone knows you can download pretty much anything for free anyway whereas a disc would have been more unique.

2) It's not the most practical special edition. The sides don't stay up by themselves. I'm surprised they don't have magnets in them or something. This is such a shame because the art-work on the sides is beautiful.

I'm not sure how I'm going to store this one. It's made more difficult by the fact that the disc is inside the book! 

Clever, but bloody irritating. It would be so much easier if it was inside a standard game box because then the game itself would fit on the shelf fine and I could put the special edition itself somewhere else. I'll have a play around and when I put my review up I'll include a photo of my storage solution. Exciting times hey?

Overall, it's a huge step up from the craptacular batarang. You get so much for your money and I really like it. I just wish they had made it a bit easier to store.

But I haven't just been sitting here for the past 24 hours looking at the pretty edition. I've been playing the game and it's amazing! I'll be putting a review up soon. Don't go far.