Spider Man on the Sony PlayStation was proof that an amazing Spider Man game did exist. Neversoft built the game off their Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 engine, added the authentic feel of the mid 90’s cartoon series, and built a game that was not only good, but a new watermark for future Spider Man titles. A year later, Vicarious Visions took over and developed Spider Man 2: Enter Electro. Seriously, Electro? What, was Tombstone too busy working on his tan to star as the main villain? Was Hammerhead getting fitted for a new fedora and unable to make an appearance?

OH COME ON!

As you can tell, with the plethora of Spidey villains that one could choose to star as the main antagonist, they chose one that really isn’t a huge focal point in Spider Man’s career. Although he’s an old school villain, and even a member of the original Sinister Six, not many comic faithful would peg him as a deep enough character to be a main focus in a game. Thus, begins a number of glaring faults to thus sequel.

Fault #1: Any level taking place on the streets

The first Spider Man omitted these levels due to a gas unleashed through the streets of New York City. With the change of story-lines, these areas become playable at certain point sof the game. The problem? They are utterly bland, with very little in the way of anything on the streets. Maybe there’s one or two cars through the four square blocks or so, and probably four trash cans. Other than that, the streets and buildings look poorly detailed and felt too similar to the next building.

Similar to Black Cat from the first title, Beast serves as your mentor through your controls. Why Beast? Because it makes as much sense as the rest of this game!

Fault #2: The levels are all tedious and no fun to play

A big hook with the original Spider Man game was how diverse the pacing was, and how it never felt like I was doing the same thing over and over. While things are still broken down somewhat, they just aren’t any fun. Hunting down four key pieces on stock enemies through rooftops and street level areas isn’t all that entertaining. Even boss battles, which were fun and creative in the first title, fall flat, and come off as uninspired. It doesn’t help that many of the villains you see in Enter Electro are mostly the “B rate” enemies that rarely ever push a Spider Man comic to a part two in the story (Shocker, Hammerhead).

Fault #3: The controls, visuals and HUD are exactly the same

Literally. Take a gander at the option screens of both games and you’ll notice that absolutely nothing changed. Each of the costumes you could unlock in the first game, are in the second as well, with no changes made. Not even a tiny tweak to the colors. Your HUD remains untouched. The controls were unaltered. Your attacks all look the way they did in the first game. Other than the story, and the ugly ground level portions of the game, nothing has changed. Sure, nearly everything about the first game worked so well, but there were no strides taken to make the sequel better than the first. All of the faults from the first game are still in the sequel, with more shortcomings added in.

Character designs is still impressive, especially the attention to detail.

To be perfectly honest, Spider Man 2: Enter Electro still has some fun moments, and the voice acting and the whole audio package was well done, but it’s a noticeable downgrade from the first Spider Man title. It’s a short, lazily made game that relies too heavily on imitating the first games successes, to a fault. Not a bad game but not a great one.

Rating: 6.4

2010 has been such a strong year in gaming so far. Not only have some solid titles been released, but this is when Street Fighter 2010 takes place! You’ll play as Ken, who hasn’t fought in 25 years according the the narrative in this game (yet will be in Super Street Fighter 4 this year, not to mention the other 2009 Street Fighter games between now and 25 years ago). He’s been pretty busy in the lab for the last twenty five years after retiring from the street fighter world. His lab partner was killed and left “as a pile of jelly on the floor”. Now armed with bionics, Ken sets forth to find the intergalactic killer of his partner.

First off, lets address this title….

If you’ve been a fan of Capcom games in general, you’re going to be perplexed by this title. Street Fighter 2010? Whatever happened to Street Fighter 5 through 2009?. The Final Fight? Is this a Street Fighter game or a Final Fight game? Just off the name alone, you’re going to give yourself a headache. Pop the game in and you’re going to give yourself leprosy.

As far as any human being can tell, this game can’t be defined as a fighting game or a beat em up game. In fact, I don’t think many first time players will know what in the blue hell to call it. You start off in a small area, where jumping feels floaty and awkward, and attacking show no signs of hadouken or shoryukens. You can punch out small projectiles with the range of a baby throwing a walrus. If you have a turbo controller, it looks like Ken is pulling of a hundred hand slap from E. Honda’s repertoire. Hold down and press attack and you kick upward in an angle shooting a similar limited ranged projectile. You can power it up to about projectile vomit distance, but its still pretty lame. The graphics are pretty cluttered, and it looks like things were randomly colored and put together to make a ‘futuristic’ look.

So my first fight is against Target, which is fine since I like K Mart more. Target doesn’t come out right away. You are given time to jump around like an idiot and break open these weird looking round containers. Some of them will hold the power ups that make your weapons have a slightly longer range. All the while, you have these slow moving, stop and go rockets that follow you around. After some time has passed, Target comes flying down, slashing your prices down to zero. I had to do this fight a dozen times because of the non-existent range of your weapon and the out of reach path Macy’s takes.

Ken vs Target - a tooth and nail battle over the lowest priced ironing board.

When I finally did beat Walmart, I have this message flashing behind me saying ‘FADE IN!’, while some bar called Open is depleting. Okay so I guess I’m supposed to wait here, since that’s probably a timer until I get warped out.

Apparently, waiting kills you.

So another half dozen attempts at Target and I beat him again. Now I’m running around and I don’t see anything that would progress me out of the stage. Timer runs to zero, I’m dead again. A few more tries and I kill the thing again, this time, with a portal opening behind me. Why can’t the game just port me out, or the stage end once I beat the boss?

So I go through the portal, and apparently, none of these bosses have names, as they are all referred to as Target. The room is much smaller, and the boss moves really slow. His attack pattern is unpredictable, and has a ball and chain with a huge range, that can let him swing by fast from one side to the other, or just attack you. There’s no strategy at all, you have to mash the B button as soon as he drops down, and keep at it until he dies, or until you die. After you beat him, you teleport out to your next destination….which is a four step walk to another teleporter. These stages look drab, are arguably unimaginative, and just deplorable. The only thing that redeems this is that after collecting what seems like three dozen power ups, your attack range increases significantly. Too little, too late.

Ken used to throw fireballs, but not this year! Now he performs long distance hundred hand slaps!

Street Fighter 2010 is just wrong in every sense of the matter. The name is misleading, the gameplay is a laughable mess, and another reason why I’ve always thought Ken was such an overrated character (I know that the Japanese release had a different name for the main character — I just have a severe disdain towards Ken). I can’t believe after twenty years, I finally decided to try this game out. I should have waited until I was in the death bed so I could finish the job.

Rating: 1.5

As some of you may have noticed, I enjoy Castlevania games. I enjoy the good (Castlevnia: Bloodlines) and loathe the bad (The Castlevania Adventure). I wouldn’t say I’m a die hard fan or anything, but I do enjoy the setting, the weapons and the enemies that await me. A majority of every major console have released a Castlevania title in their life cycle. The Game Boy Advance released three such titles. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was the first one released onto the handheld, and although there’s a few rough patches here and there, it does maintain that Castlevania feel to it.

Dracula is back, looking more decrepit than ever!

Now I’ve said time and time again that difficulty and soundtracks were the two constants in the Castlevania series (well, minus Castlevania 64, which by all means was brain damage on a cartridge). While CotM does sound good, its repeated all too often. The Castlevania Adventure was understandable with this, as the stages were straight forward, shorter and the song changes at the beginning of every stages. I reached the point where listening to the first song throughout the sections I traveled through really annoyed me. Once I moved to a new section, I am serenaded by a new song, which sounded like a midi rendition of a Symphony of the Night song. It sounds well done, but a little bit more creativity would have been nice, especially with an initial installment on a new system. Hell, mostly everything here sounds like a remix of another Castlevania title. While it sound good, it’s almost a cop out to me.

CotM looks pretty good for a GBA title. While animations woefully lack, as so the enemies, backgrounds do look good, with some clear detail in them. Oddly enough, a lot of the earlier portions with the windows and whatnot, feel recycled somewhat. As a whole, CotM’s looks do receive a passing grade, but fails at a lot of trivial aspects.

While it looks good for a Game Boy Advance title, a lot more could have been done to spruce things up.

The big gameplay boost CotM receives is in the form of the Dual Set-up System, or DSS for short. You’ll encounter twenty different cards throughout the game – ten Action cards and ten Attribute cards. You can mix and match one of each classification to receive a different power or skill. They can range from a fire whip, to having  familiar follow you around and do random things. It does spice up the gameplay nicely, especially with what seems like a lack of sub weapons found throughout the game. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to be able to mix and match cards and find different skills for different situations. Its a layer of depth that’s more than appreciated.

Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit of annoyance when it comes to playing CotM. There’s considerable slowdown when too many enemies are on screen. It’s at its worst in the early parts of the game, or any part that features two of those ceiling brain creatures that drop those worm like underlings with a skeleton or two. The annoying knockback when getting hit is back in full force, with what seems like a farther leap back than even the first Castlevania title. It’s especially annoying when you jump from one screen below, up to the next screen, only to be hit by some electric skeleton that heaves you back ten yards and down into the same area you jumped out of. Whip attacks feel so slow, and it feels even more delayed when trying to whip once again. I haven’t even mentioned the omission of the Belmont name and legacy, replaced by….Nathan Graves? Studying under Morris Baldwin?

Finally, in what’s my biggest gripe, is how similar to Symphony of the Night it feels. Some of the musical bits remind me of some tunes I heard in SotN, the useless armor upgrade system, the somewhat meaningless level up system, and even how dialog boxes come up. It feels like Symphony of the Night Lite. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while SotN would be the best Castlevania game to imitate, none of the good stuff was replicated. Not the fantastic visuals, good controls or even the hook.

Circle of the Moon features some of the more violent knockbacks in the Castlevania series.

While Circle of the Moon has its moments, and the DSS portion of the gameplay is fresh and full of experimentation, the rest of the package is passable at best. There’s more of a “been there, done that” feeling here than in any previous Castlevania title. Worth giving a chance, but be weary of the annoyances and the deja vu.

Rating: 6.3

Remember my review on PaRappa the Rapper? I went out and proclaimed that he would have been the poster boy for the Sony PlayStation, as he had class, charm and outstanding gameplay that could gather a diverse group of gamers and non gamers alike. He was more than the perfect choice to usher in a new era of gaming. Thankfully, Sony didn’t listened to that recommendation, since PaRappa the Rapper 2 on the PlayStation 2 was devoid of all the charm and good feelings you got from playing the first PaRappa the Rapper title.

That might be a little harsh. PaRappa 2 isn’t a failure at all, but just about everything you loved and adored about the first game, isn’t at the same level. Not close. The characters you run into for your rap battles, are not as likable, nor as interesting, like Guru Ant, who lacks any charm or charisma. This also includes the returning cast, including Chop Chop Master Onion, who is some love dance instructor on television, wit no kind of hook to his song. In fact, just about every song in PaRappa 2 feels too long. The lyrics are not inventive, nor are they memorable in any capacity.

PaRappa 2 actually does look a bit better than the first game, which is almost like saying this Jersey Mac Apple looks better than this Red Delicious Apple. There’s a lot more animations going on at a higher resolution, but its all 2D paper cut out characters in a somewhat 3D world. It does still look very inviting, and there’s a lot more you see in this game. But even still, when they take the game a bit away from PaRappa Town, the stages begin to look like rejected Fighter Maker 2 stages.

The lyrics are not nearly as inventive, nor charming.

Then there’s a few other little annoyances throughout the game. The little tutorial boom-box that comes out before each stage begins serves as a small practice run for the stage ahead. There is no need for this, and thankfully you can press Start and skip it. Then there’s the pointless bonus stage  at the end of every second stage you encounter. Again, there is no need for this, other to boost your points. The game its self is only eight stages long, and after the third stage, it feels like it’s actually too long. I actually wanted the game to end, since it lacks an memorable hooks or any real feeling that the first PaRappa title held.

Unfortunately, there’s one major fault to PaRappa the Rapper 2 – it’s too friggin’ easy! The first PaRappa the Rapper wasn’t the most challenging experience in the realms of gaming, but PaRappa 2 is almost as hard as hitting Play on your Blu Ray player. To further push that envelope, you have so much leeway in timing and mistakes, that you’re almost never dipped that low in your Rappin’ meter that you’re close to losing. You could even press the correct buttons out of order, within the beat parameters, and you’ll get it right a good chunk of the time. It makes me question whether the game is suck on a permanent Easy Mode.

PaRappa the Rapper 2 never challenges you until the very last stage, and even then, it's nothing complicated.

PaRappa the Rapper 2 is not a bad game per say. When compared to PaRappa the Rapper on the Sony PlayStation, it doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned along side it. As a stand alone title, PaRappa 2 suffers from two big flaws that characterize the premise of the game – uninspiring music, and gameplay that has almost zero challenge to it. This game rarely sells for over $10 used at most gaming outlets, though honestly, you might be better off using that $10 towards something with better longevity, better audio and something more challenging than tearing a hole in a piece of toilet paper.

Rating: 5.8

Being a near life long wrestling die hard, I’ve played my fair share of wrestling related video games. While the overall strides wrestling games have taken throughout the years is apparent, The early years were not so kind. The Sega 32X released WWF Raw on its system, which was a port of the 16 bit game with the same name. While the sheer simplicity of the gameplay is obvious, it’s also apparent that the 32X version makes absolutely no strides in terms of diversifying its self from its 16 bit counterpart.

Throughout most of its brief history, the 32X failed to establish any sort of concrete advantages over the Super Nintendo, nor its own Sega Genesis. WWF Raw helps illustrate this fact. Take a look below — one picture is a screen cap of the 32X version of WWF Raw, and the other is a screen cap of the same game on the Super Nintendo. Can you tell which is which?

Can you answer the $64,000 question?

If you were able to choose correctly, you’ll also notice the fact that the differences between both versions are so minute, that you’d be hard pressed to ever consider the 32X a proper 32 bit system or add on. Visually, it’s a lazy port, with not enough to enhance the look on its 16 bit boost over from the 16 bit consoles. I mean, for its time it’s not too bad of a game to look at, but with a technological leap, you’d think many aspects would be cleaned up and enhanced a bit. At least selecting a wrestler is slightly quicker on the 32X as opposed to the somewhat slow character select on the Super Nintendo.

Wrestler entrance themes sound like they were simplified on the 32X. The Super Nintendo had some great MIDI type versions of wrestler entrance themes, making it feel like the effort given was legitimate. The 32X version on the other hand, sounds more dummy-down, and a bit lazy. While it still sounds good, with a couple of themes sounding better on the 32X (Owen Hart for example), it’s a clear downgrade from the 16 bit version. The sound effects do sound cleaned up enough to make it sound better than the Super Nintendo version, with the crowd sounding like an actual crowd, although their volume never changes.

Doink the Clown -never has there been a character portrayed by so many different wrestlers!

What matters most is how the game plays, and they both play exactly the same. There’s not vertical running so most of what you do will be left to right running and walking up and down with zero interaction with the ropes above or below you. You have a very limited number of attacks both grappling and striking wise. Signature moves look impressive for its time, and other than a wrestlers look, that’s the only real way you can tell the difference between them.

When it comes to WWF Raw on the Super Nintendo and the 32X, your gameplay experience will be about the same. But if you are looking for a leap forward by playing the 32X version, you’ll be quite disappointed. With a better sounding entrance theme package, the Super Nintendo barely edges out the 32X version. If you want a worth playing wrestling game, pick up Pro Wrestling for its simplicity, and because of STAR MAN!

....Hey yo.

SNES Rating: 5.7
32X Rating: 5.6

With the barrage of Mega Man reviews lately (not to mention in the coming weeks), it’s sort of reinvigorated my love and admiration for the series, no matter how feeble-minded some of the titles were (Mega Man 5) or how the reinvention fell flat on its face (Mega Man 8). Last year, Capcom released Mega Man 9, complete with old school graphics, 8 bit sound and music, yet the same tight and immensely satisfying gameplay the Mega Man series has been known for. The problem? It was a lot more difficult than any Mega Man title before it, due to a lot of artificial methods of death (pitfalls aplenty, instant-kill spikes being a little too prominent, as well as some lackluster character designs/powers) . While this new release was indeed an entertaining blast from the past, the difficulty really cramped down on the overall enjoyment, not to mention the overly yawn-inducing bosses and powers.

Just recently, Capcom decided to tap back into the proverbial cow and milk us another title, with Mega Man 10. While the previous installment reintroduced us to the blue bomber, as well as introduce a whole new generation to what a real challenge in video games looks like (albeit a bit too extreme compared to the older titles), Mega Man 10 is that title I have been waiting for since the third installment, for better or for worse.

A lot of the difficult bits are done in an intelligent manner, although there are still the instant-death scenarios, though not as prevalent as previous installment.

There’s been three sticking points that have pulled the series down into a slow and steady form of mediocrity — the once mighty musical presentation, boss names as well as their powers, and stage designs. Mega Man 9 didn’t fare overly well in these departments, with certain portions of certain stages directly ripped off from previous Mega Man titles (Splash Woman’s bubble platform segment first appeared in Mega Man 5 during Wave Man’s stage, with seemingly copied death spike placements, bubble platform placements, etc.) With Mega Man 10 however, all three of these stumbling blocks have been rebuilt, creating a solid foundation to the game as a whole. Lets take a look at why each of these three aspects are better than anything the series has seen since Mega Man 3 or 4:

The Music

With each stage, there seems to be a much more dedicated focus on making the music more prominent than it has been over the years. Mega Man 5 – 9 really didn’t grab me in any way, shape or form. It felt as if the devs were going through the motions after Mega Man 4, just for the sake of making more money, and that’s not just based upon the musical composition. As pleasing as Mega Man 9 was at times, the music really wasn’t anything special. In Mega Man 10 however, while it’s not as powerful and lasting as Mega Man 2 and 3, it’s definitely the best since those two titles. The boss select screen sounds a bit subdued, though has that feeling like you’re making a tough decision as to who to chase after next. Selecting the boss, you’ll be treated to a familiar remix of previous post boss selection music, which sounds  impressive as an 8 bit composition can.

Each stage from there on in does its best to provide something fitting to either the boss of the stage, the setting of the stage, or both. Solar Man stands out as not only the best stage theme in the game, but one of the best in the series, providing some wicked 8 bit beats and giving you a sense of hot action coming towards you soon, which is fitting since Solar Man’s stage is the token fire stage of Mega Man. Boss battles have a heightened sense of urgency as well, though not as poignant as even Mega Man 4, but much better than the five games after it. Top to bottom, it’s the best soundtrack since Mega Man 3, which is a compliment held in high regards.

These large ice bricks break after two hits, or after you jump on them twice. Watch how you traverse through this stage!

The Bosses

The boss robots of the Mega Man franchise have had quite an unusual history. The first two titles contained creatively named bosses (for what their powers were, not necessarily just their name alone), as well as some powers that seemed to have fit each boss, their personality and their theme to a tee. Mega Man 3 started showing a noticeable trend with the powers and a bit with the name selection being rather dry and uninspiring, whereas Mega Man 4 began the apparent downward spiral of the famed franchises boss robots. Mega Man 9 didn’t necessarily contain the most sensational set of bosses and powers either, even with the first “female” boss being introduced. Seems like this time around, Capcom really thought hard about how to present each robot, as well as their powers.

The result? Some clever takes on old gimmicks, as well as a few new robots that, although they don’t necessarily fit the bill as evil robots, the “story” helps formulate an appropriate reason as to why such robots exist. Sorta. You have some original takes on the tired and true elemental bosses (Pump Man has a water pump head and a water shield, however the shield can absorb up to six projectile hits, so long as the spinning barrier hits the projectile its self, not to mention you can shoot off your shield in a rotary-like blast off). Then you have some original designs that work well (Blade Man with his blade hands and blade head that he uses to his advantage during the battle). You even have some bosses that sound absolutely idiotic on paper, but deliver in game (Sheep Man, although he’s just an electric boss modeled into something totally original). Each of these bosses have an outstanding character design, going above and beyond previous Mega Man titles. Chill Man looks like a robotized version of Mr. Freeze, and ends up being one of the coolest boss models ever (no pun intended).

Strike Man -- combined with his themed stage and backgrounds, he feels nearly as creditable as some of the Mega Man 3 bosses.

The Stages

For the most part, after the third installment, Capcom really didn’t put much effort into having a stage that properly fit the boss at the end of it. Mega Man 10 has some of the more inventive stage layouts and interactive stages than previous titles. Nitro Man’s stage is a stand out for its constant use of speeding trucks that you have to nimbly hop onto, and either stay on them to traverse through the section quickly, or hop off to avoid being thrown into instant-death spikes (which all have placements that don’t negatively impact or impede your progress, for the greater majority of it all). It’s clever in the way that you can cut down your time in the stage significantly if you know how to and when to hop on and off the truck. Commando Man has a few portions of the level where a giant sand avalanche will try to push you off screen and into a pit or instant-death spike. You can escape these death traps by standing nest to a raised ledge to give you a protective wall from the push, or Rush Jet by as fast as your Jet can go. Chill Man has portions of the stage that break away when jumped on twice or hit with a projectile twice, making for some slippery travels. Even without these newer gimmicks or rehashed gimmicks, certain stages fit the look of the boss to a tee, such as Strike Man with his stadium-like background, playing off the fact that Strike Man throws what looks like baseballs mixed with Pokeballs at you.

A unique twist to Nitro Man's stage are the speeding trucks that you need to jump on top of, and either ride them a short distance, or jump off them.

Everything in-between has been left untouched, or tuned to the players advantage. Once again Mega Man is without his charged Mega Buster and slide maneuvers, but you’ll hardly miss them, as most encounters are tuned to these omissions. You can play as Proto Man through each stage just like Mega Man, complete with the omitted Mega Buster and slide moves, although he cannot take damage well whatsoever. If you want to play Hard Mode off the bat, play through the game as Proto Man. The story is the throw away nonsense that the franchise has been known for, involving a robot virus affecting robots and driving some crazy, though a typical third act awaits you. The game is short, but then again, the franchise has never been known for its high playtime, even with such titles as Mega Man 4, where you had to complete two moderately short end castles.

There’s a minor control issue with the Wii version, thanks to button placements on the Wiimote. You’ll oftentimes encounter moments where your weapons will change over to the next one in stock, without any conscious effort on your part in activating this changeover. This is thanks to the placements of the A and B buttons. During the heat of battle, you occasionally hit one of these buttons and throw off your momentum, with some unfortunate deaths occurring every so often thanks to this mishap. If you have a Classic Controller, take advantage of it and don’t bother with the Wiimote. If you do not possess a Classic Controller and have to make due with the Wiimote, just be aware that your thumb might hit the A button and change your weapon during the heat of the moment (thanks to the minuscule d-pad), or the way you handle the Wiimote in general will trigger a weapon change from the….trigger.

Finally, you have your in-game achievement system, similar to the one found in the previous installment. While they really don’t add anything of importance, they are a reason for perfectionists to come back and play the game repeatedly in order to obtain every single one of these achievements. It’s a nice addition regardless, as it shows that Capcom went the extra mile to lengthen the experience in more ways than one.

Chill Man -- an elementary design, yet looks quite bad ass.

Even without an achievement system, Mega Man 10 manages to hook you in with its clever stage layouts, creative bosses with more thought given to their powers and designs, and a commendable soundtrack. If you’ve never played a Mega Man title, what you’ll find with Mega Man 10 is an old school romp that will put your hand-eye coordination to the test, and provide you with an example of how enjoyable the 2D platforming genre was during the NES days. The game never gets overbearingly difficult, but will definitely challenge you. If you find the game to be a bit too hard on you, try playing on Easy Mode, where instant death is mostly negated. Mega Man 10 has the honor of being considered one of the best Mega Man titles ever, with a masterful blend of entertainment, challenge and high replay value. That’s something most recent big budget blockbusters seem to lack these days. It’s a $10 game — one of the biggest deals this generation thus far. Kudos to Capcom for finally giving the series a proper and thorough revival, while retaining the original look and feel that made this series so endearing in the first place.

Rating: 8.9

Batman has had a bit more luck in the video game world than most other super heroes. Batman on the NES didn’t follow the first Batman movie completely, but was a challenging and extremely gratifying game. You can view my review on Batman Returns at THIS link. There were a few snafu’s along the way, most notably Batman: Dark Tomorrow on the Xbox, which was nearly unplayable thanks to a god awful control and camera scheme. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a truly good Batman game, with the fond memories of the NES and SNES games seeming like nothing more than a tease for older gamers such as myself. When will I be able to take the caped crusader for a brand new adventure, one that doesn’t suck?

Enter Batman Arkham Asylum. Enter, and you’ll never want to leave!

Mark Hamill reprises his role as the Joker, spearheading an audio performance rarely seen in video games.

Rocksteady developed a brand new story, with no relation to the comic series nor any movie release. Featuring the voices of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill from Batman: The Animated Series, the story, featuring Joker escaping captivity and taking over Arkham Asylum, flows to a near flawless pace. The voice overs throughout Arkham Asylum are some of the strongest you’ll ever hear in a video game, with the exception of a masked thug here and there. It perfectly sets the mood, and brings out the story in a more memorable way, offering a myriad of different emotions throughout your adventure.

As you try to take down the Joker, you encounter quite a significant amount of Batman’s rogue gallery, from the bubbly Harley Quinn, to the man that once broke Batman’s back, Bane, and so on. There are random ski masked gang members thrown into the mix, a ton of sneaking around and some hand to hand action to be had. Dispatching those no named thugs can be done in multiple ways. You can sneak in and silent take-down a lone thug, glide take-down, or just jump into a pile of enemies and take them out all at once. Combat is so seamless and silky smooth, that it’s the ultimate definition of poetry in motion. You can attack with one button, hit another to throw out a stun, attack another enemy once the first is down, parry and counterattack when an enemy gets a spider sense looking alert above them, and so on. It does take just a little bit to get fully accustomed to the system, but if you need to take multiple enemies out at the same time, the combat system is at least fully competent and quite satisfying.

Arkham Asylum has been carefully detailed in every aspect, from Batman's outfit, right on through to the environments around you.

Fighting bosses, however, is a completely different beast. There’s a bit of strategy needed to get through boss encounters. Scarecrow has some Metal Gear Solid-like sneaking portions, where you have to avoid a lot of creepy things, while Bane requires dodging, batarangs and quick attacks and evasions. Each boss fight is a different experience, and pushes the envelope of creativity and gratification. After beating these bosses, you unlock more of the story progression, which leads to either enough experience points to “buy” new skills, or coming across new sub weapons, which can help open up more of the game. A lot of Arkham Asylum is not directly available to you, but finding some of the sub weapons, like the Bat Claw, which pulls open grates that blocks your progression, help unlock more of the island.

Arkham Island, Batman, Gordon and every enemy you encounter look incredibly detailed. The details all around you is beyond stunning, with excellent shading, tons of minuscule details abound and some of the best character models seen in a video game. It’s one gorgeous game all around. Every attack, location and enemy looks painstakingly detailed in ways that most other games could never have dreamed to reach before it.

While the main story has a good length to it, and there’s really no way to plow through the game, there’s still quite a few goodies to keep you coming back for more, even if you defeated the main game. There’s 240 Riddler Trophies hidden around Arkham Asylum, which in its self unlocks little goodies here and there, as well as lots of different things that add life to the world. You can find Patient Interview tapes, getting a better clue at the mental state of mind of each villain being interviewed, Character Bios of the various people, friend of foe, that you may come across, and so on. There’s a lot to experience in Arkham Asylum, and you’ll appreciate every little tidbit you come across and learn.

The combat system feels a bit clunky at first, but after a few battles, it actually functions exceptionally well, and compliments the gameplay in all the right ways.

There are a few bright lights that blind the bat somewhat. First, be patient with the early hour of the game. It’s heavy on story building, and the story is captivating, with an emphasis on getting accustomed to your attacks, how to get around and how to sneak around, by and to enemies. There’s also an overall emphasis on stealth and detective work, in the form on deciphering puzzles, finding clues and looking around your environment to see what can or can’t be used to your advantage. One thing that aids you with this, is something that puts a lot of the game into easy mode – Detective Mode. This lets you see areas highlighted in orange that you can interact with in some form or another. This also lets you see enemies through walls, making it easier to sneak up on then,, find high ground to pass them or get the drop on them. This really dummies down a significant portion of the game if you abuse it, though not everything is revealed to you through this vision mode.

Although Arkham Asylum is a visual marvel, there are a couple of minor oddities that come up. For one, the rag-doll like physics when defeating a normal thug. Occasionally, they just fall over and drop is some uncharacteristic ways, almost defying any sort of laws of physics. The other minor oddities has been seen before in a couple of other games, namely Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune — there’s too much of a gleam on a lot of the environment pieces, as well as some of the characters faces. It’s a bit more of an eyesore in Arkham Asylum than Uncharted for the simple fact that this is supposed to be a dark, grimy and gritty setting, and the gloss and shine detracts from this on occasions.

Nevertheless, there’s a ton to love about Batman Arkham Asylum, and not much to really be dissatisfied with. This is as close to being Batman as any of us will ever get, without having your underwear outside our pants. An epic story, commendable voice acting and scripting, a fully realized world and plenty to experience during and after the main story help propel Batman Arkham Asylum to heights never seen before in regards to comic book related video games. A definite “must play” if you still have not had a chance to get your hands on this beauty.

Rating: 9.4

I never had the privilege of owning a Sega Saturn until 2008. With this, I missed out of a number of key 2D fighting titles done right. Thanks to the extra memory, the Sega Saturn was able to pump out Capcom fighting games with just about arcade perfection, while the Sony PlayStation suffered from many limitations. One of my all time favorite arcade fighting games, Marvel Superheroes, was ported onto the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. With the memory limitations of the PlayStation, does the game still hold up well enough to the point where the detrimental do not outweigh the fun?

With most Capcom fighting games on the PS1, animation is removed and sometimes backgrounds are a bit simplified in terms of animations or scope. Marvel Superheroes manages to retain a faithful enough feeling in terms of looks and fluidity. Some backgrounds were dummy-down, like Hulk’s amusement park stage. There’s no type of animation or movement from the Ferris wheel in the background. Some of the changes really do not impact me that much, as the gameplay is what hooked me in hardcore for a long long time. Animation wise, while it’s not choppy, it’s not arcade perfect. It moves well enough, and the characters all look as colorful and comic book like as they did in the arcade.

Most of the characters featured in MSH took part in the battle with Thanos in The Infinity Gauntlet #4 & 5. Some, like Psylocke, were just thrown in for the sake of saving time and not putting in major characters, like Silver Surfer, or Thor.

Controls are about as good as they get with this type of game. They feel faithful enough, and the PS1 controller handles movement and attacks well. Nothing will ever replace an arcade cabinet and those beautiful controls, however Capcom still managed to make the controls work as a whole. The refining of the air combo and chain combo systems served as the launchpad of such classics as X-Men vs. Street Fighter, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

What helped give Marvel Superheroes the most innovation from the other Capcom fighters, was loosely basing the story around the Infinite Gauntlet saga. Thanos obtains six gems that help to complete the mastery of absolutely anything in the universe. Those gems are Time, Space, Power, Soul, Reality and Mind. But throughout the game, you fight characters holding one of these gems, sans Mind. Pick up a gem from your opponent and activate them with a quarter circle back and all three punches. Each gem has a different power. Soul heals you slowly for about 5-7 seconds, Time makes you move and attack faster, space provides super armor (two hits before you can be stopped and slowed down) and so on. Each character has their own specific gem that they receive an added advantage with, like Magneto gaining a force-field with Space, and Psylocke gaining two clones to fight with her when using Time. The system worked so well, and added a layer of depth to the game that I feel worked better than partner assists in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

MSH also ushered in the era of air combos, giving guys like Justin Wong more ways to own you ten ways from Tuesday.

Audio wise is where things start to turn south. The voices sound like they were recorded in mono, totally dislodging its self from the cleaner sounding music, although the music its self is not really memorable. Sound effects also lack somewhat. While they don’t sound like the were recorded in mono, the power behind it is not there anymore. To begin with, MSH never had anything that memorable, or to be quite honest, good. So the home port was faithful to that degree, but sound samplings don’t sound as good.

There’s also a bit of slowdown when there’s a lot going on, or with both characters up in each others faces, attacking each other. If you have the game speed set to normal, often times it feels unplayable, because the game moves at such a slow pace. Put it on Turbo and although there are still some slowdown pockets here and there, it doesn’t hamper the action as much as if you had left it on Normal. The load times are a bit painful though. Between fights and even between the end of a fight and your little victory spiel.

Finally, while I do appreciate the character selection, and although most move commands are similar to each character, MSH could have benefited immensely from four more characters, tops. I was a HUGE fan of the Infinity Gauntlet series, but I don’t once ever remember seeing Psylocke, Juggernaut or even Magneto is the pivotal battles against Thanos for control of the Infinity Gauntlet. The use of stock characters was a massive letdown, as Capcom missed out on adding some of the heavyweights into the game. I don’t remember Thor being a minor character in the battle with Thanos, same with Silver Surfer, who nearly stole the gauntlet from Thanos in issue four. I can understand recycling characters from X-Men: Children of the Atom, but hell, if you wanna use stock characters, put Cyclops in the game. He was very much visible in that battle with Thanos, and was in the previous Capcom Marvel game.

Stunning Thanos in Marvel Superheroes -- not an easy thing to do!

While the omissions are disappointing, to say the least, and there are a number of technical faults, Marvel Superheroes is still a great game, and a lot of fun. The game holds a special meaning to me, as I was one of the people responsible for its creation. No lie. Many years ago, while the Infinity Gauntlet comic series was wrapping up, I had filled out one of those Capcom suggestion cards from a copy of Street Fighter 2: Turbo for the Super Nintendo, and suggested that they’d make a fighting game based off of the Infinity Gauntlet series. Years later, my suggested looked to have been taken. So for all those that enjoyed the game, whether it was the PlayStation, Saturn or arcade version, you’re welcome!

Rating: 7.4

Sometimes, the biggest successes are met with the most humbling of beginnings. This is especially true for the gaming industry. Some companies take part in some big time stinkers, yet some how have a hand at creating some of the most beloved creations in gaming. That’s why when I saw that

had a hand in developing

I had to punch myself in the face a few times to make sure I wasn’t living out a bad dream.

I need to get this out of the way before I proceed – I really, really like Starcraft. I think Diablo 2 is brilliant. Warcraft 3 is sheer genius. On the other side of the spectrum, Superman is well loved by so many. I thought the Death of Superman series and Funeral For a Friend stories were well done, and the Reign of the Supermen was interesting. One would think that combining the mastery of Blizzard, with such a memorable storyline such as the Death of Superman, you would get a great, yet predictable game. Boy, was I wrong. So, so wrong.

I don’t even know where to begin with this. The low volume, repeated use of the music? The repetitive use of thugs? Said thugs with names that defy all notions of creativity (you fight a enemy with a chainsaw named….Chainsaw)? The fact that a guy named Chainsaw, who wields a chainsaw, can HURT Superman with the chainsaw? I mean, come on now. Don’t tell me that in the 16 bit era, no one, especially Blizzard, was creative enough to give Superman a health and damage system that doesn’t decimate everything we’ve known and loved about Superman for a half century.

If only this game was called The Death of Superman, then we'd be spared 75% the subsequent drivel.

You often find yourself getting pummeled constantly, since enemies seem to have a priority when it comes to exchanging blows. Aligning yourself properly so that you can punch an enemy before they can hit you, is next to impossible. What’s worse is if you lose all your lives at a boss, even if they need just one more hit to be defeated, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the stage. Some of these stages are not that long, but given the sheer monotony of the scenery, music and enemy types, it’s almost a legalized form or torture.

You start off the first couple of levels as Superman, trying to catch up to Doomsday, who seems to be so powerful, even the Justice League couldn’t stop him. Ultimately, Superman and Doomsday “kill” each other (don’t even say that’s a spoiler!) Soon after, four other characters appear, claiming to be Superman, or trying to fill the void from his death. All four play exactly the same, with different super moves and slightly altered attacks. The only thing that breaks the thick layer of monotony, is the beginning of the third stage, where you play as the Cyborg Superman, in a flying stage. It’s simple, deviates from the norm, and no where as boring as the rest of the game.

Is there any reason to play The Death and Return of Superman? Not unless you want to see how unimaginative Blizzard was in their early years. Sub par looks, nauseatingly repetitious gameplay even for the beat em up genre, barely audible music, lack of any checkpoint system and characters with no real authenticity prove to be deadlier than kryptonite.

The double meaning will soon become apparent.

Rating: 3.6

Capcom has always been a multi-genre mega-power. Street Fighter owned the fighting genre, Mega Man was a darling in the 2D platformer world, and Final Fight set the standard for the beat em up genre for many years to come. As with Street Fighter 2 and Mega Man, there were many sequels and spin offs, trying to capitalize on the formers success. Although at its core, most of these games in the genre were painfully similar in terms of basics, each game had its own distinct feeling. There were countless titles in this genre, including The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, a six player X-Men machine, Alien vs Predator, The Punisher, and so on. The latter title, The Punisher, was one that flew under the radar of most fans to the genre. While it’s not terrible, its also nothing special from the other thousand games in the genre.

In terms of innovation, Punisher wins no awards. With so many different versions of the same structure, each game had to rely on the subtle tweaks here and there, and the characters you played as. Playing as the Punisher meant you had to be controlling a bad ass character, with a good arsenal and taking out some big named crime figures. When it comes to the arsenal, you have more melee weaponry than ballistic. You have bats, knives, axes and so on, which only last a few hits tops. When you do get a weapon, whether it be an uzi or a machine gun, you’re severely limited ammo wise, not to mention having some pitiful damage overall. Every so often, you come across a section where you can pull your gun out and can shoot your enemies with an unlimited supply of bullets and no reloading. Why does this happen? Why can’t I pull that gun out at any given moment? Also, why does it take 12 bullets to kill random thugs?

Enjoy using your gun freely, as the game dictates when you're allowed to pull out your infinite ammo handgun and unleash hell. What?

Why are there no mentions of any Punisher figures outside Kingpin? As you progress further in, there’ still no other mention of any of the Punisher’s list of enemies. Instead, I get an eight foot tall red robot sent by Kingpin, to destroy me. Now I’ve read a few Punisher comics, watched the movies, and so on. Not once did I see Punisher take on an eight foot red robot with his bare fists.

Graphically, it’s far from arcade perfect, but decent enough. Backgrounds beg for more detail, although each character looks good enough. Everything involving the audio is lacking. The voiced grunts get tiresome quickly, and the music lacks any life to it. You can play with your TV muted and not miss a thing.

If you go into this game with any sort of expectations, you will be disappointed. As with most of the other million titles in this genre, it’s a good way to waste a couple of hours, but nothing you’ll be coming back for. Playing with a friend always adds to the experience with games like these, but even they’ll agree that there are much better games you could be playing.

"Like any Capcom, you are perfect!"

Rating: 6.1