Splosion, Batman, Burn Notice and Chopped
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Writing: Work on the new book is getting back up to speed. Currently working on building a romantic connection between characters and eagerly awaiting feedback from the wife.
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Also, random writing-related thought: one of the best things about writing fiction is being able to take someone that you dislike and have nasty things happen to them on the page. Petty, perhaps, but satisfying in a certain way. Nyah.
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Games: Just finished ‘Splosion Man and I've got nothing but positive things to say about it. The review was submitted to GameCritics a few days ago so you should be able to read it soon, but it was just a fantastically polished title, and absolute fun from start to finish. (In between all of the incredibly frustrating parts, anyway…)
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Totally loved it. One of the best things? The ending montage after the final boss was beaten is completely insane and awesome at the same time. I don't want to spoil it for anyone because it's a great reward, but I will say the words Live Action Footage.
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I also had a chance to play the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo currently available for download. The title is obviously getting a lot of attention for a number of reasons, a primary one being that it looks like it's going to turn out pretty decently -- an achievement considering that the majority (if not all) previous attempts to bring the Caped Crusader to consoles have been trash.
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I was fairly stoked to give it a whirl, but I have to be honest and say that the demo left me wanting… I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it just felt off. Although the playable section is fairly brief, it seems as though there’s potential to have the combat become repetitive. Besides that, lurking through ventilation shafts and grappling onto conveniently-located gargoyles to gain a height advantage felt a little disingenuous. And certainly not passing judgment on it and I really do hope that it ends up being as good as its PR machine wants me to believe, but after getting that short span of hands-on, I'm feeling a little cautious.
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TV: The wife and I caught the season finale of Burn Notice on USA. (Hooray for DVRs.) I'm not going to say that this series is high drama, or that it breaks new ground in any way, but the cast is extremely likable and each episode does a great job of delivering the kind of action that used to be quite commonplace on network television.
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Reminiscent of a mashup of Miami Vice, Magnum P.I. and, I dunno… maybe Remington Steele or the A-Team, superspy Michael Westen and company deliver a sort of shoot-him, blow-that-up comfort food that I'm only too happy to consume. Besides, it's got Bruce Campbell… I'd watch it just for him even if it wasn't as entertaining as it is.
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Another recent addiction of mine has been Chopped on Food Network. Each episode, chefs are presented with a black picnic basket filled with ingredients that ostensibly don't go together.
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Things like bacon, chocolate and oranges, or tilapia, artichokes, and macaroni & cheese. These chefs have an extremely tight time limit to come up with something that's creative and tasty, and watching them sweat it out while they grope for ideas is infinitely entertaining. Doubly so, since I fancy myself a devotee of the ‘cooking with what we have’ school.
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I've been able to pull together some pretty tasty dinners out of what most people would say was a fridge full of nothing, and whenever I see what these people get in their baskets, my brain goes into overdrive coming up with recipes of my own. It may be slightly less interesting to people who aren't foodies, but personally, I think the show is pure gold.
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Posts
My first comment on your blog.
As you know, i have lots of love for Splosion man, i have to agree its rather excellent, and that's really an understatement.
Arkham Asylum i was really looking forward to, you follow me on twitter (i think) so you probably know of my love of comics, and a game based more on the comic batman rather than any other version - yes please.
However. as soon as i saw the first combat trailers i had great doubts. It reminded me of Watchmen, End is Nigh from the off. Repetitive combat is a game killer for me. If anything will save Arkham for me it will be the detective mode, really like that idea. Nothing new, but i like it with Batman added.
also the original animated series voices is a big bonus for me.
Anyway, my overall point - I agree entirely on these two games. Lets hope our fears on Arkham are proven completely wrong.
I played the demo for Arkham, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The game wasn't really on my radar at all, but the demo seemed rather well-designed on pretty much all the axes I look for.
Maybe it's because I had ignored the game and had zero expectations (not really a big Batman fan) but Arkham seemed to me like the first game I'd ever played where you, ya know, acted sort of like Batman. It felt like a stealth/detective game with some combat thrown in, which felt pretty nice to me. It seems like the closest thing there is to a "super hero simulator" for Batman like Spider-Man 2 was for Spider-Man.
I suppose it depends on what you want/expect out of a Batman game, but Arkham seemed like the first game ever to feature the character that felt like it deserved even 5 minutes of my time... but then again, I tend to like any game where you can sneak up on people.
Parker> Great minds think alike, I see.
Matt> My main fear is that the devs will fall back on unimaginative/gimmicky level design and it'll be a grey hallway slog. I dunno, we'll see... my gut's just telling me that it's definitely a GameFly title.