Brain Hood

When we bring the latest news from the world of gaming multimedia on our gaming blog, we consider it a duty to bring you the most unbiased opinions. We’d really like you to remember that. That’s why we tried to find any reason not to give Batman: Arkham City a perfect mark, and not because we get a thrill out of nitpicking. There’s that too, but mostly it is the duty thing.

So we went in looking for flaws, for mistakes. But hours passed and turned into days. Twenty-six hours of gameplay later, and only 67% complete by the game’s telling, we admit defeat.

You win, Rocksteady. Arkham City is perfect.

The City’s Slicker

This game, were you somehow not aware, is a direct sequel, building off of the already superlative Batman: Arkham Asylum in 2008. Essentially the entire combat system and most of the gadgets from the original make a return, immediately available to the player from the start. Still, improved AI makes things a bit harder. In return, however, each room has ever more ways to sneak around, unseen, picking off foes individually. The additions to Batman’s arsenal, meanwhile, are excellent: new, expanded movements off of the stun action, a dive bomb technique while gliding, and a vastly improved grappling hook that makes slinging around the city a breeze.

And what a city it is. Arkham City is a masterpiece of art direction, bringing to life a world even more fully realized than that of Nolan’s iconic films. Every section and building is wholly unique, every alleyway bristling with the Riddler’s well-placed trophies, every street a battleground between the warring factions of supervillains in Arkham City.

Though stalking through the claustrophobic corridors of Arkham Asylum was undoubtedly fun, the player won’t feel like Batman but could be any action hero with some dazzling array of gadgets; however, in Arkham City, things were different.

Cast and Crew of Arkham City

Being Batman, however, is not so nearly as fun without his cadre of supervillains with which to contend. Arkham City, its very nature precluding any possibility of contrivance, manages to squeeze nearly every major ally and antagonist in the history of the franchise into one, glorious campaign. Revealing the specifics should be considered, of course, spoiler territory, but it’s worth mentioning that several major villains don’t even make an appearance until you tackle their particular side missions. These completely optional objectives feel so fleshed out and rich that you would be hard pressed to tell them apart from primary story missions.

The story is well deserving of the license, and opens with such production value that you wonder if you should rent out a local theater just for the experience. With regard to performance, Batman: Arkham City has brought together possibly the single finest voice acting ensemble in the history of gaming. Mark Hamill, of course, is a ludicrously talented standout as the Joker, but every voice of every villain brings with it gravitas and panache to Arkham City.

The Knight of Arkham City

While the primary campaign is more than enough, there are dozens of distractions to keep you otherwise occupied during your stay in Arkham City. There are, of course, Riddler’s brainteasers and trophies making a return from Asylum, as well a pseudo-achievement system that rewards the player well with experience, which is then used to upgrade any number of devices from Mr. Wayne’s arsenal. There are dozens upon dozens of character dossiers, stories, and various other items of bonus content unlocked constantly throughout the game.

Arkham City: The Final Verdict

Batman: Arkham City is a game so good that we’re amazed it wasn’t programmed by alien wizards. Truly, it deserves every accolade it is so sure to receive, every perfect mark it is so sure to tally.

We’ll certainly be bringing you more video game news in the future, but we’re already certain that no game review would be as effusive as the one we’ve written for Arkham City.

Uniquely, the Trauma Center franchise almost has an entire genre to itself. Seemingly content that Atlus has the ‘surgery sim cum fantastical bioterrorist soap opera’ sewn up, few developers have attempted to impinge on its territory, with DS title Lifestyle: Hospital Affairs about the only notable rival.

This may have led to Atlus taking its eye off the ball somewhat, with recent titles suffering more than many sequels from the law of diminishing returns. After all, there’s only so many times you can drain the cytoplasm, slice out the tumour, apply the gauze and rub in the antibiotic gel before the sudden need to perform CPR becomes the predictable norm rather than a shocking mid-op twist. While the games have always suffered heinous delays making their way to Europe, the fact that the still-enjoyable DS iteration Under The Knife 2 shows no sign of being localised two years after its US release perhaps tells its own story.

Sensibly, then, Atlus has decided a reboot is in order with this new Wii game, splintering the narrative into six pieces, each focusing on a different doctor and a different discipline. Gone are regulars Derek Stiles and Angie Thompson, and noticeably absent (for the most part) are epidemics of bizarre synthetic diseases. The result is the freshest Trauma title since the first Under The Knife, and perhaps the series high point to date.

Naturally, there’s still a fair bit of ‘normal’ surgery, or as normal as surgery gets when you’re controlling a red-eyed amnesiac with indie-band hair who’s currently serving a 250-year sentence for mass murder thanks to his apparent involvement in a bioterrorist attack. The mysterious CR-S01 (if CR doesn’t stand for Chiral Reaction, I’ll eat my forceps) is offered the chance to slice a mere two years from his sentence if he assists in a particularly tricky procedure that’s actually child’s play by the series’ rigorous standards. As it wouldn’t be much of a game if he immediately returned from whence he came, he naturally stays on for a few more ops, each gaining in intensity until you’re defibrillating an eight-year-old with the FBI about to burst through the ER door.

Paramedic Maria Torres gets arguably the trickiest tests, including one blistering mission where you have to keep several patients alive until backup arrives.

There’s nothing here that will be unfamiliar to franchise vets, but the controls feel more instant and precise than ever. Additional icons over wounds act as helpful reminders of which tool to pick up next, eliminating the awkward fumbling that could occur in the previous games when you forgot whether this was the GUILT strain that liked to lacerate internal organs, or the one which liked to disappear and cause random tumours. It’s as much fun as it ever was, with the frustration factor significantly lessened. A good start.

After Sakura Wars: So Long My Love, paramedic Maria Torres is the second feisty and shouty Latina with enormous bosoms I’ve played as this year. Her First Response procedures are essentially surgery combined with plate-spinning as you switch between patients at the scene of explosions, crashes and collapsed Ferris wheels. With a limited toolset you often need to improvise, jamming biros down throats, applying tourniquets to stem bleeding, and cutting victims’ jeans off to reveal that yes, they have got huge pieces of metal sticking out of their legs.

You’ll occasionally need to talk to patients to find out where they’re hurting, but often they merely shout that their friend/daughter/second cousin is trapped in the rubble, thereby giving you another ball to juggle but an extra chance to improve your score. It’s a real balancing act, perhaps slightly tougher than most disciplines, and certain to appeal to those who’ve aced the ultra-hard X missions in the previous games.

Our sister publication, Edge, does not hand out the perfect 10 scores lightly. In fact Bayonetta’s was only the 12th in the mag’s 17-year history. But now Super Mario Galaxy 2 has scored the 13th.

It seems we can put away any fears of Super Mario Galaxy 2 being merely more of the same, or a lazy, Yoshied-up rerun of the last game. According to Edge, the game is bursting with ideas and at least as inventive as the first Galaxy.

‘This is a game that refuses to bore you, that can take you to the 60-star mark before asking you to do the same thing twice’, says the review, describing SMG2′s packed idea bag as ‘gratuitous’.

And those who complained that the first game was too easy? It seems you’ll have reasons to be happy too, as according to Edge ‘it’s hard, but only for the best reasons.’

And even more promisingly, they go on to explain that the difficulty boost is ‘a by-product of the new knots in which the designers want to tie your brain’. We’re excited. We were excited before, but now we’re really excited. Check out Edge Online a now for the full Super Mario Galaxy 2 review, and join us in our childlike giggling.

Remember back to E3 2005 when the Wii really made its debut? And remember all the marvelous colors Nintendo first showed?

And yet we in the US have been stuck with plain old white for nearly four years. And even though white consoles historically dominate we have been craving more diversity in the USA when it comes to our Wiis. Both Japan and Europe got their hands on the sexy black Wii last year, and at long last it seems like North Americans will get a taste.

According to a report, several retailers, including GameStop and Target, indicate they’ll be getting a black Wii bundle that includes the console, a matching black Remote, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Motion Plus packed in. Many have been anticipating this, as black versions of the of the Remote and Wii Motion Plus have been available stateside for a long time, so it would only follow that we would get the console eventually. Rumors say it will launch May 9, a Sunday, which also is very believable, as Nintendo times most of its major releases for the Sabbath. Expect to hear something official soon.