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Super Mario 64

Man, this was so darned impressive when you first saw it in 1996. I mean I, of course, but I'm imagining you as well. Video games had always been in 2 dimensions. There were cheats around this, some parallax scrolling and modes 6 and 7, etc., but here at last was a fully-immersible world.

In retrospect it's easy to see the game's deficiencies. Mario is sort of a floaty, weird thing to control again and the tightness and naturalness to the controls wouldn't be perfected until Super Mario Galaxy. The graphics are blocky, and the camera is something to wrestle with. But despite all this you still get a sense of freedom with Mario (culminating in him being able to fly around the castle at the very end, similar to how Bros. 3 and World understood flying is the greatest) and the level design is excellent. There is challenge, mystery, and above all variety in all the different areas. The developers were smart to also figure out that you could re-use certain levels if you changed the nature of the goals, in this case in order to win a certain star. On the first play-through of a level reaching the top of a mountain might be the goal. Next, it would be discovering all the hidden coins throughout the level (similar, but a lot more enjoyable than the tedious exercise from every level of Yoshi's Island). Then you might have to go into the mountain and win a race sliding down a slope. There really was a lot of variety to the stages, and lots of hidden surprises that followed up the best level design ideas from Bros. 3 and World, but now in a 3D environment.

Super Mario Sunshine

An improved Super Mario 64. The manipulation of the water sprayer/jetpack Mario used in this game might be awkward to some, but I found it a way to help facilitate movement again, always the most important aspect to the Mario series. Mario could spray bad guys and gunk, hover, rocket into the air on jet streams, etc. The camera and controls are tightened up compared to the N64 game, and the tropical settings complete with people to interact with lends to the idea that you're running around a real colourful world that exists. Yoshi, similarly tropical themed and always colourful, is added in a setting that makes sense but the game doesn't know how to properly make use of. Once again mentioning ideas that would be implemented in full later, some of the best stages in this game are ones that remove you from the storyline and setting and place you in a weird area suspended in space where you must navigate moving platforms. This is almost precisely what Super Mario Galaxy would end up being based around, and there they realised to go all the way and actually make the setting outer space.

New Super Mario Bros.

All this time, all this technical innovation, and people still played the good old 2D Mario platformers. It doesn't seem like it, but the last 2D game where you actually controlled Mario (not Yoshi or Wario) was 1992 with Land 2. Nintendo didn't have Miyamoto take part in this production, and again I don't think this makes for any less of a game. It's fun, it plays like a Mario Bros. or Land game only with polygons instead of sprites. This both improves the graphics and makes it kind of weird, as things are still a little blocky at times. There are special items to collect just like in Yoshi's Island, but now thankfully there are only three in each level, which is a sane number.

The design and mechanics to the levels are largely the same. The biggest difference I noticed is more rounded and circular ground, and sometimes this ground rotates like it's a giant wheel turning in the Earth. There are a lot of these, and it's surreal and fun. There are great new powerups, including the mega mushroom that grows Mario into a giant where he tears up a level, and the mini mushroom where you can skip across water like a pebble and float up into tiny pipes to reach new areas. All in all, it's just a great 2D Mario game. A few new ideas, but nothing innovative.

Super Mario World
The things that applied to the last game mostly apply to World. There are more colours, more enemies and faster movement, but the ideas from Super Mario Bros. 3 are all present here. Flight is given even more meaning, and sometimes Mario must rely on his magic cape and ability to glide to get him through levels.



Yoshi is a great addition that was first envisioned as an ostrich as far back as Super Mario Bros., and even seen in prototypes as the enemy ostrich in Doki Doki Panic (where characters could also hitch rides on bad guys) and Kuribo's Shoe in Super Mario Bros. 3 that stomped enemies. The shoe only appeared in one level, but it left a definite mark on players and it's interesting that kids noticed its importance, as it was all essentially a prototype in practicing for Yoshi here.

Super Mario Land 2
Gunpei Yokoi takes charge over another technically impressive Gameboy game. Here the characters are bigger and more identifiable. It tries to follow the style of 3 and World, and succeeds to a large extent. But while the original Land was more dangerous and exciting, here it can't help but be a watered down version of the console games.



This game also introduces Wario, an evil Mario. It was sort of a brainless addition that makes sense ("Wa" is also a short form for "Evil" in Japanese, and has the added benefit of W being both an upside-down M and having the word "War" in it for anglophones). It's kind of weird that Wario has taken on a life of his own since then, getting more games and recognition than the character probably deserves.

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
Fractures start to appear in the Mario series. Not in its developers, but in the line itself, where Nintendo begins to see its main titles as important commodities. They are no longer pieces of software (Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2), but big summer blockbusters that must have McDonald's toys and cartoons built around them. This meant that smaller, and sometimes more experimental games using popular characters, should not be part of the main line. Capcom would learn the same lesson with Mega Man (Mega Man X and later other series), Squaresoft would learn it with Final Fantasy, and Sega would learn it with Sonic. This line of thinking has probably gone too far, with profitable characters' series fractured into tiny bits. It's only in recent years that Capcom decided to re-capture some magic and money by going back to Mega Man's regular line and make a 9 and 10 in the series, and after so many side-games and deviations Sega keeps attempting to recapture Sonic's original gameplay mojo. But I digress, we're talking about Mario.



Like the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, you can see interesting wheels turning here. Nintendo wants another profitable Mario Gameboy game. Great, but how do you not retread over Land 2, which admittedly was sort of a watered down version of the recent console games? You need some new flavour, and some new power-ups would be nice. But now it's established, Mario's a good guy and he has powers like the fire flower. If you give him significantly new gameplay mechanics kids will say it's not what Mario is supposed to do.

Wario, the villain from Land 2, was likely thrown out just as a suggestion. But suddenly possibilities, both in gameplay and marketing, open up. The game can give the player a different set of skills. While Wario jumps, his main attack is a bashing move where he rams into enemies. He also breaks down blocks, and his power ups are variations on this. Since Wario is a villain/anti hero, the game's goals can also be built differently. Here, Wario is after collecting as much wealth as possible and a magic genie at the end. It's not unlike how in the DuckTales NES game where you must make it to the end, but part of the fun is trying to become the richest duck in the world.

This game started the Wario spinoff series. Wario's avarice would be a driving force for much of it. This game isn't so interesting in itself, or even in its launching of Wario's career, but in Nintendo and the rest of the video game industry's burgeoning model of creating a lot of spinoff series and treating its core games as something special. There's also, frankly, no reason why Mario can't have any freaking power or ability or gameplay mechanic at all. But now there are certain expectations, and Nintendo isn't going to deviate from certain types of abilities Mario can gain and certain adventures he is going to have.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Speak of the devil, another spinoff game. Mario is a baby here, and if you were a fan (particularly of things like the cartoons) his and Luigi's entire previous backstory of coming from Brooklyn is thrown out the window. Huh. I know fans have tried to reconcile this, but there really is none to be made. The Mario Bros. are both Italian Americans and native to the Mushroom Kingdom at the same time for some reason.



Back to the spinoff business, the Japanese version of this game doesn't even make mention to this game being the sequel to Super Mario World. The understanding is obvious to players; it's a Mario game, and you're playing with Yoshi who was in the last Super Nintendo game, but it's not really following in the main series' mold now is it?

Miyamoto spent a long time on Super Mario World, not to mention needing to focus on other SNES games like Star Fox and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. They were all vastly different, but with Super Mario World being his first foray with the system he felt like he had missed a lot of opportunities for Mario on the console. As great as everyone thought World was, it was basically a suped-up Super Mario Bros. game. He wanted to see what the Super Nintendo could REALLY do now.

The result is Yoshi's Island. Miyamoto was largely responsible for eschewing the pre-rendered graphics that made Donkey Kong Country look so impressive and rounded. Instead, he went in the opposite direction and asked for a game that looked like it had been coloured in with crayons.

There is some serious hardware under the game's hood. Miyamoto was familiar with working with the Super FX chip, the device that made Star Fox possible. Now Nintendo had a better version with the Super FX 2. For the purposes of this game the chip enabled Yoshi to throw and bounce eggs across the screen at all sorts of angles. It also made possible for small enemies to grow huge in size and have unique movement sets, which is especially apparent in the boss fights. Having never played this game until recently it never sounded particularly impressive to me, but after playing Yoshi's Island I understand what the chip is actually doing. When watching the eggs and especially the bosses you can see fluid types of movement that is never apparent in other Super NES games. If you ever play the game, check out the boss made out of goo especially to see what I mean.

Miyamoto has ideas that germinate, and frequently technology needs to catch up to him. This was true of the idea of scrolling screens from Donkey Kong only to be fulfilled in Super Mario Bros. He knew it would be fun for Mario to ride a creature in Super Mario Bros., and movements were made in that area but only really succeeded in Super Mario World. Here, he's starting to think about movement beyond both horizontal and vertical. Eggs spew out at weird angles, and in one telling boss fight Yoshi and Mario are launched up into outer space and fight on a little circle with its own gravity. You can run left and right, but really the only movement now is that the planet rotates underneath your feet. It's a trippy experience, and oddly enough exactly what Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 would end up being based around. Since those games are so excellent it's pretty exciting to see how Miyamoto's concepts blossomed.



This game is much-loved, and perhaps I'm being a bit harsh because I only played it more recently and not as a kid, but beyond some technical innovations I do not find it significantly better than Bros. 3 or World. Throwing eggs is neat, but sort of an unruly element. There is an emphasis on collecting different items, both 5 flowers and 20 red coins for every level. There is no real distinction between these items, there are simply 25 things the game wants you to collect. You collect them to open up secret stages and provide added value to the game. Previous games had secret stages to find, but this is really a bore, and it's sad that so many games (both Mario and in general) have fallen suit with making collecting arbitrary items such a big part of playing. Before you got to explore for exploration sake, but now it's usually to fill up some item you're missing in an inventory.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Japanese One, The Lost Levels)
This is the last game I have just played. It’s the Matterhorn of the series, the ultimate challenge for Mario enthusiasts. I beat it on the Super Mario All-Stars game, which allows you to save after each level, but I’m not going to let that in any way diminish my victory!

There are some interesting, though ultimately wrong lines of thinking developers put into making this game. How do you top the previous game? A whole new experience for Mario and Luigi with all-new mechanics might defeat the purpose of a sequel. So Nintendo figured they needed a game a lot like the previous. OK. But if you make a game a lot like the previous one, different levels but ultimately the same difficulty, won’t kids feel ripped off? This poses a conundrum for Nintendo.


Bring it!

The solution is to make a game very much like Super Mario Bros., only punishingly hard. You might need to make a jump running as fast as you can, land on a single block, then leap and jump again onto a moving object. Now do this again and again, and avoid every type of bad guy and projectile the game can throw at you. That’s the main source of frustration, needing to be both fast and extremely precise. It doesn’t help that exploration can at times punish you, sending you back to the start of a level or even several worlds, and sometimes you need invisible blocks in order to reach an area. That might not sound unfair at first until you discover that the invisible block was half-way through the level, and you have now been running through an area from which there is no escape.


By the way, I beat the game without warping at all, completing every level that exists. That's dedication!

So I think this game was misguided in its approach, but I see where its assumptions lay. I also appreciate it for really training me up as a better Super Mario Bros. player now. If I go back to the original, am small, and faced with two Hammer Bros? Phssh, not a problem. You find that fraction of a second between their hammers and breeze by. After painstakingly going over Super Mario Bros. 2’s levels a player becomes very familiar with the game, having a better understanding of the mechanics and what Mario is capable of at any given moment. This game hardens you up, so when you play Super Mario Bros. its obstacles become minor nuisances you can dance around.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Western one, Doki Doki Panic)
Props to the people at Nintendo of America who said the real Super Mario Bros. 2 was too damned hard and they shouldn't subject kids in North America to it. What else you got, Miyamoto? By his own admission he has another game he worked longer and harder on, Doki Doki Panic. As Super Mario Bros. is vaguely a progression of the working-man Mario combined with Alice in Wonderland and Western fairy tales, Doki Doki Panic is vaguely 1001 Arabian Nights, complete with falling into a storybook, magic lamps and keys. Slap Mario's cast over the original characters and away you go!



Despite people talking about its differences the game shares more similarities with the Mario series proper. You run, you jump, you have ends to levels and bosses to beat. Most of the differences are just improvements, such as being able to move left. You just throw objects (most comically vegetables plucked from the ground) and throw them at bad guys is all.

But more than game mechanics, which was really the driving force for innovation in both Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2's greatest achievements are cosmetic. The Mushroom Kingdom, cute as it was, was a world of plain skies and breakable blocks. Now you have grass and waterfalls, and platforms made out of hills rather than being a bare row of blocks suspended in mid-air. There are secret caves, icy areas, whales in oceans (that spurt water from their blow-holes!), deserts and piles of sand that you dig into, and ending with a journey into the sky to face the final challenge (a concept already used in Kid Icarus and The Lost Levels, but not quite as well realised as here). In short, appearances mattered, and it changed the experience of the adventure for children.

Super Mario Land
Moving to the Gameboy now. Nintendo knew they had the "must-have" game in Tetris to entice people to buy Gameboys, but how could they show off the new standard type of game Nintendo was becoming familiar for? Shrink a Mario adventure onto the screen.
Much has been made of the fact that this is the first Mario game without Miyamoto working on it, instead being produced by Gunpei Yokoi. While Miyamoto is the artsy non-programmer, the person who asked why the screens weren't able to scroll, Yokoi was the complete opposite, the man behind the technology and coming up with ideas like the + directional pad, and the majority of the Gameboy itself.



While I love Miyamoto's best work, I think this game goes to show he doesn't always need to be present. Using Super Mario Bros. as a model, what was needed for the Gameboy was a matter of technical know-how and translations, not innovation. Mario is a bit small to accommodate the tiny screen, but the game plays just fine and images are basic enough to work. I love the flavour of this game, borrowing music and imagery from places like Egypt, Easter Island and China. The designers also figured out the lesson from games like Doki Doki Panic that appearances mattered (even on a Gameboy screen), and had Mario move around in a submarine, an airplane, and a spaceship. There's no discernible gameplay difference between these vehicles, but each new stage is a little bit of joy for young players.

Touching briefly on the story, I guess it made sense to have Mario journey to lands other than the Mushroom Kingdom. I guess this is the reason why Yokoi and the rest figured there would be a different princess in charge to rescue (Daisy). The correct realisation that kids would want to finish the game flying in a space ship naturally led to the main boss being an alien rather than Bowser or some other type of monster. Nintendo was still feeling out the Mario series, and I think at this point they might have figured they would make game after game set in different lands and with different princesses to rescue. A girl in every port for Mario. Instead, they pulled back, kind of discovering through the cartoons and merchandising that they were building a cast of loveable character not unlike Disney or Looney Tunes, and that it made more sense to plunk Princess Toadstool back into the games whether she was in charge of the lands Mario was running around or not.



Also, it's funny that Nintendo ended up deciding to make Princess Daisy Luigi's girlfriend considering the only adventure game featuring her has Mario rescuing her and no Luigi at all.

Super Mario Bros. 3
I know I'm not sticking exactly to the games' release order, but I don't care. While Nintendo's technical wizard Yokoi was heading Super Mario Land, Miyamoto was in charge of the large and colourful Super Mario Bros. 3 for television screens. This game is the series coming full-circle, with Miyamoto and Nintendo understanding they had created a popular icon for a medium like Mickey Mouse or Superman, and they knew what they were going to do with him both commercially and on the game itself.



The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was something of an experiment. It was a software upgrade (it boasted no real story context beyond, "Here's some more levels for you."), a greater challenge, and a test at what kids were looking for in sequel video games. Super Mario Bros. 3 is the real fulfillment. Mario can go anywhere on the screen. Pipes not only lead to bonus rooms with more coins, but to whole alternate paths in levels. Each world has its own exotic theme (taking cues from lessons learned in Doki Doki Panic), sometimes with their own unique mechanics such as slippery surfaces on ice or water to swim through. And then there are power ups, which give players new and exciting ways to blast through bad guys. There is even a world map, which is ultimately just gravy, but it's a fun way to immerse yourself in this world and to also plan out how you are going to tackle the game. Plus, getting to Toad Houses and opening chests is fun!



Mario and Luigi's ability to fly in this game isn't just another power like the fire flower. Nintendo realised that while the Mario games are obstacle courses to run through, what the kids are experiencing is a sense of freedom in movement. Yes, yes, you can say how shameful this is considering playing these games instructs kids to sit in front of a TV. But there are a lot of kids who don't run fast and can't jump high, who don't hit the ball every time when swinging a bat. Here in the Mushroom Kingdom, suddenly they have a sense of freedom and movement that isn't available to them in the real world. Being able to soar over the bad guys and dangerous pits is especially wonderful for players.

Last year I talked about how I had played every Legend of Zelda game. Soon after I also made big pushes and did other stupid, video game related life goals. I played every Metroid and regular Super Mario game up just before Super Mario 3D Land came out.

I want to talk about the Mario games today. If you’re not a fan of video games then this won’t mean much of anything to you. But if you’re a fan of the series I want to talk a bit about development and lines of thought to the series.

Donkey Kong
Think back to games like Pong, Asteroids and Space Invaders. One thing they all had in common was the use of a single screen. One playing field for you to get to mess around in. People talk about Shigeru Miyamoto being revolutionary and he is, though at times I think other people’s perception of his creativity is conflated. The biggest design element to Donkey Kong came about from his idea of having a little construction man climb a building. Miyamoto wanted the screen to scroll up.



This idea wasn’t even achieved in the game, but you can see the programmers’ compromise by having different screens represent Mario/Jumpman climbing higher. Other people who worked on the game said that had Miyamoto not made this a big deal, they probably would have designed the familiar first level and just left the game at that. Miyamoto’s idea for the screen to scroll would progress into other games, most notably when we get to Super Mario Bros.

Donkey Kong Jr.
A fun reversal on the original by having Mario now the antagonist. It’s essentially the same idea to the game, except now players must concentrate more on moving vertically than horizontally on platforms.



Donkey Kong 3
The star isn’t Mario (it’s the one-time “Stanley the Bug-Man”) but I’ll include it for the sake of completion. The point isn’t to get you to the top, but rather to push Donkey Kong to the top of the screen. It’s the worst of the series (not including the math game, which I have not played) but even aside just using Donkey Kong again they all make sense in trying to get something to the top of the screen.



Mario Bros.
I have never liked this game that much. While DK and Jr. were about movement and getting somewhere, this is a little battle inside a confined area. That’s not bad, except there’s little payoff to playing, no top to reach or boss to conquer. It also doesn’t help that the controls have Mario and Luigi in awkward, semi-floating jumps. I have a special fondness for Luigi's character, though, and it’s fitting how this game should actually have a point for him existing when two players can compete on-screen at the same time. When you get to Super Mario Bros., he ostensibly exists so two players can either compare scores or race to reach the end of the game by taking turns, but I don’t know of anyone who has ever played the game like that. You play that game to reach the end PERIOD, and you and a friend might as well just swap turns being Mario.




I should also mention that this game reappeared as a mini-game in Super Mario Bros. 3. There it makes a lot more sense, being a fun little diversion and a chance for you to steal special cards from the other player.

Super Mario Bros.
Something not often mentioned is that plot-wise Miyamoto and developers decided to have elements from the vastly different Mario Bros. carry into this game. Mario and Luigi might have even just finished their adventure in the sewers and have now emerged in the Mushroom Kingdom, the source of those turtles and fireballs, as well as a land filled with crazy magical green pipes.



But to the gameplay mechanics. Miyamoto now thought horizontally (for the most part) and figured it would be fun to have the background scroll so Mario and Luigi get somewhere. It’s a great idea, and suddenly the concept of a jumping obstacle course opens up. Notice however that going left, back from where you came, doesn’t matter.



I could talk about a lot of other developments (the power ups, beanstalks, the influence from Alice in Wonderland, etc.) but I just want to touch on something people usually don’t think about – the holdovers from arcade games. Despite Super Mario Bros. heralding what most video games would become (adventures with goals instead of pure survival for the sake of getting the most out of a quarter) Nintendo didn’t know it could lose some of the other trappings. Having a set number of lives (chances) is rather arbitrary, and mostly just punishes kids into playing well. The game uses scores as if they still matter. And once you finish the game you are invited to do the whole thing over on a harder setting. It’s not a really great prospect, but it’s in-keeping with arcade games where the stakes always get higher to test the player’s skill and finally kick them off the machine so the arcade cabinet can take more money.

There's recent comic news regarding DC and Alan Moore. Coincidentally, Samantha and I recently watched the Justice League Unlimited episode, "For the Man Who Has Everything." It's one of my favourites.



It's based on a 1985 Superman Annual (released the same month I was born) written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, who would work together on Watchmen the following year. It is also a great comic with great ideas.



Having watched the cartoon made me read the comic again as well. Despite how often movie or television adaptations are usually inferior to written work, and how badly Moore's works have been translated into film productions, I think the JLU cartoon version is superior to the comic in several ways. It comes down to the message and execution. For the cartoon, J. M. DeMatteis realises that the strongest message to tell is that Superman's ideal life would be a simple one where he doesn't have super powers or need to be a hero. That was the comic's starting point as well, but it deviated in wanting to show that Krypton was not all it's cracked up to be and would suck had it kept existing.

In both versions it's made clear that Superman is trapped by his own mind in idealistic fantasies. In both he's back on Krypton - that never exploded - with a wife and kids. While it's a fantastic story idea (along with the creation of the black mercy, the alien plant causing Superman to have this fantasy) the original comic then wants to explore the idea that had Krypton survived it would not be the nearly-utopian society envisioned in previous comics. It's a common theme in Moore's super hero work, that the shiny past of the Golden and Silver Ages might have been uglier than they appear (just think of Watchmen!) and that the future might lead to depressing results.

There's some really interesting stuff happening. Jor-El prophesising Krypton's doom makes him look like a nutcase and he goes from being Krypton's brightest mind to one of its most shunned. The phantom zone, a fun and convenient place in the Silver Age to put Kryptonian criminals, has all its horrifying implications highlighted since it's really an eternal limbo. There are mentions of racial strife, alluding to the well-intentioned but terrible way black people were integrated by writers into Krypton's history in the 1970s by giving them their own continent separate from the rest of the planet's society. There's a druid-like cult following Krypton's ancient religion that's getting everyone riled up. Then Kara, aka Supergirl, at one point is beaten up by a gang and sent to hospital because Alan Moore has a tendency to abuse characters and unsettle readers.

On the flip side all this continuity-heavy stuff and name dropping can be fun. Nightwing and Flamebird become gaudy television heroes. Superman's wife is Lyla Ler-Rol, who Superman dated in a classic Jerry Siegel story when Superman was actually sent back in time to Krypton.

While less dense, the cartoon version is by no means less deep. Here Superman's fantasy actually IS idealistic, something the comic says is the case but by most counts is proven to be untrue. Superman has this weird and wonderful mix of the best parts of Earth and Krypton. He's a farmer, shunning both super heroism and the super science pursued by his father. One of the most wonderfully Freudian parts is that his wife is named Loanna (Lois + Lana) resolving one of Superman's biggest romantic issues by combining his two loves. If this had been Archie I guess the result would have been Verbetty. DeMatteis also figures out the best way to signal to Superman that his world is wrong - tremors. For both Superman himself and us as fans, Krypton and its destruction go hand in hand. Here Kal-El has Krypton existing, but he continually feels small earthquakes that only he is concerned with. It's the perfect metaphor for his subconscious realising that something is wrong, and far better than all the social strife seen in the comic. Plus the cartoon's fantasy ends with Krypton exploding, a great visual and metaphor for Superman's world be torn apart. In the comic, Kal-El just realises his life sucks so bad and tells his son that's why he thinks it's not reality. Ouch.

There are more things to talk about, such as Jason Todd's inclusion in the comic and Batman's creepy instruction to him to not get a hard-on about being near Wonder Woman. The ending in the comic is also not as good because after his rage in the final fight Superman is basically hunky-dory and asks everyone if they should have coffee. The cartoon makes it clear that Superman will remember the time in his fantasy, and promises to never forget his imaginary son that he loved with all his heart.



The comic written by Alan Moore is great, but he's really exploring two ideas. One is what sort of life Superman would want to lead if it were up to him, and the other is that Krypton might have actually been a screwed up place and would get worse had it not exploded. These are both great things to explore, but don't belong together. The cartoon only focuses on the first and does justice to it, and that's why I like it more.

PS
Also, at the very end Superman and Wonder Woman kiss. It's not something I'm necessarily opposed to, but really? So unnecessary given everything that came before it.

I finished playing Batman: Arkham City. And boy, I mean finished. A little bit of bragging here: I completed every challenge and got every trophy for every character except new game plus (a second run-through of the game) which I'm saving for later.
Obviously I like this game. The layout and mechanics (both combat and the sneaking around stealthy bits) are very well done, making it one of the best video games based on a licensed property ever.



At the same time, boy is this thing ever schizophrenic when it comes to story and story quality. The whole story's premise, that Gotham and the USA would allow a mega-prison to be built where inmates are left unsupervised, only makes sense if we're already living in a dystopian future and the villain Hugo Strange is king. I've also commented before that it's humorous Quincy Sharp is now mayor of Gotham, which serves the story from the previous Arkham Asylum but has to contend with the fact that Batman has evidence Sharp is a murderer yet did nothing. Batman is showing some particularly bad judgement throughout, actually. Weeks after the Arkham City prison is constructed he decides to hold a press conference denouncing it... Maybe that's something you should have fought against in its planning stages? There are other parts, too. Riddler has hostages in buildings housing elaborate death traps. It shows that Riddler needed to have access to these buildings beforehand and do some serious construction in them. Right after the first building I think, "Batman should really investigate the history of that building and maybe discover who owns or used to own it. He could probably use that information to locate any of the other hostages and the home base of Riddler." Instead, Batman plays Riddler's game and finds all his silly little clues, and only when he's completely stymied does he figure on doing this and, sure enough, discovers where Riddler's base is. I know it's a game, but it's funny when I've out-thought both the world's greatest detective right off the bat. It's like a mystery with a supposedly brilliant detective but viewers can solve the mystery an hour or two beforehand. There's also a great moment towards the end where Batman has the choices of saving lots of people (most of them murderous psychopaths, it should be noted, but some of them apparently innocent) or saving Talia al Ghul, one of several women he loves. He's all set to go save her when Alfred and Barbara Gordon basically have to tell him to stop thinking with his dick. It's meant to be epic, but instead it's pretty funny yet still true to Batman. It shows Batman, despite being uber-prepared, does make some poor choices.

Let's continue speaking about women. I mean jeez, Paul Dini was one of the writers on this game, and I would've thought better from him. There's an issue with sexy outfits and the word "bitch" being used too much. Film Critic Hulk Blog covered this ground very thoroughly:
http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/goddammit-video-games-the-first-few-hours-of-arkham-city-is-lots-of-fun-but-super-duper-sexist/
http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/hulk-vs-arkham-city-round-2-bitches-be-trippin/
Using the word "bitch" isn't the issue, though I could do without it. It's the tone of treating women in this game, both by characters in it and the actions of characters themselves. Catwoman is a bad offender. She has a sexy outfit, fine, that's her thing. But Catwoman never gets angry at her enemies, or reacts any way other than cooing and mentioning sex. When Two-Face is ready to kill her she offers to pleasure him. When she's shot at by a sniper she tells Batman she's turned on, "This place is dangerous. I like it!" When Poison Ivy is ready to kill her Catwoman does nothing other than suggest they kiss each other. She attempts to be sexy at completely irrelevant times, and seems completely vapid and devoid of any sound reasoning. Apparently she's in the prison to steal back money that was itself stolen from her. It's a lame, very un-epic reason for her to be in the game.



Harley Quinn is another offender. They over-sexified her same as last game. Batman at one point also claims "She was never very bright," which is completely off considering she is both a former psychiatrist and manipulated people to get her way before she herself was manipulated by the Joker. Granted, gauging her intelligence is a complicated matter since she is deluded into loving the Joker, but it's such a pat, inauthentic judgement for Batman to make, especially considering he knows what she has been capable of in the past.

Villains suggest raping Catwoman and Harley Quinn, which could really be done without. I understand the game is gritty, and there's a certain "realism" in that convicts would talk about such things and use the word bitch. But I'm sorry, this is a freaking Batman game, and any grounding in realism flew out the door when you opened with "uncontrolled super prison." Furthermore, you don't hear bad guys dropping F-bombs, using the N-word, etc. Such words are taboo enough that they won't fly in such a game. I wonder why bitch and threats of rape did.
The problem, as I said, is the tone. Catwoman is a vapid, terrible character with bad motivation. As much as some people deride it, I can't help but think that the Adam West Batman show demonstrates how a superior version of Catwoman can be used. She comes across both sexier, more intelligent, and more dangerous, all in a wacky show.

But the problems of Arkham City are not limited to sexism. The GRITTY take on the whole is so over the top it's laughable. I'm one of the few fans of the character the Penguin, and again I think Burgess Meredith on the old TV show did a better job than Burton's version or here. The cockney accent kind of misses the point (that the penguin wants all the finer things in life and tries to act sophisticated despite not deserving any status), trying to use shorthand for showing how crass he is when that should be apparent because he's a bad guy. The Penguin is also one of Batman's sane adversaries. Here, to make him on par with the Joker or other murderous psychopaths, they had to give him a fascination with strewing dead bodies in obscene displays, Vlad the Impaler-style. It's over the top, disgusting, but worse of all just misses the point of the character. They even have the base of a bottle impaled over one of his eyes, acting as a disfiguring monocle. It's when I saw that that I appreciated how far off this game was.

There are some redeeming qualities in the story. As I said the prison stuff is ludicrous, but the second main story involving the Joker dying and forcing Batman to find a cure makes for a great Batman story. And while they're shoehorning in a lot of bad guys, they way in which it's done is quite clever. I don't quite understand how some people call this game more massive than Arkham Asylum, though. It's physically bigger, but the main story is considerably shorter. They did a good job with most sidequests, though, padding things out.
There's another thing, the adding of characters and sidequests. Some villains and additional characters are treated as returning faces (Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, etc.) but others are introduced as if they're entirely brand new. This includes Hush, a thoroughly lame bad guy, and Azrael, a lamer Batman-style vigilante who has some direct connections to Bane (already present for both games). I know these are not more classic characters that the general public would be aware of, but then again neither Talia al Ghul, or even one of the overarching villains Hugo Strange. Strange was probably especially obscure before this game (though he appeared on the 90s Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited cartoon). That's not a bad thing, but it just highlights that it was arbitrary to make some characters known to Batman but not others. Now there's lost story potential: In comics, Hugo Strange is one of the few villains aware that Batman is Bruce Wayne, and there always needs to be some contrived reason why he doesn't blab this to the world. Here, rather than Strange getting inside Batman's head, it's also treated as a known fact. Strange also threatens to expose Batman, but then spends the entire game NOT DOING IT. Batman also seems completely unconcerned by this. The story could have been served a lot better if Strange learned Batman's identity in-game, and if he had actually better used this knowledge as a weapon. Batman could have been forced to decide what's more important, the lives of prisoners (most of whom are presently trying to kill him) or his secret identity. It could have shown how selfless he is, but instead it's just talking points.

A final point: When Robin shows up, it's hilarious! You know how in Batman Forever Bruce Wayne basically adopts Dick Grayson even though he's a grown man? That's basically repeated here. Robin is JACKED UP and a total adult, so it's funny that there's any suggestion he's not already in his twenties or that the bad guys would approach him like he's a kid.



I really enjoy this game, and I like parts about the story (many of the sidequests, the way they wove in different villains even if some of the villains' representations are off, and the Joker story is very good and Batman-ish). It just has some problems. Some, though not all these problems are easy fixes. I just like to imagine what could have been, and I'd like to see video games improve in storytelling. They've come a long way (being able to tell narratives, voice acting, multiple endings, etc.) but I don't want anyone to think that this is best the form is capable of.

A short follow up on Zelda: Skyward Sword. Back after Ocarina of Time first came out I remember being actively interested in Zelda chronologies and all that (I was 13, you know), but have long-since stopped being interested. I notice connections when the games want to draw them (Wind Waker and Twilight Princess taking place after Ocarina, etc.) but that was about it. Skyward Sword rekindled a bit of my childhood interest in actively placing the games, though.

The game is spoken of as being a prequel, but I haven't heard anyone voice this very real possibility: What if only the portions of the game set in the past are a prequel to Ocarina of Time?

Remember that Link destroys Demise a thousand or so years before most of the game by travelling into the past. He's created a new timeline now where there is no Imprisoned, and even no stupid Ghirahim trying to abduct Zelda. In the intervening years between the game's past and present, any number of games could have taken place. Heck, the main action in Skyward Sword could actually be the last in the series!

Most intriguing to me is how this could relate to Impa. We're never really told whether the old girl is different characters in the series like Link and Zelda, or a single person throughout like Ganon. What if she is one person? She could be at her youngest in this game, then see Hyrule take shape and play her part in Ocarina of Time. She could be an old, but useful aid, in the original NES games. When she knows the first Zelda is about to stop time-travelling, Impa might return to her hideout in Skyward Sword before dying. It's pretty neat to think how she could be the same character throughout on a mission to protect the Triforce and aid Zelda(s) and Link(s). It's also fun that while some of the story in Skyward Sword is definitely a prequel, the main action could actually fit in any old place.

Last year I played every Zelda game to date. Since then Skyward Sword came out, and I recently finished playing it.

Skyward Sword is an interesting, and in some ways uneven game. It's the culmination of several idea Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo in general have had for years. The most obvious to see are the motion controls, and while the Wii Sports/Play games are sort of like motion control tech demos, only here at the end of the Wii's lifespan does Nintendo make the statement about what can be done with the controls married to a traditional adventure game. It's what gamers had been asking for the whole time, a game where you use the remote to manipulate a sword. While the end result works, it's not significantly better than using a non-motion gamepad. Link doesn't always understand what I'm telling him to do, particularly with shield bashes, which is one of the most crucial moves required in the final battles of the game. It's not just a case of sour grapes - I know when I screw up in a game - but frequently the game had me try again and again despite the fact that I was actually doing what it wanted. If you've played the game, think of the rickety coaster ride and how difficult that thing was to control correctly.



Skyward Sword is also a fulfillment on Nintendo's new mandate that "Anyone can play any game." It's an admirable sentiment, and I loved the inclusiveness of games like Wii Sports, but Zelda is by necessity not an all-inclusive game. You need skills (wrestling with the motion controls certainly demands it) and an understanding of game logic. Yet you have Fi, an assistant who gives the most pointless observations. This video is a pretty accurate experience:
http://www.dorkly.com/video/30673/dorkly-bits-fi-annoys-link



There's also a story fulfillment that I'm surprised most fans haven't noticed. Miyamoto's interest in setting Link in the sky. This began with the Four Swords and Minish Cap games, and was expanded in Twilight Princess. Here, it's the driving theme of the game. Unfortunately, this idea falls flat on almost all counts, which I'll get to in a second.

I play Zelda games for their overworlds. Yes, the dungeons are important and I appreciate them, but it's outside of them where I love to have Link running around. In this regard Skyward Sword is the most disappointing. The sky is a grey, joyless world. There is also little to explore, and early on I realised the game was punishing rather than rewarding me for exploring it. Treasure chests cannot be opened until unlocked on the ground, there is a mini-game that does not operate until the latter half of the game, etc. There was simply no point in exploring it. On top of that, the stupid bird you fly on is tricky to control and not very good at gaining altitude (You should flap your wings you stupid bird!). Even while the Mario Galaxy games actually had Mario on set tracks, I felt a great sense of freedom there being able to fling around the sky. Here I actually have the ability to fly anywhere, but the stupid bird is always crashing into rocks and not taking me anywhere interesting. The three areas on the surface are also limited, and as Yahtzee points out, it doesn't even make sense that on the ground it's always bright and sunny but up in the sky there is a blanket of clouds covering the Earth.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5148-The-Legend-of-Zelda-Skyward-Sword


A lot of people also havenèt discussed how similar the sky here is in concept to the approach to space in the Super Mario Galaxy Games. But there, in addition to looking better, itès more fun.

I'm intrigued by what sort of society has developed in the single town of Skyloft up above the clouds. There's only some thirty-odd people, and no agriculture except a few small patches of pumpkins, of all vegetables. Nobody seems to be a farmer either, they're all either knights who ride on birds or merchants, but there is nobody to sell anything to except for Link! Skyloft is shown as ideallic, but I couldn't help imagine it was secretly sinister. In order to prevent starvation are the people secretly cannibals? Given that they're suggested to have lived there, isolated, for around a thousand years they also must be completely inbred. Taken together these facts might explain why Link has no parents, and why Zelda has a father but no mother.

I deviated there. While the dungeons and lands are certainly well-designed, there isn't a lot to them. Twilight Princess had many shortcomings, but its greatest strength was in beefing up Hyrule and presenting a place that might actually represent a small country. Here, it's all so obvious that you're running around a few choice enclosed areas. This problem is magnified with numerous fetch quests and the need to recycle areas. I actually liked some of the interesting ways the lands were reused, making me look at them in new ways (Silent Realms, flooding the forest, having me regain my inventory, etc.) but that should have been done on top of more areas, not as a substitute.



Serious spoiler warnings now. The game's plot is mostly lackluster, but then made a surprisingly strong finish. The game supposes it is about the origin of Master Sword, though this isn't really true. I guess Zelda made the sword, and left magic powers for Link to find to make it stronger? But then why didn't Zelda just give it to him in the first place? Again, video reviewer Yahtzee points out the same. You have all these fetch quests to extend the game and make it seem epic, yet if this was all part of Zelda's master plan then the sword and Triforce are RIGHT THERE available to Link, and she should have just given them to him rather than have him risk his life for six or so dungeons so he could put a stop to the bad guys.

The game is really more concerned with Zelda. It turns out that she was a goddess (suggested not at the magnitude of the goddesses who made the Triforce) and set this whole game into motion. It's a neat concept and actually explains in definite terms why she keeps coming back in other games. Her particular plan to save the sky and land from the big baddie makes no sense, as I've mentioned, but oh well. On the flip side, Link is repeatedly spoken of as being a hero of legend and destiny, chosen by Zelda back when she was a goddess. Not only does this also make Zelda's scheme of forcing Link to gather necessary powers stupid, it leaves one wondering why Link gets reincarnated all the time too in future games. Here we have an explanation for Zelda, but Nintendo decides to leave half of the equation, Link, hanging. More spoilery spoilers: Even Ganon, who doesn't technically appear in the game, is made clear to be the mortal reincarnation of the evil god in this game and Zelda's counterpart. This is what I was talking about when I said the game made a really strong finish. Suddenly the magnitude of Zelda and Ganon's roles in the series become clear: They are immortals, like Zeus and the Titans, who clashed at the dawn of time. Now Zelda has given up her divinity and the evil one has been slain, and they'll continue their struggle now in mortal, albeit magical, iterations. It's a pretty awesome backstory to both characters that I didn't think either would ever get, but Link's role in all this is left unexplained. And that wouldn't bother me if he was more of a free agent, just some guy who was born and mortal Zelda befriended. But in order to be epic it's made clear that goddess Zelda predetermined Link's destiny, was going to give him quests to jerk him around, and that he's some legendary guy for some reason right off the bat.

I'm focusing too much on the story in this game, but perhaps that's because I just recently finished it, and much of what makes the game good and bad at the very end is thanks to the story. So the motion controls fulfill what Nintendo set out to do with the Wii, though they are not perfect. The story is mostly a big, empty void until you reach the closing act. The world is mostly well made, but surprisingly small.

I'm talking about all its faults, but that's only because reviews online discuss in glowing terms everything it's done right. And it has done a lot of things right, but they were mostly the same things right with all the Zelda games before it. Skyward Sword is still one of the best games for the Wii. I ranked all the Zelda games in order of favouritism, and this would hover right in around Twilight Princess. Its story (at the end) has importance and impact, and it can do things Twilight Princess couldn't do, but ultimately its size makes it only just as good and a little different from Twilight Princess as opposed to a step up.

There aren’t too many specific people I have a burning desire to meet. No politicians, celebrities, or even many authors. Except for possibly Stephen King, most of the authors I would love to spend some time with have long since passed away.

So my list of notable people I really wanted to meet is a short one, but at the top of it was Jerry Robinson. As a young man he co-created both the Joker and Robin, and drew great Batman stories besides. He did all sorts of cartoons after, particularly a lot of political comics. He was one of the first advocates of comic storytelling as an art form and said comics should be preserved and studied. He served as president of the National Cartoonists Society. He taught other artists, including Steve Ditko (another person on my list who, while I have not met in person, I have corresponded with). He fought for creator’s rights, most famously for his friends Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, creators of Superman, who received credits to their work and pensions in the late 1970s.

I met Jerry Robinson at San Diego in 2009. There was going to be a panel spotlighting him, and I had a spot in a small conference room front and centre. With the room still mostly empty and Jerry all alone up on stage, I asked him if I could have my picture taken with him. He had me come on up and Samantha and her cousin Andy took a couple of photos of us together. While shaking hands I told Jerry how impressed I was with him, including helping Siegel and Shuster. "Of course," he said. "They were my friends." I told him I was from Canada, and he asked me if I had even been to Toronto’s FanExpo, but I told him I hadn’t. "I helped set up their Shuster awards," he said. The interview with him was great, and while I didn’t exactly learn anything new about him in that panel, it was great to hear him telling his stories in person.



Later that same convention I saw him again at a panel with Lew Schwartz (who also passed away earlier this year) and Shelly Moldoff, the surviving members who worked on Batman in the comic’s first years. That panel was also really interesting and even more entertaining because Shelly turned the whole thing into them giving horrible, but true, accounts of their boss Bob Kane. I saw Jerry again at his booth in artist’s alley and shook his hand once again, delighted that he recognised me from our brief meeting a few days before.

I feel lucky to have met him.

I just finished the Back the Future game by Telltale and wow, am I ever impressed. They did a great job of capturing the fun and storytelling of the movies. It functions sort of like a fourth movie, and while I don’t think it’s quite as tight or as good as the movies, it comes pretty darn close. Some high points:

-Voice acting in this game ranges from excellent to mediocre. The greatest performance might not even be Christopher Lloyd returning as Doc Brown, but fan-turned-pro AJ LoCascio doing his absolutely perfect impression of Michael J. Fox. Seriously, Fox even shows up towards the end playing William McFly (a character we saw as a baby in the third movie, Marty’s great-grandfather) and as future versions of Marty, and you seriously cannot tell the difference between LoCascio and Fox. Not even just the impression, but he emotes very well and I hope to hear him do other voice acting work in the future. Lloyd is back in fine form as Doc Brown, but doesn’t get much of a chance to yell and scream or do anything crazy. Instead, that’s mostly given to a teenage version of Emmett Brown played by James Arnold Taylor, who I’ve got to say also did a spectacular job. He doesn’t exactly sound like Lloyd, but is a perfect simulation of what you think Doc Brown would sound like as a teenager, complete with inflections and crazy expressions.

-The times visited, including alternate timelines, are great choices. Apparently the 1931 setting was an unused idea developed for the movie sequels. Having Marty and young Emmett interact together when they are both the same age is one of the best things about the game.

-The game, even more so than the movies, doesn’t make sense at times, but is still loads of fun. In one particularly glaring instance Doc and Marty alter the history leading up to 1986. This changes both of their histories, even to the point of making it so that Doc will have never invented the time machine. Doc suddenly blips out of time and reappears in this new history with no memory of the way things are supposed to be, while Marty and the Time Machine don’t change at all. There are several instances like this, and while the logic of the time travel mechanics gets wonky, it’s all in good fun.

-One of the few areas where I think the storytelling ball was dropped was in regards to Marty’s mom Lorraine and girlfriend Jennifer. They don’t show up until you meet them in the altered, BAD 1986, where Marty gets to comment on how things are worse for them. That’s fine and all, but they could have easily appeared beforehand and at the end so you could see them in the game the way they are supposed to be. I guess the game was working on the idea that you know them from the movies, which is true, but it’s an area of cutting corners in the storytelling that could have otherwise been improved. It would have been an easy fix too with some extra scenes that don’t affect the gameplay.

-Telltale created a fantastic addition to Back to the Future with the character of Edna Strickland, the sister of Marty’s bald vice-principal. She goes through plenty of permutations through time, and while she has a streak of villainy in her she’s also nuanced. It’s too bad that they didn’t include her brother (the vice-principal in the movies) as a character in the game. There are a few jokes calling back to him, so it's odd he doesn't appear in person. He didn’t even have to be a major character in puzzles or anything, just have him around to see what different types of jobs he would have and what sort of situations he thrives in.

-The ending for the game is pitch-perfect. It's so upbeat, and uses the time travelling mechanics well.

I’ve just found out this game will be going to retail, which almost makes me a little bit sad I went ahead and downloaded this for the PS3. Whether you wait for a disc or not, I can highly recommend this game. Telltale is fast becoming one of my favourite video game developers. One of their next projects is a Jurassic Park game, and while I’m only a casual fan of Jurassic Park (I like the first movie and that’s about it) I’m actually considering playing that as well.