The Games!

So about a week ago I put an Xbox 360 on Layby until Christmas. Since my eventual possession of an Xbox is now confirmed I quickly set about deciding what games I would buy to get me going when the day came. After a lot of browsing I came up with four titles that I decided i would like to give a go.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

I am first and foremost a fantasy/RPG player. I never feel more at home in a game than when I have a word in my hand or magical energy coursing through my veins. I was first introduced to Oblivion’s awesomeness about two years ago when my girlfriend bought me the PC version for Christmas. I was delighted. Not only in the game but also in that Sarah had overcome her dislike of video games to get me something that she knew I would like (that’s love right there). To my dismay however I would quickly discover out that my computer lacked the capacity to play it and so a sad trip was made to the games store to return it. But with my new Xbox on the horizon I can finally get into the game.

Gears of War

When looking at the Xbox’s flagship titles. The ones that are exclusive to its brand Gears of War was right up there on the top. Magazines and websites are being flooded with news and previews of the highly anticipated Gears of War 3 and it looks amazing. As strong as my love of fantasy is, my love of giant beasties is possibly greater. The Locust Horde that features in GOW will be a nice step away from the hacking and slashing of an RPG. And I do enjoy a good third-person shooter every now and again.

Mass Effect

Another flagship title for the Xbox, Mass Effect appeals for its blending of Sci-Fi elements and RPG gameplay. It’s something that I have never played before and I am eager to launch into a good space opera. Star Wars and Stargate are big favourites of mine and it looks like Mass Effect can deliver in providing me with a good juicy tale.

Fable

Finally, we come to the big one. I loved the look of Fable ever since the first title was released way back in 2004. It will be great to finally get my hands on such a unique and engaging game. I hope it lives up the hype and I’m pretty sure it will. I’m hoping that by the time I am finished with number two Fable 3 will have come down to a sensible price range. Never have I payed more than $50 dollars for a game and I never intend to.

So those are the big draw cards on my list. Thankfully EB Games has recently run a deal that involved Mass Effect, Gears of War and The elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion allowing me to pick up all three titles for just $40 dollars. Thanks EB. So I have my games but not the console to play them on. I shall have to be content with online reviews and reading the instruction booklets until I can finally dive into them.

It is decided!

Over the past few months there has been a grudge match being waged in my head. The limited range of games that I have on my DS and the sad state of my computer’s graphics means that I have not really had my gaming hunger sated in the last two years since my moving out of home. I would spend my days browsing EB Games for titles that would have no chance of running on my poor little laptop and looking enviably over at the Xbox and Playstation shelves. Over there is where I wanted to be, in the big leagues. I wanted a controller in my hands and buttons to mash. I couldn’t stand the pressure anymore and I decided that something had to be done.
But what to buy? This was the beginning of long and arduous debate that would rage in my mind for the following months. Playstation 3 or Xbox 360? That was the question. In the end it came down to simple pros and cons.

On one hand we had the Xbox 360, whose pros included a wide range of games (larger, I think than that afforded by the PS3) and a distinctly lower price tag (the Arcade model of console sells for less than $200). On the other we had the PS3 which boasted a blu-ray player (a large bonus for me as a Cinema Studies major and lover of all things filmic) and a whopping $450 price tag. Not to mention that prior to my move I was the proud owner of a PS2 and had spent many a day (or weekend) fighting my way through the first two God of War titles and before that the original Playstation that introduced me to the joy of Crash Bandicoot.

As I have no intention of playing online, downloading online content or performing any other online action that a console may allow the size of the hard drive was of little to no importance to me. So long as I had room enough to save my games then I would be a happy man. I figured that having a Blu-ray player would just end up costing more money for me in the long run and my TV would hardly do its quality justice anyway the bonus of the blu-ray was lost to the PS3.

So there were my choices: an overpriced PS3 that would cost me no less than $400 or an Xbox 360 Arcade at modest price of $180 (the cheapest around, Thanks Big W). From then on it was a no brainer for me. Yes, I would have to give up God of War, but I would be introduced to so many new and wondrous worlds (Fable and Mass Effect to name a few).

Unfortunately this all came to a point right before Christmas, the holiday that would deny me my gratification for another three weeks. Three agonizing weeks to wait, til I can lay my hands on my new Xbox 360 Arcade, but until then there will be another question boiling over in my mind: what games to buy first?

What's A Nerd To Do?

Compared to what I have seen, my standing order at my local comic store is relatively small. Most weeks I don’t get more than two or three titles. This is mainly due to financial constraints and not by choice, as I am sure that if I was capable I would have a healthy stack of comics waiting for me each week. My girlfriend, Sarah, believes that two or three comics a week is more than enough to keep a young man going, but my recent ventures into DC have made it more and more difficult to keep the size of my order at a reasonable level.

A few months ago there were only a few titles that were a must have in my mind. At the top of my list were Uncanny X-Men (a no brainer) and X-Men Legacy, cause there just isn’t enough room in one title to contain the ever growing number of mutants in the Marvel Universe. From there, my order was filled with the many tie-ins and whatever event took my fancy at the time. Not long ago there was Siege, then Second Coming and now Chaos War.

My reactions are mixed whenever I see the cover of a new ongoing title in Previews. At first there is excitement, “Uncanny X-Force?!! With Fantomex?!! Sweet!” But then reality hits you in the face and you realise that you have to pay for that new title, “Damn. Can’t I just squeeze it in? It’s only one title after all.” But it’s not just one title. It’s another comic every month for the foreseeable future. And how often will Marvel give us just the one new title. It seems that recently that Marvel has become the Hydra of the comic book world. When one title ends three more grow forth to take its place.

And then there are the one-shots. Those damned one-shots, that promise us oh so much, but oh so often leave us feeling disappointed. Not just in the comic, but in ourselves as well, for being duped into indulging in a seemingly harmless little $3.99 tie-in. A comic book cover promises us many things. Mystery, thrilling artwork and epic battles between characters that we soon find out don’t even appear beyond the tempting gloss of that cover.

So what are we to do?

Tomorrow I will walk into my local haunt. As Giuseppe fumbles around in a drawer for my order I will see three more titles teasing me from a shelf, taunting me, daring me to pick them up, flick through its pages and forego my afternoon slurpee in place of its papery goodness. And five out of ten times it will win and I will put it in the pile with the others, nestled in between my Carnage #1 and X-Men #4, and grin up at me knowing that it had gotten the better of me.

This is our curse. And our blessing. For every now and then you get an absolute gem, a comic that when you have finished reading it makes you think, “Gee, I’m glad I picked that one up.” And you read it again, and again.

Adventures in the DC Universe!

A couple of months ago I decided to broaden my horizons and wander into the scarily expansive world of DC comics. I knew that it would be no small feat to jump on at this point, what with the end of the Blackest Night event and the beginning of Brightest Day. So I did some background reading. Ok, I did a lot of background reading.

With some help over at DC Comics Database I thought I was set. I knew the characters (what I thought were the main ones, anyway). I knew where they came from. I knew their powers. Armed with this knowledge I launched myself into the DC Universe. I thought I would start off with something simple. Ease my way into it, you know? So I raided the local library and found a copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Wow! If I thought I knew nothing about DC before, I knew even less after reading the first few pages of COIE. But I soldiered on, regardless. When I encountered someone I didn’t know, I looked them up. This happened every few pages. Slowly I waded through to the end and emerged victorious. I had conquered one of DC’s biggest events and was wiser for it. Not only did i understand what happened but I wanted more, much more.

So I moved forward. A little research uncovered my next target, Infinite Crisis. This time I laid my hard earned dollars on the line and went right out and bought a copy. And I’m thankful that I did. After reading Infinite Crisis I was sold. Pandora’s Box was opened and I haven’t looked back since. I fell in love with Martian Manhunter and his bulbous head. His powers and history struck a chord in me that I have not felt since I was introduced to Nightcrawler.

Not only that but I understood completely what was going on. Admittedly I did need to freshen up on a few things, Blue Beetle and Spectre in particular, but the story flowed so smoothly from the pages that I swept through it in just a few days (I’m a slow reader). Since then I have read Infinite Crisis again and again and I see many more reads in the future.

So, where too from there? The answer was simple in my mind – Final Crisis. Filled with confidence from my enjoyment of Infinite Crisis (as well as a little influence from its shiny cover) I bought Final Crisis and raced home. As I read through my new purchase a single phrase kept popping into my head: What the hell?

What the hell was going on here? Compared to Final Crisis, COIE read like an ABC of the DC world. A is for Anti-Monitor. B is for Batman. Every page looked to me like a page of Ulysses, written in Latin, with the words smudged across the paper by a baby’s jam-covered fingers. Questions filled my brain at every turn as I found myself taking notes in an attempt to make sense of what I was seeing and that only seemed to make things worse.

So is Darkseid dead or what?

What was that place Superman went to?

Are there ‘Old Gods”?

Anti-Life Equation?

And what’s more my first love of the DC Universe, Martian Manhunter, is slaughtered in his first scene. I felt like someone had placed a nice bug juicy watermelon in front of me, then picked it up and smashed me over the head with it.

What had I gotten myself into? When I finally finished I slipped it back into its bag, sealed it off (tightly) and put it away. I thought I was getting somewhere. I thought I was making progress. Maybe I got ahead of myself and the big head that resulted in my somewhat easy comprehension of Infinite Crisis simply exploded under the pressure of Darseid’s influence. Or maybe I just didn’t ‘ease myself into it’ as much as I intended to. Either way I had learned my lesson that the knowledge of the DC Universe that I craved needed to be earned not taken. It would take much more than a bit of reading to open up those doors. But I am determined. Tomorrow I will try again with Batman. The day after, I’ll give Superman a go. And hopefully after a while I will finally understand and I will allow myself to dig my copy out and give Final Crisis another go.

Batman: Gotham Knight

This is a piece that I wrote for my film criticism course. Thought I would share.

Batman, Gay Icon or Dark Knight, we still love him

Batman first appeared in comic form in 1939, over seventy years ago. Since then he has featured in six motion pictures, multiple television shows and endless cartoons, not to mention the thousands of comics that have inspired all these incarnations. In that time you would think that nothing new could come from a character that has been tackled by countless writers and directors over the years. But it just isn’t so. With every new writer there is a different story. With every new artist there is a different image. And with every new director we are given an all new perspective on a character that has dominated popular culture for the better part of a century.

It seems that every month DC comics throws Batman at a new artist or writer (or rather they are thrown at him). This is the modern state of the comic book industry. One that gives characters a constantly changing face as every time an artist gets his hands on a chance to draw Batman they are eager to turn him into something new and different. What they think he should be. What they want him to be. Sure, he will almost always have a cape, a gruff voice and vanish into thin air before saying goodbye, but the way he vanishes, the way he fights, the way he gets the job done, will always be shifting.

This phenomenon is harnessed and compressed in Batman’s latest incarnation in Batman: Gotham Knight. In seventy five short minutes we are treated to a six segment, ‘movie length’ animation written by six writers and directed by seven directors (that’s right, seven, for six segments. You figure it out). Each titled segment lasts about ten minutes and features individually styled Japanese anime animation. The emphasis really is on individualism as each segment has its own look, feel, style and themes. The film website IMDB.com places the film in the thriller, Sci-Fi, Crime, Action and Animation genres, highlighting the breadth of the Batman’s adaptability.

Throughout his history in television and film Batman himself has been represented as a vigilante detective in the 1949 TV Serial, a camp superhero in the 1960’s TV series and a brooding avenger of Gotham’s citizens in the recent Christopher Nolan films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. This same range is shown in Batman: Gotham Knight when in the first segment a group of children share their experiences of encountering Batman. Each comes away with their own unique take on the character in a range just as diverse as he has been written in. Right from the offset this film demonstrates the diversity of the Batman character while at the same time provides its own twist on the cultural icon.

But isn’t that the joy of comic book characters? Their ever-changingness (yes, it’s a word)? Across mediums and time Batman’s masks are forever falling to the floor. The Batman. The Caped Crusader. The Dark Knight. Camp Icon. The World’s Greatest Detective. That guy with the pointy ears. Whatever you call him he will always be there. Who knows what form he will take next but that is all part of the game.

If you are one of those people in search of a true comic book adaptation, one that thinks Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man needs to be more ‘quippy’ or that Hugh Jackman was a terrible Wolverine, then this film will rub you both ways. On the one hand, there is plenty to keep you whinging for a while. Killer Croc’s origin is dodgy to say the least. On the other hand however, Batman: Gotham Knight will tickle the fanboy in anyone.

The Real Beginning!

Things sure get busy fast. One moment I am preparing myself for my next entry and the next I am jet setting off to Ireland to visit the in-laws. Having recently returned and settled back down I can finally put up the post that should have gone up over three months ago.

My interest in comics began many, many years ago when watching the X-Men cartoon series on TV. It was then that I fell in love with the myriad of colourful characters that populate the X-Men line-up. However, it was not for many years that I would actually pick up and read a comic book. I grew up in a small town about an hour from the city. There was one newsagent and they had but a few Simpsons comics and kids mags.

I don’t know how long ago it was now (four.... five years ago), that I got my very first comic. My brother was at a local swap-meet looking for parts for his car when he came across some comics. Amongst the lot was an old issue of X-Men. In an uncharacteristic display of generosity he bought it and bought it home for me (he didn’t find the part that he was looking for). When I finally got it into my eager little hands I was shocked to find that it was issue # 137 of Uncanny X-Men, a double-sized issue titled ‘The Death of Phoenix’!!!!!!!!!! I was further surprised to find that he had paid a single dollar for it. Needless to say that the years of psychological torment, noogies and Indian burns were forgotten when I got my hands on the little p

If my brother knew the monster that he was creating that day he might have thought twice about his sudden act of kindness and brotherly love, for I read and re-read that comic for days and weeks on end.

The Beginning!

Hello to my one and only follower. Which is understandable given that I haven't made a single post yet (we'll ignore the fact that that follower is actually my girlfriend, whom I live with).

Well I am here to say that I will finally begin my blogging debut today, with this very post. So welcome to my blog!

I hope you enjoy my musings on all things comic book and pop culture related and I look forward to maybe hearing from a few people who stumble across my lonely little piece of cyber space. See you all soon!