#ty arkham origins for making me fall in love with

[bepoucorp]

happy late bday to Arkham Origins!

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Why someone would make a sequel to 1976’s Carrie 23 years after the original, I don't know. Even if this had been released at the right time (if such a thing as a right time existed) this is a lazily-conceived, badly made film. The climax is more likely to leave you in hysterics than shivering in terror.

In 1999, outcast Rachel (Emily Bergl) hates life at home thanks to her unloving foster parents. After her best friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) commits suicide, Rachel learns a popular football jock, Eric (Zachery Ty Bryan), feigned love for the dead girl so he could sleep with and then dump her to impress his friends. All the football players are partaking in this game, even the seemingly sweet Jesse (Jason London), on whom Rachel has a crush.

I've omitted two details about this plot to show you how much of a sequel to Carrie it isn’t. The entire film could easily play out without these, leading me to believe (though I can’t prove it) it was written as some other movie and then reworked to tie into the 1976 Brian De Palma film. Technically, The Rage is a follow-up. Amy Irving returns as Sue Snell, now an adult guidance counsellor for Rachel's school. That’s a detail. The real reason this is “a sequel”? Rachel. The young woman has the the same telekinetic powers as Carrie did. With that said, I bet you can predict the entire movie now. The film’s villains are essentially the Spur Posse. Rachel’s going to fall in love with one of them, they’ll have sex, his buddies will ruin everything by telling Rachel it was all a facade, unleashing her titular rage upon them. Cue the blood bath until TRAGEDY! Turns out the love was real. Too bad loads of people are now dead. Too bad for Rachel, I mean. We couldn’t care less about the teens who bit the dust.

While it would’ve left you feeling like you just took a bath in a bucket of grease, this picture might’ve sucessfully told its revenge plot if it had played things smartly. You instantly hate the bad guys so you’re somewhat endeared to Rachel. Unfortunately, writer Rafael Moreau and director Katt Shea fumble this project. Over and over, we're shown clips of the 1976 film. What do they mean? Rachel wasn’t there. These aren’t her memories. Sue wasn’t there either - she left the deadly party before the carnage began. They're included to assure us that there will be blood later and because this film knows otherwise, everyone would leave. While we wait, the picture goes into needless details about Rachel’s powers, explaining their origin in a way that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Picture this. Rachel is going to the jock’s post-graduation party. They’re getting ready to dump this film’s equivalent of a bucket of blood on her when they broadcast the secret footage of her and Jesse having sex for everyone to see. Counsellor Sue has been picking away at this nagging feeling that something’s not right with the teenager. She’s found the girl’s insane mother, broken her out of Arkham Asylum and is bringing her to the party so Rachel can understand why she has mutant powers. As they approach the door, Rachel hurls a fire poker at a schoolmate, impaling him through the head. In the process, she kills Sue. The woman’s death is accidental so it doesn’t tell us anything about how intensely Rachel’s rage burns. Left to her own devices, mom barges into the chaotic house to explain to her daughter what’s happening. Too bad the characters haven’t spoken in 13 years. They're lucky they knew who was who! The exchange that follows means NOTHING because their connection isn't emotional, it's technical.

No fan of the original Carrie could watch The Rage and be satisfied with it. No one who hasn’t seen the original should watch this movie instead. The Rage: Carrie 2 is a picture without an audience. It’s got some unintentionally funny moments towards the end when the gore and violence are supposed to appall us but you’ll have checked out long before then. (On VHS, March 5, 2020)

[lookforanewangle]

and we’ll be carrying each other (until our dying day) || batfam || 2.4k; part 1 of 2 || part two dick comes back to visit after his time with spyral, and spends patrol with damian. things don’t quite go as planned. || ao3

ch 1: so glad you could make it (to a farewell)

It was supposed to be a normal patrol.

Richard had finally returned from his stint with the Spyral organization that kept him from them for so long. Damian hadn’t strayed far from his side since his return, afraid that he would up and vanish when he wasn’t looking.

Two weeks after his return, Richard surprised him with an entire day planned out; a full afternoon at the arcade dinner at Damian’s favorite restaurant with the hummus that no other location—except for maybe the country of origin—could ever match, and Damian soaked up every second of attention. It had been much too long since they’d spent time together.

He’d missed this.

He said as much when they returned home, and Dick smiled that big, obnoxious grin of his, wrapping him up in his arms.

“What do you say we finish this all up with a patrol?” he suggested.

Damian eyed him skeptically. “Just the two of us?”

“Just the two of us,” Richard nodded. “And if you’re up for it…ice cream after?”

Damian returned a rare grin of his own. “What are we waiting for?”

They flitted across rooftops, Richard throwing quips around, Damian scoffing at the absurdity but loving every minute.

They had received no intel on anything strange happening, no big busts or new gangs in town. The rogues were all locked up in Arkham or staying low for the time being. All of the Bats were keeping an ear out, of course, but with no active threats patrol was quiet. It was, by all accounts, the perfect night to reconnect and catch up on all the things the two of them had missed during their time apart and plenty of time to fall back into their old routine.

Damian was excited for at least a few more nights of this before Richard inevitably left again, but at least he was alive and well and would only be a phone call away.

Damian doesn’t know how everything went so wrong.

~***~

Two hours in, Oracle sends them after a smuggling ring down by the docks.

“They know what they’re doing,” she comments, keys clacking in the background. “All I know is they’re moving weapons. I haven’t been able to find exactly what they are or how many, much less the firepower, so be careful.”

“Nothing we haven’t handled before,” Richard responds. “Thanks for the update, O.”

“My pleasure. Just get back in one piece, Hunk Wonder. You promised me Viaggio’s, and I intend to hold you to it.”

“Of course, m'lady,” he responds with a cheeky grin, shooting his grapple. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“You two are disgusting,” Damian comments as he follows. Richard just laughs.

~***~

When they reach the docks, there is a much larger gathering than they had anticipated.

“Hey O,” Richard whispers into the comm. “Send some backup when you’ve got a minute, yeah?”

“Preference?”

“Whoever’s available. I think we’re all peckish for some action tonight.”

“Sure thing.”

“Surely we can handle them ourselves,” Damian muses, taking in the sight below. “But… I can see the advantages of having another. As long as it isn’t Drake.”

Richard snorts, reaching over to ruffle his hair. “We’ll get you two to get along at some point, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I would love to see you try,” Damian scoffs, swatting his hand away. Richard suddenly stiffens next to him and Damian swings his gaze back to the sight below. A boat has pulled into the docks, and the men had begun to load the crates—

But those aren’t weapons.

“O,” Richard says softly. “What’s the ETA on that backup?”

“Two minutes.”

Richard’s face set in determination. “We don’t have time to wait. They have kids involved, the guns are just an extra to cover.”

“Shit. I’ll tell them to book it.”

“Thanks, O.”

“Be careful.”

“Always.”

Richard switches off his comm and turns back to Damian. “Ready?”

Damian nods once, and they jump from the building. His plows into one man feet-first and sends him crashing to the ground with a yell. Damian rolls into a crouch, flinging batarangs at the two men ahead of them. He bolts towards the loading dock, taking down men with ease. He’s exerting maybe a bit more force than necessary as he knocks them out, but it’s not as if they don’t deserve worse, he thinks.

He spots another man hurriedly ushering the children up a loading ramp and onto the boat, hissing at them to shut up as they whimper in fear. He’s throwing frantic glances over his shoulder for the two of them, and it’s when he’s turned away that Damian finally pounces.

He leaps onto the man’s back and stabs a batarang deep into his shoulder, and the man attempts to throw him off with a howl, backing up and slamming Damian  against a shipping crate. Damian growls but holds on tight, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck in a chokehold, and the man whirls, latching onto Damian’s wrists and throws his hulking mass backwards to the floor—

Right on top of Damian.

Damian’s head slams to the metal deck of the ship and his vision whites, all of his breath leaving him and his ribs crack under the pressure. He wheezes as the man lunges to his feet, and Damian rolls to his knees, head still swimming, and looks up right into the barrel of a gun.

Before the man can shoot or Damian can move, the man’s kneecap explodes and he crashes to the ground with a scream. Damian turns, head pounding.

“Starting the party without me? I’m insulted!” Red Hood calls as he drops into the middle of the fray, guns firing into feet and knees and shoulders, dropping men left and right in a cacophony of screams. Damian turns his attention back to the children as Spoiler drops next to him. He helps her shepherd the kids to safety while his head clears.

Once the final child is safe, Damian runs back towards Nightwing and Hood, who are taking on the last fifteen men. He ducks beneath a wide swing at his head, gritting his teeth as he stumbles and diving to the side as bullets shatter the ground behind him.

“Robin!”

“Fine,“ he grits over the comms, catching his breath behind a crate. "I—”

He has his feet under him when one of the men rounds the corner, rifle swinging up and aiming at Damian’s chest. The man is too tall and too stocky and too familiar with his short dark hair and tan skin and Damian freezes, breath catching in his chest. This man is not the same, couldn’t ever be, but that split second of stillness is all it takes for Damian to be one step behind. Everything that happens next is almost too fast for his rattled head to keep track of.

There’s movement out of the corner of Damian’s eye, a blur of black and blue rushing towards him as he flings a batarang at the hand holding the gun at the same time that the man pulls the trigger. Damian’s eyes widen and the gun cracks and he sucks in a panicked breath only to let it out in a scream.

“No!”

Nightwing crashes to the deck in front of him, and distantly, Damian can hear the comms explode with noise, can see Todd’s fighting intensify, can see Spoiler drop onto the man who fired at Damian. The two of them cut down all of the men around them as Damian’s focus shrinks to Nightwing’s crumpled form, the gunshot echoing violently in Damian’s ears.

He rushes to his brother’s side and falls to his knees, ripping off his cape and pressing down hard against the gaping wound in Richard’s chest. Richard cries out at the sudden pressure; there’s already blood everywhere, splattered against Richard’s face and rapidly pooling beneath them both, staining Damian’s knees. His cape is turning red against Richard’s chest faster than he can think.

“What have you done?!” Damian demands, eyes searching for any other injuries and to assess his brother’s situation. His heart is pounding in his ears, hands trembling in panic. Richard coughs, blood spattering against his lips. He grimaces but turns it into a shaky, bloody smile.

“Just…doing my job,” he chokes. He lifts a hand to rest against the side of Damian’s face. “Protecting you is…first priority.”

“I had it handled,” Damian grits, voice shaking.

“I couldn’t…wouldn’t take that risk,” Richard whispers. “I didn’t… didn’t have your back last time, kiddo. I-I couldn’t let it ha—hng—happen again,” he explains, gloved hand shakily palming Damian’s cheek. His fingers tighten minutely on his face as he attempts and fails to hide a wince. “…never again,” he murmurs.

“Richard—”

“N-names—”

“Shut up, you fool,” Damian snarls, pushing down harder against his brother’s chest as his own chest tries to contain his rapidly mounting panic. Richard hisses, clenching his jaw against a whine, and Damian lets up slightly.

“You have always had my back,” he whispers, leaning into the hand on his face. “You have had it since the beginning, even when I— when I did not deserve it. You did not need to prove it to me by needlessly throwing yourself in harm’s way for me. Again.”

"Maybe tha’s jus���…jus’ wha’ big brothers d-do,” he responds sluggishly, “throw ourselves in…harm’s way.”

“I never asked for that. I am more than capable of handling myself,” he insists. Richard hums in response but otherwise doesn’t respond, hand slipping from Damian’s face and leaving behind a bloody streak. Damian’s blood runs cold as he snatches his brother’s wrist before it hits the pavement.

“Nightwing? …Richard.”

He doesn’t respond. Damian shakes him once and he moans quietly, before once again falling silent.

“Richard?!”

He whips his head around to call for Hood when the Batmobile screeches to a halt at the edge of the dock.

“Father!”

The door swings open and Batman is sprinting towards them, Hood and Spoiler tying off the last goon and quickly following. Batman crouches next to them, already reaching for his eldest as he asks urgently, “What happened?”

He gathers Richard up in his arms as Damian responds, reluctantly letting go of his cape and his brother’s wrist, his voice laced with panic.

“I…there was a gunman. He was aiming at me. Nightwing… he got in the way.”

“Hrn. Hood,” Batman calls, “get the seat.”

Surprisingly, Hood races ahead to the Batmobile, pushing the passenger seat flat to lay Nightwing down on. Hood clambers into the back and Damian follows, Batman placing Nightwing down after them. The air is rife with tension as Batman leaps over the hood and into his own seat, the engine revving to life.

“B,” Spoiler’s voice calls through the comms as Hood straps Nightwing down to secure him for the drive, “I already sent L to the Batcave, Red’s picking her up now. A is prepping for surgery.”

Batman’s gloves creak as his hands tighten on the wheel. He gives a short affirmative and presses down hard on the gas, rocketing towards the Manor.

~***~

They screech to a stop on the turnstile, Batman leaping from the car and rushing to Nightwing. He quickly but gently unbinds him, gathering him up into his arms and walking briskly to the cave’s medbay. Damian scrambles to follow.

“Jason,” Bruce barks, “get him upstairs.”

“Nonono—” Damian pleads, eyes burning as he snatches desperately at the limp hand dangling from his father’s arms. Todd grabs him around the middle, tugging him back against his chest and Damian whirls, snarling and swiping at the man keeping him from his brother.

“Let me go—”

“Hey,” Todd snaps, snatching his wrists before they can do any damage. “Cut it out.”

“Then unhand me—!”

“No.”

With a quick twist, Todd twirls him around and plops to the ground, twisting and wrapping his arms and legs around him and effectively pinning him back against his chest. Damian squirms, breath coming in short bursts as he tries to wriggle out from the arms bracketing him in.

“Please,” he gasps, chest burning with panic and phantom pains, “please, I just got him back, I have to help him.”

Todd shushes him, pressing his cheek against Damian’s sweat-matted hair and murmuring in his ear.

“Kid, you’ve gotta calm down. There’s nothing you can do right now; you’ve gotta let Alfred and Leslie work.”

“I have to have his back— I promised—”

“You’d just be in the way,” Todd interrupts, his hold tightening. Damian slumps, trembling as he tries to catch his breath, staring at the frantic movements of the medbay. After a moment, Todd hesitantly loosens his grip and begins to sway the two of them slowly back and forth. “You know he wouldn’t want you to see him like this,” he continues quietly.

Damian turns his head and buries his face against Todd’s bicep, sniffling. He couldn’t argue Todd’s logic; getting in the way of Pennyworth and Dr. Thompkins would only delay Richard’s medical attention and recovery. Tears prickle at the backs of his eyes and he bares his teeth in a snarl. He would not show weakness in front of Todd, he forbid it. Maybe, he thought, pressing his face harder against Todd’s jacket, if he held his face there long enough, Todd’s post-patrol stench would suffocate him and he’d be forced to stay in the medical wing with Richard because of poisonous fumes.

Todd shifts to press his forehead to the back of Damian’s head with a sigh, carefully readjusting his grip. Damian flinches at the contact, and Todd pulls back, brows furrowed.

“You hurt, kid?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, no, let’s try that again. Where are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Damian insists between gritted teeth. “There are only bruises and small scrapes, nothing needing immediate medical attention.”

Todd is quiet for a moment. “If you’re lying to me, I’m gonna whoop your ass later.”

“As if I’d give you the privilege,” Damian snipes back. Todd’s lips twitch in amusement.

“Look,” he says slowly, “I know this sucks. So hit the showers and change, and let me put some salve on those bruises or Alfred’s gonna have my friggin’ hide, got it? Then we can hide up in the rafters or somthin’ until they’re done. We won’t go far.”

“But Father—”

“Yeah, well. Special occasion. Get moving.”

[noahcopeland-blog]

I have feelings for a game no one cares about: Legend of Kay Anniversary

I just finished playing The Legend of Kay: Anniversary. 

So basically, this was a game from 2005 that I would have played that crap out of as a kid, expect it was PS2 only (I was a Gamecube kid).

So about a year ago, they remastered it and released it on Wii U. Saw it at GameStop, got serious Ty the Tasmanian Tiger vibes from the box art, and bought it instantly. I had literally no knowledge of this game before then. Never even heard of it, and I don’t think most people have either. But I’m happy to say that I have enjoyed it!

So here comes the part where I needlessly analyze this game that only 6 people have played. 

TONE/WRITING:

The game is about a cat named Kay whose land gets invaded by these nasty rats and gorillas who plan to enslave everyone. Kay, of course, takes it upon himself to stop it. The whole game takes place in a very Asian inspired world of martial arts and Buddhist temples.

But one thing that is striking is that this game is completely tone-deaf with it’s narrative direction. I get the vibe that they are three different departments with three different interpretations of what the story should feel like.

Voice Director/Casting Director: “This is for little kids, so that’s get an 8-year-old to voice our lead hero, and make all the other voices really goofy and cartoony!”

Script Writer: “Let’s go super edgey with this and make our characters swear and make brutal threats of murder and decapitation! Also, add in alcohol.” 

Game Director/Story Director: “Let’s go for a good, balanced tone. One that’s kid friendly, but not goofy and soft. Think 4Kids Ninja Turtles maybe.”

Really though, it seems like no one was one the same page here. You get the feeling that the game wanted to be right-in-the-center tonally, but the voice acting got pulled in the extreme kiddy direction and the dialogue got pulled in the opposite direction.

Seriously, the titular hero, Kay, is voiced but what sounds like a very young child and it’s kinda embarrassing. Then, out of a nowhere, Kay starts swearing (in a very cringey edge-lord way, too) and it’s couldn’t feel more juxtaposed. 

Who thought this was a good idea? Were these guys just riding off the Jak II hype wave? “Jak II was a platformer with swearing and it was successful!”

Maybe Jak II’s darker, humanoid world found a way to get away with it, but the world of Legend Of Kay, with its fuzzy fur-ball characters, just can’t pull it off.

GAMEPLAY

This game really feels straight out of 2005. Definitely from a bygone era. And you know what? It’s an era that I miss. Legend of Kay has what I would expect, and want. It’s a third-person mascot platformer with action and adventure elements. Platforming, powerups, puzzles, combat, combos, exploration, hidden goodies, and a bunch of other things that were standard tropes of the genre in the 2000′s before 3D platformers faded into unjust obscurity (only to be replaced by a tiring barrage of first-person shooters).

The final boss feels exactly the way a final boss should. It’s big, epic, and you feel the that whole game is leading up to it. It’s great sense of excitement when you’re fighting the last boss, and great sense of accomplishment when you beat it. Not saying that modern games don’t do this ever, but it seemed so much more like an unspoken rule back then. It was expected and you were disappointed if it wasn’t there. Over time, I feel like developers tried doing different things for their final boss, perhaps solely for the sake of “avoiding cliches.” 

Let’s talk about combat. I think you can judge a game’s combat system on a “pre-Arkham” and “post-Arkham” scale. This game, of course, is pre-Arkham, and the combat system is pretty unique. 

Basically, if you get some combos going, you enter a new state of combat, where you zip around freely from one foe to the next, simply to how Arkham would do it four years later (and get ridiculous amounts of praise for it). It’s hard to put into words, but there’s definitely an “aha!” moment when you get a feel for the combat. There’s certain flow to it that is almost zen. 

While the combat does get repetitive and is unfair at times, it’s still a neat system that I’d like to see another game try to perfect.

You start with a sword, but you get two other weapons throughout the game: a big fat hammer and a set of Wolverine-esque claws. You be able to upgrade these weapons too, making them stronger which is a nice sense of progression. However, the claws are pretty useless, despite looking really cool. Immediately after you get them, you’ll use them to cut some bamboo and then will likely never see them again. They suck in battle and are less powerful than your standard sword. Why?

Moving on, there are definitely some weird gameplay moments of clunkyness that would have been unacceptable even at the time. For example: If you pull yourself up from a ledge grab on a moving platform, the platform will just move on without you and you’ll “pull” yourself up onto nothing and just fall through thin air. 

There’s also these weird colored diamonds that you can collect to increase your score. But to my knowledge, your score does absolutely nothing. You get no bonus for having a high score. It is literally just a number. Why?

As mentioned earlier, the voice acting is just terrible, and it really hurts how long winded some of the characters can be. At times, they talk just to talk. They don’t say anything of real value. Almost every time you run into enemies, the game stops to give you a “cutscene.” And by “cutscene,” I mean you sit and watch the enemies stand still in a defensive stance while they say five or six lines about how they want to hurt/beat/kill you. 

But in an odd way, part of me likes that. It gets too long and repetitive because it happens nearly every fight, but I like the attempt to make your enemies feel like characters with personalities. 

Speaking of making enemies feel more real, Legend of Kay has an interesting obsession with perma-death. Seriously, if you kill an enemy, his corpse will lay there infinitely. You can leave an area, turn off the game, load back up the save, go back to the area, and his body will still be lying right where you killed it. It’s feels more grim that way. In other platformers of the time, you’d kill an enemy and their body would fade out or disappear in smoke. But in Legend of Kay, the perma-death makes you start to feel the weight of your actions. You can’t just kill something and sweep the body away to instantly forget about. Nope, that body will always be there. Dang, that is some heavy stuff for a 2005 platformer.

One last thing. Legend of Kay does something that I hate in video games.  After you beat the game, loading your save file puts you right before the final boss forever. I hate that. I’ve always appreciated it when game will load you back to the hub-world and let you see the world in peace. At the very least, give me a level select list and let me replay levels I didn’t 100%. That brings me to my next point of discussion.

REMASTER:

I get the vibe that this 2015 remaster version had almost zero budget. Seriously, look at the back cover of the box. It looks like it was made in Photoshop in 10 mins. I’m not exaggerating. 

It’s doesn’t look terrible, it just looks like it cost almost nothing to make. This is not the work of a graphic designer. This is one of the programmers making it the day before the game ships.

Look at the text! It’s a plain as it gets.

Compare it to the original 2005 box art.

I didn’t play the original, but I get the vibe that almost no changes were made to the gameplay. Certainly not any big ones. Aside from some up-res’d textures, this the original 2005 Legend of Kay, warts and all. There were a lot of little things here and there that would go a long way into improving the game. Simple things that I’d imagine would be easy fixes. But this ain’t Majora’s Mask on 3DS. This is a graphical fix only.

OVERALL

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Legend of Kay: Anniversary. It’s not going to happen, but I would love to see a new Ledgend of Kay game in 2017 or sometime in the future. This is a relatively forgotten franchise that I think could use new life. In fact, you could use it’s obscurity to your advantage. The world and characters are already built, but there are hardly any preconceived notions to worry about. 

As much as I hate this word, this experience was “nostalgic” for me in a special way. It’s a game I didn’t play as a kid, but feels 100% like a game I would have played as kid. It was great to take a trip back to 2000′s era gaming without re-playing through a game that I’ve already seen a hundred times. It’s a new experience from an old era. And boy, I do miss that era.

You’re alright, Legend of Kay. You’re alright. 

(Now bring on Yooka-Laylee)