Recent reviews by DarylSurat

Who would've thought that 10 years later, a fighting game that was originally crowdfunded would still endure? Skullgirls has every feature a fighting game should have, and it's of galling to think that it didn't become the gold standard in the decade since. Single player story mode, cross-platform multiplayer with rollback netcode, solid tutorial (very good and far better than most fighting games but still not quite perfect), trials, and mechanics that are fun to engage with whether you're a FGC diehard or a casual masher. Sprite artwork that pays homage to multiple animation styles plus a sweet soundtrack means that even ten years later, it doesn't feel "dated" the way many 3D fighters of past generations do going back to them. Plus, it's still being actively supported with new characters and balance patches! How many so-called "AAA" fighting games of 10 years ago can the same be said?

I've literally waited for more than twenty years for another proper space combat flight sim to come out. It has been that long--longer, really--since we've had a space sim with the classic fast action space sim flight control physics of Wing Commander, X-Wing/TIE Fighter, or Freespace 1+2 rather than some derivative of the floaty Newtonian physics as seen in... well, every new "space sim" since the 2000s. If you like all those games with that style of spacecraft handling, then good for you. But it kills my enthusiasm and desire to play a space sim game deader than dead if I hear that's how their flight model works. (To think I backed Squadron 42 since they claimed it would be "another game like Wing Commander" only for them to adopt a decidedly non-Wing Commander like physics model...)

Star Wars: Squadrons is what I've been waiting for all this time. Sure, there are nice mods for the games of a quarter century ago, but Squadrons is a game on a modern engine. Get this: you can actually rebind controls in-game! (Yes, Generation Z/Alpha, classic space sims are from so long ago they hail from a time when you usually couldn't do that.) Plus, the 3D objects in space have much more complexity, and mission objectives can vary up quite a bit more than in the past. I do quite miss there being secret objectives relayed to you before the mission starts, though. Squadrons does have primary and secondary mission objectives, along with some other constant ones for beating the mission quickly (I never got this once) and not dying during the mission. That's another modernization: auto-saved checkpoints throughout a level such that dying means you can elect to restart from the last checkpoint with full health/ammo. My number one cause of death: colliding into objects. My number two cause of death: trying to get too far from the designated “arena” area that they’ve defined so as to force you to deal with environmental terrain and always be close enough to other combatants.

Of course, it's primarily built for PvP multiplayer--which I'm never going to touch, though you can play vs AI--and so certain changes were required. The fixed arena space is one, though it’s still a large amount of space. You can no longer match speed with targets, and cycling through sub-systems of an already-targeted ship requires a bit more effort than simply one button press. It's the result of being designed primarily for a console controller, though thankfully my trusty old flight stick and throttle are supported out of the box. There now exists methods for healing damage taken and resupplying, and the unit imbalance between the Empire and Rebellion/Republic is no more. Thank goodness; much as I loved TIE Fighter, you spent almost the entire time fighting other Imperials since Rebel units didn’t present enough of a challenge. No need for that here!

The story and characters of the campaign are just serviceable enough, since it’s basically there as an extended tutorial for the multiplayer. It doesn’t really meet the rigors of what modern gamers expect from single player campaigns, but I think of it this way: aside from Wing Commander and X-Wing Alliance, you rarely had ANY character interactions in those classic games. Heck, few of the characters you DID talk to even had names! In the campaign, you alternate between the Republic and Imperial sides, and so you get to silently be present for conversations among two fighter squadron casts. The Empire wins out on the "interesting wingmen" side of things, since in a PvP game where one side has to always play as the Empire you can’t have the Empire be monolithically conformist. So, the Empire shown here features a lot more tolerance in diversity. A necessity, really. At least they’re still humans with that “sun never sets on the British Empire” speech affect.

I was a little concerned about the beginning few missions being a bit overly referential to the movies (the “hey, remember STAR WARS?” effect), but the remaining 2/3 is pretty solidly its own story so thumbs up to that. The campaign took me 12 hours to complete without retrying for all the medals like I typically would do, and that’s what I expected. I commend EA for not loading this up on microtransactions or DLC (for now) since PvP with cosmetics unlockable by in-game currency is prone to that sort of thing, and so I hope Squadrons does well enough for them to justify further development. I’d like additional campaign missions, but assuming there’s no ongoing support this was worth my $40 on day one as it stands. Bring back this style of game! You know, EA still owns the rights to Wing Commander…

I backed the Kickstarter for Strafe on day one, back in January of 2015. The pitch video was brilliant, promising a fast-paced run-and-gun FPS in the classic style of DOOM and Quake. Turns out that was all a lie. There's nothing "1996 FPS" about Strafe's game mechanics. They made a game that is far closer to Rogue or Nethack instead (EDIT: Or Spelunky, if those references are too dated). If you like that sort of thing, good for you. I can see the user reviews stating as much. But that was just a tiny footnote of the original Kickstarter pitch; a buried lede that should have been the giant headline. If they were more upfront about that aspect, then I never would have given these guys a dime.

Contrary to the tagline and the videos/screenshots, Strafe's gameplay isn't a 1996 throwback at all. In 1996, you never had to purchase incremental weapon upgrades using two different types of currency. In 1996 you never were forced to choose ONE gun which you were permitted to collect ammunition for, such that every gun you find from then on has to be thrown away once you expend a single clip. Back then you were allowed to quick save and quick load, and if you died you just restarted that level.

No, this is more along the modern indie game feature checklist. Unlike a 1990s style FPS, it's extremely difficult to find health, armor, and ammo in Strafe. (EDIT: And not in the way DOOM on higher difficulties was.) The new weapons you find can't be reloaded, and once you die you have to start the entire game over from the very beginning. With the penalty for death being so steep and with your resources so scarce, the game is actually encouraging you to proceed VERY, VERY SLOWLY and use as little as possible. That sure doesn't sound like the gameplay in the videos on this page where they're doing sick grenade jumps and fighting hordes of foes at once, does it? If you play that way, you'll just run out of bullets etc very quickly.

If they offered options to disable all these "modern" mechanics for those who want more of a "1996 FPS" feel, then maybe they'd have something with the procedural levels, soundtrack, and gibs. But aside from maybe the shotgun, the weapons don't feel very satisfactory. Maybe if the game allowed us to fire them more often I'd change my mind...but honestly, I don't have the desire to keep playing to find out. It's too bad; I was really looking forward to this.

***NO PLOT SPOILERS***

Just as Arkham City was a big jump from Arkham Asylum, so too is Arkham Knight another big leap forward compared to Arkham City. They’ve built upon the mechanics of what came before, so between that and the fact that the storyline is a conclusion to everything that’s transpired, I very strongly recommend that you play through Asylum, City & Origins before starting this. (You can skip Blackgate.)

In City & Origins you could just roam around the city, fighting mobs as you encounter them to get experience. Now, those criminals have all wised up such that almost all of them will just run away. Your reward for fighting them is personal satisfaction. The only way to gain XP is from quests or completing AR challenges, so there’s significantly less hand-to-hand combat in this game. That’s unfortunate because they’ve added new enemy types & attacks/counters to Batman’s arsenal. Indeed, Gotham City is now SUPLEX CITY. Predator stealth areas offer new methods to deal with enemies as well. My favorite one lets you instantly KO several (non-Brute) enemies at once!

Arkham Knight features a completely different map than the one in City/Origins, along with entirely new types of sidequests. That’s important to making sure this doesn’t feel like the same game you’ve been playing for years only in a new place. The key is much of the game mechanics now stress the use of the Batmobile, which you can call to you at any time much like the horse in Red Dead Redemption. It’s a challenge for sandbox design to work in both cars & flying. In Saints Row IV I found myself asking the same question I asked regarding OJ in the airport: “why would you take a car when you can FLY?” Batman could already fly—fine, it’s a glide—through Arkham Asylum & City, so use of the Batmobile is encouraged by way of the city layout, story mode, sidequests, and the fact that it’s quick & easy to switch between gliding & driving. Arkham Knight puts thought into the placement of sidequests & collectibles; to show you areas and details you would otherwise neglect to explore, or use abilities you may otherwise not bother with.

The Batmobile in this game fits the overall aesthetic of the Arkham series: it combines the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series (derived from Tim Burton’s films) with the Christopher Nolan movies. It has two modes: the familiar “car with rocket engine strapped to the back” along with a “Ghost in the Shell tank” one. You’re going to be in more fights that grant XP using the tank than anything else, so you may want to prioritize upgrading it. As a car, it handles like you’d expect: fast on straightaways but tricky to turn. The city layout is very forgiving though, since much of the environment near the streets will simply be destroyed if you drive through. A few areas require tighter precision which can be downright maddening, but most are optional challenges. In tank mode you go about as slow as you would on foot albeit with omnidirectional movement plus access to the Tim Burton-approved Bat-machinegun & the Bat-60mm cannon. Don’t worry: Batman doesn’t kill, so whenever you target humans they’re special NON-LETHAL ROUNDS (fired at over 1000 m/s). Just like the special NON-LETHAL running people over after colliding into them at 100s of MPH using a car that can smash through walls! There’s an electricity effect on the people you hit to suggest they’re being magnetically repelled but WHATEVER. DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

But seriously, this is the softest ESRB “M” rated game I’ve ever seen. PG-13 movies go well beyond even the most violent images in this, and there’s no nudity or strong language. A lot of characters do get shot by guns, but they just fall down with no blood or gore. The main departure this game has over the previous Arkham games is that there are a few bodies with red blood on or near them, and you can hit/shoot people with the car. This game really should have been rated “T”.

Knight might have the least memorable soundtrack of the entire Arkham series. I can hum the Asylum & City main themes, but no instrumental tracks in Arkham Knight stick with me at all, especially compared to tracks like “You Should Have Listened to My Warning” from Arkham City. Arkham Knight does have the greatest VOCAL tracks of them all though! As far as voices, “true Batman” Kevin Conroy is back as is the true arch-nemesis of these games…Wally Wingert as The Riddler! Seriously, Riddler is the perfect videogame villain because he’s constantly in your face, mocking the player for being stupid. He’s this generation’s giggling Duck Hunt dog that you’d do anything to shoot. There’s no mistaking Riddler dialogue with anyone else, or the way that he intones “Dark Knight” & “Detective.” Punching the smug off his face is what we look forward to most! As for the rest? Don’t check any cast list until AFTER you’ve beaten it, since just knowing what characters are present will just spoil the entire game for you. I did learn that I can't tell Matt Mercer from Troy Baker though.

As you can see from all the reviews now flagged “pre-release,” Arkham Knight got pulled from Steam almost immediately on release to be patched as it was “an unplayable mess.” So, how well did the old version run? There was one noticeable bug I encountered: the 2D overlays for Detective Mode/the mini-map in one indoor area started glitching out after checking it a few times such that you had to restart. Everything else was fine; I had a few crashes but upon checking they were all caused by my sound setup & the fact that I was streaming on Twitch (username “suratd”). On my single GTX 970, it ran 1920 x 1080p with all effects set to highest, including the PC-only nVidia Gameworks effects. The one drawback? It was a solid 30 FPS. That was Arkham Knight’s “crime” pre-patch.

But I think of it this way: even in the old “broken mess” state, it still ran at a higher resolution with more effects than the PS4 or XB1. The re-released version has removed the lock & improved the performance to bring me to 60 FPS in-game with all settings at their new maximum. Using the same GTX 970 GPU, the only thing now that incurs a framerate hit is enabling nVidia’s “Interactive Smoke and Fog” which sometimes decreases performance by about 5-10 FPS in scenes where such smoke appears. Way I see it, the Steam PC version was the best version of Arkham Knight even before it got de-listed, and now it runs better than before.

Arkham Asylum was the most focused experience. Arkham City’s more open-ended layout best captured how hectic “one night being Batman” is while having the best music and villain dialogue that inspired you to stop what you were doing and beat them senseless. Origins had the best and most varied boss fights as well as the most “comic book” style cutscenes. Arkham Knight succeeds over its predecessors not just mechanically, but in the thematic sense. There are not one, but several obstacles for which Batman’s victory over them is not a foregone conclusion. Where maybe you can’t “win” so much as “not lose” even when it looks like you’ve definitely “lost” with no way to recover. Some of the key plot developments are obvious and you can see them coming a mile away. Others are intentional fakeouts. But much like how The Dark Knight Rises is definitely the last Christopher Nolan Batman movie, this is definitely the last Arkham game. My biggest gripe with some of the earlier Arkham stuff, particularly Asylum and Origins, was the game explicitly went out of its way to show the futility of your deeds or the hypocrisy of your actions. But if I’m going to spoil ONE thing about this game...Arkham Knight’s the opposite of that.

Payday 2 has a lot of DLC, and it'll have more soon enough. But the Mod Courier DLC is the one you should absolutely prioritize owning above all others because it effectively fixes the card drop inventory/weapon modding system. Translation: it DRAMATICALLY reduces the "grind" aspect. I'll explain for those of you who may end up reading this during a sale:

Upon successful completion of a map, the player is given the option to pick from 1 of 3 cards, which in turn grant either a cash/XP bonus or the ability to purchase an item (note: you don't actually get the item). There are three problems with this system. First, the system extends to non-cosmetic weapon modification items that drastically affect your in-game effectiveness. Second, it's not actually random. Without getting too technical ("the seed for a random number generator seems to be a fixed value, likely your Steam ID"), suffice to say you can play for hundreds of hours, beat thousands of levels, and still never get a single one of a certain item that other people may get several of. Third, once you get a weapon mod from a card drop, it costs tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in in-game spending money just to equip something. Want to experiment with certain mods on certain weapons to see if you'll like it? You'll go broke quickly, especially early on.

The mod courier pack circumvents ALL of these problems. It's a brand-new set of weapon mods that in many ways are "win the game" in terms of their stats/usability, which cost NOTHING to equip/unequip. Scattered throughout the maps now are packages you pick up. Pick up enough of a certain color (which you'll do just from playing the game) and you'll get various mods compatible with a wide range of weapons. Along with dramatically increasing stats (damage, accuracy, ammo count, etc), some mods enable things like being able to equip scopes on pistols. Others allow for laser sights/flashlight attachments without compromising your stealth capability.

Get this DLC, and you can more or less say goodbye to a potential tedious and unfun future where you spend hours farming cards hoping to get that one weapon mod you need (with the exception of certain stealth mods). Now you'll actually be rewarded for *playing the game and exploring the maps*. Before this DLC came out, I used to use the Eagle Heavy Rifle from the first Gage Weapon Pack. Now, thanks to these mods, the best weapon in the game is now (for me) the CAR-4 rifle: one of the first guns the game makes available for you to buy at low levels. Man, do I wish this DLC existed when I had first started playing.

I've been a Thief fan since I bought Dark Project on release in that triangle-shaped box. I put over 40 hours into this game and I did all the side quests.

I can't recommend anyone else do the same. And I got this for about $10 with the bank heist DLC. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970398622/recommended/239160 covers most of what I think, so I'll just append to those thoughts here:

The Thief series is fundamentally a game about hiding in shadows and moving quietly to avoid being detected by enemies for which you yourself often hear first before seeing them. I've played every Thief game and that statement is axiomatic, fan-patched or not. The problem with Thief 4, as I will refer to it, is that the game's sound engine isn't properly coded and being fully in shadow (as denoted by the light gem and screen border indicators) doesn't meaningfully translate to "enemies are unable to see you at distance."

You may be walking along and suddenly hear footsteps or someone speaking quite loudly to your right, as though they were inches away. You turn, and there's nothing...because the person is actually on a separate floor, in another room, or across the street. You can't reliably use sound to determine "there's someone moving from that direction...and they're getting closer/further away" in this game, especially when it comes to overheard conversations.

You can be crouched down in full shadow, and a guard/civilian walking past may still be alerted to your presence upon walking by. Or not. Because of the inconsistent application of "the rules" your success or failure is based less upon your own player skill at stealth games (I'm no Lytha, but I consider myself competent) than your ability to predict the path the designers insist you take. You don't actually have much in the way of multiple solutions.

This has NOTHING to do with any individual's CPU, GPU, or speaker setup.

You can manually swing your blackjack, but it generally won't do you much good. You can't really thwack a surface to distract a guard, and if you try to manually swing it to KO someone it won't work. Nope, you've GOT to use the context-sensitive cinematic takedown button. Sometimes you can kill or knock out one guard (in this game there is absolutely no functional difference between the two outside of some arbitrary challenges) and the guard mere footsteps away detects nothing. Other times you do so and someone several feet away is alarmed. Aside from "broken glass" there is no difference in sound between moving on carpet vs moving on stone, wood, tile, etc so you'll spend most of the game crouch-walking with your hands mimicking the tiny arms of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I do at least appreciate that you can see your hands and feet, and your picking up of loot items is animated. That makes it seem like you're really in the world. But nearly all of the stuff you steal is below your "master thief" calling. Ink bottles? Pens? Ashtrays? Common silverware? Once you start asking "wait, why are coin purses in bird's nests?" and "if everyone's starving and in poverty, why is this shiny gold ring literally lying on the ground in the street near these beggars?" you can't help but notice that the big unruly mob there to witness the latest hanging--frequently overheard as the only entertainment left to see--consists literally of two people.

Thief 4's story, setting, characters, and dialogue isn't even in the same league as the prior Thief games, such that during the moments in this one where they tried to reference / tie-in the old mythology to this my reaction was "game, you haven't earned the right to reference Keepers/Hammerites/Pagans." The writing isn't even in the same league as Assassin's Creed or Dishonored, the two games they were really, really trying to emulate here more than anything else. I think the only Thief game they really looked at was Deadly Shadows, but I don't think they learned from its missteps.

"How was I seen just now?" is what you will often wonder. "Why am I not able to jump/climb onto this when I was able to jump/climb onto something just like it?" is another frequent question. The answer to both is the same: "unlike last time, the developers didn't want you to do that THIS time." You are at least powerful enough to be able to easily dispatch multiple guards at once if detected. Only one enemy type in the game is a true threat for which you can't fight head-on, and that's when the capriciousness of the stealth mechanics become particularly noticeable.

Don't believe me? Demand proof? Then don't just watch one guy's video playthrough. Watch three. Watch four. Note how they all more or less have to do the same thing the same way, especially during the scripted "you've been spotted and have to escape" moments. I understand the need to reboot old series to be more accessible to new generations of fans. But if you're going to do that, at least do it well like Deus Ex: Human Revolution did. After that game, I had so much hope for Thief 4. But in the end, I got a poorly written game with awful characters and a nonexistent ending with gameplay that could've been acceptable with just a little more effort.

The PC port of this game is a good one. You've got AA/AF options, plus low/medium/high settings for shadows, how long debris stays, and how many pieces you can cut things into. On my 660Ti, I could run at 1920 x 1080 with MSAA x 2, AF x 16, and everything on high and it holds at 60 FPS with no Vsync tearing whatsoever.

As for the game itself? This was my pick for best game of 2013. It's a Bayonetta/Devil May Cry style action title with stylish choreography (and it's not just limited to the cutscenes; you can and will be doing this stuff yourself) combined with the characterization and dialogue of a traditional Metal Gear title. And there's quite a lot of that, too: if you voluntarily listen to all of the codec conversations and don't just skip the cutscenes, this game is about as long as a "normal" Metal Gear Solid game. Anyone saying "it's short!" is neglecting to point this out, as most of the codec dialogues are optional.

Stealth exists for sections but is actively discouraged. In true Platinum Games fashion, the most critical and fundamental of gameplay mechanics is left under-explained. In this case, that's how to properly parry and dodge (you'll actually have to purchase aerial parrying and the dodge as upgrades, though they are inexpensive and among the first upgrades available). As with most Platinum games, you can go through much of the game without quite "getting" how they work, but once you've got it down your effectiveness will skyrocket. Hint: you have to move the stick FROM NEUTRAL towards the direction of the attack before hitting X.

Platinum Games are about "mastery" more than just "completion." You don't simply beat this game and conclude "well, I've beaten it, now onto the next game" like we do for most action titles. To do so would be missing out on a lot of what is offered. Here, you're graded on each encounter, and to get every encounter per level you'll want to backtrack and intentionally get spotted so as to trigger more fights. Doing better means more points to spend on character and weapon upgrades. You'll get several weapons each with several moves and their own applications. Feel free to use whatever you feel like. Replay past levels using the weapons you got from later stages. Then try out the VR challenges and higher difficulties. And now you can choose to skip straight to the boss fights upon completion (all Metal Gear games should have this).

This is the sort of game where there are multiple difficulties above Hard. The sort of game that's meant to be PLAYED rather than watched in a video playthrough in order to truly experience it. I beat it on PS3 last year, and now I feel like doing it all over again on PC. Here's hoping Metal Gear Solid 5 comes out on Steam too!

Arkham Asylum was a revolutionary game. Arkham City was as well. By contrast, Arkham Origins is viewed as an evolutionary game, and between that and the fact that the principal actors and development studio have been replaced a lot of people figured "eh, I don't need to play this for a year." Technically speaking, Arkham Origins does feature revolutionary additions over the previous games, but it's in an area that nobody particularly asked for in the first place: online competitive multiplayer. I myself have yet to even launch it, but given that it's developed by Splash Damage I'm sure it's not slapped together. They did after all make the Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer (which got carried over into Enemy Territory, and then Quake Wars, etc).

The thing about the single-player is that while it's good, you literally cannot help but compare it against Arkham City the entire time. The combat system and animations are completely carried over, with some additions. You have some new gadgets (one is allegedly "new" but in reality is functionally identical to something else from Arkham City) and face a few new common foes. Luckily, one of the gadgets is straight out of Super Inframan and makes combat even more satisfying since you trounce everyone with it, and the others give you more options during the Predator encounters. The enemy AI is altered since the rate at which you counter rather than strike has gone way, way up. Boss battles are VASTLY improved over the previous games, as each one emphasizes that you do different things. At no point do you feel "well, this is the same thing I did for the last boss."

But even with that said, at most points you DO feel "well, I've done this before." Aside from the combat, the sidequests have you doing the same gameplay mechanic as 2 years ago (and 4 years ago) albeit for a different cosmetic reason. Example: in Arkham City you have to quickly travel across the city to answer phones in time to stop a killer. Here, you have to do the same to defuse bombs. It's the same map as Arkham City, albeit with some new zones. It helps a little that you can now fast travel. But there must be fewer grapple points because getting from place to place is a little trickier than it used to be.

You'll be fighting and fighting, and with the random "crimes in progress" that spawn, you'll fight more. You're rarely going to be scanning the environment unless you're prompted to do so. Crime scene investigations are a new addition, but much like the show CSI you aren't really doing anything yourself. The computer is magically reconstructing a series of events based on your having scanned a body and a spot of blood (which they can't show as red). Then you go beat up a guy. You can't inadvertently defeat the person you meant to interrogate either, so there's no "save this guy for last" aspect to combat. But you are now given grades for each encounter, such that higher grades yield XP bonuses. Winning is largely a foregone conclusion given that you're Batman, but winning with an A or S rank is the tough part. In fact, I still haven't gotten the last one because it doesn't always play the *wham* sound effect to denote you KO'ed someone with a hit (I call this the "BATMAAAAAN!" since if I could mod this game I would replace that sound with the screaming pug). The game offers various challenges for additional bonuses and upgrades, but it's buggy about deciding whether or not some of them "count." I busted my ass doing the "do 4 exotic takedowns in a Predator section" and then it didn't count it. And then it turned out there were no more Predator sections in the game. AND it won't let you complete those challenges on the challenge maps, so if you don't do it during the story you're screwed...unless you replay it on the much harder New Game+ mode...

The reduced architecture grapples and increased enemy attack rates are somewhat minor, but if there's a major "step backwards" here it's one of atmosphere. This Gotham City isn't yet overrun with supervillains who've marked their territory and themed their gangs. The incentive to see the world isn't really as strong. The Riddler's challenges were designed to direct you to all the cool little references, but at this point there is no "Riddler" etc so you're basically completing the challenges for the sake of hearing the "extortion data that's going to harm innocent people" recordings. Except pretty much all of them pertain to supervillains and corrupt civil servants whom you take down anyway. It feels more like a task since there's less "reward" for doing it. Why oppose this so strongly? That's the REAL enigma.

The strong negative online backlash to Arkham City's criminal dialogue means that EVERYTHING pertaining to threats or abusive language is long gone (that already got walked back since the Arkham City DLC) so pat yourselves on the back, Team "Woke" Gaming. Between that and the fact that Batman is less infallible at this stage of his career, the writing has gotten a lot more praise compared to Arkham City. But for me, it feels less satisfying to beat people up because I overheard them saying they're cold and hungry, or that they're resorting to crime because they lost their job and now they have to not be home on Christmas Eve. This definitely plays into the "Batman as fascist authoritarian conservative" reading of the character. I kind of wonder if the writers just hate Batman as a concept, since the villains all expose the flaws in his approach and morality and Batman has no answer because he can't admit "the reason I can't kill you is because you're all too profitable as IP."

Also, the game takes place over a few hours on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, yet the amount that happens is absurd. True, a lot happened during Arkham City, but there was planning leading up to it. How can these locations be THIS devastated and re-renovated in just a few hours? And it's not even accidental; the game points out "yeah, it's been 3 hours." On the other hand, James Gordon isn't Commissioner yet, so the cops are pretty much all dirty. In this game you get to beat up SWAT team guys, which is the part of "Year One" that is the most important.

The Assassin's Creed guy as Batman has his highs and mids since he's mostly forced to imitate Kevin Conroy, but with a name like "Roger Smith" you'd think he was BORN to impersonate Kevin Conroy's Batman! Troy Baker (who already nailed his Richard Moll Two-Face impersonation in Arkham City) is about as dead-on a mimicry of Mark Hamill's Joker as one could hope, given that Mark can no longer really do that voice anymore. Richard Epcar (voice of the Joker in the fighting games) has a few background lines that jump out to me, but I guess he also directed a lot of the secondary dialogue recordings.

I enjoyed Arkham Origins, but I'd still say to hold off on getting it. Not so much because of the issues described above so much as the fact that there's a ton of DLC and all of it's spread out across platforms and retailers due to exclusivity (Challenge maps where you're Bruce Wayne in training, etc). There's a Season Pass which includes that stuff, but it costs another $20 and for now is almost entirely cosmetic. They say there'll be at least one story DLC, but what'll it be about? Maybe something inspired by The Long Halloween? I don't know, so I don't know if that, a few challenge maps, and some cosmetic skins are really worth the money. For now I'd say to pick this up once a "complete edition" is available unless you happen to buy a new video card that bundles it.

You're a disembodied, outstretched forearm with no elbows. Nothing works. You can barely pick up a pencil from a table. What's more, the collision physics either sends things flying or has them slip away, even when you know what to do. That Jurassic Park Trespasser game from years ago already "blessed" us with a similar sort of absurd interface as it asked players to kill dinosaurs, so there's only one remaining course of action: perform transplant surgeries with zero in-game tutorials or instruction provided until after you've already succeeded.

This is absolutely not something you want to go to Youtube or GameFAQs for instruction on when you're stuck. That'll just ruin the game for you. For SS2013 is a game about screwing things up royally and not really minding too much that you've done so. In fact, most of the "achievements" are granted based on ridiculous ways to screw things up, not succeed. For although you're presented with all sorts of tools to go about your task, most of them are either useless or actively detrimental.

Normally, this would all make for an atrocious experience. But the "Simulator" of the title is a complete and absolute lie. I originally had a paragraph elaborating on this, but the joy is seeing for yourself. Originally made in 48 hours, the "2013" version of this game was made in 48 days. The absurd novelty of it all it seems to be part of a slight swell of indie "perform mundane tasks in goofy fashion" games. There are 8 operations total, but only 4 unique procedures. Naturally, the toughest one of all--the heart transplant--is what they have you do first!

I paid $3.39 for this and got about 9 hours playtime out of it. WORTH EVERY CENT.

I bought this back in November when it was on sale for $5. (Nowadays it's part of indie bundles.) It's the kind of game based around mastery: getting high scores, unlocking everything, and the like. But after 8.5 hours, I'm not sure if I'd really bother with doing so.

Hotline Miami is a top down action game where the idea is to kill everybody on the level such that you're rewarded for speed and using different methods on the enemies. You have to kill everyone on the floor you're on to advance to the next one. You die in one hit, and if you die you have to repeat the floor you're on. The enemies mostly appear in the same spots though there's some variation in what weapons appear, and at first you think "I'd better try not to get seen or make noise." In reality, the best way to go about things is to get seen then turn a corner/enter a doorway so the enemies run to you. Then you pick them off as they're making the corner. This works because THEIR gunshots don't alert everyone. Only YOURS would (though it doesn't necessarily send the entire floor running to you).

The biggest problem I have with this game is that there are two control schemes and neither is what I would consider "good." Common sense suggests you'd just use a 360 gamepad and treat this like a twin-stick shooter. But the most important thing you have to do to stay alive is to shift the camera ahead of your field of view and lock onto targets. Doing this on the gamepad SUCKS. The default mouse and keyboard setup makes the act of turning quickly a pain, and the same input results in context-sensitive actions. Press right-click to throw your weapon away (it can hit enemies). HOLD right click to "drop" your weapon. But you also press right-click to pick weapons UP. This makes it very easy to accidentally die because performing the action of "fire a gun, throw it away once it's empty/low, then pick up another gun and continue firing" is now very VERY easy to screw up. That one instant often means the difference between victory and starting the floor over.

But the main cause of my deaths in Hotline Miami wasn't that. See, I have a dual monitor setup. In this game, you use the mouse to turn your character's orientation as well as position the crosshair when looking ahead. For reasons beyond my comprehension, this game doesn't keep window focus. There are no real in-game customization options to speak of. So if you move your mouse to the right then click, there's a high probability that you now just task-switched out of the game because your mouse cursor went over to the second window. To regain focus...you have to click on the game window. Upon doing so, congratulations: you just fired a shot/discarded your weapon/changed your lock-on target when you didn't want to! So even though you can look and target much better with KB/M (probably the most important thing you do), at least the gamepad isn't going to switch you out of the game. Some people try to use both at once to counter this. I say patch the game! A patch is due out this week, but eh.

There are boss fights, but I don't much like them. Because you respawn instantly and you have to find out what doesn't work the hard way, they're designed as rote memorization exercises for you to basically die over and over again on until you do EXACTLY what the game is looking for. Dying does not seem to affect your score, at least, and it's your score that drives many of the unlocks.

I got my money's worth, but I don't see why this is on so many "best of 2012" lists. Some people think the developers are presenting this as criticism of videogame violence (the story is somewhat pointless and repetitive by design even if you get all the secret Scrabble pieces to get the password which gives you the REAL ending), but if that's the case it's kind of well, let's say more "sub-textual" than "textual." A sequel is due out soon, but I see no need to play it at launch.