I Review BATMAN KNIGHTFALL Vol.1

Normally I wouldn’t venture into the realm of reviewing books but this is by special request from an awesome fellow and I strongly recommend you follow him over at http://justaddanchovies.wordpress.com/

As this is the eve of probably the biggest movie release of the year, what better time to review this masterpiece.

This massive first KNIGHTFALL volume collects BATMAN: VENGEANCE OF BANE SPECIAL #1, BATMAN #491-500, DETECTIVE COMICS #659-660, SHOWCASE '93 #7 and 8 and BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #17-18, including chapters never previously reprinted.

Being such a massive Batman fan it does feel awesome to review one of the best ever written story arcs ever

Knightfall is an ARC of how Bane became to be and how he was able to push batman to breaking point.

The story starts with Bane being born into death, he was a child that was born in prison and would die in prison as the sins of the father we past to the child to carry out.

The story shows the different aspects of his childhood and the horrors he witnesses and also faces, plus the death of his mother.

The Character depth is amazing and the detail in the frames really draws you in and you can kind of understand the lengths someone would go to survive.

Bane, with the help of prisoners successfully because a Guiney pig for the army's super serum and uses it to his advantage and executes a perfect prison escape with his fellow prisoners to Gotham City, where he plans to make a name for himself and to be the person to break the bat!

Batman and Robin at this point doesn’t realise how their world and lives are going to change.

During Bane's initial time in Gotham he creates the usually havoc to test batman and to draw him out- he does this to see what his opponent is made of.

It isn’t until Bane plans a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum, which allows all of Gotham’s worst to escape and do as they please.

This forces batman into a never ending battle to capture all of those who escaped. Bane's cunning is to see what limit batman has and how far he can be pushed before he reaches breaking point.

The battles that batman encounters especially with Victor Zsaz and Joker and Scarecrow really show you even heroes can’t always win and this really starts to get to Bruce. Tim Drake, who is the Robin at the time really struggles to deal with Bruce as he thinks he can handle it all by him and pushes Robin aside.

Once again the complex character depth that shows the crumbling relationship between Master and Student is outstanding.

Tim has never seen batman like this as really starts to worry, he confides in Alfred and Jean Paul (who at one time stepped in to fill Bruce’s shoes) about batman pushing himself to hard and too far.

The Build-up to the Battle between batman and Bane is some of the finest story telling I have ever read and is illustrated flawlessly to match. You get to feel all the tension and all the angst that batman feels and how each fight and each battle brings him that slightly more closer to defeat.

Bane realises that the time to strike is at hand and batman is at his lowest. The fight scene really has to be seen so you can witness the demise of the world’s greatest detective and crime fighter

The Frame which depicts batman's end and the frame to follow where Bane is holding a broken and near dead batman above his head and throws his body into the street left me speechless. How could this happen - the hero never dies/gets hurt well this brings back into perspective the mortality of the dark knight

I won’t go any further into the book because I want you all to read it but I will say one last thing I cannot wait to read part 2 as it does leave quite the cliff hanger.......

I Review Resident Evil 6 - The Demo

Well this is a game that I have very high hopes for, after playing the demo I am having mixed feelings. The game will feature 3 different scenarios, Chris Renfield , Leon Kennedy and a new character Jake. the demo allows you to sample each different story and i have broken them down below as they each are quite different.

Graphics have been given a really good overhaul except i noticed some frame rate drops but I'm putting that down to the demo, will wait to see what the finished product looks like. The addition to a HUD system for each character is great as it finally gets rid of the need to locate maps Music is what you would expect for games of this genre.

Chris's Story

Chris's story opens with cut scene in a bar, a drunken Chris is drowning his sorrows and is confronted but a BSAA member (BSAA was the agency he worked for in RE5) after the cut scene you are back on duty in the streets of Hong Kong. The best way to describe this story/scenario is All action no horror - the enemies feel like they were ripped straight from RE 5. They can fire guns, beat up Chris and his partner and also dodge bullets. The Controls are actually quite good, excellent button layout and being able to walk and shoot is a very welcomed edition as this has always been Resident Evils weakness.  Also the new addition of precision kills or quick fire up close is very satisfying in tight spots. For me the only thing button wise its missing is a cover button - because of its high action, it would be great to be able to shoot from cover to save health and ammo.

Leon's Story

Leon's story is very much your classic Resident Evil Style game play - it focuses on the atmospheric factor of the franchise. It starts inside a university dorm or grand hall and uses the lighting and music tone to set the mood. You must find your way out. The thing that let this done for me was the control (control wise its exactly the same as Chris's) every now and then the game automatically takes over and disables your arm and run, so you have to very slowly walk through hallways. Well you do finally get to use your gun and start picking off the classic zombies, its far to late in the demo. Basically it ends right there!

Jake's Story

Jake's story start with you being attacked by a nemesis/Leon looking creature with mechanical arm. Its you run away and dodge type game play until you get to a warehouse and start blowing things up. Controls for Jake are quite good, you can use weapons but his specialty is hand to hand combat which works really well for a change of pace. for most of Jake's demo its all about survival. The demo ends at the boss battle.

 What I am really looking forward to is the 4 player co op via junction cross over, what this means is that at certain points during each character's story there will be a specific point that they will meet up with anther character and the stories with interweave. This will be great during boss battles. If capcom have done this right then i think the pay off will be great - would doesn't love co op? i know i do!

End Bits

OK, so as I said this is quite a mixed bag. Overall I am looking forward to this game i think the demo might be of a early code or release but as a massive Resident Evil fan this game will be a must buy for me day 1. Once i get my hands on the full release i will post a follow up full review of my take on the the revamp to one of my favorite franchises.

I Review Max Payne 3

Story

This has to be one of the greatest stories I have ever seen in a game or franchise. Dan Hauser knows how to write one hell of a script and how to immerse the audience and give them such rich, dark and intriguing experience. The story Pick up after shortly after game 2 and max is now a hired bodyguard for a very wealthy and powerful family. He still hasn’t coped with the loss of family and is now a full blown alcoholic and pain killer abuser, (which is told without holding back in the story) apart from his vices everything seems to be going well until renegade military groups try to kidnap the wife of one of the family members. I won’t go into the story any more you really need to immerse yourself in it and experience it firsthand.


Gameplay
Controlling the character is a very fluid experience, the seamless transition from "cut scene" to game play is superb, and the graphics have an amazing level of detail from each shell casing being modelled individually to level destruction. AI has been amped up well allowing enemies to react differently to each shot, injury and situation. Bullet time has vastly been improved and kill cam is a very welcomed perspective
What I didn’t like was with the bullet time death recovery if you’re crouching for cover near an object it can sometimes cause problems


Sound
The music for the game is brilliant; the score has been structured perfectly for each environment that Max finds himself in. The main track for the game "Tears" really lets the player feel  the raw emotion that Max is going through. Amazing effort


Multiplayer
I haven’t had the chance yet to sink my teeth into this but from what I have seen it looks great and would compare to RDR if anyone has played it.


End stuff
This is one of the most enjoyable games I have played in a very long time. Rockstar have done an amazing job with the latest instalment in the series. They had some pretty big shoes to fill with the game’s gritty storytelling and film noir experience and I think they have nailed it perfectly. Max Payne 3 is a must play game, even if you are new to the franchise, you won’t be missing out. It is available on PC Xbox360 and PS3.
My verdict 4.5/5