RIP Kevin Conroy

News has sadly broken that Kevin Conroy, best-known for voicing Batman across numerous animated series and video games over thirty years, has passed away at the age of 66.

Who was he? He was the goddamn Batman.

Born in Westbury, New York, in 1955, Conroy studied drama in New York City. He was room-mates with Robin Williams and was in the same study group as Kelsey Grammar. After graduation he started working in the theatre and, starting in the early 1980s, began splitting his time between stage acting in NYC and TV acting in Los Angeles.

Conroy achieved his first breakthrough by being cast as lawyer Bart Fallmont on Dynasty. By the end of the 1980s he had become a regular guest castmember on various American TV shows including Cheers and Murphy Brown, and a regular on Vietnam drama Tour of Duty.

Conroy's gravelly voice made him the natural choice to voice Batman and Bruce Wayne in Batman: The Animated Series (1992-95). Taking his cue from Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's two films, Conroy gave Batman and Wayne different voices to help hide the character's secret identity. Conroy continued to voice Batman in spin-off shows The New Batman Adventures (1997-99), Batman Beyond (1999-2001), Justice League (2001-04) and Justice League Unlimited (2004-06). He also voiced Batman in the theatrical movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) and various straight-to-video and DVD projects. He also played Batman during guest spots on related DC shows, such as Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000).

Conroy returned to the role for the Arkham series of video games: Arkham Asylum (2009), Arkham City (2011) and Arkham Knight (2015) (he skipped 2013's prequel, Arkham Origins, which featured a significantly younger and less-gravelly Batman). The games gained blanket critical acclaim and introduced Conroy to a younger audience who hadn't grown up with the prior animated series. Conroy's co-star from The Animated Series, Mark Hamill (who played the Joker), noted that his pleasure in working with Conroy was such that he would sign onto projects without seeing a script if he knew Conroy was involved.

In 2019 he finally played the role in live-action, starring as an older alternate-universe Bruce Wayne in the CW's Batwoman (as part of their Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event).

Conroy's immense popularity led to voicing gigs on many other shows, including The Venture Bros. and the various recent He-Man projects for Netflix.

Kevin Conroy passed away on 10 November from cancer. He is survived by his husband, Vaughn C. Williams.

With the physical actor playing Batman constantly changing, Conroy arguably became the definitive voice of the Caped Crusader, one of its most popular players and the longest-running and most prolific actor in the role when counted by the sheer number of episodes, films and video games he appeared in. The impact he had on an entire generation of kids growing up should not be underestimated; during search and rescue efforts after 9/11, Conroy helped out providing food to emergency responders and, at a friend's urging, geed up the police and firemen with Batman lines. He will definitely be missed.

James Gunn appointed head of DC films, animation and television

In a surprise move but one that also kinda makes sense, Warner Brothers have appointed director James Gunn as the head of DC films, animation and television. Gunn will have complete control over the direction of the DC universe on screen, effectively becoming the counterpart of his boss at Marvel, Kevin Feige. Gunn will work alongside producer Peter Safran, with whom he previously collaborated on the Peacemaker TV series.

Gunn will handle creative development of the DC screen universe moving forwards, whilst Safran will handle business and production. Gunn will also complete his existing commitments for Marvel, including The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (which launches on Disney+ next month) and post-production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (which will hit cinemas on 5 May 2023).

Gunn established himself as a superhero player by directing Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017) for Marvel. He also provided assistance and advice to the Russo Brothers on the use of the Guardians in Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019). He was then fired after Disney "discovered" seven-year-old inappropriate tweets, which Gunn had already discussed at length and apologised for in 2012. Marvel later reversed the decision after a public backlash. In the interim Gunn moved to DC to direct The Suicide Squad (2021), which was well-reviewed but a box office disappointment (due to opening during the COVID pandemic and being available on the same day on HBO Max). He then wrote all eight episodes of the first season of spin-off show Peacemaker and directed five of them, which were very well-received, before returning to Marvel to shoot Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

Those expecting Gunn to completely blank slate the DC film universe and start afresh will likely be disappointed, with Henry Cavill confirming his return to the franchise as Superman just yesterday. It looks like Gunn will aim to "soft reboot" the franchise instead in the same manner as The Suicide Squad did to its predecessor, keeping those actors and characters who are popular and who worked but easing off on continuity references in favour of new stories.

HBO Max reportedly planning a continuation of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES

According to Kevin Smith and other sources, HBO Max are planning a continuation of the classic Batman: The Animated Series.

Batman: The Animated Series aired between 1992 and 1995, producing 85 episodes and spawning a number of spin-off shows and series set in the same continuity. The series is one of the most highly-acclaimed animated and superhero TV series of all time and has recently reached new audiences through a HD remaster and appearing on streaming services.

The show drew on Tim Burton's live-action movies Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) for artistic inspiration, although it also charted its own course with unique characterisations for Bruce Wayne/Batman, Robin and Joker. The vocal performances by Kevin Conroy (Batman), Mark Hamill (Joker) and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn) have also become regarded as iconic, if not definitive. The show is also highly notable for its additions to the Batman mythos, most infamously the character of Harley Quinn who was introduced in the animated series before migrating to the comic a year later. Renee Montoya, Lock-Up and Simon Trent are other characters originated on the series to play a role in other versions of the mythos later on.

The Animated Series version of the mythos directly inspired the storylines and characterisation in the Arkham series of video games, which also starred Conroy, Hamill and (in the first game, at least) Sorkin.

Smith indicates that Bruce Timm, the original showrunner and co-creator, is involved in the new series. It's unclear if writer Paul Dini is also on board, or if the original vocal cast will return; Hamill, at least, has said that his version of Joker has been retired (although he's also been tempted out of retirement in the past).

If the continuation is confirmed, it is unclear if it would be a reboot in the same art style or if it would continue the storylines from where the animated show left off. This might be complicated by the sheer number of other series which have followed on from The Animated Series (including a contemporary Superman series and the SF-tinged Batman Beyond).

HBO Max has not yet formally confirmed the news.

Slugfest: Inside the Epic 50-Year Battle between Marvel & DC by Reed Tucker

In 1961 DC Comics was the biggest comic company in the United States. Its superhero comics - Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman - were the most popular in the world and it had absolutely no competition of note. But that same year Atlas Comics was branded Marvel and its editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby released a new comic called The Fantastic Four. Within a decade Marvel had displaced DC as the biggest comics company in the US and snatched away a lot of talent and critical acclaim that had gone to DC. DC fought back, starting formidable Superman and Batman movie franchises and releasing a series of artistic, critically-acclaimed comic books in the 1980s and 1990s from the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. But in the early 2000s Marvel finally entered the movie scene in force with X-Men and Spider-Man, and never looked back.

This non-fiction book looks into the 50-year competition between DC and Marvel, the two titans of comic book publishing. Reed Tucker has exhaustively interviewed many key players involved and scoured the archives for interviews with those who are no longer with us. The result is a potential interesting book that examines the corporate battle between the venerable establishment figure and the plucky upstart newbie.

Or at least it's a potentially interesting book that tries to do that. The opening chapters expand on this, detailing how Stan Lee took over a moribund company and injected some 1960s inventiveness, irreverence and character development to win over young fans from the older, more moribund publisher. We're told that Marvel focused more on the characters' internal lives, on the distrust with which they are treated by the government (helping young readers identify with similarly confused and mistrusted characters) and gave their writers and artists much greater freedom to express themselves, throwing away the style guides DC saddled their readers with. Marvel also used real locations, particularly in and around New York, which excited readers more than stories set in completely fictional locales like Gotham and Metropolis.

All of this stuff is great, but Reed never really moves on from this basic assumption: Marvel was the plucky underdog with greater creative energy and freedom, and DC was the staid old man taken by surprise by what the youngster was doing and whose attempts to replicate it by "getting down with the kids" were embarrassing. That applies very well to the 1960s and the early 1970s. However, some of Reed's conclusions and anecdotage are questionable: he challenges the wisdom of DC poaching Jack Kirby from Marvel and putting them on the Jimmy Olsen comic book, but this was both Kirby's own choice (so he wouldn't cost anyone a job on another comic, as the Jimmy Olsen book didn't have a permanent artist at the time) and also allowed him to set up his own, more original books later on by introducing characters like Darkseid.

By the time the 1980s have rolled around, Reed is still expanding on Marvel being the plucky underdog beating the boring old figure of DC, but seems to contradict himself by then talking about DC's artistic achievements with books like Swamp Thing, Watchmen and Sandman, as well as how Marvel had become the biggest-selling comic book company, making DC the underdogs. Aware that this is getting repetitive, he switches to studying the film business and how DC got some great movies made whilst Marvel flirted with moderately successful TV shows but otherwise couldn't get a decent movie on screen until twenty-two years later. This is interesting, with some great stories of bizarre behind-the-scenes battles and the film companies not "getting" comic books at all, but again it lacks depth.

The book is ultimately a bit constrained by its premise, and it's to Tucker's credit that he remains laser-focused on the interrelationship between Marvel and DC. It would have been very easy to get sidetracked in the internal history of the two companies and discuss more creative decisions, but Tucker stays on point throughout. This does mean the book veers towards the more corporate side of things rather than the creative one, which I think will be of less interest to those keen to learn more about the origins of superhero characters or how the books developed. But it has some value: this is an under-told aspect of the comic book story and Tucker keeps the story ticking over nicely.

Slugfest (***½) is a readable and intriguing book about the titanic competition between the two biggest comic book companies in the United States. It's also a bit on the repetitive side, with not as much depth as perhaps might be wished, and a lack of information on the creative choices as opposed to business ones. It's still a good story, well-told and interesting, but one for hardcore comic book fans only. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES coming to Blu-Ray

Warner Brothers have confirmed that they are remastering the classic Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s in high definition for a 2018 release.

The project was inspired by the remastering of the animated movie Mask of the Phantasm (from the same time period) last year, which was both effective and popular. Despite some of the technical difficulties involved in updating animation cells from twenty-five years ago, the team seem to have decided it was well worth the effort to tackle the entire series.

Warner Brothers have not confirmed if this will be a single box set (which is most likely), separated season boxes or some other arrangement.

Batman: Arkham Knight

The Joker is dead and Gotham City has been enjoying a relative period of peace. Despite this, Batman is troubled. On Halloween these fears are confirmed when Scarecrow attacks the city with a deadly fear toxin. The city is evacuated, leaving behind predatory gangs, several of Batman's greatest enemies (including Penguin, Two-Face and Riddler) and a new threat, an army of soldiers backed up by drone tanks led by the enigmatic "Arkham Knight". Batman once again has to go into battle against his enemies...but this time has some help.

The Batman mythos have always been well-suited for a video game. Batman does not kill his enemies, meaning that more inventive solutions have to be found to defeat enemies, and he has a very large array of gadgets, locations and storylines to draw upon. It wasn't until the relatively unknown British studio Rocksteady released Arkham Asylum (2009) that a video game finally nailed the Batman character and mythos really successfully. The game featured a mixture of puzzle-solving, visceral combat and characterisation that worked very well. Arkham City (2011) and Arkham Origins (2013, developed by another team) expanded on these gameplay and plot elements and were even more successful, although they arguably lacked the focus of the original title.

Arkham Knight is Rocksteady's final game in the Arkham series. Whilst previous games were set in tighter, more constrained areas, Arkham Knight opens up most of Gotham City to explore. The game world is five times the size of Arkham City and Batman now has the use of the Batmobile to get around the city, in addition to his normal methods of running, flying (with his aerial cape) and grappling. As well as a central storyline exploring the state of Batman's psyche after the death of his nemesis and the war against both Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight, there are a lot of side-missions, some of them unfolding into elaborate storylines by themselves. There's also the regular array of Riddler mini-missions, lots of cuts scenes and an in-game codex explaining the backstory of the various characters that non-comics readers may not have met before.

Veterans of the series will not find much here that they haven't encountered before. Batman has an array of fighting moves and gadgets that he can upgrade as the game proceeds, and has to pummel a pretty ridiculous number of bad guys into the ground to achieve his objectives. He also investigates crimes with a battery of CSI-style gadgets and with a number of allies, including Alfred, Oracle, Nightwing and Robin, who provide him with backup, advice and support.

It's a much busier game than any of the preceding ones, more of a true open world game with lots of things going on at once (and Alfred on hand to chide you if you neglect pressing tasks for too long) and you have to choose what you want Batman to do next. There's certainly a lot to do, and it's both the biggest and longest game in the Arkham series (a thorough playthrough will likely top 30 hours), the best-looking and, unfortunately, the most rambling.

Arkham Knight has more endings than The Return of the King. Each time the game peaks and reaches a crescendo after a massive set-piece battle or boss fight, it suddenly dissipates and a new threat rises. This happens several times in a row, adding an anti-climactic element to the game. The mystery of the Arkham Knight never really kicks in (mainly because the bad guy focus remains on Scarecrow, voiced with palpable malice by Fringe and, er, The Return of the King's John Noble) and the story goes way beyond plausibility when you have to take the Batmobile into battle for the fiftieth time against an entire division of robot tanks. Whilst it's great that the game draws on most of Batman's rogue's gallery to present a real threat to the Caped Crusader, there's also the Spider-Man 3 problem that there's probably too many villains: Scarecrow, Arkham Knight, Riddler, Two-Face and Penguin have a lot of time spent on them, so throwing in lesser-tier fodder like Pyg, Firefly and Deathstroke (not to mention a complex relationship with Azrael) ends up just feeling like filler.

Much has been written about the Batmobile combat sequences and I have to agree they don't really work, at least not given the ridiculous amount of time you spend fighting unmanned tanks in the Batmobile. If the combat was better, faster-flowing and more natural (like melee combat), this would be bearable but instead it's clunky and superficial. A lot of the tank battles are optional and avoidable, fortunately, but for those completionists who want to 100% the game, they're not.

Melee combat is much better, improved over previous games and is more reactive, with a lot more moves and ways of using gadgets in battle (such as using an EMP disruptor to shut down gun turrets before jumping a group of guards). The familiar rhythm of blocks, counter-attacks and punches is something that Rocksteady has perfected by this point and is a lot of fun to play. The "predator challenges", where Batman has to take out a large number of enemies from the shadows, do feel a bit less accomplished this time around, however. They mostly take place on rooftops and it's harder to get stealth take-downs, which is more challenging but also more frustrating.

One area where the game does succeed is the psychological angle. By this time it feels like anyone could sit down and write a paper on Batman's mental state, but this game takes a fresh tack by having a mental representation of the Joker appear and comment on the action. Mark Hamill returns to give his trademark brilliant vocal performance and his observations on what's going on - sometimes lampshading some of the more ridiculous moments - are often quite cutting, and add an element of humour to a game that can be quite po-faced.

By the time I finished Arkham Knight (***½) I was more than ready for the game to end. For the most part, it's a fun game to play with some great combat, dialogue and set-piece moments (Batman's assault on a pair of dirigibles may be the set-piece highlight of the game). But it lacks the much tighter focus of the previous Arkham games, the Arkham Knight is simply too boring a villain and the over reliance on repetitive Batmobile/tank battles gets wearying after a while. The game is available now on PC, PlayStation 4 (UK, USA) and X-Box One (UK, USA).

Note: on release, the PC version of the game had considerable technical problems, to the extent where the game was withdrawn from sale for several months. Playing the game in July 2017 on an nVidia 1060 with 6 GB of Video RAM, I encountered no significant technical issues.

RIP Adam West

William West Anderson, better-known to humanity as Adam West, has sadly passed away at the age of 88 after a short battle with leukaemia. West was a handsome leading man with a fine gift for self-deprecation, who achieved immense early success in a iconic role, endured a few fallow years, and then returned to prominence in later life.

West started out with bit roles in TV and film, making his first screen appearance in 1959. However, West became best-known for playing Batman on the original Batman TV series from 1966 to 1968. Although the run was short in length of time, an insane production schedule saw West chalk up 120 episodes and a theatrical movie in that period.

In 1970 West was offered the role of James Bond. He turned it down, believing that an English actor should play the role. The role instead went to the strikingly similar actor (in acting methodology, wit, charm and even appearance) Roger Moore.

West made numerous small film and television appearances in the 1970s and 1980s, but was typecast by his performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman. In 1992 his situation was lampshaded in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, where Batman encounters a washed-up actor who starred in his favourite childhood TV series, "The Grey Ghost", and hasn't been able to work since. The writers were uncertain if they were being disrespectful by offering West the role, but he snapped it up and enjoyed playing a character with real depth. Shortly after this he played himself on the popular Mr. Plow episode of The Simpsons.

These roles led to a career resurgence. In 1994 he joined the cast of the short-lived cult anthology comedy series Danger Theatre. West played the police captain of a Hawaii-based crime-fighting unit, parodying his role of Bruce Wayne by being almost completely inept. In 2000 he started playing himself on Family Guy. In this role he was the mayor of the town of Qahog, the main setting for the show, and made frequent appearances in a supporting role. His vocal skills also saw him appearing on Futurama and Rugrats.

West returned to the Batman franchise in animation, voicing Batman's father Thomas Wayne on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. In 2016 he voiced Batman once again in the animated film Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, reuniting with Burt Ward as Robin and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. A sequel was planned with William Shatner playing Two-Face, but it's unclear if this has entered production.

RIP Adam West, whose comedic (but straight-faced) reinterpretation of Batman remains one of the character's most memorable versions.

ETA: According to io9, West had completed work on Batman vs. Two-Face and it will be out later this year.

Gotham: Season 1.5

The war for control of Gotham City between the Falcone and Maroni families is heating up, with events manipulated from behind the scenes by the Penguin. Meanwhile, Jim Gordon finds himself demoted for annoying the upper echelons of the police force too many times.

The first half of Gotham's first season stumbled a few times, but by its conclusion had developed into a watchable game of factional intrigue and warfare for control of Gotham City. The city was given a real sense of identity and character missing from the Nolan films (in which it could be anywhere), the actors were pretty decent and Bruno Heller seemed to, after a delayed start, beging Gotham in a similar direction to his fantastic HBO series, Rome.

Unfortunately, the second half of the season doesn't just undo all that work, it blows it to smithereens and then pretends it never existed in the first place. The second half of Gotham's first season is terrible, a plunge in quality that is quite remarkable. Characters act without explicable motivation, things happen that don't make any sense and a character pulls out her own eyeball to spite an enemy (she gets a bionic robot one later on, so there is no real consequence to this madness). There are plot holes you can drive a tractor through, the Penguin is caught out as a traitor to both sides and spared for literally no reason and the series, as a whole, develops an allergic reaction to sensible, rational plotting.

There are glimmers of hope here and there: Alfred gets a lot more to do and Sean Pertwee impresses as always, Morena Baccarin has a recurring role and the mob storyline (apart from Fish Mooney) is intermittently interesting, mainly thanks to John Doman's statesmanlike, grounded performance. The evolution of the Riddle is also reasonably well-handled, helped by it being fairly low-key.

But these signs of hope can't help the muddled plotting, indifferent dialogue and increasingly bizarre story turns that smack of executive meddling and poor decision-making. If the first half of Gotham's first season opened with a lot of promise, it has squandered almost all of it by the end of the second half (**).

Gotham: Season 1.0

Ex-soldier Jim Gordon arrives in Gotham City to take up his new job as a detective on the police force. Hoping to clean up the streets, he instead finds the police riven by corruption and in bed with the local gangsters. The brutal murder of the city's richest couple, Martha and Thomas Wayne, shines a spotlight onto the city's crime problem, giving Jim and his new partner, the grizzled Detective Harvey Bullock, a moment to shine. It also provides the impetus for the rise to power of a new criminal mastermind, Oswald Cobblepot (aka "Penguin") and spurs the anger of the murdered couple's son, Bruce.

Every incarnation of Batman starts in a similar manner: the young Bruce Wayne witnesses the murder of his parents by criminals. Years later, he takes up the mantle of Batman to deliver justice to the streets. Gotham asks the question of what would happen if you didn't have that jump forwards 10 or 20 years, and instead stay in the moment. Bruce Wayne is an angry, confused young child whose guardian, Alfred, has to console and help him carry on. The cops of Gotham are under pressure to catch the killers. And through it all a new wave of crazy criminals are rising to displace the more traditional old guard of Italian-descended crime families.

It's a rich vein to mine stories from, although it does also throw up a central problem: how to generate drama when we know that characters (good guys and villains alike) important to the later Batman mythos will survive, and the whole thing is just stage-setting for when the Bat shows up (presumably at which point this series will end)? Gotham doesn't really answer that question, but instead just settles for being relentlessly entertaining.

The main showrunner on the series is Bruno Heller, an experienced Hollywood writer who has been responsible for some standard procedural fare (like The Mentalist) but whose most outstanding moment remains the HBO series Rome, which depicted the ancient empire with a real sense of place and cultural identity, home to well-drawn, complex characters. Impressively, he brings these skills to Gotham. The city is neither the anonymous everycity of the recent Chris Nolan films, nor the baroque playground of Tim Burton. Instead it falls in between, with Gothic stylings and some very clever CG manipulation of real city backdrops to create something distinctive. This applies to the people and the factions feuding for control of the city as well. Delving into the comics for ideas and backstories, Heller isn't afraid to bring his own ideas to the table as well. Most impressive is the show's tone, which after a ropey opening few episodes in which it searches for its own identity, it settles down into pulp, walking a fine line between camp, action and melodrama which is quite enjoyable.

If the show has a weak spot, it's Ben McKenzie's fairly straightforward portrayal of Jim Gordon as an everyday hero of the people. Attempts to darken his character don't really work, but towards the end of this opening run of ten episodes he develops a grim sense of humour and the ex-military role is played up a little bit more to give him something to do. As characters go, he's okay and you can see him developing into the later friend of Batman, but the character needs a bit more fleshing out going forwards. Far better is Harvey Bullock, played with roguish charisma by Donal Logue, a once-good cop corrupted by the city and who clings onto Jim's idealism as a way of redeeming himself. Better still is Robin Lord Taylor, who brings the right air of intelligence and charm to the role of the Penguin. Taylor is great, the show's big find, but the producers need to be careful they don't overuse him and burn out the character before he's had a chance to achieve his destiny. Child actors David Mazouz and Camren Bicondova are also very good finds for the roles of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle. The idea that Batman and Catwoman are actually childhood friends may induce much rolling of the eyeballs, but the writing and the actors sell it so it convinces, rather than becoming twee.

More established hands can be found with Jada Pinkett Smith playing new villain Fish Mooney with scene-chewing relish. Irritating in early episodes, she gets more interesting material to play with later on and rises to the challenge. The Wire's John Doman plays Don Falcone with charm and gravitas, but also a sense of palpable menace that makes him a genuinely threatening figure. The casting director also deserves massive props for hitting on the idea of casting the always-excellent Sean Pertwee as Alfred. He doesn't have much to do in early episodes, but later ones depict him as an ex-military bruiser with impressive resourcefulness.

The show stumbles in its opening episodes as it searches for its tone and identity, but finds itself pretty quickly. The developing ongoing storylines about Penguin and Arkham Asylum are well-handled and the show moves at a pretty strong clip, rarely flagging. There are other weaknesses: the relationship between Barbara (Erin Richards) and Renee Montoya (Victoria Cartagena) is extremely unconvincing, and a late-episode story twist is clearly an awkward retcon. There's also the feeling of some Batman villains being shoehorned into the show long before they're really needed. Riddler is being well-handled, but Poison Ivy as a kid is completely pointless right now.

But these put aside, Gotham (****) is a very entertaining slice of pulp. It's certainly a lot more impressive and fun at this stage in its development than the other big superhero TV show, Agents of SHIELD, was at the same point. Whether the show can sustain or improve itself going forwards remains to be seen, but at this point it is certainly highly watchable.

Batman: The Animated Series

In 1992 Warner Brothers Animation capitalised on the success of the Tim Burton Batman films with a new animated series which took its cue from those movies in terms of visual design. The result was one of the most acclaimed cartoon series of all time, Batman: The Animated Series. It ran for three years and spawned a number of spin-off films and sequel series, not to mention the entire DC Animated Universe.

The series was immensely successful for three key reasons. The first is its visual design, which moves away from the traditional primary colour aesthetic of cartoons to something much darker. This was achieved by painting light colours on black backgrounds rather than vice versa and setting most of the action at night. The art style also draws heavily from the Burton movies' mixture of art deco and retro design with modern technology. Stylistically, Batman may be one of the coolest and visually engaging series ever made.

The second key to success is the writing. Whilst the show occasionally fumbles with a fairly obvious cops 'n' robbers story or an episode more suited to the 1960s Batman series,  for most of the time the writing is pretty smart. Whilst overt blood or scenes of death are avoided, the show also doesn't hold back on showing the psychological damage the characters have received and even manages to turn certain characters - Mr. Freeze most notably - into tragic figures. This extends to Batman himself, who suffers occasional bouts of trauma resulting from the murder of his parents. One episode imagines a fantasy world in which Bruce Wayne's parents lived and is appropriately tragic. The series also does a good job of hitting the right note of moral ambiguity, such as in Bruce Wayne's friendship with the doomed Harvey Dent and the depiction of Catwoman as both an ally and an enemy.

The third element of success is the voice acting. It's a remarkable feat given competition such as Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, but Mark Hamill's Joker is now widely considered definitive for his hitting of just the right note of demented insanity in his portrayal of the character. Kevin Conroy's Batman is also terrific, particularly his ability to adjust his performance so that Wayne and Batman have somewhat different voices and people don't recognise him immediately (an idea that carries on into the Nolan films and Christian Bale's performance). One-off guest stars are also excellent, with Adam West (who played Batman in the 1960s TV series) relishing a chance to give a serious performance as a childhood TV hero of Bruce Wayne's who helped inspire him to become Batman.

Episodes are fast-paced and engaging, action-packed enough to entertain children but with enough funny lines and smart moments of character-building to keep adults engaged. However, the show does suffer from a relaxed attitude to continuity. Aside from a few elements (Harvey Dent appearing several times before turning into Two-Face), the show doesn't have much of a developing story and characters appear and disappear randomly, particularly Robin. The show also mixes in-depth origin stories for some villains with others showing up and Batman apparently having known them for years.

The absence of heavy continuity means it's a lot easier to dip in and enjoy the show without having to pay too much attention to details, but it also means some of the much more complex character development of later animated series is missing.

Batman: The Animated Series (****) is a highly watchable and enjoyable show with or without kids, with some beautiful artwork and terrific writing. The absence of more serialised storytelling means some storylines and characters are not fleshed out as much as might be wished, but overall this is an animated series that has aged very well and is worth checking out.

The series is available now in the UK (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3) and USA (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3).

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT announced

Warner Brothers Games have confirmed that the fourth and concluding game in the Batman: Arkham series will be released this year.

Arkham Knight will conclude the story begun in Arkham Asylum (2009) and continued through Arkham City (2011) and Arkham Origins (2013). Like Asylum and City, Knight has been developed by Rocksteady Games. Origins was outsourced to WB Games Montreal and was not as well-received as the earlier games, being criticised for both reused content from Arkham City and a plethora of bugs.

Arkham Knight will feature a fully-drivable Batmobile for the first time in the series' history, along with the combat-and-stealth focused gameplay of all of the titles. The gameplay area is much larger than the previous titles, with long and wide streets to allow for better vehicular action. From the story details released so far, it sounds like the game will be set after Arkham City, focusing on the Scarecrow, Two-Face, Penguin and Harley Quinn as the primary enemies. The biggest change is that Knight will be released on consoles exclusively on PS4 and X-Box One, with no PS3 or X-Box 360 version planned. The game will also be released on PC as usual.

No release date has been set, but it's likely to be October or November to capitalise on the Christmas market.

As with the previous games in the series, this will be a lot of fun and taking off the restraints of the previous console generation should deliver an amazing-looking game. However, it'll be interesting to see if Rocksteady can overcome the issues with repetition in the gameplay that were already becoming an issue with Arkham Origins.

The Lego Movie

In a world made of Lego bricks, Emmet Brickowski is an ordinary engineer. He is content with his strictly regimented life, brushing his teeth, going to work, listening to music and eating all on a set schedule. He builds things according to the instructions and has never had an original thought in his head...apart from a secret desire to build a double-decker sofa.

Brickowski is thus shocked to discover the Piece of Resistance, an enigmatic device that is the only thing that can stop 'The Kragle', a superweapon controlled by Lord Business. This discovery was prophesied, marking Brickowski out to be 'The Special', a hero figure. But when it becomes clear that Emmet has no imagination or ability to build things without instructions, his allies must rally round and help him achieve his destiny.


The Lego Movie is, wait for it, a movie based on Lego, the Danish construction toy which is probably the single most popular toy line ever created. Lego can be used for many things, but one of the things it lacks is a narrative, with modern Lego sets often being based on pre-existing popular franchises. Cleverly, the film takes this idea and runs with it as its central theme.

The Lego Movie is a story about the struggle between order, pre-planning and logic (exemplified by the instructions and themed Lego sets) and chaos, creative freedom and throwing things together to see what happens (exemplified by putting things together randomly to see what you get). This is a bit of a bold choice as it seems to be saying that if you're offered the choice between a £300 Star Wars-themed set which requires you to vigorously follow the instructions and a cheap, random assortment of bricks you can make anything out of, you should go for the latter every time, something Lego accountants might not be too happy with. This theme is then developed into the idea that creative freedom is better than following orthodoxy and that everyone who manages to create something interesting and make their own choices is 'special'. It's fairly straightforward and simple as themes go, but it is used and explored in unusual depth.

The film is well-characterised with some fine vocal performances. The casting is fairly geek-tastic, mixing big names (Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks) and TV comedy stars (Chris Pratt from Parks and Recreation, Alison Brie from Community, Will Arnett from Arrested Development, Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Relatively big names like Channing Tatum and, randomly, Shaquille O'Neal also make cameo appearances. The characters are a mix of newcomers, like Emmet (Pratt) and Wyldstyle (Banks), and crossover characters from Lego's vast array of licences. Batman (Arnett) is the most prominent such character, though we also get brief appearances from the likes of Superman (Tatum), Gandalf and Dumbledore. The big-name characters mostly appear for comical purposes (Dumbledore and Gandalf getting into an old wise man beard-off argument; Superman trying desperately to avoid hanging out with a fanboying Green Lantern) and a few make 'shocking', audience-pleasing surprise twist appearances, at least one of which brought the house down. The vocal performances are all accomplished and do a good job of selling the characters.

The animation is pretty good, especially as it deliberately dials back shiny CGI in favour of a more 'used' aesthetic that makes all of the Lego pieces used in the film look like they've been taken out of someone's box, mixed up and then constructed. In many places the animation looks like stop motion rather than the CGI it really is. The animation is inventive and the film-makers strike a good balance between making things fast-moving and fun and going for sensory overload.

The story is also surprisingly decent, mainly because the directors are not interested in making a simple movie that follows a cliched coming of age storyline. Instead the film attempts to deconstruct the Hero's Journey by casting doubt on the whole idea of 'the chosen one' and suggesting that violence and explosions aren't the answer to everything (although, cheesily, there's still quite a lot of Lego-ified violence and brick-based explosions in the film in a good example of having your cake and eating it). Most animated kids' films these days include some sort of sop to the adult audience, whether it's risque jokes that fly over the kids' heads or amusingly ironic vocal performances, but The Lego Movie takes things a whole step further by trying to simultaneously play around with and undercut the cliches and tropes of modern CG kids' movies whilst also crafting a film that kids will enjoy.

They more or less pull this off, though there's a few moments towards the ending (including one 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque moment that I suspect will be very divisive; the kids I saw the film with seemed to hate it and couldn't wait for the film to return to its previous mode, which fortunately it does) when the movie's preoccupation with not being a predictable kid's film risks it instead flying up its own posterior. It does manage to - just about - avoid that, helped by some very funny final moments (and the last line and 'cliffhanger ending' are superb) and a resolution that is both original and spectacular.

Unfortunately, the writers' creative angst is detectable on screen and as a result the films suffers from pacing and character issues which prevent it from going toe-to-toe with, say, Pixar's big hitters (films like Up and Wall-E are far more consistent in quality and have vastly more emotional depth to them). Predictably, the film's female characters have a couple of moments in the sun and are then sidelined for the rest of the movie whilst the boys get on with resolving everything (reflecting gender issues with Lego toys in general). The film's worldbuilding is also inconsistent: at various moments the characters seem able to build anything out of anything in seconds to solve problems, but at others are utterly stumped at what to do next, despite being still presumably able to construct a jet fighter out of some rocks and a couple of street lights.

Ultimately, The Lego Movie (****) is brash, fun and tries to be more than just another commercial to sell toys. Indeed, in some respects it is wickedly subversive in doing the exact opposite of what you'd expect a toy tie-in film to do. There's also some real narrative ambition here. There's some great moments of character, some good laughs and a lot of visual invention. But the film also overreaches, and denies itself from achieving true greatness by occasionally tying itself in knots in trying to be both an entertaining kid's movie and a revisionist mickey-take of kids' movies to keep the adults awake. Certainly enjoyable and well worth watching for its ambition, The Lego Movie is on general release now.

Batman: Arkham Origins

It's the coldest Christmas Eve in the history of Gotham City, with residents taking cover from a furious snowfall. Criminal gangs take advantage of the empty streets to settle old scores and pull off robberies and heists, none more virulently than the gang led by Black Mask. Batman, only a couple of years into his crime-fighting double-life, takes up the fight against Black Mask but learns that there are eight deadly assassins on his trail and a chaotic new villain has also emerged, known only as 'The Joker'.

Arkham Origins is the third game in the Arkham series of Batman games and acts as a prequel to Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Like Arkham City, it depicts a large section of Gotham City and allows the player to free-roam through it, either pursuing the main storyline or undertaking optional side-missions. The game is heavily focused on combat, with Batman having to defeat (but not kill, due to his ethos) hundreds of henchman and criminals as well as several major enemies to progress. The game also emphasises Batman's use of gadgets to overcome obstacles, such as using a crypto-graphic sequencer to hack locks and computers or a glue grenade to block up gas vents. Finally, the game allows Batman to use his detective skills by investigating crime scenes and piecing together sequences of events from clues.

If you played and enjoyed the previous two Arkham games, Batman Origins offers a lot more of the same. Combat is mostly the same, aside from boss fights which are now more dynamic and feature more epic moments and mid-fight dialogue exchanges to make them more interesting. Investigating crime scenes is now a lot more fun, as Batman has more clues to analyse at each crime scene and as he pieces things together the player can rewind or fast-forwards through events to get a clearer idea of what happened and where more evidence might be found. These two additions to the game help differentiate it from its predecessors, but over the course of the 20+ hour game they're not really enough to overcome the feeling that you've seen it all before.

Arguably Arkham Origins's biggest failing is that it is unsuccessful in working as a prequel. Aside from showing the first meeting of Batman and the Joker and Batman and future-Commissioner Gordon, and a cameo by pre-crazy Harley Quinn, not very much play is made of the fact that this story is set earlier than the previous two games at all. It's not even an origin story, with Batman already having been fighting crime for several years. The fact that a lot of the bad guys still think that Batman is a myth means that Black Mask's decision to offer a $50 million reward for Batman's head strains credulity as well.

Where the story really falls apart is its lack of coherence. We start off with Black Mask sending eight assassins after Batman, but several of them are defeated so out-of-hand that they're completely unmemorable. The rest simply act as recurring boss fights through the game. Then, like an episode of The Simpsons, the initial set-up is forgotten quite quickly as the threat of the Joker moves to the fore, but even that gets shunted aside in favour of a showdown between Batman and Bane. Given Bane's status as one of Batman's most genuinely threatening foes due to his role in the Knightfall saga, it's a bit disappointing that Bane ends up being overused in the Arkham trilogy to the point of just turning into another disposable boss.

There are moments where Arkham Origins flirts with the superior, focused storytelling of the previous two games. A sequence where the Joker realises that he and Batman are two sides of the same coin (during a psychiatric evaluation by Quinn) is extremely well-handled and dips into the Joker's lunacy without going overboard. There's a running tension between Batman and Alfred about why Batman does what he does that occasionally sparks into life, and another between Gordon and his daughter. But every time the narrative threatens to come to life it soon fizzles out in another succession of fistfights and fairly straightforward puzzles.

Still, the Arkham trilogy's hallmark has always been the physical, visceral combat and that remains engaging, as do the set-pieces where Batman has to take down a room of heavily-armed enemies through stealth, setting traps and hiding in ventilation shafts. Arkham Origins's length - the game clocks in at slightly more than Arkham City's and more than twice the length of Arkham Asylum - does make this a little repetitive and wearing after a while. The Arkham formula is highly compelling, but Origins does threaten to drag it out past its sell-by date.

Where Arkham Origins really suffers is the amount of bugs that still litter the game even after multiple patches. Sometimes doors refuse to open until you reload. Sometimes villains and Batman lose the ability to fight and just wander around each other. Sometimes the ability to interrogate enemies after a fight just vanishes until you reload. Opening a door before you're supposed to can result in Batman falling into a bottomless abyss off the side of a level. Attack warnings sometimes fail to appear, and hitting the counter button at the right time has no effect. Most frustrating, during room-takedown set-pieces, the game will not give you the opportunity to swing to another ledge for several seconds rather than instantly as it should. In isolation some of these bugs can be borne, but combined they make playing the game more frustrating than it really should.

Batman: Arkham Origins (***) is the weakest game in the Arkham trilogy, although if you really enjoyed the gameplay of the first two it will suffice. It's certainly entertaining and fun to play, but is littered with more bugs than any modern AAA release should have and the writing is extremely uneven. Recommended, but just beware that what was incredibly fresh in Arkham Asylum has now become a little on the stale side. The game is available now in the UK (PC, PlayStation 3, X-Box 360, Wii U) and USA (PC, PlayStation 3, X-Box 360, Wii U).

Batman: Arkham City

Several months have passed since Batman defeated the Joker's attempt to take over Arkham Asylum. Unfortunately, the asylum was almost overrun by Poison Ivy's out-of-control plants in the process, rendering it useless. To replace it, a section of Gotham City's run-down docklands has been sealed off and converted into a new prison and asylum, with most of the city's most dangerous criminals incarcerated there. Appalled, Bruce Wayne enters politics in an attempt to shut down the facility, only to find himself arrested and thrown into the prison. He has to survive, find a way of resuming his Batman persona and bring down both those running the prison and defeat its array of inmates at the same time.

Arkham City is the direct sequel and follow-up to 2009's Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum was the game that, after dozens of failed attempts, finally 'got' the Dark Knight and made him into a credible computer game character. It did this by giving Batman a strong, dark storyline to follow, an array of gadgets to use (both in investigations and combat) and welding together the 'gritty' approach favoured by Christopher Nolan's movies with the more colourful and bizarre world of the Batman comics. It also had a great combat system and some solid stealth mechanics.

The follow-up is, inevitably, bigger and more epic. Arkham City sprawls across a much vaster area than the old asylum and is open to exploration from the very start (the asylum unlocked section-by-section as you went through the game and was more linear). The game is also divided neatly into both the main storyline and a series of side-missions, some of which are quite lengthy and involved in themselves. The main storyline involves Batman having to face (and, in some cases, work alongside) villains such as the Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Mr. Freeze and Ra's Al Ghul before taking on the director of the prison, the sinister Hugo Strange. However, a ton of other villains show up in the side-missions, including Deadshot, Zasz, Killer Croc (though only in a brief cameo), the Mad Hatter and Bane. Rather than feeling over-saturated, like almost any superhero movie with more than two villains, this gives the game the feeling of existing in an already-extant world, with a large amount of optional information available (via the Batcomputer) to fill players less-versed in the DC Universe on who these people are.

As with Arkham Asylum, the game involves tracking down clues to solve mysteries and beating a quite staggering number of thugs into unconsciousness. The game's setting also allows you to spend quite a lot of time perched precariously on building corners, gazing broodily into the night before spotting some passing thugs beating up a civilian and swooping down to deliver some vengeance. The setting allows you to 'be' Batman even more completely than Arkham Asylum, which is highly satisfying.

That said, the open world environment does offer some problems as well as some improvements over the first game. The first game benefited highly from its focused, linear structure that gradually opened up the asylum as you progressed (and allowing you to backtrack and reach previously-inaccessible areas with later-acquired gadgets). This second game sprawls flabbily in its opening sections, with the game taking a while to give you some sense of what you are trying to do. Once it does and you're alternating the main storyline with optional sub-missions the game kicks into a higher gear, but it's a slight disappointment that Arkham City isn't on fire from its opening moments the same way its predecessor managed.

The biggest surprise from the game is that the bigger setting doesn't necessarily translate into a notably different experience from the first game. There's about half again as much content (I completed Arkham Asylum in 11 hours and City in about 17) and a few more major locations, but the game's bigger canvas often translates in you taking three minutes of rooftop-swinging to move between locations rather than a minute of running as in in Arkham Asylum. The game - surprisingly - reuses the same locations several times over missions just as Asylum did in a clear cost-saving move, and after a while you realise that more than 90% of the buildings in the city cannot be entered or interacted with other than swinging from their rooftops. The much bigger location certainly gives rise to some new gameplay experiences, such as chasing down a serial killer on a time limit before he strikes his next victim, but it's not as transformative to the gaming experience as you might expect. In fact, after a while I was regretting the fact that we didn't have a full Gotham City game, with you being able to explore the city of Gotham as a whole and using vehicles to help complete missions as well as Batman's gadgets (which, a few minor additions aside, are pretty much the same as in the first game).

Still, if Arkham City is less of Grand Theft Gotham and more Arkham Asylum Redux, that's no bad thing. Combat is still physical and rugged, undertaken with impressive animations and combos. There's a greater variety of moves and opponents which makes the combat varied without becoming over-complex. The stealth mechanic is still enjoyable, with the game being at its best when you can take out a whole room of enemies with no-one realising where you are. The investigation side of things is still somewhat lightweight, but at least nods at Batman's detective origins. The story is decent and the voice-acting is as superb as its forebear, with Mark Hamill again taking top prizes for his gleefully deranged role as the Joker in what is his swansong appearance as the character. The scene where the Joker is taunting Batman only to get side-tracked into a puzzled analysis of the final episode of Lost is definitely the game's comic highlight. The game is, overall, a ridiculous amount of fun once you get over the slight hiccup of the start.

Arkham City (****½) is available now in the UK (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3) and USA (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3).

The Dark Knight Rises

Whilst Batman Begins were merely a successful superhero movie, its sequel, The Dark Knight, was a bona fide phenomenon. The movie was both critically acclaimed and hugely successful, making over a billion dollars at the box office. Director Christopher Nolan hesitated over making a third film, worried it could not possibly live up to expectations (especially given that the tragic death of Heath Ledger meant that the Joker could not return). Ultimately he decided to embrace the challenge and has delivered a - somewhat - satisfying resolution to his take on the Dark Knight.

Picking up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham City is now virtually crime-free thanks to laws passed in the wake of Harvey Dent's death. Batman (who took the blame for Dent's death) has disappeared, with Bruce Wayne now living in seclusion. Commissioner Gordon, guilt-ridden by both keeping the secret of Dent's insanity and death and Batman taking the fall for it, is planning to retire. Suddenly, the city is plunged into chaos by the arrival of Bane, a former member of the League of Shadows who is planning something audacious. Wayne is forced to don the mask of the Batman once again...

Drawing on elements from the comics - most notably the Knightfall arc - Nolan has created yet another story in which Wayne's character is dragged through the wringer. From the start we know this is not going to be as dark as the previous movie: the title and the thematic direction of the movie are both about redemption. Wayne is haunted and trapped by the decisions he made previously and cannot move on, despite entreaties from Alfred to do just that. When Wayne Manor is robbed by a clever thief, Selina Kyle, Wayne is reinvigorated and gets back in the game, just as the true threat from Bane becomes apparent.

The Dark Knight Rises is driven by Nolan's typically intense direction and some exceptionally good performances. After being a bit lost in the mix in the previous film, Christian Bale brings his A-game to this movie and forms its heart. As usual, Michael Caine gives excellent support as Alfred and Gary Oldman continues to be brilliant in every scene. However, it's the newcomers which really impress. Anne Hathaway is particularly excellent as Selina 'Catwoman' Kyle, with an angst-ridden character that rivals Batman (though with a superior line in caustic humour). Joseph Gordon-Levitt is also superb as the police officer determined to live up to Batman's ideals, whilst French actress Marion Cotillard does great work as Miranda Tate (really impressing in a small role). Unfortunately, Tom Hardy's impressively physical work as Bane is undercut by a somewhat unconvincingly campy vocal performance. Intermittently disturbing, Bane's voice veers too much from the unintelligible to the ludicrous to be truly effective.

As usual, there are both great action setpieces and a laudable focus on characterisation, with several of the most powerful scenes in the movie being dialogue exchanges between Wayne and Alfred, or Wayne and Gordon-Levitt's Blake. Nolan also overcomes The Dark Knight's biggest issue, its dodgy pacing, by making the story in Rises bigger and giving more work to do to the supporting characters. Still, whilst the story is paced better it's still very long at just under three hours and the movie can't quite sustain interest consistently over its full length.

Where The Dark Knight Rises runs into problems is the underlying conflict of the whole series, namely how well Nolan's more realistic take on the franchise can mesh with its sillier excesses. Nolan's dedication to keeping it (relatively) real is stretched thin in the latter part of the film as the situation gets increasingly ludicrous and some contrived double-crosses and plot twists not so much dent disbelief as completely shatter it. After two movies spent dodging cheese and corn, Nolan can't quite keep up the dance any more and there are some groan-inducing lines and moments as the movie draws to its climax.

The Dark Knight Rises (***½) is a decent ending to the trilogy, with excellent performances and atmosphere let down by the decision to embrace cliches rather than subvert or challenge them. The ludicrously bombastic score doesn't help either. However, Nolan has still managed to deliver the best third entry in a superhero franchise of all time and the movie remains extremely entertaining. It is on general release in the UK and USA right now.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Once again, Batman has defeated his arch-nemesis, the Joker, and returned him to incarceration at Arkham Asylum. Unfortunately for Batman, this turns out to be a trap. The Joker's men take over the prison and release the insane inmates, including several of Batman's most dangerous foes (such as Scarecrow, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy and Bane). Evading capture himself, Batman has to regain control of the prison and stop the Joker's plan to create an army of insane and powerful soldiers loyal only to him.


Ah, Batman. The Dark Knight, who takes on a host of villains with a combination of martial arts, impressive gadgetry and cool vehicles. You can't get a superhero (even if his superpower is merely being incredibly rich) better-suited for computer games. It's a surprise, then, that very few games based on the character have been much cop.

Arkham Asylum makes up for a lengthy run of mediocre to poor Batman games by being very good indeed. The developers, Rocksteady, haven't hit upon this by accident, but have apparently looked in depth at a whole host of titles whose game styles could be adapted for a Batman title. Playing Arkham Asylum, it's impossible not to be struck by echoes of older titles. The physicality of the combat recalls Starbreeze's superb Riddick games, whilst the drug-induced hallucinatory levels are reminiscent of the Max Payne series. The use of Batman's growing repertoire of skills and gadgets to cross seemingly impassable areas, complete with the camera hinting at what to do next, has more than a touch of Prince of Persia (circa the Sands of Time games) to it. The heavy emphasis on stealth and silent takedowns also hints at influences from the Splinter Cell and Thief series. Yet, whilst Rocksteady clearly have been making notes, they have still created a game that feels like it builds on what has come before, rather than ripping it off.

Gameplay-wise, Arkham Asylum is a third-person action game where the player guides Batman through the asylum and the surrounding buildings on Arkham Island, which the Joker has sealed off from the mainland. The main storyline sees Batman pursuing the Joker through the Asylum, but being sidetracked by confrontations with both the Joker's allies (most notably Harley Quinn and Scarecrow) and other supervillains he has put away over the years. Most notably, Killer Croc, Bane and especially Poison Ivy also interfere with Batman's mission. Though the game has a linear plot, the setting is open, allowing Batman to deviate from his main mission to revisit previously-explored areas. In addition, Batman is not alone in his mission. Commissioner Gordon is also trapped on the island, along with a large number of security guards and Asylum personnel, whilst Batman is helped with certain puzzles and objectives by Oracle (a former Batgirl paralysed in a shooting, who oversees Batman's progress from the Batcave).

The game has a notable combat focus, which allows for complex fighting moves to be executed using a simple system (one button to attack, another to counter an enemy's moves, telegraphed by symbols appearing over their head). This system is well-implemented, with combat given a heavy, physical feel to it. Unusually for an action game, there is no option to use firearms. This is of course in keeping with the Batman mythos, but it means that a strong emphasis must be placed on stealth and the use of gadgets to separate and overcome enemies, especially those armed. Batman can take a few bullets but is relatively fragile compared to many gaming protagonists. Refreshingly, there is no in-combat regenerating health (though his health does return once the area has been cleared of enemies), forcing players to adopt a more thoughtful approach to playing Batman.

Arkham Asylum's greatest success is making the player actually feel they're playing Batman (perhaps to the point of screaming, "I'M THE GODDAMN BATMAN!" after pulling off a particularly awesome 25-move combo. Erm, not that I ever did that). He's formidable but not immortal, and solves a lot of the problems through ingenuity and detective work rather than head-on confrontations. There's also a lot of use of gadgets, including grappling hooks, hacking tools (to short-circuit control panels and open doors), ziplines and batarangs. Vital to the game is a visor which allows Batman to see enemies through walls and doorways and assess their threat value before engaging them in combat. Particularly satisfying - if somewhat implausible - is the ability to hang upside down from ceilings and snatch passing enemies, knocking them out without alerting other foes nearby. Entering a room with a dozen gun-toting villains and then taking them out one-by-one, hiding in the shadows, executing stealthy knock-downs or hiding under floor grills and then emerging to strike, is ridiculously good fun.


The game features universally great voice acting, particularly from Batman: The Animated Series regulars Kevin Conroy (as Batman) and Mark 'Luke Skywalker' Hamill, whose performance as the Joker is nothing short of stunning throughout. Arleen Sorkin also hits the right note between annoying and accomplished as the deranged Harley Quinn. Paul Dini, a veteran writer for both the animated Batman series and DC Comics, does an excellent job with the dialogue for the game, tailoring it to be more expositionary than normal (for the benefit of gamers not particularly versed in the intricacies of the Batman world) whilst still feeling relatively natural. It's one of the more accomplished transitions of a prose writer to gaming we've seen recently (certainly better than Richard Morgan, whose gaming work on Crysis 2 was unremarkable).

The game is also brave for not trying to establish a new canon for the Batman mythos. Instead, it takes place firmly in the DC Comics universe, making continuity references to earlier comics and stories (the Joker references the events of the Alan Moore-penned The Killing Joke several times). Yet the game does not expect players to be fully versed in the backstory. Instead, it provides fact files on Batman's allies and enemies for the player to read, and interview tapes from psychiatric evaluations of the villains can also be found lying around the Asylum. These do an excellent job of bringing the player up to speed on events without bogging things down with lengthy explanations of what's going on. The tone is also well-established, with things definitely being more grandiose, funny and colourful than the Christopher Nolan films, but avoiding a descent into out-and-out camp.

It's hard to think of any major problems with the game. It's well-written, well-acted and relentlessly enjoyable. Combat is well-executed and the use of stealth and gadgets is perfectly executed. It has a plethora of optional side-missions, achievements and collectibles for those who want as much game as possible for their money, but the central plot is compelling and long enough (at roughly 10-12 hours by itself) and features some genuinely surprising twists (including a late-game event that completely changes the nature of the environment). A repetitive nightmare mini-game featuring Scarecrow feels a little bit out of place, and the running battle with Killer Croc in the sewers is a bit tedious, but neither are particularly major features of the game.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (*****) is terrific fun from start to finish, an accomplished and smart game that distills 100% pure comic book fun into a great gaming experience. Recommended. The game is available now in the UK (PC, Mac, X-Box 360, PS3) and USA (PC, Mac, X-Box 360, PS3). A sequel, Arkham City, was released last year.

The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins was an interesting take on an established character and franchise. Batman has always been one of the most morally complex 'superheroes' out there and Nolan used his movie to explore the psyche of Bruce Wayne in a manner that Tim Burton's earlier movies barely touched on. However, it was let down by a relatively unimpressive pair of villains, a weak ending and far too much stuff being shoehorned into the plot, resulting in bloat. For all of that, it was still an impressive film.

The first film ended with the establishing of the alliance between Lt. Jim Gordon of the Gotham City police department and Batman, and the beginning of a crime spree by a shadowy figure known as the Joker. The second movie picks up a few weeks or months later, with the Joker rapidly becoming public enemy number one and Batman's attempts to locate and defeat him being unsuccessful, especially as his crimefighting crusade is becoming complicated by the emergence of ham-fisted copy-cat vigilantes. However, a new district attorney, Harvey Dent, has made it his business to bring down Gotham's criminals and after a series of major successes against important gangs and crime bosses, Bruce Wayne begins to let himself think that maybe he won't have to be Batman forever.

Of course, this is only the beginning of the story. Batman, Dent and Gordon form an unofficial alliance to bring down and defeat the criminals of the city, but the Joker reacts by forming his own alliance of the various criminal elements against them. The result is an escalating series of complex, doublecrossing traps and counter-traps by both sides. The stakes are raised, lives are lost, and Gotham is brought into utter chaos as a result. And two men's souls and morals are caught in the balance.

The Dark Knight is a fiendishly clever film which works on a thematic level that superhero movies have rarely operated at before. For this reason, the movie has already been hailed as the most important superhero movie to date, elevating the genre to a new level of credibility (possibly having the same effect on the genre that 2001 had on science fiction or Lord of the Rings on fantasy films). It's hard to argue entirely against this: The Dark Knight is a movie of impressive ambitions, but whilst from an artistic perspective it may indeed be worthy of the hype bestowed upon it, its role as entertainment accordingly suffers in several key areas.

Much has been made of the late Heath Ledger's remarkable performance as the Joker. Taking on a role that Jack Nicholson had made memorable in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie was a challenge, but one that Ledger rose to by simply making his Joker an insane agent of chaos, an enigma, rather than a loud clown with a detailed (if unoriginal) backstory. The Joker gets no backplot here, nothing to make him sympathetic on a human level. He is a psychopath and a monster, one that Ledger portrays with brilliant intensity and some excellent comedic timing. However, his role in the film appears misleading. The heart of The Dark Knight is the war for the soul of Harvey Dent, and in that story the Joker is a catalyst. The Joker's significant amounts of screentime eat into the more compelling story of Dent (an almost-equally impressive performance from Aaron Eckhart), who is absent from the plot for long periods of time and his inevitable late-film transformation is not really given enough time to be fully convincing.

A more basic problem is that the movie is too long, and several major climactic set-pieces take place some considerable time before the end of the movie. Hollywood CGI whiz and blogger Mojo has advanced a theory that The Dark Knight actually is an amalgamation of two films into one, and if the Joker and Dent strands had been separated (perhaps by having the Joker's antics and his late-movie plot involving two ferries, which come out of nowhere, as one film and the fall of Dent in another) both would have been stronger. As it stands, the latter third of the movie feels considerably less-developed than the rest, and the series of apparently-but-not-quite final moments in the movie begins to challenge Return of the King at times for its frustration.

Performances are universally excellent. Eckhart and Ledger get special nods, but supporting hands from the first movie Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and especially Michael Caine all give excellent performances. Caine in particular impresses, with Alfred's experiences as a soldier giving him a moral authority that he uses to convince Batman to do the hard thing at times, paying off in a spectacular moment when Batman makes precisely the opposite decision to what the audience expects. Similarly, after a relatively minor role in the first movie Oldman steps up as Gordon and makes him a credible threat to the city's criminals. In a busy movie, Freeman's character of Lucius Fox even has time for an amusing subplot in which he discovers a Wayne Enterprises employee who has figured out where a chunk of the company's revenue is going and why. Maggie Gyllenhaall, taking over the Katie Holmes role from the first film (thankfully, as Gyllenhaal is a much better actress), also impresses. Christian Bale does good work as Wayne/Batman, but in a movie of stand-out performances from even the secondary cast, Bale merely settles for being pretty good.

The Dark Knight (****) is an effective, impressive and dark film with stand-out acting and an interesting thematic arc, but occasionally it lacks focus and has some scripting and pacing issues. It is definitely one of the better superhero movies of recent years, but I'd hesitate about calling it the best. What is does do, however, is aim for something much higher than most superhero movies even think about achieving and if it falls short, it remains an impressive ambition. The film is available now on DVD in the UK and USA, and alson on Blu-Ray in the UK and USA.