This was a pretty good week for video games, as far as I’m concerned. I picked up two new titles that I was very pleased with. Interestingly, the two games are on totally opposite sides of the spectrum. Let’s begin with…

Lego Batman for the Wii

If you played the previous Lego offerings for Star Wars or Indiana Jones, you know what you’re getting into here. Lego Batman’s gameplay follows the exact same formula of simple brick smashing and puzzle solving, but I suppose that’s par for the course. The Lego games are targeted to Lego’s primary audience: kids. This is a pretty easy game. Cross promoting with franchises like Batman and Indiana Jones widens the audience though. What they’re really successful with, as was the case with Lego Star Wars (thought not quite as well with Indiana Jones), is capturing the mood and feel of the original material, through the Lego lens.

Play as The Riddler and confuse the shit out of your opponents!

The cut-scenes, for example, are entertaining in a cute Lego way, but have a humour that plays up the Batman mythos. A few times, after a boss is defeated, Batman will decipher a clue or free a hostage while Robin ends up in a slapstick struggle with the defeated boss. Without taking his attention off what he’s doing at all, Batman will blindly throw a batarang that will loop around perfectly, knock out the villain and, and return perfectly to his hand. It’s a send up of a lot of the moments you see in the comics and the various movies and animated programs. I call them “He’s Batman” moments, where he does something so spectacular the only possible explanation is the fact that he’s Batman. Or as he would put it, if you asked him about it, “I’m Batman.” Another touch I laughed at was having Killer Moth (who’s a lame joke of a character anyway) playing comic relief. While Joker is explaining his grand plan, Moth keeps starting at the light in the room, mesmerized, until Scarecrow smacks him in the back of the head.

Another great touch is the references to the Tim Burton Batman films. The soundtrack is taken entirely from the 1989 film, which adds tremendously to the atmosphere. Levels take place in the art museum, and the cathedral tower, and The Joker’s face even reminds me a little of Nicholson’s Joker. While I’ve made it no secret that I enjoy the Nolan series of Bat-films more, the Burton films are a much better fit for the Lego treatment. That being said, as much as I liked having “tropical” Joker (as in the scene from The Killing joke where he cripples Barbara Gordon) as an unlockable character, it would have been great to have a Ledger-style Joker in there, not to mention a Dark Knight style Batman.

“You ever dance with the Lego Devil in the pale moonlight?”

The one big difference between this game and the previous entries is that the lack of a previously established storyline. There are some heavy allusions to the first series of Batman films, mostly through the distribution of teams throughout the chapters. Riddler and Two-Face (Batman Forever) are on a team with Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy (Batman & Robin), and Catwoman and Penguin (Batman Returns) team up on another, though thankfully, Penguin is not the mutant Tim Burton version. Regardless, not being tied to the plot of a series of films, they changed the layout of how the game is played. When you start, you can choose to begin the first level of either of the three Hero chapters, in which you battle five (wo)man villain teams over five levels. You access the chapters from the central hub of the Batcave, which functions the same way as the Cantina or the Museum in the previous games. Once you beat a chapter, however, you can jump over to Arkham Asylum and access the villain missions from there. Villain missions follow the same story as the Hero missions, but from the opposite point of view. Thankfully, this takes us through different routes and paths around the same landmarks in the Hero missions, rather than simply playing Hero missions with villains. This adds a fun duality to the game, and the atmosphere and look of both the Batcave and Arkham Asylum are great. In Arkham, along with the villains you’ve unlocked, dozens of Joker, Penguin and Mr. Freeze’s thugs wander the halls, starting fights and raising hell.

The villains are a lot of fun to play with. Joker is my favorite right now, as he has the best gun, an immunity to toxins, and a great joy buzzer grapple move. Actually, the toxin immunity is pretty funny, as any character with chemicals involved in their origin at all has it. I can understand Poison Ivy, Clayface and even, to a certain extent The Joker, but I have no idea why Two-Face or Bane are immune to toxic waste. Regardless, while this game has a much smaller roster than it’s predecessors, I find it’s more focused this time around. The characters that are there are more useful. Riddler and Mad Hatter both use mind control on lesser NPCs, Catwoman and Harley Quinn are both great jumpers, in their own ways. Ivy can grow plants and Joker can power some machines with the joy buzzer. Killer Moth and Man Bat have distinctly different flying styles. My favorite might have been Bane’s grapples which include the iconic Bat-breaker move, which actually breaks the Lego victim into pieces (and harkens back to Chewbacca’s arm rip off move in the Star Wars games).

Overall, while not posing much of a challenge (though the “collect and unlock” nature of the game adds to replayability), I find it’s a pretty solid game. If you liked the previous Lego games, you like this. If you like Batman, you’ll probably enjoy it as well. If you like one and not the other, well, you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. Two-Face would like those odds.

The other game I got this week is the complete opposite in a lot of fundamental ways…

Mega Man 9 for the Wii

This frigging thing caused me no end of frustration. While the spinning column of flowers threatens to knock you into insta-kill spikes, that little flower pecker pops up. I’m not certain, but I think the number of petals he shoots at you corresponds with what clock position he pops up at (i.e. 3 petals if he’s shooting from 3 o’clock).

While certainly doing a fine job with graphic overhauls on their older games (the remade Mega Man, Ghouls n’ Ghosts and the, apparently awesome, Bionic Commando Rearmed) Capcom took a different approach with this one. Available as a Wiiware/PSN/Xbox Live Arcade downloadable title, Mega Man 9 is as old-school as it gets. Sporting 8-bit graphics and sound, Mega Man 9 will bring you in for nostalgia, but you’ll stay for the gameplay.

Hardhats, or Mets as they’re more properly called, return to their roots here. Previous games saw flying Mets, swimming Mets, giant Mets and even Mets who drove trucks. These simple triple-shot Mets a generally strategically placed to be the biggest pain in the ass possible. Note the flying saucers at the top of the screen, which are also trying to kill you.

To be blunt, this is the hardest goddamn game I’ve played in a long, long time. And I’ve been spoiling for a good challenge. By doing away with graphical concerns, Capcom poured all their efforts into level design and A.I. behaviour. In Plug Man’s level, there’s a spot of classic “disappearing and reappearing” blocks over a bed of spikes, with a hard hat shooter guy waiting on the platform you’re trying to jump on. 10 lives later, I finally found where to land and when to shoot to be able to land safely. In Jewel Man’s level, there are large cannons that can take off about a fifth of your energy with one shot and aim directly for you. While you’re trying to deal with that, a little green pod flutters to the ground. Upon landing, is sprouts spikes and turns into a fast moving, whirling hazard that moves just below your line of fire. After a couple of retries, you start to get the pattern of when to shoot the green thing before it hits, in between the cannon’s shots. Mega Man 9 is a study in mastering thousands of little situations like that.

Striking a blow for robotic women’s rights, Splash Woman is the first female Robot Master (boss) to be introduced in the series. I finally kicked her ass and took her Lightning Trident earlier tonight. Back to the kitchen, hussy!

In keeping with the retro feeling, the slide (introduced in Mega Man 3) and the charged shots (introduced in Mega Man 4) are done away with. You can jump and you can shoot, that’s it. And that’s all you need. I remember borrowing Mega Man 6, the last NES entry, shortly after its release and beating it in one evening. While my gaming efforts were certainly divided this week, I only managed to beat two bosses on the first night of playing. Yesterday I picked off one, and I beat two more tonight. The difficulty really makes you appreciate when victory comes. I’ve only actually beaten one of the bosses with the right weapon so far, I’m looking forward to discovering The Pattern.

This mosaic shows all the bosses from the first 6 games. This will make a snazzy desktop photo/”name the robot trivia game” for drunken geeks.

The Pattern is a tie that binds all the Mega Man and Mega Man X games together. Beat a boss and you get their weapon. The weapon generally, will be the achilles heel of another boss, but figuring out which one is another part of the challenge. So, you develop an order to fight the levels in. For example, here’s my order for Mega Man 2- Air Man, Metal Man, Bubble Man, Flash Man, Crash Man, Wood Man, Heat Man, Quick Man. Everyone can develop their own plan. My first objective is to get Metal Man’s metal blades, which are the most useful weapon in the game as you can throw them in 8 directions. That’s a big help in some levels like Crash Man’s. I’ll fight Air Man first, though, so that I can have the rocket sled when I play Metal Man’s level and can reach an energy tank. These are the kind of considerations and strategy you can apply to the games. I’m still trying to figure out my strategy for Mega Man 9. And I love that, I haven’t really had to develop a strategy for a game in a long time.

A nerd’s wet dream, here’s a picture of all the original series and directly related Mega Man games. The original series (the six NES games, plus the five Gameboy, one SNES game and a PS1 game) are set about a century before the Mega Man X series (three SNES, three PS1, two PS2), which were followed by the Mega Man Z and ZX series on Gameboy Advance and DS. One of Z and ZX is a prequel series, I think, but I’m not sure which.

I should also mention the sound. The music is 8-bits, and kicks ass. Capcom has always been known for having great music in their games, from Mega Man to Street Fighter and everywhere in between. They deliver perfectly here. Tornado Man’s level music ranks up there with the best Mega Man songs in my opinion. It just gets you really pumped up for the level.

So, to sum up two great games, for entirely different reasons. Lego Batman, you shouldn’t have to guess whether or not you’ll like it. You should be able to tell from your enjoyment of either Batman or the other Lego games. Mega Man 9, I recommend to everyone, particularly younger gamers. Give this a go, and take a look at how effective simplicity can be. Instead of having a hundred buttons and complicated command sequences you’ve got two buttons and one helluva challenge. Back in the days before a game could really hang its hat on things like graphics and cut scenes, the bottom line was gameplay and challenge. Mega Man 9 exceeds my expectations for both.

I figure this is as close as this site will come to a 9/11 retrospective. One of the best parts of that is an excuse to post that great Tetris gif. Ah, what the hell, here’s this one too.

I digress.
From my view, it seems like every year there’s slightly fewer little stories in the various media about where people were, and what they were doing on 9/11, and what the long term repercussions have been. As horrific as it might have been at the time, people don’t dwell on it as much as they used to.

The proof is in the pudding. The “bring up 9/11 as a justification/brag about how you handled it” technique that got Bush re-elected didn’t work the same magic for Rudy Giuliani. Maybe people are a little more savy this time around, having recognized bullshit when they see it. Nah, that’s probably not it. They’re probably swept up in Obamamania. Or McCain Fever. Or are recovering Clintonites.

Back to the topic at hand, however, I’ve read a lot of different articles in years since that painted a picture, without outright stating it, that the United States was kind of becoming a place where you wanted to be careful before speaking your mind. Maybe if you had a dark thought about politics, some sort of filthy, pinko idea about better ways to do things, you’d keep it to yourself. Nobody wants to hear that. It’s un-American.

I wouldn’t know. I don’t live in the States, and there’s entirely too much conjecture about America and its people by folks who don’t live there, and may have never even visited there. Honestly, it’s something a lot of Canadians are guilty of. And probably a lot of people in other places in the world.

Regardless of whether America has an undertone of repression these days or not, I was sent this article this week. It’s all people admitting things they’ve thought about 9/11 that they wouldn’t say in public. Sprinkled in there, there’s also some well known quotes from shortly after 9/11 that seem really out there in hindsight.

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” – Ann Coulter, in a Sept. 14, 2001, column that focused on the death of Barbara Olson, wife of the U.S. solicitor general, Ted Olson

It’s really interesting, funny and sad. Here’s the link for the comments that were posted after the article, which are just as interesting. A few of my favorites-

“And really, what’s all this shit about the fireman being heroes? That’s their job, to be heroes. That’s why they signed up. Once a month you go run into a burning building and grab a cat and the rest of the time you sit in the firehouse and play cards.

“I used to think all firemen were hot. I now think they are slimy. At least four times last October I was in a bar where a fireman was so forward and sleazy, saying things like ‘It’s been so hard. You can’t believe it’ while pawing me. I’m sure his buddy who died running into a building on fire would feel vindicated by this slimeball getting laid, but I’m not going to participate.” – Anne, 31, an advertising sales manager in New York

There’s always been a joke among African-Americans about black folks and white folks during a disaster. My father was quick to point out a black woman who had managed to get out of the towers when she was actually on a floor above where the plane hit and she was still trying to get out of downtown when the reporter stopped her.

The fact that tons of white people just stood there near the towers looking before they fell cracked him up. It confirmed the stereotype of white folks never thinking anything is ever going to happen to them. And since black people are used to fucked-up crap happening to them all the time they were trying to get the hell out of there.

Of course I spotted a few African-Americans looking lost. My dad just said that they’ve been around white people too damn long. Real black folks run.– Name withheld

During the whole awful day, I was kind of excited that something had finally happened for MY generation so I didn’t have to listen to my grandparents bitch about Pearl Harbor endlessly and ask why doesn’t my generation get some direction.– Todd VanDerWerff

My husband and I were playing Jenga afterward. When the Jenga collapsed, I shouted “North Tower.” Then the second round of the game, we shouted, “South Tower.” Now we don’t call it Jenga anymore. We call it North Tower.– Marisa