Well that took some time to come out. It’s been teased, and got release dates and delays, but we can finally listen to it.
If you don’t know about Powerglove, here’s a lowdown: They’re an awesome band that covers oldschool video game music, but with a great power metal style. They’re probably the best band in the video game music cover sub-genre. Not only do the cover the songs, but they take the tunes and they add in their own style and compositions, making the songs not only recognizable, but also making them their own thing at the same time.
This time, rather than doing video game music, they went through their childhood memories of watching cartoons and are doing covers of their theme songs, which is a fun idea. And for the first time they have a record label for their album, so you’ll be able to find it at local music stores, which is pretty awesome.
So read on and see if they’re as good with cartoon songs as they are with video game tunes!
Buy the album on Amazon.com
Buy the album on Amazon.ca
Buy the album on iTunes
Powerglove’s MySpace
X-Men
The original version of the song had some nice guitar and it was fun and fast-paced. This version just builds up on that. It takes the basic melody of the original and just adds more drums, more guitar solos and more awesomeness. Very fun song, if not a bit too similar to the original.
Gotta Catch Em All
Now that’s a song I used to love. And I still do. The Pokemon theme song from the anime series is one of my favorite cartoon songs ever. This version though? Well, let’s just say Pokemon has rarely sounded this good. It has some calmer moments, some badass solos, and it sounds very much like the original… Now there’s only one thing missing….
The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest
I’m not familiar with this show. At all. But I did go listen to the original opening, and this sounds very much the same, just metal. It has a bit of a Guilty Gear sound to it. It’s probably the weakest tune in the album though. It does have a nice solo in there, and the melody isn’t bad, but it’s just not as interesting as other songs in here.
This Is Halloween
I love Nightmare Before Christmas. Awesome movie. And this song? Well, it’s awesome too, amongst the best movie songs ever, and this cover is great. It really has that creepy atmosphere the original song has, and uses the same melodies and overall style, just with really awesome guitar and drums. Some parts calm down a bit to add to the creepy atmosphere. There’s no lyrics, but I think the song benefits from that in this case.
Batman
Rather than the cartoon theme song, which was rather bland, this is a remix of the Danny Elfman theme from “Batman”, the 1989 movie. This is unlike Powerglove’s other tunes I feel. It’s a lot more epic and orchestral, and it has a lot of other instruments than usual to complement to the epic feel of the song and the pace frequently changes without anything ever sounding out of place.
Transformers
Not sure about this one. It’s not bad, and it does have a lot of elements from the original song, but it feels kinda boring compared to the rest. I don’t know what it is with it that I don’t fully appreciate… It’s calming at parts, it has some really cool-sounding parts, and yet I’m not too fond of it. Not sure why. Maybe I’m just not that nostalgic when it comes to the Transformers.
Inspector Gadget
It’s weird… Some parts of this track (namely some of the beginning and a short segment at the end) are actually covering “In The Hall of the Mountain King”, or some remix of it, rather than the Inspector Gadget theme. It’s funny because people mix those songs up a lot normally too. BUT, upon further research in the depths of the Powerglove myspace blog, I did find that they were originally calling it “In The Hall of Inspector Gadget”, so I guess that explains this weird bit. Anyways… This is a very good song. There’s tons of elements from both the opening and ending credits of the show, and it just sounds really awesome all-around and features some really fast playing and just overall awesome moments. And the mix between “In The Hall of the Mountain King” and the Inspector Gadget theme sounds really good too, which is to be expected since both tunes sound really similar.
Heffalumps and Woozles (Winnie The Pooh)
This song exists for one reason, and one reason only: so you can say “Hey, did you hear that AWESOME Winnie the Pooh power metal song?” during a conversation, blowing everyone’s mind. Actually, this song is pretty badass. I haven’t seen the movie where this song is from (why would I watch a 1968 Winnie the Pooh short film anyways?), but I did watch the clip from the movie on youtube where this song is played, and it seems like Winnie is bad tripping after ODing on honey or something and starts seeing weird shit (not exactly as big of a mindfuck as, say, Pink Elephants On Parade, but somewhat in a similar style). And this song retains some of that fucked-up-ness from the original (specifically that really weird bit at the beginning of the song). And it also has a lot of a “pirate-like” sound to it for some reason. And there’s a lot of moments with different instruments which are interesting. Really cool, and one of the most memorable songs in the whole album. You’ll have it stuck in your head for quite a while.
The Simpsons (Feat Tony Kakko)
A third Danny Elfman tune? Fun. Probably the most easily recognizable tune in the album, The Simpsons theme here is unlike anything you’ve ever heard from the show. It takes the classic tune and turns it into a badass guitar solo. It sounds very familiar, but at the same time there’s a lot added to it that makes it sound like its own tune. The part with Tony Kakko spelling out/chanting “The Simpsons” in a very metal way just sounds awesome. Very enjoyable song for sure.
The Flinstones
For this one, I have 2 opinions. It’s very good, with high energy at some parts and it’s fun to listen to, but at the same time it’s incredibly repetitive and it’s WAY too long. It repeats the same parts a lot, and, when you think the song is done at 3 minutes 30 seconds, it starts up again from a previous part, not really adding anything to what we’ve heard before in the song. While it’s a very solid song, it’s easily the second weakest song in the album.
Gotta Catch Em All (Feat Tony Kakko)
You know what this song was missing at the beginning of the album? Lyrics. Well, here they are! And now the song is even more awesome. I’m not a big fan of Tony Kakko (from Sonata Arctica), partly because his voice is sort of weak if you compare to other awesome metal singers, but I think he does the job perfectly for this song. I find it funny that, other than a few lines, the lyrics in the pokemon song when sang by a metal singer really sound like a “normal” metal song. Weird stuff.
Overall
I’m pretty happy with the album. There’s some very solid songs. This is Halloween, Batman, Inspector Gadget, Pokemon with lyrics and Heffalumps and Woozles are AWESOME. The other songs are fairly good too.
If there is one big disappointment, it’s that one of the songs originally announced for this album is nowhere to be found. There was supposed to be a cover of Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid, and, according to older blog posts by Powerglove, the song has been recorded, so where is it? At first I thought Disney didn’t want them using one of their songs, but then I figured out that was wrong, since Nightmare Before Christmas and Winnie the Pooh are Disney properties. So I have no idea. And it was the song I was the most hyped for too.
One thing that really strikes me with this album is that Powerglove has really evolved from their previous album. Their playing hasn’t changed much, but their composition sure has evolved. It feels like these new songs have a lot better structure to them than their previous album. And the recording quality is noticeably better as well. Sunday Morning Apocalypse makes me really hyped for the next album, which will be video game music again. Can’t wait… whenever that happens.
]]>Read and see what surprised us this year! As per our other GotY posts, we have 5 things on here as well.
Batman Arkham Asylum actually being good
Yeah, I was surprised too. The demo made it seem pretty good, and the game looked great in screenshots and videos. But that kind of hype and such made me look at the game reluctantly, expecting the worse. But when I actually played it… Wow, I was honestly surprised. Not only is it a good licensed game, it’s also a good comic book game. Holy shit!
Team Ninja teaming up with Nintendo for a new Metroid
That was definitely unexpected. A new Metroid isn’t too unexpected considering the series has been gaining in popularity again, but the fact that Nintendo got Team Ninja to work on it? Now that’s a shocker. Will it be any good? Will Team Ninja actually respect Samus as a character? That remains to be seen, but there’s no question that this is one of the big surprises this year.
Golden Sun DS announced
This has been teased and rumored so many times before no one expected it to actually come out one day. But it was actually officially announced. No joke!
Lufia 2 remake on DS announced
Now THAT seriously came out of nowhere. Lufia, a series that only has a cult following, and one much smaller than games like Earthbound at that, is getting its best game in the series completely reworked? New gameplay action-RPG, slightly re-written story, new look, 3D graphics, Â re-designed characters… I’m definitely excited, but I have to throw a few WTFs out there just because of how strange it is for this to have been announced at all. Now let’s just hope for a US release.
Duke Nukem Forever cancelled
I wanted to put this as a disappointment really, but it’s actually a surprise. Why? Because not TOO long before being cancelled, we had some new gameplay footage(the first in around 8 years I think) from a random web show in an interview with the team leaders, a ton of screenshots, and actual information about the game. That’s crazy! Cancelling the game when it’s actually close to completion for once instead of getting engine changes or just generally not showing any sign of progress. How did it happen? The leader of 3D Realms asked for a measly 6 million dollars from the publisher, and didn’t get it (despite the 3D realms owner already having spent over 20 millions dollars of his own money in the project), so he couldn’t finalize the game. So the team was laid off and the game canned. Actually, just READ THIS article by Wired. And here I thought DNF would really be in development forever. Sad.
But that still produces lots of quite good titles, that anyone can play since they’re on more than one console.
So what were the best multi-console releases of 2009?
Read on and see our 5 winners!
Batman: Arkham Asylum
The best comic book hero game to come out in a very long time. Undoubtedly one of the best ever, if not THE best. And the best Batman game yet(though very closely followed by the NES classic). Great graphics, good story, great voice acting from the Batman TAS cast, great atmosphere, great stealth gameplay, varied environments and surprisingly fun combat considering the simple controls. The only deception here is the boss fights, none of which are really memorable. But the rest of the experience is splendid.
Borderlands
Really good FPS mechanics, fun RPG elements, 4 classes that are customizable and unique, and tons of loot. The loot works similar to the Diablo 2 system, with a bunch of different “basic” equipment, to which randomized attributes are added to make it unique. Guns will usually work differently depending on all the different stats it gets. Add to this a solid multilayer mode and satisfactory single-player gameplay, and you have a great and fun game. People who just like games with tons of loot will fall in love with this, and people looking for an interesting FPS/RPG hybrid will most likely have lots of fun with this.
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
It’s a new fighting game by the guys who made Guilty Gear. I shouldn’t need to say more. 12 completely unique characters with great movesets, each with a unique gimmick(making them different from any other character in any other game) and interesting movesets. With a great combo system, incredible visuals and a great soundtrack, BlazBlue is by far the best fighting game to come out this year, easily surpassing SFIV and Tekken 6 and whatever else might have come out that I forgot. Add to this lagless online when you don’t have friends to play with and you’re in for a great experience. The only problem? We know that buy 2-3 years there’s gonna be a few million revisions of this game instead of proper sequels, just like Guilty Gear X2.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
A strange choice, sure, but I think this definitely deserves a mention. A revival of one of the greatest series of the 80s, with spot-on voice acting from the original actors and a story written by the original writers, and it’s actually fun to play? Color me surprised. This is proof that licensed titles can be great. A good storyline that follows up the films well, good visuals reminiscent of the old Ghostbusters movies, nice atmosphere all around, great voice acting and fun gameplay that actually makes you feel like you’re a Ghostbuster.
Dragon Age Origins
Dragon Age: Origins is one of those games where story, characters, music, and game play take the center stage instead of the often pushed graphical envelope. It is a prime example of not only what makes a great western role-playing game, but what makes a great role-playing game overall. It also is a great example of how to implement the player choice in not only the plot, but also the game play. This allows for those in the “core/hardcore†category to coexist with the “casual†crowd in a genre that usually is difficult to get into for many people. (thank you Josh for the text)
It’s been very long since we’ve had a good batman game. Namely the NES Batman game by Sunsoft which I reviewed recently. Sure, it didn’t exactly feel like we were playing as Batman, but it was a fun game nonetheless.
Now we have Arkham Asylum, and it might just be the video game Batman fans have been waiting for for years. Is it true to the hype, or was the hype train a bit too big again?
Read on and see if random developer Rocksteady got it right!
Developer: Rocksteady
Publisher: Eidos
Date of Release: 2009/08/25
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Genre: Third-person brawler/stealth game
Players: 1
Looks and Sounds
Graphically, this game is awesome. Normally I whine that games only use a few colors, mainly grays and browns, but here it frankly doesn’t bother me that most of the game is like this. There’s quite a lot of different looking areas and despite the sorta limited color palette each area looks unique. And the visual style definitely fits great with the Dark Knight. The character models are really cool too. The basic henchman or police officer is a bit meh, though they look fine by normal standards, but the Batman vilains, and batman himself, definitely take the show. Killer Croc, Bane, Poison Ivy, ScareCrow, The Joker and Harley Quinn just look fabulous. Â I frankly have nothing bad to say about any of them. Except maybe the Joker when you actually fight him… And some people might be sad to see Harley Quinn in a different outfit, but I like schoolgirls/gothic lolita so I’m happy. ScareCrow looks quite scary, Poison Ivy is hot, Bane looks big, badass and evil, Killer Croc looks perfect. I have no complaints here at all.
The attention to detail is phenomenal too. Mainly the damage on Batman through the game. The game takes place during one night, and it shows, as Batman’s costume keeps getitng ripped up and his cape gets damaged. By the end of the night his cape is in horrible condition and there’s cuts everywhere on Batman’s body. Even his face starts showing fatigue and such.
The sound of the game is also great. What steals the show here is the voice acting. Mark Hamill, Kevin Conroy, and Arleen Sorkin all reprise their roles from the animated series as, respectively, the Joker, Batman and Harley Quinn. This is probably the best performance anyone did as the Joker, EVER. Damn, he sounds just so awesome, this is crazy. I don’t think any voice has ever been so fitting for the Joker. Batman sounds great as well. Dark,commanding, sure of himself, but not as badly exagerated as Christian Bale’s Batman. The other voices are really good too, no complaining on that aspect. The rest of the sounds are fine. Gunshots sound like gunshots, the gadgets sound good, and the music is really nice, keeping a similar style to previous Batman soundtracks.
The presentation couldn’t have been much better than this. Rocksteady nailed it. This, is Batman. Pure and simple.
Story
The story isn’t incredibly original, as, or so I’ve heard, has been done a few times in the comics and such, and the final boss battle is taken from an episode of the animated series. After capturing the Joker REALLY easily, Batman brings him to the asylum. Sure enough, he gets away and goes deeper to the asylum, to get ready for the big party! So Batman takes on the job to stop the Joker’s plan… whatever they are. Along with the Joker, a bunch of his henchmen were taken in as well, making the takeover a lot easier.
The story is quite well put toghether, and you encounter a few vilains in the series. The plot has no HUGE twists or anything, but you don’t exactly know about the Joker’s goal with all this for a while through the story. Each vilain adds something to the story, so they don’t really feel tacked on.
Overall the story is quite well done, and feels like a Batman story should. I’m not 100% familiar with Batman stories, so there might be some better ones, but I still really liked this one, and there was never a dull moment.
Gameplay
Basics
Well, I’ll start right away by saying that the gameplay here is great. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s describe it a bit.
There’s a few gameplay elements here. Stealth, combat and exploration. Each done in a third-person perspective, of course.
The most important one is probably the stealth. Basically, there are multiple areas in the game where you must try to get to the next place, or knock out all the enemies, without being seen. Some areas only have enemies with firearms, and in those cases you can’t go all Rambo on their asses, since you’ll get killed in seconds. Enclosed rooms require strategy and proper use of your gadgets to make it out not only alive, but with enough life left afterwards to survive later areas. Luckily the asylum is FILLED with gargoyles you can hide on top of(who the hell decorated the place anyways?). If you’re seen, you have to swing out of sight to survive. You had quite a few things you could do. Sneaking up on someone you can take them down from behind, if they pass under you when you’re on top of a gargoyle you can grab them from above and leave them hanging(inverted takedown=win). You can distract them with your tools, lay down traps to distract them… Use your imagination, as long as you take everyone out you’ll be fine. And if those areas are just a bit too easy, one part adds proximity mines on gargoyles to change up your strategy. In more open areas, goons are usually very perceptive and can see you from miles away, accurately shooting you with a sniper rifle. So you must use the environment at your advantage so that they don’t see you. Anywhere in the game you can use detective mode. It’s especially useful in the stealth parts, since you can see through walls, seee where the enemies are, what they’re doing and scan their current mental state (their behavior really changes as you knock out their partners). Overall, the stealth element is probably the best in any game I’ve played. Yes, including MGS4.
Combat is a bit simple though. At first you can button mash your way through. You have 3 buttons to use here. A basic attack button, a stun attack and a counter-attack. You get alerts when an enemy is about to hit you so you can counter. Pressing your normal attack button, at first, makes you attack straight in front of you. As you build up your combo, you’ll be able to change direction in the middle and attack anyone in the direction you’re facing (as long as they’re standing, or getting up). You can also try to use your gadgets in battle too, though only the batarang will be really useful (unless you lure bad guys towards explosive gel). Some enemies take anything you throw at them, unless you stun them first. And enemies that are knocked down but not knocked OUT can be knocked out while on the floor, if you crouch and press the counter/takedown button. Others require dodging properly to get out of the way and avoid certain weapons they use. Â It’s basic, but it’s fun learning to get your combo count high, and the combat isn’t exactly BAD. It’s simplistic, but it’s actually fun to play.
The exploration is simple. Run around each area, looking for secrets. Maybe it be hidden trophies, or answers for riddles, there’s quite a few things to find in here. Riddles are given to you through your headphones, and you actually have to find the answers in the environments, and scan the answers by holding the detective mode button. Not much more to say here, but it’s a fun element.
Other stuff
Bosses offer different gameplay styles. The Scarecrow show some REALLY weird stuff, and then bring you in semi side-scrolling areas where you must get to the end without being seen by Scarecrow (now in Giant form) in the background. Also, the third Scarecrow segment starts out AWESOME. Other bosses are pretty standard stuff. Finding patterns and figuring out when to use different attacks, stuff like that. Scarecrow is the funnest of the bunch though.
Otherwise, you have a bunch of gadgets to use. 3 variations on the batarang (normal, multi-targetting and sonic batarang which is made to annoy enemies), explosive gel that you can use to trap enemies, a weird device to open doors, a Batclaw to knock down certin walls and grab onto enemies… There’s lots of fun to be had by experimenting with your gadgets.
The best part though is that you can upgrade everything you have. Health, attack power, melee attack moves, inverted takedown, all your gadgets, adding batarangs to combos, remote control batarangs, proximity explosive gel… It’s awesome. Just get enough experience to get an upgrade available and choose what you want.
Overall, the gameplay in this is awesome. It makes you feel like you’re Batman, for sure. Great stealth, relatively fun combats, and a bit of exploration add up to fun times.
Overall
I don’t understand how this happened. Rocksteady only made 1 game before, and it was a crappy FPS on the PS2, which was more of a budget title. So… How did Eidos figure they should get those guys to make the game? I thought they’d have chosen a company that has, you know, a track record of SOME sort. I have no idea what happened really, but DAMN, they couldn’t have done a much better choice than this.
They created, by far, the best Batman game ever. Sure, I still have quite the liking for the NES Batman game, but it’s nothing compared to this. This is the first time they managed to make you feel like you’re Batman. The presentation is great, the gameplay is great, the stealth element surpasses that of any other game with a stealth element(that I’ve played). The combat is a bit on the simple side, but at the same time I feel that if it was deeper it might not have felt that fitting.
The replay value is a bit on the low side, but it’s one of the few Current-Gen games that I know I’ll find myself replaying in the future.
I’d say this is a solid contender for game of the year. The high reviews and hype for this game are no joke.
Pros/Cons
Pros
- Awesome presentation
- Great voice acting
- Great stealth gameplay
- Simple yet fun combat
- Riddles and challenges add replay value
Cons
- Some boss battles (especially the last one) feel like they could have been a lot better
- After you get all the riddles and finish all the challenges, the replay value isn’t huge (higher difficulty levels if you really like the game)
The Save Factor
With a starting price of $60, the Save Factor for Batman: Arkham Asylum is
For Batman fans: $75 (if you’re a Batman fan and you DON’T have this game already… WTF ARE YOU DOING? This is the greatest value you’ll get from any batman game, and is more than worth the starting price)
For anyone else: $55 (yeah, surprisingly there’s lots of value for anyone with this game, not JUST Batman fans)
Well, with a new GOOD Batman game out, I thought I’d make my first “Challenges from the Past” post about another good Batman game. That’s right, Batman on the NES, made by Sunsoft.
This is an NES classic for sure, and one of the few Batman games to have been good.
I was given a few challenges for this, so let’s talk about the game first, and the challenges after!
The Game
In the time of the NES, it wasn’t rare for a licensed game to be good, or even good enough to be considered a classic nowadays. Batman is one such game.
Presentation
Graphically it looks great. Detailed sprites, smooth animations on Batman, nice looking (though a bit bland) areas. But overall it looks awesome. The enemy design is a bit on the lame side most of the time, being mostly cliche stuff, but it works fine anyways.
The music is also very good. There’s only a few tracks, but almost all of them are enjoyable to listen to.
Gameplay
It has nice graphics and music, sure, but this is where the game truly shines. The controls are simple (of course, few NES games have complicated controls really). A jumps, B attacks. You start off with a basic punch, but by pressing Start you can switch to various gadgets/projectile weapons. You get a batarang, a gun that shoots missiles and a super shuriken of triple doom. Each projectile shares the same ammo, and each takes a different amount of ammo to use. Batarang takes 1, missile gun takes 2 and super shuriken takes 3. While the basic punch works nicely, the weapons can get you out of a tight spot, or completely prevent said tight spots from happening.
The other fun element is the jumping. If you press A while touching a wall, you cling to the wall for a second and wall jump. This is pretty basic, but the game complicates it by adding really tough jumps, some that require falling towards a trap, just to wall jump JUST at the right moment to get to the next platform, making sure not to hit a trap that’s overhead. Some jumps are close to impossible, and to this day some of them most people can’t do them without getting hit.
Combat is as simple as it gets, considering it’s a side-scroller. But it’s insanely fun. As is the platforming. Add in how challenging the game is, it’s definitely a classic NES title.
Challenges from the Past
For the first time: Videos on this site! Nothing fancy though, but I managed to record straight off my NES (no emulators here!!). Instead of just reporting my progress on each challenge, I’ll show you my attempts! Sadly I can’t record from my Genesis (version 1) since it has no composite outputs(unless i find how to get my capture card to see my RF connnection), but anything NES/N64 I can do it. (eventually i’ll try to make the videos more interesting >_<)
So here’s the challenges for Batman (given to me by the Save Points team). Note: I’m still a newb at this game and keep dying for stupid reasons.
Challenge 1: This one was given to me by Dave: get through the first stage, including the first boss, with only my fist.
A tough challenge, but it’s doable. It’s most doable for the whole game is you’re crazy enough, though some bosses will give you trouble. On my non-filmed attempt I reached the boss of the second level, but couldn’t beat it. Here I just plain sucked…
Challenge 2: This one was given to me by Wintrale: get as far as possible without picking up healing items! (yes, I know, I picked up a heart in the first part of level 2, but i jumped in the electricity to compensate)
That’s really tough, as you’ll only get some life back after dying, or killing a boss. The rest of the game is played normally(AKA weapons are available), so that helps a lot. On my non-filmed attempt I reached level 3, but that’s all I could manage. Here I kept making a bunch of stupid errors.
Challenge 3: This one was given to me by Victor: No-kill run(other than bosses)!
That’s insane. Not killing anything means you HAVE to take hits by certain enemies, and there’s no way, other than finishing each level, to get life back, and you can’t replinish your ammo(making the boss battles insanely hard). It’s probably possible, but I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who can do it. I can’t pass the 2 flying guys on level 1 part 2.
Overall
To this day this is one of the more challenging NES games out there, and rightfully so. You don’t exactly feel like Batman, but who cares, it’s a fun game.
Well worth the ~5$ the game goes for now(I got it for 3$).
Thank you jjgames.com for having the game in stock and for the low price
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Well, with an arcade cabinet with TONS of games in my basement, I knew I’d find crazy stuff. But… I mean, just look at this game’s title… you know it’s gonna be weird. Just seeing the title in the frontend, I knew I had to try it out, and I wasn’t disappointed.
So read on for the first game in my Arcade Center posts.
What is this game about?
Some… Guy… stole Babe Ruth’s golden Baseball equipment. And it’s up to the Ninja Baseball BatMan to get them back before they get used for… evil… I guess. So the Ninja Baseball BatMan leave on their quest through the US to find the golden equipment.
As with a LOT of games at the arcade at the time (this one was released in 1993) this is a beat ‘em up. Fight a bunch of cronies until you get to the final boss of the level. Rinse and repeat until you beat the final boss of the game.
This game sets itself appart from most beat ‘em ups though, due to the insanity going on in the game.
Enemies range from baseballs with arms and legs, to baseball bats, to cute doggies with guns, to airplanes, to giants made out of balls, to playing cards and a bunch of other crazy shit. There’s lots of enemy variety, and the game just keeps on getting wackier as you go on. Everything tries to kill you really, and there’s always some weird stuff going on.
The gameplay is awesome. Very fast-paced. You have a choice of 4 characters, each with unique special and normal moves. The difficulty is pretty good, ranging from “Pretty Easy” during the first level, and escalating to “Stupidly hard” fast enough. If you’re playing that at the arcade(if you can actually find it…), you can find yourself wasting a ton of quarters. Special moves, of course, take a bit of your lifebar so you must be careful. The boss fights are very insane too, with unexpected attacks and weird patterns, they’re no walk in the park. There’s a bit of variety too, with some stages that include driving segments. There’s a few items in the game, mostly health pickups (which you’ll definitely need), but the most notable is the “Pink” heart (a heart with “Pink” written on it). This calls the Ninja Baseball Batman cheerleading squad, doing big attacks or powering you up. Awesome stuff.
The graphics… Well, the screenshots don’t do them justice. Seeing it animated it just badass. Incredibly colorful, great animation, some funny and weird animations, smooth graphics all around, great crazy style, this is one of the better looking beat ‘em ups out there.
Overall, Ninja Baseball BatMan is a great game, and it barely ever got recognition(I only heard about it when I found it in the MAME roms pack), but if you find it, at least put in a few quarters in and try it out. I’d be all for a Ninja Baseball BatMan 2 game if IREM were up for it…
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Well, I’ll start this review right away by saying that I’m not a Mortal Kombat fan. I’m not a huge fan of the fighting system, thus the reason it took me so long to check this out. That being said, such a random mix of characters was interesting enough for me to want to check it out.
The idea of Superman fighting Scorpion indeed made me quite curious, but does it work? Read on!
Story
They managed to make the story here relatively interesting. Divided in 2 “sides”, the MK and the DC side, with 7 chapters in the MK side and 8 in the DC side(1 character per chapter, with a few you don’t end up using in the story mode), each side gives you that “team’s” point of view on the events.
The story starts similarly in both side. Superman is fighting Darkseid and Raiden is fighting Shao Kahn, and both open up a portal, at the very same time, and at the very same time superman uses his heat vision on Darkseid and Raiden shoots lightning at Shao Kahn. Obviously, this screws up stuff and both worlds start merging. As a result of this, characters from both sides think characters from the other side are invading them. At the same time, characters are consumed by “Rage”, which makes them more violent and sometimes delusional. This results in multiple fights between characters from both sides and amongst each other.
The story works relatively well. It’s nothing incredibly good, but it does the job very well, and makes both universes work relatively well with each other, despite being quite different. The only “problem” is the T rating that DC imposed, making it a lot less violent and bloody than MK normally is.
One thing I’ll mention is that the cutscenes transition from to battle really smoothly. At first it felt almost seamless. After a while you see that it’s not entirely seamless, but it’s really well done.
Graphics
The characters look great. They’ve never looked better. Very detailed, and they really look just like you’d expect them to. There’s other fun details like cuts and bruises appearing on characters during fights that carry on to the next rounds. The animations are also relatively nice, I have no problems with them at all.
Otherwise, the environments are… okay. Nothing special. Really not much more to say here. They’re appropriate.
Gameplay
Okay, like I mentionned before, I’m not really fond of the usual Mortal Kombat fighting system. Usually because I find it to be too stiff. While this does not completely correct the problem, I find this to be a lot smoother than previous MK games. Maybe it’s because I have more experience in fighting games than before, but I have a lot less trouble pulling off combos and special moves. The movement and jumping and such just feels a lot betterr than what I’m used to with MK games. Now, there’s still some stiffness and still has ways to go before I get comfortable with the fighting system, but this is a good step forward IMO.
 So the fighting itself is pretty much the same as in previous MK games. The basic combos are simple enough, and higher-level players(AKA not me) can experiment to make their own combos, the special moves are simple, mostly requiring tapping 2 directions and then an attack button. Fatalities you have to figure out the motions and distance, but they’re relatively easy to do when you get the hang of them. Fun little scenes, but nothing as brutal as you’d expect.
Some new stuff
New things here including the close quarter combat mode and the freefall mode (don’t know if those are official names, but I don’t care). Close Quarter happens when you do a certain grab, and it becomes a sort of button mashing thing, where the attacker presses a button, and before he does so the other must quickly guess when button he’s gonna press, otherwise he gets hit. If he guesses it right, he counters the attack and you get out of close combat. The freefal works pretty much the same way. For each attack the attacker lands, a bit of a bar on the left goes from green to red. Â If the defender guesses the button the attacker will press, the positions are changed, and the defender will bethe one doing damage on the landing. That’s the annoying part, 30% damage for that is quite a lot.Â
There’s also a “mode” in certain stages where there’s no freefall that goes on when you small an opponent against a wall, and then you’ll charge into them and have to button mash while crashing though multiple walls, acucmulating damage on the way. Not great, but whatever >_>
Added to that is Rage mode. This is a bar that fills up when you attack or get attacked. When it’s full, pressing L2 and R2 at the same time will initiate Rage. Rage raises your attack power, and if you do multiple hits while the opponent is blocking, their block will break. Also, you get a super armor. This makes you pretty uber, but it only lasts around…4 -5 seconds, so it’s not too long, but it can change the pace of the fight pretty easily.
Characters
There is a slight balance issue. Mostly having to do with The Flash, who is really fast and has lots of cheap attacks, and a few characters are a bit weaker than the other, more particularily The Joker and Catwoman according to “pros”. Overall though I play just about as well with each character.
Speaking of characters, that’s one of the big incentives here: the DC characters. And overall I find that they did a good job here. Their movesets are pretty nice, giving a few of them moves similar to what you’d expect from them. Some I’m not too sure because I’m not too familiar with them (Wonder Woman, DeathStroke, Catwoman), but overall they’re pretty cool and fun to play as.
Games modes
Other than story mode, there’s the usual arcade mode and practice mode. Added to that is the Kombo Challenge mode, which gives you different combos you can do, and doing them all gives you a trophy… Yay. It does help in knowing the different things you can do with each character.
Otherwise there’s Versus and Online modes, which are just as you’d expect. I get my ass kicked online so I can’t REALLY say how good it is, since I just spend my time getting killed on there.
Overall
Surprisingly, I think this is a good game. Still not a huge fan of the MK fighting style, but this is one of the better incarnations for me. The T rating is a bit disappointing though, the violence you’ve come to expect from the series is nowhere to be found,, most is censored.
Overall this is a fun game, the DC characters are cool and it’s a random mix of characters that they managed to make work well.