Batman: Arkham City

Sat, 17 Aug 2019 12:00:00 -0700

I played Arkham Asylum back in summer of 2015, so it somehow seems fitting for this much busier stage of my life that it took me four years to play the sequel. That being said, the gap I’ve taken from the Batman: Arkham series may ultimately have been to my benefit, given just how similar Arkham City feels to Arkham Asylum. We’re still beating the crap out of every other living character in the game (who all seem inexplicably hostile towards us on sight), we’re still uncovering a diabolical plot that features an all-star cast of Batman villains, and we’re still tracking down every Riddler secret using every piece of WayneTech we can get our hands on.

The thing is, all of it is great. Very few superhero games, especially those being made back in the early 2010s, can hold a candle to the experience that Arkham City provides. From gliding and grappling through the city to using detective mode to solve crimes, every moment feels like an authentic, exhilarating experience of donning the cape and cowl of the Dark Knight. Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing are also playable characters for smaller segments, each with their own exciting gadgets and play styles. A huge amount of the game’s success can be credited to the immersive open-world of Arkham City, greatly improving over the labyrinth Metroidvania-like level design of Arkham Asylum. Adding a mix of outdoor and indoor locations to the game adds further opportunities for the mechanics and side missions to enrich the overall experience.

But this brings me to a point of Arkham City I was surprised by, and one that I would have only picked up on now, in 2019. Thanks to the open-world design, we get a lot of radio chatter from various inmates and characters to make the solo experience feel more alive. Most of what they say is fine but forgettable, like “I wonder what’s on TV right now,” or self-dating to an era where Facebook was still a novelty: “How am I supposed to update my status? …Oh yeah, I’m still stuck here in this stinking prison.” But a lot of it hints at something much more sinister, not originating from the inmates themselves, but from their experience.

You see, the plot of the game is that Prof. Hugo Strange gets Gotham City to agree to a pretty bonkers plan wherein they wall off a huge part of the city, throw all the inmates and supervillains from Arkham Asylum inside, and seal it shut. Strange likes this because he gets to “study” the criminally insane (for the good of science, I’m sure), and because the prison is a perfect way of making sure anyone who knows the truth of his nefarious purposes (like Bruce Wayne) are never heard from again. But in an age where we’re talking a lot more about racial discrimination, police brutality, and other failures of our criminal justice system, you start to wonder why in the world Batman feels the need to be inside this prison, beating the pulp out of everyone he sees. A decent number of inmates will yell “What’s Batman doing here?” when you start a fight. Others get picked up by your police scanner: “Why’s Batman in here anyway, aren’t we already locked up?”

I get that a lot of these inmates are bad people, especially the more ruthless ones who work closely with the big bads (Penguin, Two-Face, Joker, etc.). But my guess is that a lot of the inmates joined up with some villain’s faction just so they had food to eat, or so they wouldn’t get killed in the streets. And while I know Batman will never be compassionate, I wonder if he couldn’t be just a bit more conscientious. Otherwise, I worry that Joker’s right when he says Batman belongs inside with the rest of them.

Bugs

The game would occasionally crash with some pretty unreadable error messages, but was otherwise flawless.

Thor: Ragnarok

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 12:00:00 -0700

Thor: Ragnarok came to finish what both Guardians of the Galaxy films started. Instead of honing in on one hero’s dramatic story arc, Ragnarok stars a group of them. The action takes us from planet to planet across all the known galaxy by spaceship and ~~wormhole~~ anus. But most importantly, Ragnarok acknowledges what we’ve known from the beginning: superheroes are absurd and should be just as ridiculous as they are strong, smart, determined, and attractive. Play is woven into the fabric of the film, from Thor and Loki’s “Get Help” fighting routine to Dr. Strange providing Thor a golden, bottomless beer fit for the Norse god (as promised to us at the end of the sorcerer’s own film). Even more serious topics, like Bannon and Hulk’s brain vs. brawn identity crisis and villain Hela’s description of executioners in Asgard are treated with a jesting lightness.

Ragnarok neatly sidesteps two pitfalls common to recent team-up superhero films: lack of screentime for its individual characters and weakening plot substance for the sake of comedy. In fact, some of the film’s most hysterical moments impressively include dialogue from three or more main characters while simultaneously advancing the story. When Thor, Bannon, and Valkerie discuss Loki’s past mischief while he remains chained but chuckling at their recounting of his past antics, the stratified ages of each character’s relationship with Loki shine: Thor and Loki’s escalating and ongoing brotherly conflict has existed as long as we’ve known them, Bannon last remembers Loki as an alien invader that needed smashing in the first Avengers, and Valkerie — while having as close as possible to a clean slate with Loki — generally mistrusts everyone. This lends itself perfectly to punchlines contrasting Bannon’s concerns with Loki’s murderous moods with Thor’s fond memories of being stabbed by Loki after thinking he was a snake.

The film’s more serious moments feel all the more poignant and starkly emotional against the backdrop of fun and games that dominate most of the dialogue. Watching the Hulk transform back into Bannon after being overcome with rage and grief on seeing Natasha is heartbreaking, and reminds us that the Hulk isn’t the only side of Bannon who carries the weight of his emotions. Heimdall inspires hope in an equally powerful way, and was an unmistakable Jesus figure to me. The way he sees all who are in need and fights for them — often alone in standing against evil and doing so without bravado or recognition — is exactly the kind of hero that inspires me.

So after yet another Marvel movie, what makes Ragnarok stand out? We need look no further than the wonderfully quotable one-liners which litter its script, the well-developed and colorful cast of characters which populate its worlds, the perfected formula of self-aware superhero melodrama that guide its structure, and the underlying lessons of true heroism which are embodied by every main character, major and minor alike. If this is the direction Marvel is taking even a fraction of its future movies, I’m very excited to see what comes next.

superhero | Mohammad Moshtaghi

Batman: Arkham City

Bugs

Thor: Ragnarok