The LEGO Batman Movie

You mean nothing to him. No one does.

Batman as an action comedy in the LEGO universe sounds like a bit of a stretch so I was pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out to be, especially as this movie has a bunch of other pop culture references yet acknowledges all the other Batman films. The first 15 minutes are especially enthralling and the CGI is amazing all throughout.

He's happiest when he is fighting.

The plot deals with Batman's fears, his attitude to everyone around him, and that no one - not even the Batman - can be alone on an island (despite his best efforts to do so). The play on the love hate story with the Joker is particularly funny and well done. Of course, being a LEGO movie there are a few bits where "Master building" comes into play which was slightly out of whack for me since most of the movie I forgot that they are actually in the LEGO universe.

I really liked this and it is one I'd want to see again! It is definitely better than some of the other Batman films out there. I give this four 110% expendable sidekicks out of five.

Game of Thrones: Intrigue

The only thing intriguing is how this passes as a GoT game.

It has the Game of Thrones name on the box and the characters on each card, yet the theme is lost completely in this card game - which ultimately is for children. The play is simple - everyone takes turns creating a pyramid of cards where only similar colors are allowed next to each other. If during your turn you cannot put down a card, you take a penalty token and are eliminated that round. If you cleared all your cards you take an Iron Throne card which has a negative value.

So many decisions. Wow.

In the next round the player adjacent goes next where the process repeats until everyone has had a chance to "go first". At the end you add up your penalty points, subtract the Iron Throne values and whoever has the lowest value wins. Given I could explain the whole game in two paragraphs shows the simplicity of it, which is far too simple for my appetite. The only plus is that the cards can help people remember character names in the show. I give it 1 pyramid out of 5 and for me, it's not worth playing.

Question: Do you replay games?

Simple one I'll leave up for a few days... in this age of MMOs and game backlogs, how often do you go back to replay a "finished" game? Replaying due to DLCs or "new/updated content" does not count. I'm talking along the lines of winning say Doom 2 or the original Warcraft. Will you ever play through the whole thing again?

Overlord

Where goblins are made cute!

This fantasy game sees the player control the titular Overlord, revived in his dilapidated tower after a band of heroes had destroyed it. He's pretty tough as a spell casting knight but ultimately terribly outnumbered by the foes in need crushing to expand his domain. Instead of going the Diablo route where one guy -can- slay the enemy army, this one uses a cool and unique mechanic in minions.

Minions are little goblins who come in four different varieties each with special traits and weaknesses. These little fellas fight for you, break barrels for you, loot for you, carry heavy things for you and most importantly can reach places you cannot. They are also incredibly stupid, equipping the strangest gear such as pumpkin helmets and dead rat hats (from freshly killed rats no less).

Minions hard at work, pillaging hobbit homes.

Apart from light strategic combat, this also means there are a lot of puzzles in the game - most of which are thankfully easy though the terrain sometimes gets in the way. The mushrooms in the water cave will annoy you for sure! Still, the premise and mechanics are good. The voice acting is great, and the story where you must fight each corrupted hero now embodying one of the deadly sins complete with a slight twist in the end is fantastic. More so because you don't actually -need- to be evil, as the game still gives you a modicum of free choice.

I give this four rat hats out of five and highly recommend it to everyone! :)

Constantine (Game)

The Keanu Reeves Constantine, not Matt Ryan's Constantine.

Continuing the games based on movies trend, Constantine suffers from many flaws. A questionable "filler" plot filled with holes and time skips, wooden voice acting, and low quality graphics with Constantine's running motion being quite unnatural. My biggest gripe is everything being dark. So dark you will be always be using the "True Sight" spell which puts you in first person mode and turns all the colors into an odd shades of oranges and blues.

Armed with relics (cough firearms cough) as you fight through demons both on Earth and in hell, the game is ultimately a series of fetch quests. It does have some saving grace though - the puzzles and ideas are quite neat, as is the quasi QTE spell casting system. Time slows down while casting but doesn't stop, meaning enemies can still hit you and disrupt your spell. The "strange at first" battle music also gets my thumbs up.

For all the demons, people with guns are still the most dangerous.

I ended up enjoying this game because of the theme and ideas, and give it 2 water puddles out of five. Not sure I can recommend it to others though.

Wolverine: X-men Origins

The movie was good. The game is better!

Much like Iron Man, this is "based of" the movie - weaving in key plot points into the padded out story (filled with helicopters), but in this case the story is much more cohesive and quite interesting given the approach of having two interwoven timelines: the present day and a past operation in Africa with his old team.

It's also pretty wild!

More importantly, the game play is very engaging and visceral. Wolverine isn't as restricted as he is on film, bloodily executing and dismembering foes from the opening cut scene right through the entire game - and it is very fun! I especially appreciate that each new enemy is introduced as a "mini boss" first to let players figure them out before they start appearing as a regularly. 

I really liked this game and highly recommend it! 4 mutants out of 5.

Iron Man (2008 Game)

The movie was fantastic. The game, not so much.

While this is "based of" the movie, in reality it only starts and ends like it - with a ton of filler between those two points. That's not a bad thing on its own, but when it makes for a nonsensical plot combined with clunky controls, enemy AI that only has one setting (advance and shoot) and poor graphics, that's just a recipe for disaster. Here's a cut scene screenshot as a sample:

Pepper on boob duty.

It does have some good things though: the idea of power modulation and level design that lets the player fly all around and in most cases, through interiors is a plus, but not enough to make up for the rest of it. It's funny that Stark also ignores the "main" bad guy for the majority of the game and instead basically goes on a killing spree to "save lives". I give it one tank QTE (Quick Time Event) out of five.