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Played a bit, and the only problem I've run into thus far is not being able to play because of my being overwhelmed by extreme jealousy. I'd pre-order this one in a heartbeat!

Try this link. Should be a pop-over on the right side for you to select different colorblindness options.

[Gotham Central]

Gotham Central and Queen & Country are my favorites of his work...and were before he hired me. I too am starstruck, still! It was a series of lucky breaks that put us together.

Please do check out the webcomic. I feel amazingly lucky to get the first peek at Rick's artwork. When Greg called to let me know Rick would be the webcomic artist, I had just bought a stack of his run on Blackhawk from the back issue bin.

Greg's also a fan of adventure games, I'm pretty sure. I made a crack about going to the SCUMMBar once, and he told me to avoid the vichyssoise.

Anyway, sorry to name drop and take this topic off course. To get things back on track -- I've been struggling to figure out what Bane's voice reminded me of, and it turns out, it's the cartoon character Ludwig Von Drake.

Survive Style 5+?   

>SAY "I wonder if that's the guy I killed earlier when I flooded the place?"

(Don't actually do this).

>ASK EMMA IF SHE KNOWS C. NEWELL'S LOGIN, USE THAT AND "MARBLEHORNETS" AS THE PASSWORD

(Gabe Newell shared a room with another Newell, who was called C. Newell on the whiteboard).

I can't believe I guessed Joe V. The Volcano for a film that was actually Elephant Man.

I'm not sure. I just remembered it had a very bleak and stylized sequence at the factory at the beginning of the film. This sequence, in fact, if I'd bothered to check before guessing.

[Joe Versus The Volcano]

My guess is Joe Versus The Volcano.

My thought process, in case this helps anyone:

1. This looks like an early silent film, but I don't think it is. We have few panoramic options to choose from, even fewer that still exist in a wide format, and I don't think this is from either Old Ironsides or Abel Gance's Napoleon.
2. So this might be from a film designed to look like a silent film, but filmed post-whenever the wider aspect ratios came along (early 50s, I think). Or, it might be a flashback.
3. Or, this might be a Karel Zeman film. It has that look to it too, but I can't find one that matches up with the subject matter.

No matter the case, I want to see whatever this is. That looks a bit like Stephen Lang in the center.

Whoops! Double posted due to a FastCGI error!

[DKR]

Spoiler

I've looked around to see if anyone else felt as I did, and found a massive, spoiler-filled review that better addresses some of what I felt about the film, especially the section titled "The Politics of Rises are Repugnant." I don't agree with everything the reviewer says, and I think the politics of DKR are not as clear-cut as he insinuates. That's what I'm sort of trying to get at above -- I feel like Nolan/Goyer are trying to make a political point (or series of points), sort of needlessly, but they're not very clear on what that point is. I'd still give the film a thumbs-up, but I have to not think about it too much to do so. The other films were the opposite -- I gave thumbs up after thinking hard about them (especially the second). Maybe a second viewing would help.

[close]

Greg Rucka is my client. He's currently writing Punisher for Marvel, and a webcomic called Lady Sabre & The Pirates of the Ineffable Aether on which he and artist Rick Burchett (who drew many of the comics based on Batman: The Animated Series, among other things) have been very kind to let me have some creative input.

Spoiler

I was going to avoid this, because I hate talking politics on the internet (and I really tried to look over some of these aspects to try to enjoy the film), but the politics of the scheme, and in many ways, the film, are so flawed that it still doesn't make any sense to me. It's been a while since I've seen Batman Begins, but if I remember correctly, one of the things that Ra's is against is the decadence that leads to evil. And perhaps I was taking the term incorrectly, because the scene was set in the middle of a billionaire's party, but I equated this to the self-indulgence of the rich and powerful at the expense of others.

Here, though, we get what felt like a parody of the Occupy movement, with Bane running a seeming working-class army from the sewers consisting partially of orphans, apparently, that march on attack whatever the Gotham version of Wall Street is, drag the rich into the streets, and quite literally occupy their homes while sentencing them to death via kangaroo court. But aside from Bane's army, it seemed like there was still a lot of good in Gotham.

So I'm still not sure of the point Bane/Talia, and/or Nolan and Goyer were trying to make, nor am I sure that point is still valid after eight years of what was apparently pretty good, wholesome, peaceful living in Gotham City during which The Batman was not needed. And if the mission is that important, why would the leadership of the League of Shadows essentially commit suicide while doing it? Surely there's an easier, less complicated way than driving an atom bomb around town in a truck?

[close]

[Things I liked:]

Spoiler

Finally snuck out of the house to see this one today, and enjoyed it for the most part. There were a few things that bothered me, so I'll get those out of the way first:

I'm still bothered that Christian Bale has to mouth-breath as Batman. I can only assume the mask blocks his nasal passages.

There was an awful lot of "tell, don't show," going on in the draggier places of the film.

I know it was a good visual, but why would the cops march straight into a wall of machine gun fire? They had pistols, and they weren't shooting. They could have taken cover. They could have driven to City Hall and at least had some car doors to hide behind.

I still haven't quite figured out the motive behind the 90-day siege of Gotham. If the intention all along is to blow the place up, and you have a bomb, why would you even bother waiting it out? The cat n' mouse game? To prove a point about the depravity of Gotham? Because it seems as though still most of that depravity was carried out by the League and League associates, and that the situation otherwise triggered everyone to be better people.

Bane's voice was a little bothersome to me -- not because I couldn't understand him (though there were a handful of times when this was the case), but because it felt as though it didn't fit into the movie. Like literally, it sounded like a voiceover, as if someone forgot to EQ it properly or something. Knowing the background of the test screening audiences having trouble hearing him, it made me laugh when he communicated to the stadium by use of a ref mic. I can't ever understand those guys either. I imagine most of Gotham being like, "What? What did he say? I can't understand. Why is he talking into the ref mic? If you've accomplished all of this other mayhem, you can't plug into the jumbotron?"

Still better than the Bat voice, though.

Nobody in the prison pit could build a grappling hook or something? C'mon, Bruce.

My bladder is seemingly 1/8th the size it was when I was a younger man, and I was fighting pissing my pants through the last 15 minutes. This one's my fault, Nolan.

Things I liked:

Catwoman wasn't a completely well-rounded character, to be certain, but I LOVED Hathaway's portrayal of her. The personality of Selina Kyle, for me at least, did wonders for being able to leave out most of her backstory, and still make me feel like I got her.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I kind of wish he'd been Batman from the first film. I imagine John Blake was named Tim Drake (Robin III from the comics) in an earlier draft of the script. So obvious in hindsight.

What's funny about the Talia-as-prison-child story, is that I was totally tricked, because that is Bane's back story in the comics. His father was the mercenary who later became King Snake, and Bane was born in prison to pay the penance for his absent father's crimes. Later, Bane is somewhat redeemed and goes on a character-building pilgrimage (I think this took place in Gotham Knights). They were going interesting places with the character, but that was erased by Infinite Crisis, and now, I assume, the New 52.

I loved the characters who made their returns in this one, especially, as you all have mentioned, Jonathan Crane. But I also liked the ghostly cameo by Liam Neeson. Forgot that one was coming. Also, because he showed up as a ghost, I assume that he and Qui-Gonn Jinn are the same person. I also liked William Devane showing up as President.

My favorite character in the movie was the chubby, middle-aged cop who loved the hell out of Batman when he first returned. I also liked the actor whom I hope people refer to as Willem DaFaux, who was RolandJohn Daggett's turncoat assistant.

All in all, a decent trilogy, though I can't help but note that, increasingly as the films went on, I cared less and less about Batman. I wonder how much screen-time a Bat-suited Bale even had in this film. In hindsight, it doesn't seem like much.

[close]

EKM, I'm glad you like Batman: Gotham Knight! I am the webmaster for one of the writers, who has also written a fair number of Batman comics.

This is a situation where knowing the proper terminology helps immensely. The GUI you're looking for is called a "verbcoin." Try searching the forums for that, as I believe there are several templates.

[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]

I remember reading your pitch for the game somewhere (at least I hope it was yours), where a fairly normal protagonist goes on a search for the retired and missing Sam n' Max. It struck me that there would be some interesting juxtapositions of your real cop and the world of the cartoon detectives, sort of like those found in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It had intriguing potential to me then and continues to do so as I watch you work through your art process.

Well, seeing as how I wrote nothing, and Stupot+ wrote a riddle, I think the honor should go to him/her/it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to look at more pictures of Yvonne Craig.

Well, I'd always be up for feeling Yvonne Craig. But solving the Riddler's riddles was the only reason Adam West kept Burt Ward around!

A PASSPORT!

(If I'm right, this is what I feel like:)

I don't think there are any benefits here to have it as an install.

Two potential benefits I could see some advocating:

1. Intellectual property -- developing a game whose assets are stored on a third party's server might be off-putting for some.
2. Control -- With an install on my server, I have access so long as I keep it up. If it's on yours, and you lose interest, don't pay your hosting bill, have bandwidth overages, get kidnapped by Somali pirates and are forced to live out an ascetic existence on an unheard of island...then everything is gone.

It reminds me of the writing style used to letter the dialogue balloons in Tintin. Here's a font based on that: http://fontzone.net/font-details/tintin/

You might run into troubles with it being slightly italicized though.