Batman, Minecraft, Wolfenstein and Blue Dragon

On 06/17/2017 at 10:44 PM by KnightDriver

I took in a lot of media in the last few days. I watched my rare home dvd, Minecrafted until inevitable doom, got super excited for Wolfenstein II, and played an epic session of Blue Dragon on XBO.

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders is an animated movie featuring as many of the original actors from the ’66 TV show as possible. There’s Adam West, his last performance, Burt Ward as Robin and Julie Newmar as Catwoman, all from the original show. It was a bit distracting hearing Adam’s clearly very old voice in a young Batman’s mouth, but I was happy with the show as a whole because it was a fantastic script. It went head over heels for word play, had a ridiculous Riddler riddle, tons of zany fighting, and impossible rescues. I absolutely loved it. It was none of this grim Batman nonsense, just real nonsense, and entirely entertaining.

Mark and I played some Minecraft after that because I was installing Blue Dragon, which, fairly recently, got added to the backwards compatibility list on XBO. I raced for completion of the Enchantment table, and did it, but soon after went one too many encounters in the Nether and got killed. I realized that the Enchantment Table wasn’t enough, you also need to be level 30 to get the most out of it, and if you die, you lose it all. I wasn’t up to more grinding, so I quit.

The next day, I watched some more E3 trailers and saw Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Oh my, did I get excited. Machine Games is doing this series more right than even I could have imagined. I’m so excited. It’s funny, it’s serious, it’s graphics are gorgeous, and it’s zany over the top blood thirsty. What more can a veteran of 90s FPS games want?

The first disc of Blue Dragon was ready, so I played that the rest of the day with Mark doing the same on his system. This is a great game in the old school turn-based RPG vein made by a dream team of Japanese anime and video game talent. Microsoft tried hard in 2006 to sell their system to a Japanese audience with this title and failed, but it’s great, and I love it. My only complaint is that it seems almost too easy this time around. I mean, boss battles are never easy in this game, but I’m having a better time of it than last time I played it something like half a dozen years ago. I swear my brain is working better since I left my dumb job a few months ago. Since then I beat Civ Rev on King difficulty, and I’m breezing through Blue Dragon. Either it’s lower stress right now or I was being affected by a polluted workplace. I guess I won’t know for sure until I start doing something different full time again and see how I do.

That might be my weekend, but I may get in a little more on Sunday. We’ll see how long father’s day festivities last before I’m allowed to indulge again. I am tempted to go on a Xbox 360 RPG run. I’ve got several titles I’ve never touched like Eternal Sonata and Lost Odyssey to try. I got to finish this 100 hour Blued Dragon game again though. Or do I?

Matt Snee Staff Writer

06/17/2017 at 11:02 PM

damn, BLue Dragon. A bit grindy. MAru maru!!!!!

I like that game, and it has good music form Uematsu, but I didn't make it all the way through. Was fun while it lasted though.

KnightDriver

06/17/2017 at 11:50 PM

It is somewhat tedious at times. I feel I have to search every darn thing in the environment because it always gives me some gold or an item. I really wish I could stop but all those items come in handy in a boss fight.

I haven't had to grind overmuch. I've even avoided enemies when I could.

Last time I played it I went about 90 hours and didn't fight the final boss because doing so locks you out of the rest of the world, and I wanted to try and find every chest in the game. Then I burned out on it.

Super Step Contributing Writer

06/18/2017 at 08:31 AM

I just finished Wolfenstein: The New Order and, to be honest, it's not really my thing. Had to put it on very easy near the end and even then got surprise killed a handful of times. I could never find the right difficulty balance and the endless enemy waves just got tedious after a while. I also got annoyed by seeing that Pyramid Head suit in the sequel trailer, but only ever seeing the older woman wear it in this game. I never was good at 90s FPS, and I'd just breezed through Titanfall 2 before it, so there is a strong possibility the game was just not made for me.

I have wanted to check out that Caped Crusaders movie though, ever since laughing uproariously at both the 60s Batman movie as well as LEGO Batman. I like the dark and edgy Nolan Batman as well as campy Batman, but I don't like the trying-so-hard-to-be-edgy-it's-campy Snyder ... Crazy Steve (Linkara reference).

Blue Dragon reminds me of the EGM days, when I was so little I didn't realize getting it at supermarket every month was more expensive than subscribing ... And then regretted subscribing cause it usually came to the damn store earlier, and it's not like $5 a month was killing me.

Sorry to be so negative about Wolfenstein; it was a cool trailer, I just don't think I'll like the game.

06/18/2017 at 10:18 AM

It's not for everyone, I'm sure.

I have been wowed by Machine Games attention to detail. The propoganda posters, the immaculate submarine interiors in New Order, the funny German sung American pop tunes in New Order, Easter Eggs like orginal Wolfenstein 3D when you sleep in New Order, it goes on and on.

I don't hate the Nolan Batman. It's fine. I'm just a little burned out on dark themes in movies lately.

06/18/2017 at 03:24 PM

The story and details I liked; didn't know about the wolfenstein 3d. But the gameplay was hard for me and I lost interest after a while.

06/18/2017 at 11:38 PM

The shooting mechanics were perfect. Yea, it could be a little difficult in spots but, man did it control well. I still have a vivid memory of unloading on a room of Nazi with dual weilded rocket launchers. It was rediculous.

06/19/2017 at 12:13 AM

The mechanics were great, I'll give you that. I just think I got overwhelmed too easily in places, which reminded me of playing those 90s titles in a bad way.

06/19/2017 at 08:48 PM

I was thinking how terrifying they all are at times. Original Doom literally gave me the creeps, and the new Wolfenstein games are frightfully violent when you stop laughing at how ridiculous they are.

I just watched Wolfenstein II again in the Bethesda Press Conference video. Those graphics are so sharp. Mark was already talking about buying it day one. I don't know how I'll do that though with my limited budget. I maybe watching him play it.

Cary Woodham

06/18/2017 at 01:00 PM

I have Blue Dragon on Xbox 360. Not sure why I never finished it. Modern CD based RPGs run the risk of being too bloated for me. Did you know that at one point, there was a Blue Dragon cartoon?

06/18/2017 at 11:41 PM

It's an enormous game. I'm doing a lot of running through environments that have little more than some minor monsters, which I then run around to avoid endless small battles.

I didn't know about the cartoon. I'll have to check that out.

goaztecs

06/29/2017 at 11:16 AM

That Batman animated flick sounds like a perfect weekend watch, and turns out my local Target has a couple in stock. I do love the dark Batman storylines but the 60s Batman was always fun. Hell it was even brought up in the Lego Batman Movie.

06/29/2017 at 11:22 PM

This was was so faithful to the 60s show. It even outdid it in many ways. I hear there's going to be another one soon, too.

PixlBit