My summer has been filled with super heroes.
While technically not the summer, The Avengers started the summer blockbuster movie season with a bang. Literally. Lots of stuff blew up. It was pretty spectacular. Plus, it means Joss Whedon can pretty much do whatever he wants. Whedon and Nathon Fillion could make a 2-hour movie that recreates Shakespeare's King Lear with shadow puppets and studio execs would literally (figuratively, whatever) fight to the death over who gets the rights.
Next came Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes. At first, I had no interest in this game. I own probably a half dozen other Lego games aside from this one, and they all play exactly the same: Break stuff, collect studs, repeat for a couple of hours. But it was the subtitle that got to me.
DC Superheroes!
A chance to play as Superman and Green Lantern? Hell yeah I want that. So, I preordered the game the day before its release at a Gamestop to get the exclusive Villains pack (I had a giftcard to GS and I didn't know about BestBuy's Hero pack). After waiting for the obligatory patch download and installation (seriously!? A day one patch?), my brother and I started our trek through the cutesified version of Gotham.
This game does boast that it's the first Lego game to use voice-acting (though, look at a messageboard about that tidbit and there're plenty of internet nerds...er...users to tell you otherwise (apparently, there was voice acting in, like, Lego Island 2. Who knew, right?)) Level after level, I kept waiting for the other DC heroes to show up. Superman finally made an extended appearance half way through the game (after a two minute cameo after the second level), but the rest of the Justice League only show up for the last five minutes or so. Between that, the fact that you fight a giant Joker robot, and the stupid new splitscreen (the spitscreen shifts based on which character is where) and I was pretty disappointed in this game.
It also felt like the shortest of the Lego games, with the story mode completed in around 6 hours (and this was with my usual OCD, must break everything in the level to collect studs, antics). The developers expect you to go through the "open world" and collect every gold brick, red brick, and unlockable characters once the story mode is over, but, other than pittering around Gotham with a different hero (or villain), there really isn't much use for these characters (yeah, you can replay the story missions, but most of the collectables can be gotten on the first play through).
Wow...that blurb about Lego Batman 2 went on much longer than I thought. I'll have to try to wrap up the rest of this quick.
The Amazing Spider-Man movie- Yeah, it's only been ten years since the first of Raimi's Spidey films came out, but those films were cheesy as we were still stuck in the, it's-based-on-a-comic-book, so-it-has-to-be-goofy, right? phase. I thought the ASM was enjoyable, even if some of it was rehashed from the Raimi films, and Garfield got a little too neurotic as Peter Parker in some spots. Interested to see where they go from here and if Webb/Sony has the cahoneys to kill of Gwen Stacey. Oh, spoiler-alert, in the comic, Gwen Stacey dies. Shouldn't be too much of a spoiler, really. Emma Stone has already stated that this is where she wants her character to go.
The Amazing Spider-Man game - It takes place shortly after the movie ends. The gameplay is like a marriage of Spider-Man 2 (still considered by many to be the best Spider-Man game) and the Arkham series (which, really, had a lot of Spidey-like elements to it, anyway...). Liked it, but, again, nothing to do once the story ends.
The Dark Knight Rises - I liked it. That said, I didn't love it. Not the way I loved The Dark Knight. It feels a lot like a sequel to Batman Begins instead of a sequel to TDK. That sounds weird, I know, but that's just the vibe that I got. Also, Bane's voice was...weird. I likened it to a Shakespearean actor who has to over annunciate every word so the audience can understand him (even if one of the biggest complaints about Bane is that he's difficult to understand). But, yeah, overall, liked it. Nolan and Co. could make more if they so desired to, but, seeing as DCE is rebooting the Bat-film franchise to make it more Justice League friendly, I don't see that happening.
So, yeah. A lot of super hero stuff this summer...and next summer...and...wait, when does Avengers 2 come out...?
