There’s a Bat in my Belfry

So recently I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum for PC, about a week ago. I just finished playing it on the Hard difficulty. And I’m simply amazed and impressed by the game. It’s not a really new game, it was released in Fall 2009, but it’s definitely a great game a play. I got interested in playing it when I saw the trailer for Batman: Arkham City

My biggest complaint about the game is that you can’t take screenshots easily (can’t use the PrtScr button). So I got no screenshots to post. D: I don’t have an Xbox controller so I had to play with my mouse and keyboard. I can tell you, the game is made to be played with a controller. I spent a good afternoon configuring my keyboard/mouse so that it would optimal for playing. Since the mouse movement is already set to rotate the camera, I put 3 of my attack buttons also on the mouse. I used the commonly used WASD for movement and the keys around them for the rest.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is an adventure game, it plays very much like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. And also I feel it’s on the same awesomeness level as it too. I grew up watching the animated Batman series (1992-1995ish) so it was very nice to hear Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker respectively. I think because they were already familiar with their characters, it made the experience all the better. Grappling up to rooftops and gliding down as the Cape Crusader is really fun.

Like Ocarina of Time, Arkham Asylum has an overworld that changes over time as the story progresses. There are upgrades that allow further access in old areas, unique puzzles that keep the game fresh, and freeflow combat that never gets old. Although Arkham Asylum is definitely no Hyrule, a tiny island can’t compare to the expansiveness of a whole land. And Arkham Asylum is lacking in sidequests… which isn’t too bad for a game like this. Most of the fun parts of the game are fighting the infamous Batman villians and doing the Predator Combat (basically ninja Batman mode).

The one thing I wish I had during the game (other than an Xbox controller for PC) is a on-screen map. Sure I can goto the menu and look at the map, but adventure games can get really disorienting after a fight. Also, there was no button that centered the camera to where Batman was directly looking at.

Hopefully one, if not both, of those things get improved in Batman: Arkham City. Even if neither of those things improve, the game will be great; more Batman villians will join the fray, a whole new underworld to serve justice to… I’m thinking of pre-ordering the game as it is scheduled to be released this fall. And if I do, it’ll probably be for PC (I’m too cheap to buy a PS3 or Xbox 360) so I’ll have to consider buying an Xbox controller for PC. We’ll see.

Overall I’d recommend this game to anyone, and in my opinion, its a must-play game for Batman lovers. I look forward to Arkham City when it comes out.

The Happenings in Brrr-ruary

The past month has been interesting overall. There were a lot of “mini-episodes” throughout February, so I guess March would be a good time to reflect back on them. Let’s start off with a bit of work-life.

As of last Monday, I’ve been working for 3 months (woohoo!). I feel pretty accomplished… to my knowledge I haven’t gotten anyone mad yet and I’ve been meeting deadlines =). I work at a software company so there’s hardly any customer interactions (at best a phone conference… but even then I’m not usually involved in those). I’ve gotten into the habit of dressing nicely for Monday and Tuesday, then dressing casually for the rest of the week. Although some Tuesdays I find myself dressing casually too….

I think one of the best perks of being a software engineer is the dress code; which is pretty much don’t dress offensively. Of course, what’s offensive is very subjective… but you get the idea, (don’t piss anyone off and you’re good). I’m definitely the most comfortable when I dress casually. Nice clothing is comfortable too but it’s definitely not my choice of wardrobe when I program (nude/in-my-underwear is also not my choice of wardrobe…).

I definitely still don’t completely understand the product we are selling… but I understand that our product is very large so it will take some time to truly understand it completely. So for now I just do what I’m told and ask simple questions along the way. Besides, knowing more just means I’m prone to more work which is definitely a no-no =P.

Let’s see at home I’ve acquired Super Mario Galaxy 2 (SMG2) for the Wii. Overall it’s an enjoyable game. I’ve played the first one and was very happy with that game. And so far with SMG2, I’ve gotten the first 120 Stars and am working on the 2nd play through (this isn’t a spoiler, every Super Mario game you get the first 120 Stars then you can do a “New Game+” type of thing). SMG2 has the same mechanics as SMG1, which is good; why change something that isn’t broken =P. Along with the SMG1 mechanics; Yoshi, Yoshi powerups, and additional Mario powerups have been introduced. Overall the game is solid, definitely worth playing and getting, but I recommend the first one (SMG1) over SMG2.

• First and foremost Rosalina > Lubba. That fat purple Luma that I have to see everytime I want to go into a level… ….many Lumas have suffered a painful end during my first play through.
• Secondly the bosses in SMG2 are weaksauce and bring nothing new. The only fight I thought was interesting was World 5’s Castle boss fight (I won’t spoil it).
• Thirdly/Lastly traversing the Overworld was too linearly. Okay, in SMG1 traversing the Overworld took a good amount of time and sometimes got tediious. I feel in SMG2 they over-simplified it… maybe I’m being too critical here but at least in Super Mario World for SNES there were secret warp pipes and lots of hidden levels that could merit a second play through.

The Wii I’m playing it on started crapping out randomly while I was on my second play through, hopefully it’ll fix itself so I can finish that task (probably take me a good 5-6 nights to finish).

Also I’m considering getting Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for PC (my Desktop is much more reliable than the Wii at this point). I played it on Wii a few spring breaks ago, only got through Episode 1 and 2, and recall enjoying it. I know it’s an old game and targeted towards a younger audience but who can say no to Legos?

So I have a Nexus One (the original Google phone), and recently I got the OTA from Froyo (Android 2.2) to Gingerbread (Android 2.3) update. Most noticeable difference: color scheme. To sum it up, everything is smaller and on a black background. My co-worker (who has a Nexus S) says the black background is because lighting up a black pixel the least energy intensive. This is probably true for the Nexus S… but I’m not sure for other phones.

Also there are lots of UI tweaks making things more refined and sharper, so it’s a lot prettier to look at. I can’t comment on the Android Keyboard change because I use the Swype Keyboard. And I don’t play games on my phone (because why do that when I can do that on a desktop/laptop), so I can’t comment on the improved game engine. I can’t comment on any speed improvement because with Froyo I already got a “400%” speed increase on my 1GHz processor phone (aka my phone was already lightning fast). Almost sounds like I’m not suited to make any comments on Gingerbread xD.

Although, the update has re-sparked my interest in mobile programming… notably for my Live Wallpaper app for Android 2.1 (Eclair). Last spring (Spring 2010) I developed a Live Wallpaper for my Nexus One which I called StarryNight. Here are some screenshots of my Live Wallpaper from my phone (with glimpses of Gingerbread):

Essentially stars will appear randomly in the background and comets will fly-by when you tap on the screen. Was a fun project but I was using the Canvas library for drawing… so shitty 2D images =/. I hope in my next revision I can use the OpenGL ES 2.0 library to make it prettier and more memory efficient (right now when there’s too many comets the background starts lagging). Of course (if I read correctly) using OpenGL ES 2.0 means my Live Wallpaper will only be suited for Android 2.2+.

This app was just a fun side project so I haven’t added it to the Android Market (yet). If you’re interested in installing my Live Wallpaper, I’d be happy to pass along the .apk file. There are some errors that appear when I debug on my Nexus One… but no force closes that I can find (most likely memory leaks I failed to clean up, but hopefully I’ll fix that in this revision). Again, this is for Android 2.1+ that can use Live Wallpapers. I plan on releasing my second revision (with OpenGL ES 2.0) to the Android Market one day.

Hopefully I’ll have a nice personal Live Wallpaper that I can install on my Honeycomb tablet (once I get one…)