mgroves

For Christmas, I received a bunch of gift cards, so I bought some new games.

I bought:

• New Super Mario Bros Wii
• A Boy and His Blob (Wii)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)

So far, they are all pretty fun, but I think I’ve spent the most time with Batman, especially if you include all the times I played through the demo. The most fun parts, for me, are the parts where you get to do stuff that’s very uniquely Batman. Specifically, the parts of the game where you are in a room with a handful of armed thugs, and you have to take them all out stealthily. The main strategy is simple: wait until they get far enough away from their friends, and take them out, one by one. You can do this a number of ways: sneak up behind them and do a silent takedown, glide across the room from up on a high perch and kick them, hang upside-down from a perch and string them up, etc. It really feels very Batman-esque, and is the most fun I’ve ever had playing a stealth game (which I usually find frustrating). This video will give you some idea what I’m talking about:

I haven’t played much of A Boy and His Blob, but keep this in mind: it was only $20, and it just came out. I first heard about it on the Retronauts podcast (episode 79). I mostly enjoyed the original one for NES, so I thought I’d pick it up.

As far as New Super Mario Brothers Wii: don’t play it with other people (especially people you like). Otherwise, it’s a fantastic 2d-style Mario game that’s very reminiscent of Super Mario Brothers 3 (more so than any other 2d Mario platformer since).

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