Shifting Gears

     Ever since he began his run on Astonishing X-Men, Warren Ellis has been trying to find the voices of these characters while living up to Joss Whedon’s run and telling a good, original story.  Thus far, he’s had a lot of trouble.  His characterization of most of the X-Men was oddly under-par, and the plot was odd and muddled.  Then, there’s also the fact that he’s hampered by Simone Bianchi, whose art is often some of the worst in mainstream comics.  This issue, however, he finally gets to the point of this arc.  The point is that the birth of Hope Summers created hundreds of new parallel universes with their own mutants.  One of those universes is trying to invade this one, and the only person who knew about it before now was Forge.  Forge, who has gone crazy AGAIN, has created his own artificial mutants to try and combat this threat.  Kind of confusing, huh?  But it’s still less confusing than the mess we had before.

     With the plot finally explained, a few other things fell into place.  For one, all of the X-Men stopped trying to be funny and started talking like they actually should.  Warren Ellis shouldn’t try to mimic Whedon’s dialogue; he should come up with his own material.  And he finally realized that now.  Also, Simone Bianchi’s faces suddenly became a lot better-looking.  The cover is actually quite good, and it’s an indicator of the quality of the work inside.  I’m still not a fan of Bianchi, and I’m certainly not a fan of his costume for Storm.  But he’s doing better.  We also get treated to the obligatory walk down Forge-related memory lane, and Ellis uses this to distinguish Armor from the rest of the younger X-Men by showing her as this student of X-history.  It’s a nice touch.  All-in-all, I’m glad we finally got to the good stuff.  I wish it had come a lot earlier, as now, the whole story may still be beyond anybody’s help.  But we did get one really good issue.

Plot: 8.8      Art: 8.0      Dialogue: 8.5      Overall: 8.7

A Bit Bi-Polar

     Ever since Dark Reign started, Brian Michael Bendis has been at the top of his game.  With New Avengers, he’s continuing the story of the Hood and his little demon possession, as well as showing us who the next Sorceror Supreme is.  I always believed that Dr. Strange would only ever be replaced once he was dead, so I’m definitely annoyed in that respect.  But this issue is, for the most part, good, so my apprehensions have been put aside.  Dr. Strange tells the story of the battle between himself and the Hood, and it’s a doozy of a battle.  Now, I’m a bit surprised that the Hood could somehow become stronger than the mystical master himself, but it’s also a part of Bendis’ attempt to actually ground Dr. Strange’s power, so I still approve.  Then, we have the debate over whether or not they’re going to help Strange, which takes basically no time at all.  Then, we have the Hood freaking out about his powers, Madam Masque, the Son of Satan, and the setup for the next issue.

     On the whole, this was a good issue.  But there’s a few glaring problems.  First of all, Billy Tan’s art isn’t as good as usual.  In particular, there’s one panel where Spider-Man’s body doesn’t even look proportionally correct.  Then, there’s the really forced joke about New Jersey.  We get that people hate New Jersey.  It doesn’t need to be shoved down our throats.  Then, there’s the really bizarre dialogue with Spider-Man about stealing a Quinjet.  Since when was that so important to him?  I’m confused.  Lastly, there’s the Son of Satan screaming into the phone at Hellcat.  Since I don’t know much about the character, I can’t say that the dialogue was odd.  But other people seem to be complaining, so maybe it was out of character.  At any rate, the scene was a bit awkward.  Now, Chris Bachalo, on the other hand, did superb work in this issue.  His male faces often suffer, but that wasn’t the case in this issue.  And the writing was still mostly sound.  But this was definitely the weakest issue thus far since Secret Invasion ended.

Plot: 8.6      Art: 8.6      Dialogue: 8.0      Overall: 8.3

The Prince Returns

     So, in a previous post, I mentioned how only a few games have truly surprised me.  Well, the 2008 version of Prince of Persia was one of those.  I enjoyed the previous Sands of Time trilogy, but this game was a few notches higher in terms of quality.  The story is extremely simple, yet enjoyable in its simplicity.  For reasons which are fully explained later in the game, a young princess named Elika is running away from her own father.  Her father has somehow brought back a great evil god named Ahriman, and Elika has magical powers that can stop him.  You play as the Prince, a thief who isn’t actually a Prince, and Elika together as they try to free the land of the influence of Ahriman and that of his minions.  Oh yeah.  And the Prince has a donkey named Farah.  Awesome!

     So, you run around as these two characters, doing all sorts of death and gravity defying stunts that involve running along and up walls, running upside on ceilings, jumping across huge chasms, and all that stuff.  Whenever you jump, you press the handy dandy Elika button, and she doubles the distance that you jumped.  Great!  You run around on these obstacle courses and occasionally fight one-on-one battles with monsters that involve a complex combo system, which includes the Elika button for magic.  Sure, you don’t get the crazy battles that you got in the trilogy, but they’re pretty dang fun.  Eventually, you reach the end of the level, face off against the boss of the area (who escapes afterwards), and you heal it.  Then, you collect Seeds of Light, which eventually allow you to unlock more magical powers!  Nice and straightforward.  And it’s all so fast paced and fun that you can’t help but enjoy it.

     My only complaint is this: whenever you die, Elika saves you.  Therefore, you can’t actually die.  That kind of takes away some of the incentive to not lose battles or fall off large cliffs, if you know what I mean.  But that’s really it.  This game also sports absolutely gorgeous graphics with some of the best locales and breathtaking views I’ve ever seen outside of a Final Fantasy game.  The English voice acting is also surprisingly good.  Kari Wahlgren, a regular in the voice acting business, does a great Elika, and Nolan North does a superbly snarky Prince.  Okay, so I have one other complaint, which is rather minor.  The music is good, but not great.  It’s the only thing in the game that ISN”T great.  Anyway, if you have a PS3, Xbox360, or a PC, GET THIS GAME!  It’s just so much fun in a thrilling kind of way!

Story: 9.4      Gameplay: 9.6      Presentation: 9.4      Soundtrack: 8.5      Acting: 9.4      Overall: 9.4