Masks

Written by Chris Roberson

Art by Alex Ross and Dennis Calero

            There is something inherently attractive about hero team-up comics, even if you don’t know a thing about the heroes in question.  Thus why Avengers titles tend to sell well regardless of the team, and why Masks brings together a group of heroes from the pulp era.  But while team-ups generally need to rely on strong characters and story, Masks doesn’t really go past being a cool team-up.

            Taking place in 1930s New York City, Masks starts with a political takeover by the Justice Party, who’s turning the city into something resembling a fascist state.  Masked police officers are arresting people for the smallest of crimes, and everybody is being bribed by the party to keep it happening.  It’s up to The Shadow, Green Hornet, The Spider, a new version of Zorro, and more heroes to come together and stop them.

            The big plus side of Masks is how the Justice Party is used.  They’re a very obvious flip of the coin from the vigilante heroes, and one that’s handled very well.  This only really comes across in the final 2 issues, but when it does come across, it’s pretty hard-hitting.  The standard villain speech of “Join me” has some real weight here that has to be considered by the heroes, and it’s tied in with a message of hope.  That even if there was a Justice Party, there’s a force that would stop it.

            What doesn’t work at all here is the heroes themselves.  I feel no attachment to them at the end of the day.  It doesn’t help that the only one here I know anything about is Zorro, and that’s the classic version.  There’s two big problems here.  The first is that it keeps skipping between heroes, so you don’t get enough time with any of them.  This especially hurts the fringe heroes.  I couldn’t tell you a thing about Miss Fury or The Spider at the end of the comic.  And they’re also just all too similar.  Their smaller differences would surely come out individually, but together, it’s this mass of people that might as well be the same person.  And there’s just not enough conflict within the team that tells me the differences, either.

            One of the other big problems with Masks is how it tells the story.  Constantly, a scene with a character will end with them reacting in shock.  Cut to a different group of characters, cut back, and…we never find out what they were reacting to.  At best, it’s a bunch of guards, which at some point is just status quo.  Setting up cliffhangers that don’t pay off is just cheap.  And finally, there’s the use of Alex Ross on just the first issue.  I have nothing against Calero’s art, but very little can match up to Ross’ meticulous painting.  And it probably takes a lot of work, hence why he only did one issue, but why not just have Calero on the whole series?

            If you’re a huge fan of all the pulp heroes here, then you’ll probably enjoy Masks.  Casual readers can just forget about it, as there’s no reason to care about the people here and not enough identity to them. 

Nintendo Land

Developed by Nintendo EAD Group No. 2

Published by Nintendo

            New technology seems to bring on tech demo games, and Nintendo is about the only company that makes these major games for the systems.  Wii Sports was a huge hit, Pilotwings Resort brought back a franchise that hadn’t been seen since the N64, and now Nintendo Land is a system pack-in with the Wii U Deluxe that has 12 minigames (or, as they’re called here, attractions) based on 12 different Nintendo franchises.  So the question is, if you don’t get it with the system, is it worth picking up?

            There’s little if any story to be had here, but there is the hub area for the game.  Instead of having a simple menu where you pick which minigame you want, the hub is an area that features the 12 doorways to the attractions, a tower, a train, Miis walking around (either from Miiverse, or premade ones if you’re not online) and various items you can buy that help populate it.  It is very satisfying to go from an empty area to filling it up with enemies and objects from the attractions, and each one has its own description given by the game’s host, Monita.  If nothing else, having a hub instead of a simple menu gives the game a bit more class and presentation value that bumps up the experience.

            The minigames are divided into co-op, competitive, and single player.  We’ll start with the competitive ones, as these are likely to be the ones that’ll get the family together to play.  They generally follow a similar concept: one side is trying to catch the other side.  Mario Chase is the simplest: the GamePad player is Mario, while the Wiimote players are Toads who have to tag Mario within the time limit.  The game’s simplicity doesn’t stop its franticness, as the Mario player can see everything, while the Toads have to communicate where they’ve seen Mario and judge the distance to figure out where Mario is.  Luigi’s Ghost Mansion bumps it up a bit, placing the GamePad player as a ghost who has to hunt down the Wiimote Luigis, who are armed with flashlights.  Extreme paranoia runs rampant here, as the Wiimote players have nothing but vibration to judge if the ghost is nearby, and the flashlight runs out of batteries after a while.  It’s tense, and the various levels manage to ramp up the difficulty appropriately.  Finally, there’s Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, where the Wiimote players are animals who have to run around and collect candy, while the GamePad player controls two guards simultaneously to track the animals down and tackle them.  Having to control both guards adds a level of complexity and tactics that’s a lot of fun, and the animals have to choose whether to risk getting in one place to get higher-value trees, along with the fact that eating more candy slows them down. 

All of the competitive games are fun, but there’s a strange sense of game balance.  For one, the games use bigger maps with 3-4 Wiimote players than with 1-2, but that generally turns out alright.  If it ever ends up as 1v1, though, the GamePad player can just forget about it.  Mario Chase adds Yoshi carts which hunt the Mario player down and stun them, giving the Toads an easy victory.  Sweet Day has places where the animal can deposit the candy, losing the main difficulty for them.  And Ghost Mansion adds a computer-controlled Monita player with an unlimited flashlight for each human player that isn’t there.  Not too bad with 3 Luigis, but with 1, it becomes a game of avoiding the Monitas.  If you’re going to play any of these games, you need at least 3 people, with 4 or 5 being ideal.

The co-op games are more intense than the competitive, ramping up the difficulty and seeming to aim more for the “core” audience.  Pikmin Adventure is the simplest, which has the GamePad player as Olimar and the Wiimote players as Pikmin.  You run around with a top-down view, fight enemies, and collect power-ups and nectar to level up.  It certainly doesn’t match the actual Pikmin, but it’s a fun pick-up-and-play experience, and easily the one you can share with the less experienced gamers.  The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest is an on-rails shooter/slasher, where the GamePad uses a bow-and-arrow, while Wiimote players put their MotionPlus on for a sword and shield.  If you enjoyed the 1:1 sword motion in Skyward Sword, there’s plenty of it here, but simply going through wave after wave of enemies does get tedious after a while, especially with a shared life meter and some copy-pasted environments.  Along with the co-op quest, there’s also a bow-based time trial mode.  Metroid Blast is probably the closest thing in this collection to what could be a standalone game.  Not a retail game, but a $10 download, certainly.  The GamePad player takes control of Samus’ ship, while the Wiimote players are Samus herself, as you fight off enemies in an arena setting.  This is an honest third-person shooter, no on-rails, an actual experience.  It’s not much more than that, but it’s very fun and exciting.  This also comes with two competitive modes, a ground-vs-air mode and a free-for-all of the ground players.

And finally, we get to the biggest mixed bag of Nintendo Land: the single-player games.  Let’s start this off with one simple fact: with 6 multiplayer games which range from good to excellent, why they felt the need to stuff the rest of the collection with single-player games is beyond me.  Considering that the GamePad player has mainly been staring at the GamePad up until this point, it seems like this is where the gimmicks come out that use it and the TV together.  For instance, Yoshi’s Fruit Cart displays the fruit you have to pick up and the hazards you have to avoid on the TV, while you have to use landmarks on the background to draw a path with the GamePad.  This stands out as one of the weaker games in general, with its slow pace and generally tedious gameplay.  Balloon Trip Breeze fares better.  The TV shows a zoomed-out view, while the GamePad is zoomed-in on the player, as you swipe through spikes and enemies and float your way from island to island.  Having to look down on the GamePad to tap things adds some franticness, and in general, it’s just a fun little game.  Octopus Dance is a rhythm game that has you copy an instructor as you move your arms with the control sticks and tilt the GamePad.  I love rhythm games, and this is a solid one, that’s just difficult enough.  Captain Falcon’s Twister Race makes you tilt the GamePad to lead the Blue Falcon around obstacles.  It’s nice enough, although the difficulty ramps up fast and there’s little leeway in terms of the time.  Donkey Kong’s Crash Course is the single-player winner, as you tilt the GamePad to lead a weird contraption through obstacles.  It’s hair-pullingly difficult as you get used to what you’re doing, and yet you can’t help but say “One more try”.  And finally, there’s the single player loser, Takamaru’s Ninja Castle.  This definitely falls under “Did this really need the GamePad?”  You use it to slide ninja stars and defeat ninjas.  It’s like a rail shooter made unnecessarily difficult, as the sliding motion is tedious and will likely hurt your hand.  And ultimately, this could be done with a WiiMote.

Even with some fun ones in the single-player games, there’s still some big problems throughout.  For one, they’re way too short.  After you beat them, you gain extra levels for next time, but you have to go through the old content first and it never changes.  If there was a corridor of spikes in Balloon Trip, it’ll be there every time.  Next, properties just seem oddly used.  Yes, there’s shades of this in the other games, but it really comes out when you could’ve removed Donkey Kong’s name from Crash Course, and it wouldn’t have mattered that much.  Not to mention there’s some obscure properties here.  Ninja Castle is based on a game that was never even brought to America, and meanwhile, Star Fox and Pokemon get left out completely.

Overall, with the first-year drought of games coming to a close, Nintendo Land’s usefulness might be ending soon.  However, as a collection of a few fun games to play with family and friends, it’s worth getting, and it’s always nice to play with the GamePad before the big stuff comes along. 

Hellboy: The Midnight Circus

Written by Mike Mignola

Art by Duncan Fegredo

            I love Hellboy.  The many comic series that have built up the long-lasting story have stayed consistently entertaining, the movies have both been a good time, and the games…er, forget about those.  So I was excited to read the original graphic novel, Midnight Circus, but something here is missing.

            The story here focuses on a young Hellboy, who runs away from the BPRD and runs into the Midnight Circus, which is run by demons, and from there…well, things get fuzzy.  Don’t get me wrong, there have been some trippy moments in Hellboy stories in the past, but what exactly happens here is hard to determine.  The references to Pinocchio are interesting, but at the same time, Hellboy doesn’t really have a lot in common with Pinocchio.  And there’s foreshadowing that seems to carry little meaning besides being heavy foreshadowing.  It’s a story where things happen, and in a way, these things are interesting, but at the end of the day, I could not write you a logical synopsis.

            And yet, “things happen” is still a fascinating thing to happen to Hellboy.  If nothing else, knowing the pure weirdness he would encounter in the future, this seems like a spot where Hellboy is first thrust into what he’s going to spend the rest of his life fighting, and he reacts about how you’d expect a kid to react.  It’s interesting to see a different side of Hellboy, who isn’t yet all-powerful, but is still just a kid who has a tough destiny ahead.  The other real strength of this book is Fegredo’s art.  As always, I’m a little disappointed that Mignola does the cover when the interior is a different artist.  At the same time, Fegredo masterfully takes control of things.  In particular, there’s the art changes between the normal world and the Midnight Circus.  I had to check to make sure it wasn’t two different artists, and having it as just one is very impressive.

            So Midnight Circus isn’t quite a perfect story.  Even with the hard-to-understand story, there’s enjoyment to be had here.  But at the end of the day, there’s better Hellboy stories. 

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

Developed by Level-5

Published by Nintendo

            Professor Layton is one of those series that just keeps going on, not reinventing itself, just adding new puzzles, and continues to be a joy each time a new installment comes out.  With the 5^th installment, and the first 3DS installment, Layton still shows no signs of slowing down, even if some of the new features don’t work out.

            Layton (Christopher Robin Miller) along with his apprentice, Luke, and assistant, Emmy (both voiced by Lani Minella), have come to the desert town of Monte d’Or, which, in a fairly small amount of time, has gone from nothing to a thriving tourist city.  Unfortunately, a mysterious figure known as the Masked Gentleman has appeared, and is performing “miracles” that involve things such as turning people to stone.  Naturally, Layton has to solve the mystery—and it all connects back to a tragic event from his past.

            The story continues to be one of the strong points of the Layton series.  It’s intriguing, making you want to find out the answers to the mysteries, and full of good characters who you like to see pop up.  Even the characters who you talk to just to get a puzzle to solve are interesting characters.  The story’s real twist here, as opposed to other Layton games, is the flashbacks to Layton from 18 years ago.  Layton’s past has been touched on before, but we get to see more of him and his childhood here, at a time when he didn’t even like puzzles.  And, just like in Unwound Future, bringing the plot to something that personally affects Layton gives it more of a human touch that the Professor can sometimes be missing.  Also, don’t worry if you haven’t played any Layton games before: even as the second game of the second trilogy, the plot stands well on its own.

            As always, puzzles are the currency of the day in the Layton world.  From sliding puzzles and a variation on the block-jumping solitaire to brainteasers and logic problems, Miracle Mask is filled with plenty of the usual suspects, but they are enjoyable as usual.  There’s some of the old hat that should surprise nobody, but there’s also some new tricks, like dividing a chessboard of pawns, that haven’t been seen before.  The game does try a few new things along the way, and, well, it’s a bit mixed.  For one, there’s some puzzles that seem too focused on the new 3D graphics rather than actual difficulty.  Guiding a ladybug through a maze is hilariously easy, and its variation doesn’t get any harder.  But there’s also new gameplay entirely.  An early part has you riding through the city on a horse, and an action-oriented scene like that doesn’t have any place in the calming Layton universe.  Some of the other puzzles also rely on things that are moving while you’re trying to think, which generally just makes things unnecessarily difficult.  There’s also a chapter that focuses entirely on dungeon-crawling, with the puzzles involving defeating mummies and pushing blocks around.  It’s entertaining for a while, but starts to wear out its welcome by the end of the chapter.  When the characters wonder if there could be 100 floors, you’ll probably reel in terror.

            Still, Layton with a couple problems is still Layton, even with its problems.  Longtime Layton fans can mark this as a must-buy, and those new to the series can consider this a good place to start.

Monsters University

Directed by Dan Scanlon

Written by Dan Scanlon, Daniel Gerson, and Robert L. Baird

            I think it’s pretty obvious from my Cars 2 and Brave reviews that Pixar’s work post-Toy Story 3 hasn’t quite matched up to their finest efforts, and from all the trailers to Monsters University, it looked like they were going to continue down the road of unremarkable work.  I’m happy to say I’m wrong on that one, as Monsters U is a definite return to form.

            Mike (Billy Crystal) has wanted to be a scarer since an elementary school field trip, and is willing to do whatever it takes to become the best, studying hard at one of the best schools, Monsters University.  Sulley (John Goodman) is planning on coasting through scare classes on his father’s name and his natural scariness.  When they both get in trouble, they make a wager with Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren) that if they win the college’s Scare Games, they get to stay in the scare program, but their egos end up clashing along the way.

            One of the things the movie really does well, especially comparing against Cars 2, is a successful perspective shift.  Monsters Inc was about Mike and Sulley in a sense, but really, Sulley was the main character.  Monsters U transfers the main character status over to Mike, and manages to bring him past the basic neurotic/sarcastic image from the first movie.  Instead, we really see the road that led Mike from wanting to be the best scarer to simply being the assistant to the best.  And it’s satisfying.  The big trick with a prequel, any prequel, is giving the audience something they can’t figure out from the start.  So of course Mike and Sulley are going to end up as best friends, they’re going to work at Monsters Inc, Randall is going to hate them, etc.  But Monsters U actually makes that journey worth seeing, especially thanks to a series of plot developments in the final act that leverage the predictable-looking plot into something better, with a strong moral that should successfully resonate with those who saw Monsters Inc as a kid and are now in college.  Maybe not Toy Story 3-strong, but it’s still a wise case of knowing how the audience has and hasn’t changed.

            And one way that nobody’s changed is the sheer joy at being in the monster world.  Maybe it’s because most of the other Pixar movies take place in a human world that might peel back a layer, but doesn’t really take us to an absolutely unnatural world.  And while Monsters U is certainly a familiar atmosphere, the monsters and their lives are so different that the small details of the world Pixar has put in are always great.  And Pixar also uses their different lives for the best effect in gags.  A multi-armed monster during exam week is holding several cups of coffee.  The fraternities and sororities in the Scare Games are filled with memorable monsters and jokes, even with their fairly limited individual screen times.  In general, there’s just a great new cast of characters here, with very little reliance on Monsters Inc cameos.  The members of Oozma Kappa, the lame fraternity that Mike and Sulley end up joining, are equal parts pathetic and likeable.  You start out laughing at them, and by the end of the movie, you’re laughing with them.

            Monsters U isn’t quite Pixar’s best, but it’s back to the level where Pixar’s less-than-best was still great.  It’s a good sign, to be sure.

The Lost Weekend

Directed by Billy Wilder

Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder

Based on the novel by Charles R. Jackson

            Sometimes, an attempt to make a movie about a social issue can turn out laughably bad in the future, if not at the immediate point it’s released.  Reefer Madness is still hilariously inept, and the many shorts on Mystery Science Theater and Rifftrax often have ridiculous morals.  It’s ultimately rather shocking that The Lost Weekend handles its subject of alcoholism so smartly that, close to 70 years later, it’s still relevant.

            Don Birnam (an Academy Award-winning Ray Milland) is an alcoholic whose brother Wick (Phillip Terry) and girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman) are trying to get him to go on a weekend retreat to the countryside.  Don skips out, though, and ends up on a drinking binge that sees him constantly spiraling downwards.

            What makes the story work so well is the simple fact that Don is the only one who can help himself.  Everybody around him is trying to help him.  Helen has stayed with him for 3 years trying to fix his alcoholism.  A visit to an alcoholic ward in a hospital has a sardonic nurse doing his best to help Don, even with the many people around them who have been there since prohibition.  Even Nat, the bartender at the bar Don frequents, has his small moments of trying to give Don just a little bit of help.  But nobody can stop Don except Don.  And he simply does not know how to stop, he only knows how to go to lower points.  He goes to a fancier bar and ends up short on money, forced to try stealing from another patron.  A writer, he desperately searches for an open pawn shop to sell his typewriter.  He believes that there’s two Dons, the writer Don and the alcoholic Don, and the latter frequently threatens to eclipse the former.

             The movie could easily threaten to turn into one note over and over again, but it keeps finding new ways to turn, new ways for Don to find himself lower than before.  This is bolstered by expert camera work throughout.  As Don searches for a bottle of rye he knows he bought, the light he hid it on is framed in the background.  Don’s search through the city to find an open pawn shop is a series of cuts between closed doors, street signs that show how far he’s going, and Don’s own frantic persona.  And even a cheesy special effect of an obviously fake bat can’t kill the effect of the violent scene that follows.  At some point, nothing can slow this movie down, right to its ending, which stays suspenseful and, even with its Hays-Code-forced hope at the very end, still has touches of the real-life darkness that this movie exists on.

            The Lost Weekend holds up really well, creating a movie that is suspenseful and shocking, losing none of the edge from its initial release when alcoholism wasn’t talked about in movies.

Saga Volume 2

Written by Brian K Vaughan

Art by Fiona Staples

            Brian K Vaughan is one of the top comics writers out there.  His work on Y the Last Man and Ex Machina was great science fiction, and even Runaways was like a creator-owned book integrated into the greater Marvel universe.  Which puts plenty of pressure on Saga being good, and he’s made something that’s just naturally addictive.

            Marko and Alana are from different sides of a war between a planet of winged people and its moon of horned people, and since they’ve fallen in love and had a baby together, they’ve made enemies with both sides and beyond.  This volume features their initial journeys in their wooden rocket ship, the appearance of Marko’s parents, and a battle with the freelancer known as The Will.

            First things first, as always, can you jump on to this volume?  No.  Well, theoretically, you can probably catch up on what’s going on.  But it’s like coming into the middle of a movie.  Saga is, well, a saga, and you can’t just come into the middle of it.  This book is picking up on a cliffhanger from the last volume, and ends on a cliffhanger for the next volume.  Start with the beginning.

            Especially since you don’t want to miss any of the craziness that Vaughan and Staples have come up with.  Whereas sci-fi in TV shows or movies is restricted by what’s realistic to show, nothing is out of bounds in the world of Saga.  This volume alone features a planet that’s really an egg, a medic who looks like a mouse, and a giant ogre-ish alien with disgusting genitals.  It’s all part of this constant sense of fun to the series.  You don’t really know what’s going to show up next, you don’t know how the story will go on, and it all just makes you want to continue.

            And with this all, Vaughan still has the heart and brain that makes his series a success.  While the series could survive on its atmosphere alone, the voice that he brings to the characters is what really makes it shine.  Alana and Marko are people that you care about and you want to see them get away.  And we’re still not sure if they’re going to succeed.  The threat of death for both of them lurks everywhere, and the death of a character in this volume shows that it’s not something beyond the realm of possibility.  At the same time, you don’t want the villainous characters like The Will and Prince Robot IV to die either, because they are so fascinating in their own right.  We’re still getting hints of who, exactly, The Will is, with his relationships with The Strand and Slave Girl expanded.  And it says something that the final issue in this volume is solely focused on Prince Robot (who’s basically human besides having a TV for a head), and it’s just as great as everything else here, as we find out about his time in battle and the ruthlessness he’s willing to go to in order to get Alana and Marko.

            Saga can easily go next to Brian K Vaughan’s previous work as a must-read, and this second volume just solidifies that.