PCS Villain, Colt 45 running across the bay

Recently, Sony Online Entertainment brought PopCultureShock to tour the SOE Studio in Austin, Texas where they’ve put a tremendous effort in creating the much-anticipated DC Universe Online game. After a tour of the office and a debriefing of the game’s inception, creative process, and breakdown of the main elements of the game, I got to spend a few hours exploring the game in Beta, and what follows are my first impressions of the game. Click on images to enlarge

Harley Quinn guards the Joker Suit

DCU Online is not a pure MMO, at least not in what longtime MMO-ers are used to; it’s more of a hybrid of a few game types mixed together. There’s a little real-time strategy, a little bit of RPG, and all of it is encompassed in this MMO world. It’s heavy on the combat and logistically so because DCU Online is getting a simultaneous launch on the PS3 and PCs. Because of the amount of combat that’s involved, I found the PS3 Dualshock controller to be much more natural when dishing out combos and making changes on the fly. I played on a PC, but played with a Dualshock controller after quickly ditching the keyboard route.

Custom Make it Your Own

For those that don’t know, DCU Online has always been about a custom hero that you bring to the table. One of the early misconceptions is that you’d be able to play the classic DCU heroes and villains for an entire campaign, but not so. It’s possible to play a few dozen of them in alert missions, and you can tailor make your character to look like and act like your favorites, but it’s better to make it your own, no? Well you have that choice, regardless. You create a character that exists in the DCU, and you choose to be male or female; design your build and stature including both the look and abilities/powers; and live out the fantasy of a hero or villain. Those choosing the heroic path get to pick one of DC’s classic Trinity: Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman as their mentor, while those who decide the villainous route get to choose from their arch enemies in Lex Luthor, Joker, or Circe.

One of Gotham's finest getting the beat down, or with the red flashing, is it me who is getting beat down?

The name I chose for my super villain was Colt 45. (The creative juices were flowing a little slow that day and I’ll blame it on traveling eastward.) It’s so easy to make a character with the powers you always wanted as a kid, and so I did. I had to go for super speed (I love the Flash and ran track) and had to have sorcery powers because I wanted to see the visuals of comic book magic. Besides super speed, flight and acrobatics are the additional choices in terms of traveling. Given my limited time with the game, the ability to cover a large amount of area in a short time was a luxury I considered heavily.

Other core powers include: gadgets, fire, ice, nature, and mental while even more staple powers can be unlocked and added to your utility belt. You can pick your personality, which you can see in your character’s saunter or posture when you leave your character idle (I chose flirty), fighting style (martial arts), and then the costume. I knew that I could have spent hours just on costumes so I patterned my look after Deathstroke, and then tweaked the colors. You can pick the color for each piece of the costume or you can pick from several three-color palettes that can be helpful in shortcutting this part of the creation. In the end Colt 45 looked a little more early 90’s comics than I ever intended but I think gamers and comic fans alike, are going to love making multiple characters. After about 25 minutes of creating my character, I just wanted to jump into the action but it’s easy to spend an eternity in character creation.

Running down a building

No matter what combination you choose, each campaign starts off in Braniac’s ship where you have to escape out of. Here you’ll get a tutorial and get your feet wet while coming to grips with the controls. Once you exit, you get brought to one of two worlds. All villains and techies go to Gotham. Everyone else is sent to Metropolis to start. Shown here are both images from Gotham, Metropolis and the Legion of Doom and you’ll get a taste of some of the massive worlds created by the design team.

The Dashboard

In Gotham or Metropolis, your mentor will list out your goals to the bottom right of the screen; your map is in the upper right corner; your customized utility and abilities “belt” lies at the bottom center while the health and magic/powers bar is at the familiar upper left. None of the Heads Up Display is overwhelming or covers up the action, just make sure you’re playing with a widscreen set.

A different view of running on water; up close and behind

Feeling the Need, the Need for Speed

I loved playing with a character with super speed. The blur and lightning visuals in combination with the sounds of the Speed Force were awesome as seen in the screen caps. Being able to run up and down buildings was a trip. Camera movement and angles were fluid and it gives you unlimited access to Gotham City and Metropolis. Because I just had to, I ran across the Metropolis Bay, and when I stopped in the middle, I plopped right in and began treading water.

This is not an endorsement for the super speed route for travel powers. When creating my villain, I was torn on choosing flight or super speed. While it’s possible to unlock flight, you just don’t command it like you do if it is one of your main abilities. In speaking with the other journalists, the acrobatics route is apparently a lot of fun too and very intuitive. After about three straight hours of super speed though I can tell you, I had to take a break for my eyes. I was a bit too enthusiastic travelling and fighting in super speed mode, but luckily it’s very simple to toggle that on or off.

The sorcery powers added another level to the combat not normally seen in comic book console games. I could levitate detectives in the distance and knock them out in the middle of the air before they could set their feet down. I could cast spells and make Gotham City Police Department’s finest think they’re on fire. More time would have unlocked even cooler skills for sure.

One of the more exciting parts of the game is leveling up. Whenever I got a notification of a level up or an item grab, I’d race to see what exactly I could add to my fighting or grow my powers tree. The more combos you unlock and learn, the quicker you can get through battles.

When you level up, you get a chance to upgrade your fighting abilities, or your superpower. Also any items you pick up along the way or buy are added to your costume or arsenal on the fly. Because it’s an MMO, I was repeatedly reminded that there is no pause button, so if you want to make a change you can fly up to the top of a building and make the necessary changes.

Another suit in the Legion of Doom to unlock guarded by Mr. Freeze

The Verdict So Far

Essentially, you’re playing to get through 30 levels, the current cap, which amounts to roughly 40 hours of play. My propensity to explore everything would probably extend that period of time. But then the fun really begins because you can then enter the PvP mode where you get to interact with other players. Each month new missions and new worlds are being added to the game, potentially making the game as endless as your favorite monthly comics. There are battle suits (from actual stories) to unlock and use, several skill challenges and missions where you’ll need to team up with others online. For instance, we were shown an Alert Mission that transports you to Smallville where you take on Doomsday and fight beside the Justice League.

Gameplay is extremely smooth. There’s no jerking or staggering in battles, even when there’s as many as 15-20 characters on the screen. I also found no glaring glitches or noticeable areas where the game feels underdeveloped or needing more. The game is so close to completion and understandably, the delays have hurt the buzz, but it’s only because they are taking the time to put the detail that will overwhelm the most ardent DC Comics fan and gamer.

Voice acting for instance is one of the finishing touches needed to complete the game. Kevin Conroy is recording for Batman and Mark Hamill reprises his familiar role as The Joker. Other voices include Summer Glau (Supergirl), Adam Baldwin (Superman), James Marsters (Lex Luthor), Michelle Forbes (Circe), Diedrich Bader (Solomon Grundy), Gina Torres (Wonder Woman), Powers Boothe (Gorilla Grodd), Dwight Schultz (Flash-Barry Allen), Wil Wheaton (Robin-Tim Drake), Tony Todd (Darkseid, Kevin Michael Richardson (Clayface) and Robert Patrick (Hawkman).

The streets of Gotham City

In trying to describe the experience, I’ll compare it to other games I’ve played. The combat is reminiscent of God of War or Batman: Arkham Asylum only with no cut sequences or stoppage of play; just fast, live, and seamless action. It can be intense, relentless, and button-mashing will be mandatory. The mentorship missions remind me of Grand Theft Auto, where you slowly gain skills and experience as you rise through the ranks of becoming a villain, or by doing accumulative acts of heroism. Bribing rookie GCPD cops or strapping bombs to their squad cars may not appeal to everyone, but that’s why you can put a stop to Gorilla Grodd and his apes.

The cities and environments are immersive and overwhelming at first glance. You can go to the Daily Planet, or Metropolis Stadium. The Batcave has the penny, the T-Rex, the Batmobile and a bunch of bats flying around. Comic readers will geek out interacting with artifacts and places that they’ve only read about. One thing I really enjoyed about DCU Online was that the learning curve was small but still presented a challenge. I felt I could come in, drop an hour or two whenever I wanted and not feel like I had to put in several hours at a time on each campaign to feel some sense of accomplishment.

A penthouse view of the Metropolis Bay.

Hardcore gamers may wonder how much they’ll enjoy this game, and I can’t answer that based on what it is each person is expecting out of the game. There’s plenty to see and do, that much I do know. What I can do is let you know what my perspective is on MMO’s, games and comics and how DCU Online fits in with that.

I came in with an open mind and a broad gaming experience, skepticism on paying a monthly fee for a game, and a long love and knowledge of comics. Though I am a console gamer and spend countless hours on my PS3, no MMO has made this comics fan take the plunge so far. I was not just thoroughly entertained with DCU Online; I’m brainstorming ways to shift my monthly disposable income around to accommodate playing this game in the winter. The DC Universe is a world I’m familiar with, unlike World of Warcraft or Everquest. I invest in a portion of the DCU each week in the comics I buy and that’s truly what the draw is for me with DCU Online: the characters, the universe and the license. The fact that the game delivers on multiple fronts is a bonus in my mind.

Hopefully my impressions keep the anticipation high for those waiting for DCU Online, which is now scheduled for early 2011 release. But if this wasn’t enough, throughout November and December we’re going to continue covering the game through to the release date. Check back here for screen shots and videos, an exclusive interview with DCU Online Senior Producer, Wes Yanagi, and a detailed tour of the SOE Austin Studios. We enjoyed what we learned at DC University and think comic fans and gamers alike may want to consider enrolling when Spring Semester arrives.

A glimpse of the massive Metropolis. In the distant skies is one of Braniac's ships

Which, on the surface, is a pretty easy question to answer, as there are so many villains in superhero comics… But it actually turned out to be more complicated than we first thought. A few ground rules:

- To be truly evil, you can’t really be sympathetic or helpful. That rules out some major villains like Magneto and Dr. Doom, who fight with honor, for causes, protect people, and sometimes team up with the heroes.

- You also can’t be totally freaking crazy. This was a highly debated one, as one of the audience members shouted out “Joker!” But Joker is only evil when we has focus, like in Killing Joke. That’s a pretty rare occurrence. The random Joker who just kills people wily-nily, which is most of the time, isn’t necessarily evil, just crazy. Like I said, not everyone agreed with this one, though for the sake of this particular game/post/whatever, let’s assume it’s a rule.

So who does that leave? Who is truly the most evil character in comics?

My first, gut instinct was Norman Osborne/Green Goblin. Ignoring the past two years or so of Marvel continuity, where Normie has, lets be honest, pretended to be a good guy for his own gain, he’s been probably the most consistently single-mindedly evil character in comics. What’s his motivation for wanting to destroy Spider-Man? It’s not to protect his family… He hates his family. It’s not to even, necessarily, protect his business. Most of those funds going into Spider-Man destroying type apparatuses. His motivation is that he completely, utterly, hates Spider-Man. That’s it.

I’m sure people maybe can point out a story here and there where it’s varied a little, but I would argue that 99% of the time, Norman Osborne’s sole motivation as a villain is, “I just came up with the most vile, complicated, horrific plan possible, that will destroy many, many lives and relationships, for the sole purpose of f–king with Spider-Man. The end!” No subtext, no complicated plan, just Spider-f–king.

Even Lex Luthor has had redeeming characteristics. He’s almost the same character at this point as Norman, but at least Lex thinks he’s doing the right thing, trying to get rid of Superman so either he can solve the world’s ills, or humans can stop depending on the man in Red and Blue.

Norman? Nope. Why does he throw Gwen Stacey off a bridge? To hurt Spider-Man. Why does he sleep with Gwen Stacey for that matter? To literally screw over Peter. And though we don’t know where it’s going, given the groundwork, I would not at all be shocked if the entire Dark Reign is just a way for Ozzie to legitimize making Spider-Man’s life utter hell.

So what do you guys think: is there any character more evil than the Green Goblin? The only other one that came even close was probably The Anti-Monitor, who again, has no motivation other than “I would like to destroy all reality.” So that’s pretty evil.

Our previous post, with side-by-side scans from the original versus the new edition, has drawn a lot of reader feedback for and against the new coloring.

Here’s Bolland on the removal of Batman’s yellow oval, which — judging by the level of the aforementioned comment activity — was apparently a big deal to many:

“You’ll notice that I got rid of the yellow oval round the bat-symbol on Batman’s chest,” notes Bolland. “It was introduced in 1964, and I could never see the point of it. In 2007, it looked kind of anachronistic and I got rid of it. I made the choice without consulting naybody. I could have enlarged the black bat-symbol to the size it is today, but that would have involved too much work. Objections to my decision run along the lines that it’s sacrilegious to rewrite history — as if the original Killing Joke is some kind of sacred document written on tablets of stone. Alan, admittedly, does look a bit like Moses, but it’s just a comic book, and I had the freedom to make it the way I thought looked best.”

click for full-size

Bolland offers a number of other interesting tidbits, including rendered colors vs flat colors and the Joker being “the one who brings the color to an otherwise drab world”.

Wizard #211 is out today.

Joker: Oh, and you know the thing about Chaos?

(pause)

Joker: It’s fair.

[...]

There’s a reason you’re seeing Al Harrington having a renaissance there and why the Knicks as a whole look like they’ve been released from prison. D’Antoni has tapped into something ethereal that exists in players that tend to falter in traditional systems. Players that are made of athleticism and style, but little toughness or resolve. He is, somehow, able to tap into something philosophical with his teams and bring out the best in players that previously had nothing resembling a “best.” He does so by feeding what many consider the worst parts of them previously. He takes their little world and he turns it in on themselves. It’s fun. And it’s tempting. It’s that chaos being introduced to a system. And from a player’s standpoint, it allows them to freelance and always look to score. It’s… fair.

Also mentioned in the post, the fact that the Knicks beat the world champion Celtics at MSG last night. Which was awesome lol

Joker: Oh, and you know the thing about Chaos?

(pause)

Joker: It’s fair.

[...]

There’s a reason you’re seeing Al Harrington having a renaissance there and why the Knicks as a whole look like they’ve been released from prison. D’Antoni has tapped into something ethereal that exists in players that tend to falter in traditional systems. Players that are made of athleticism and style, but little toughness or resolve. He is, somehow, able to tap into something philosophical with his teams and bring out the best in players that previously had nothing resembling a “best.” He does so by feeding what many consider the worst parts of them previously. He takes their little world and he turns it in on themselves. It’s fun. And it’s tempting. It’s that chaos being introduced to a system. And from a player’s standpoint, it allows them to freelance and always look to score. It’s… fair.

Also mentioned in the post, the fact that the Knicks beat the world champion Celtics at MSG last night. Which was awesome lol

Feature: A

One of the several problems with 80′s and 90′s is that they resembled the era of Batman comics of the 1960′s, a swash-buckling tycoon fighting colorful characters. The embarrassing television show was surely still a stinging influence. But anyone who’s read Batman in the last twenty to thirty years knows it has not been written like that since those times, and it may be one of the grittiest of superhero comics. Today he is a compulsive and paranoid man, relentless in ridding evil in Gotham City. The man never takes a night off, even the X-Men had issues where they just took a break, well Batman’s never done that since I’ve been reading comics and when Batman Begins was released in 2005, it was the first time we could say that if Batman actually existed in our world, this is how it would go down. Director Christopher Nolan buries the roots of Dark Knight in the real world once again, a dark and brutal environment where people live in fear and despair, constantly conscious of terror, corruption underneath a bearing cloud of dimming hope. Someone as extreme as Batman could only excel in a setting like this.

If you haven’t seen the film already, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has begun to put a stranglehold on the the crime in Gotham until the Joker (Heath Ledger) shows up, stealing money from the mob and crime syndicate in Gotham. The unpredictable and loose cannon that’s Joker, offers his services to kill Batman in return he gets half of their money. What they don’t know is that this maniac isn’t motivated by lining his pockets with the green, but would rather prove the point that everyone can be corrupted even the best of men.

Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Gotham’s public attorney is being ushered into the town as their “white knight” to rid the city of its scum, the legal way. Involved with Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhall), Wayne’s main squeeze in Batman Begins, Dent stands in the way of Bruce’s happiness, but is also the champion of a better Gotham. Wayne lends his support to Dent with the hopes of being able to shelve the cape and cowl for good, but the Joker has other plans. With the help of Alfred (Sir Michael Caine), Sgt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman) Batman takes on the Joker and ultimately what Dent will become.

Ledger’s performance is a first rate show stopper playing the Joker; a car without brakes, never knowing where and what he’s going to do. He never turns down the volume, even for a second and dominates the screen whenever he appears. The broken cackle, the smeared facepaint, and the extreme method acting. It’s sure to end the legacy of clowns and children’s parties for good. The way that the character arcs of Wayne, Dent, and Dawes play out is a thing of beauty and the Joker is the catalyst for it all. He’s not only impulsive but explosive. He acts, and everyone reacts. Assisted by the wonderful Hans Zimmer and James Howard Newton score, his presence is always felt and gets underneath your skin.

Not to be lost in the Joker hoopla, is the real story of the Dark Knight: is the rise and fall of Harvey Dent. If a man as good as him can be torn down to his darkest inner being, then what are we all capable of? Are we all susceptible to resisting that side of us when under the worst of circumstances? The promotion teasers and pre-production campaign began with Dent and ended with preserving his legacy. Wayne, Dawes, and even Gordon offered mere support and while Joker was the driving force, Dent’s story held it all together and loses it all. Tragic and pessimistic, the title of the film is a fitting way to describe the present global climate as well as the tone set by Nolan and crew.

Time will tell if this is Nolan’s final Batman film, when a film makes nearly a billion dollars globally, more will surely come with or without him. I’m not ashamed to say I’m greedy to want to see one more Nolan film, because of what he’s accomplished with Batman Begins and Dark Knight. He’s the type of director who wants to make a statement or explore something deeper with a Batman film, and it’s my pure speculation that there was indeed a third film planned, and it was to feature the Joker again, especially with his final demise unknown. But instead of thinking of what might happen or what might have been, what Nolan and Ledger have left film and comic book fans alike, something truly sinister and beautiful.

Presentation: C-

As far as creativity goes, the total package of the Dark Knight’s pretty underwhelming. The packaging consists of A foiled/cardboard slipcase fits over the basic blu-holder with a swing hinge that holds two of the three discs. Funny Joker scribbles decorate the back cover text and you’d expect to see that echoed in the menus. Nope. The menus are an absolute stinker. Nothing animated, no loading screen, no music, not even a screensaver. Based on where you buy it packaging can vary depending on how much more you want to pay for it. Mine was packaged with a plastic bust of Batman’s cowl, but I’ve seen others packaged with a Batpod, or a Joker Henchmen bust.

Video: A+

Most of Dark Knight is shot in 2.40:1 ratio so there are black bars on the top and bottom. When the picture fills the widescreen, the aspect ratio changes to 1.78:1 signaling the change to the IMAX scenes which are largely establishing shots of Gotham (Chicago) and all of big action moments. It was difficult in the theater to see just which shots were filmed in IMAX but now you can see whenever there is a change in aspect ratio, that signals the change. The IMAX scenes have even more clarity because there’s so much more information on the negative since the film is huge compared to standard film stock. Tokyo at night is just stunning with clarity beyond belief. From the rooftops you can clearly see cars driving down below or in Gotham you can make out all of the individual windows of the sky scrapers and even the tops of heads from helicopter panning shots. This is the first time IMAX has been used in action sequences because of the physical difficulties in working with the large format, but they did make grand scenes larger than life, and the results are awesome in today’s home theaters.

Audio: A-

The 5.1 Dolby True-HDsoundtrack has a nice balance of resounding thuds and immersive sound. The dialogue though, especially Bale’s modulated gravel voice of Batman comes out clear and distinctive. Other blu-rays have much more to offer in terms of audio reference material, but the opening scene with Hans Zimmer’s score and the now famous chase scene on the lower roads of Chicago is sure to be a test chapter for many. Included is a English 5.1 Dolby Digital track, an English with Descriptive Narration, for the blind and hard of hearing which is just a surreal experience if you’ve never heard one before, and French, Spanish.

Special Features: B

Disc One

Most of what can be said about the features can be summed up in the Focus Points (1:04:00) vignettes that go behind the “epic” nature of various scenes like Shooting in Imax, the Bank Heist prologue, the Honk Kong building jump, the Batpod, the hospital explosion, the truck flip, and many others. Each of them last anywhere from a minute to over seven. I found the one I watched the most (four times to be exact) was the development of the score and most specifically Joker’s one-note theme music. Composter Hans Zimmer shows his creative process and complete access to his world. This one actually had video clips as well as many of these Focus Points are production stills with narration by Nolan, Zimmer, Conductor James Newton Howard, Visual Effects Supervisor Nick Davis, Richard King, Sound Set Designer, Paul Jennings, Stunt Coodinator and Christian Bale. Make sure to see how one of four mountable IMAX cameras in the world gets demolished in the sub Wacker chase scene. This feature can also be viewed in the old school branching method where when a visual prompt flashes, you can be taken to the special, but believe me, it’s much better in one complete sitting. After seeing how Universal integrates material like this into the film shows me this can be better (and be completely in HD) so while a lot of this is great material, there’s more creative ways to package it.

I’m happy to report that the BD-Live features are quite good considering much of what’s available in this online blu-ray feature has been to this point short of worth mentioning. In the media menu are several playable shorts. Two motion comics: The Shadow of Ra’s Al Ghul and the award-winning, Mad Love take the comics and animates the panels along with with voice actors. Each motion comic is split into 5-7 chapters. Two clips that looked to be on the Focus Points extras on disc one were saved for BD-Live. Harvey Dent’s Themecontinues the conversations with Zimmer and Newton Howard. The longest and most interest clip was the Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard Premiere Performance, which was the live performance of the Dark Knight theme complete with light display in front of the premiere audience. One special that was a waste was the sounds of the Batpod vignette; which can be seen on disc one.

Two interactive BD-Live features boasted on this disc are community screenings where you can schedule a time to meet up with your friends and family across the globe to watch the film together and chat through it. The other is the ability to record your own video and audio commentary (to make up for the absence of one by Christopher Nolan and others) which sounds at first to be pretty lame but having seen what some people have done, it looks to be a fun thing to do if you’ve got enough creativity. I saw one where a guy don’s a bat cowl and commentates on the scene where Batman confronts Joker in the “box” and the fan does it in character as if he’s Batman telling you what was going on in his head during that scene as if it was real. And for those who registered their disc early on, may have gotten the opportunity to watch the film with Christopher Nolan and ask him questions Thursday December 18th 2008. No word of any future interactive screenings.

Disc Two

Behind the Story HD are two very excellent featurettes that interview several familiar faces to comic readers, authors, and critics with clips of Batman art throughout the years. There are subtitles available in English for the Hearing Impaired as well as French and Spanish.

The first, Batman Tech (45:59) sees whether or not Batman’s gadgets and tools has real world applications or inspirations for example in the military. Everything from his costume, to the utility belt, to the Batmobile is dissected by curators of the CIA museums, scientists, professors, and field experts, Christopher Nolan, former editor/writer Len Wein, current DC editor-in-chief, Dan DiDio, Lois Gresh co-author of Science of Superheroes, producer Charles Roven, and even Arthur St. Antoine, editor-at-large of Motor Trend Magazine. There’s not a fatty part to this special and HD fans will get a kick out of the Batsuit section where base jumpers glide down the side of a mountain at high speed and a dangerous proximity to cliffs to show whether Batman could really decent into a city with just a suit.

The second featurette is the insightful and highbrow Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight (46:02) gathering professors of psychology, DC’s Batman editorial greats Paul Levitz, Denny O’Neil, Wein, and DiDio, Robin Rosenberg (the author of the Psychology of Superheroes) and Foresnic Specialists. In the 4 years of working at a comic book shop, I may be able to piece from several discussions enough to rival what’s discussed here in less than an hour. None of this is very groundbreaking if you’re a longtime reader but it’s a fascinating collection of real world experts and authors who attempt to get at the center of what Batman has come to be in the whole lexicon of superhero comics, a psychological look into a complex madman and the equally mad men and women he chases at night. Fear, consequence, self-regulation, and vigilanteism are all explored as the equation that makes up Batman as well as a parallel drawn to Theodore Roosevelt which I’ve personally never heard before. Batman’s rogue gallery is then diagnosed and compared to some of the most notable criminals of our day.

Six very well-produced shorts of the Gotham TV show, Gotham Tonight (46:41) can be viewed altogether as one clump or as separate episodes. These original webisodes were part of the online hype machine, a faux hybrid of the “CNN” and “Entertainment Tonight” of Gotham doing “investigative” and tabloid news. The first in particular, Election Night is pretty clever especially if you pay attention to the running ticker below. The other exposes are about Wayne, Dent, Gordon, and a who’s who of the Gotham baddies. Perhaps best eaten in small bites rather than the whole, Gotham Tonight is pretty amusing but is one the excessive side.

I don’t normally rave about Galleries but some of these are downright haunting. There are four to view, either in a timed slideshow that can be controlled, or one by one. The first is every Joker card designed by Phyllis Lehmer (9:44) 73 in all. The detail in these cards are really cool to look at as most of them don’t get to be seen at all or get such brief camera time. In the Concept Art (7:44) are 60 plus grisly mug shots of Joker’s Henchmen by Lindy Hemming and Drawn by Rob Bliss and tech drawings of Batman’s vostume, vehicles, and gadgets. The lesser interesting just because they’ve been seen so much are the Theatrical Posters and Billboards (1:36) and the Production Stills (11:52). One can “Play all” the three Trailers and six TV Spots (8:46) or view them separately. Each trailer reveals more and more but I never found them to be memorable because I always felt they showed too much of the Chicago street scene and the Joker who should have been shown as a big reveal in the final trailer. I actually enjoyed the six TV Spots even more than the trailers because they revealed less.

Disc Three

Just the Digital Video Dischere, good for laptops, PSPs, and portable media players and nothing else.

So there’s some very good, but for a film as magnanimous as this, I really expected much more. The utilization of BD-Live is as creative as I’ve seen, but I can’t help but feel that there should have been some type of tribute or something about Ledger’s performance, or look into how to portray the direction of Joker and Two-Face, the real stars of this film. Also absent is how Two-Face was done, c’mon WB, answer the elementary questions at least. The total package just felt incomplete and you can see on the BD-Live content that there is more that’s available, and blu-ray CAN hold much more than what we’re given so I know more can be done and I’m not happy I’ll have to wait for another time to see any of it.

Overall Shock Value: A-

The Dark Knight is going to move a lot of blu-rays and players this holiday season and I’m not one to step in the way of that. It’s a fabulous film flexing a lot of muscle in high def with a lip-smacking audio mix and a stunning transfer. It’s not as loaded with extras as one might think but double-dipping is inevitable and there’s no good reason to wait for that day to come. There’s nearly nothing mentioned about Ledger’s (nor Eckhart’s) performance and perhaps a reactionary post-Academy Awards “Collector’s Edition” could be in the future. The story of his last performance may still has more chapters left in it as of the date of this review. Who knows what accolades he’ll earn at the end of the year, if any, but it’s undeniable that Ledger gave one of the most, if not THE most memorable performance of 2008. We were left behind a memorable performance by an actor who was just beginning to catch the world’s attention. I highly recommend the Dark Knight, a deep psychological thriller hell-bent on giving viewers are harsh and cruel alternative to the typical comic book film; one where we can pause and let linger on not just the fight between good and evil but the darkness within each and every one of us and the resistance let it consume us whole.

I might just have to buy this (especially since I gave my copy away years ago…)!

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