We Game To Please: Kingdom Hearts

GENRE: Action RPG.

THE HOOK: Disney favourites meet Square-Enix's finest.

THE WORLD: Right, this will take some explaining.  There's this thing called Kingdom Hearts, which is the heart of a world, or sometimes an amalgamation of other hearts...  I think.  And in short, any of the various bad guys want it, and the good guys use something called a Keyblade, which is a sword shaped like a key, to hit them repeatedly until they stop wanting Kingdom Hearts, or indeed living.  Seriously - "Killer7" was easier to explain than this.

Pictured: Kingdom Hearts...  Possibly.

The action takes place across a number of different worlds, almost all of which feature characters and situations from Disney films.  You'll run into all your House of Mouse favourites, from Ariel to Tron and Jack Skellington to Jack Sparrow - except, ironically, Mickey Mouse, whose disappearance is a plot device in the first game - plus a liberal smattering of characters from the "Final Fantasy" series, such as Cloud, Squall and Jader (“JOKER made this biological weapon to jump on BATMAN"...  Oh all right, maybe not him).

GAMEPLAY: Far more action oriented than the usual JRPG, with direct real time control of the running, jumping and swashbuckling.  Upgrades to character movement and abilities such as extra jumping power allow the gradual unlocking of greater awards and previously inaccessible areas, and there's also a shoot-'em-up section as you fly your ship between worlds.

You also get followed around by Donald Duck and Goofy the entire time, as they attempt to help you out in combat, but mainly spend the entire time hollering in their bloody annoying stupid voices and using all your healing items on each other.  For a brief respite you can often replace one of them with a Disney hero from the world you're visiting, such as Beast or Peter Pan.  Finally, as is par for the course in Square-Enix games, there's a whole bunch of minigames, superbosses and optional stuff to keep your quest going past its actual end.

SERIES: Oof.  Well, there's two core games, with a third to come soon.  On top of that, there's a bunch of other games that add to the dizzying narrative, and you sort of do have to play them or at least read their stories to get the full picture of why you're doing what you're doing.

HIGHLIGHTS: The story, if you can get your head around it, is actually very involving and intricate, but the main mark-out moments come when exploring a new world for the first time, and seeing the familiar characters interacting with your party; Halloween Town and Wonderland are particularly well thought out, with Space Paranoids and the Pride Lands in the second game adding some very different and beautifully constructed locales.

LOWLIGHTS: Having to listen to Donald and Goofy all the damn time.  Also, "Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories", which has a trading card element to it which basically ruins the gameplay by removing any potential for the kind of hassle-free enjoyment that the core games trade in so well.  I'm still picking my way through that one after the best part of a decade.

IF YOU LIKE IT: Whilst there's nothing exactly like it, the newer "Final Fantasy" games are starting to incorporate more action elements, and the "Valkyrie Profile" games are also along similar lines.

We Game To Please: Batman - Arkham Asylum

GENRE: Batman simulator.

THE HOOK: Are y - what?  Did you not just hear me?  You get to be Batman!

THE WORLD: Batman - the gritty, post-"Killing Joke" version thereof - seemingly brings the Joker to justice, but it's all an elaborate ruse to get him trapped in Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, along with a rogue's gallery of...  Well, rogues, really.  Batman must not only punch and kick rather a lot, but also use his skills as the World's Greatest Detective to foil The Joker and escape the island.

Plus, it's haunted by SPOOKY SKELETONS!!!  (Note: may not be true)

Of course, you'll encounter other heavily-trademarked characters such as Poison Ivy, The Scarecrow and Jader (“JOKER made this biological weapon to jump on BATMAN”...  Hang on, wrong game), plus a very conveniently-located second Batcave and all of your favourites - but not Robin - in this return to form for a character whose videogame career was in the doldrums at the time.

GAMEPLAY: A bit "Metroidvania", as the kids all say, where exploration leads to gadgets and upgrades that open new areas.  There are three main phases to the game, with unarmed combat featuring a reasonably foolproof flowing engine that makes each broken jaw a joy to mete out, and regular Predator Rooms, where Batman must stay out of sight, ominously swooping on his armed enemies to avoid being shot to pieces, in a number of appropriately moody settings.

But the best bits are the exploration; swinging and swooping, clambering and crawling, using Detective Mode to discover the Riddler's clues and pinpoint enemies at distance.  This is as close as you're likely to get to being Batman without getting sectioned and convicted of assault and peeping tomism.

SERIES: "Arkham Asylum" is game one in a three and a half game core series.  Sequel "Arkham City" and its expansion "Harley Quinn's Revenge" greatly expand the playing area and the range of missions, becoming more of an open world game.  "Arkham Origins" greatly expands the playing area, but not the range of missions, making up for it with an arguably more compelling storyline.

HIGHLIGHTS: There's a lot of different stuff to do.  For instance, The Scarecrow uses his fear gas to cause hallucinations.  Bad for Batman; good for you, as you get an interesting little minigame to play!  Or why not try to foil The Riddler by collecting a load of trophies...  Yes, I'm not sure how that one works either, but it provides a giddy little thrill.

LOWLIGHTS: Well, the Batmobile's not in it much.  Also, quite a few of the bosses or featured fights are almost exactly the same, which can lead to frustration when everything gets a bit same-y.

IF YOU LIKE IT: Here's a bit of an off the wall one for you: why not try "Infamous"?  It's another morally ambiguous superhero game with an open world and customisable powers, and it isn't half bad either.  If you're just in it for the famous names - nothing wrong with that, mind - go for "Lego Batman" or one of the other Lego superhero games.

BONUS CONTENT!

See a younger, more beautiful me tackle the ZX Spectrum's Batman-related output - or at least wait for it to load - over at Talk About The Passion (http://www.tatp.org/blog/?p=3772).  And hey, why not stay a while and check out some other bits and bobs?

We Game To Please: Animal Crossing

GENRE: Life simulator.

THE HOOK: You need do nothing at all.

THE WORLD: You've moved out of the home you shared with your unseen parents and into a village full of anthropomorphic animals.  As you do.  These animals come in many different shapes and sizes, with different personalities, likes and dislikes, and getting along with them day to day whilst feathering your own nest however you see fit is essentially the main thrust of your life there.

Colour/design of villagers may vary.  No refunds will be given.

Every village has a general store, a clothes shop, a pond, a beach and a town hall at least, with other stuff coming in and out on a game-ly basis.  You may have a desert island, you may have a police station, and the Wii version features a separate city that can be reached by bus, with extra businesses.  Once a week the wandering musician K.K. Slider comes and does a concert, and other weird and wonderful characters come and go at various times.

GAMEPLAY: You'll need to pay your way.  So you can collect shells on the beach, deliver items for other villagers, and catch fish and insects or dig up fossils to sell or donate to the museum.  None of those your bag?  Shake a tree - money does sometimes grow on them in this magical place!  There's also plenty of festivals, holidays and events to attend, with specific happenings and items to be collected.

Yet - and here's the tranquil pill at the core of this pastoral package - you actually need do nothing at all.  Nothing.  That raccoon's not going to break your legs for his mortgage money, Wendell the walrus isn't a stabby beggar and even Lyle the river otter has stopped going door to door with his shady insurance deals.  I can't quite believe I just typed that sentence, but there you go.  There's no impetus to do anything except exactly enough to get the items you want to expand and decorate your house - no more, no less.

SERIES: Recently found out this actually started on N64, with an expanded version of that game appearing on the GameCube and further iterations on DS, Wii and 3DS, each (not much) more complex and multi-layered than the last.

HIGHLIGHTS: Other than the odd seasonal event, the two best bits for me were firstly, getting an NES with a playable "Donkey Kong" game on it for my character's birthday on the GC version (these NES items were removed from all subsequent versions of the game) and getting given a photo by a villager who counted me as their best friend on the DS version (the collection of these photos was removed from all subsequent versions of the game).

LOWLIGHTS: It can be very, very hard to maintain your motivation when there is no fixed target to aim your gameplay towards.  This means that any targets you do set - the collection of a certain set of furniture, say - are so nebulous and randomly achieved that it's easy to get distracted by technically more limited thrills elsewhere.

IF YOU LIKE IT: Well, there's that other famous open world game, "Grand Theft Auto"...  But as that might be a bit of a leap, I think the closest comparable experience is "The Sims", and even that's more harrowing if your characters keep self-immolating upon attempting to cook.  Or maybe that was just me.

We Game To Please: Killer7

GENRE: First person shooter (sort of).

THE HOOK: A game with an actual plot.

THE WORLD: The game tells of the battle between the apparently immortal beings Harman Smith and Kun Lan, which is fought on several fronts, including chess and actual war.  Kun Lan has the God Hand, which allows him to create twisted beings called Heaven Smiles, who explode a lot and are therefore great for terrorism.  Harman Smith battles them with his Smith Syndicate, a number of alternate personalities who he can cause to physically manifest - also known as (yes!) the Killer7.

Though there is technically eight of them.

Japanese-American relations are at a low as we join the game, and a plot plays out that spans political intrigue, human trafficking, mental illness, the nature of war and terrorism and how far people will go to win.  In the meantime we'll also drop in on a comic writer whose stories come true, hunt down a charismatic cult leader and visit a very important school.  What more do you want?

GAMEPLAY: An odd mix of on-rails running and first person shooting, which somehow manages to give an illusion of freedom whilst being one of the more limiting gameplay experiences we can think of.  That's not a knock on it though; in a game where story progression is more important than the gameplay experience, you'll find plenty to drive you on as you deal with all the bizarre experiences.

You might find yourself talking to a head in a washing machine for ten minutes, or making a woman slash her wrists to erase lyrics by The Smiths to open a door, or meeting a new type of Smile in the Vinculum Gate, or just manaically blasting the inhuman enemies as their morbid laughter rings in your ears and chills your soul.  Whatever you're doing, there are two questions that you will need to answer: the first is, "what's going on?"  The second, more pressing question will become clear as you play on...

SERIES: As a well-received but seldom played cult game, it never received a sequel, but there are several references to it scattered throughout the town of Santa Destroy in "No More Heroes", another game by writer/director Goichi Suda (or "Suda51", as he often goes by).

HIGHLIGHTS: Plenty of them - to name a few, the boss fights and particularly the tense shootout with Curtis Blackburn; the visually stunning (and completely predetermined) battle with the Handsome Men; and the creeping feeling of unease as you approach the story's final twist.

LOWLIGHTS: The third mission, whilst unique in giving the player a whole town to explore and featuring some great sections, is a tad more boring and lengthy than the rest, and as such can be an easy quit point.  Stick with it, though; there's some great stuff just round the corner.

IF YOU LIKE IT: You'll like Suda51's other games, most likely regardless of genre, but most obviously the aforementioned "No More Heroes" and its sequel, which further subvert the genre by being at least partially aware that they are videogames.

We Game To Please: Disgaea

GENRE: Strategy/RPG

THE HOOK: Chess with exploding penguins.

THE WORLD: A surprisingly moral trifecta of Human World, hell (Netherworld) and heaven (Celestia), but told from the Netherworld's point of view, as the demons go about their business of keeping humans on the correct moral path by scaring them straight.  We usually see this from the point of view of an ambitious demon, murderously trying to become Overlord of the Netherworld.

Pictured: some demons.

Later games in the series take the same set-up and move it to different dimensions, allowing the stories to exist independantly...  Until the inevitable obliteration of the fourth wall brings past favouites flooding back in on hilariously flimsy premises, such as Laharl, the hero from the first game who keeps invading later games due to his inability to accept second billing.

GAMEPLAY: You deploy your forces, which have their own quirks and advantages, and proceed to beat the tar out of the opposing force.  Gameplay is complicated by "Geo Effects", coloured panels which link with symbols to strengthen and weaken characters in certain parts of the map.  Eliminating them in the correct order causes epilepsy-inducing visual effects, as well as granting bonuses.

And so on, ad infinitum, almost literally - there are a ton of missions, plus a Parliament-type system to pass new laws into the game.  Every character can be levelled up to level 9,999, at which point they can be reincarnated at level 1 and start again.  Still not enough?  Every item in the whole game contains a randomly-generated dungeon of up to 100 levels.  Sometimes there are pirates in them.  Sometimes there are not.  And don't get me started on the Land of Carnage...

SERIES: Four and counting, plus a few updates, remakes and spinoffs, which serve to make the already convoluted crossovers even more mindbending.

HIGHLIGHTS: "Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten" (PS3) - yup, it's a corker.  With a story that snowballs out of control to a ridiculous extent and all the visual bells and whistles that the PS3 can conjure, plus the capsule nature of the games, there's no reason not to leap in at what is essentially the end so far.  Plus the humour has been sharpened to a deadly point and you can learn a surprising amount about sardines.

LOWLIGHTS: "Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice" (PS3) - this one was a real slog for me, and I say that as someone who had 100+ hour playthroughs of all of the other games in the series.  The whole thing was also too emo; consider that I've just praised the fourth game, in which a vampire refuses to drink blood due to a promise he made to a dying woman, and you may appreciate exactly how emo we are talking.

IF YOU LIKE IT: Final Fantasy Tactics ploughs a similar furrow, albeit in a relatively po-faced manner, and most of the rest of Nippon Ichi's output represent slight spins on the same genre.