With the release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, I decided to take it upon myself to watch the Gotham Knight series in anticipation to my trip to the cinema.

For those of you who are unaware, Gotham Knight is a 75 minute collection of animations, that are seperated into six chapters that are intended to be viewed as a whole, that explore Bruce Wayne’s transition from his beginning as a tormented vigilantee to The Dark Knight of a crumbling metropolis.

Now, in truth, I should inform you that I am not a huge Batman fan. I have in fact watched all of them since the days of Michael Keaton, however, the Val Kilmer series of Batman movies left me feeling slightly dead inside, with the poor Arnie puns (”Ice to see you”) and poor choice of characters.  And it was this series of film that made me lose all hope in the series, despite thoroughly enjoying the Michael Keaton series of movies.

However, with the recent release of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, my faith was restored in the series, and I decided to lower my defenses and actually watch the anime/cartoon of the Batman Saga.  And even though I did lose faith in the series in the past, my faith has been restored, and I found myself even impressed by this anime movie/series.

Initial impressions of the Gotham Knight made me remember the Animatrix series, the style was very similar.  Each chapter uses a different art form and style, however, please don’t think that this movie is as poorly made as the Animatrix.  In fact, I found the story compelling and unique.  The art style pretty in places and unique in style.  This is one of the few movie follow-ups that I hav found myself truly enjoying.

Gotham Knight is full of action and plot, and in one story in particular, it shows how people can interpret Batman in different ways, allowing their imagination to go wild.  It’s a nice breath of fresh air for a dying industry in Hollywood.

Though, as always I do have my issues with the series.  For example, as much as I like to see new tools and gadgets, some of the chapters do seem to lack in the action scenes.  Sometimes, all I wanted to see was Batman foiling evil plots, and disposing of the bad guys one by one, however, a lot of the time the fight scenes were short, if not absent.

But this is a nice change from the usual drivvel that comes from the movie industry and I really enjoyed watching this.  I think it was also more enjoyable as I had yet to see The Dark Knight (which by the way is AWESOME!!!!) and it all added to the anticipation of the film.

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This is one of those games that I was really looking forward to, but have been unable to afford until now. And I can tell you that this game was definitely worth the wait.

Naruto: Rise of the Ninja follows the story of the anime series. Unlike the Dragonball Z game, they have not remade the cut scenes into hd cell-shaded CGI, instead tehy have simply inserted theminto the video game. I actually find this to be quite lazy, especially since the game can be completed in about 10 hours. If they had added some nice CGI it would have made it a little bit more enjoyable.

However, despite the length of this game, I really enjoyed playing through it. The graphics are impressive, the story immersive and the voice acting exaclty what you can expect from a top class anime series. Although graphically impressive, there is one flaw, and that is the fact that the in game characters never actually move their mouths to speak…the voice overs simply sound, this is unlike the Dragonball game where they speak even in battle.

I do think that they have cut many corners in this game, there are things that I would have included in order to improve the style of the game. I would have been much more impressed if they ahd bothered to animate things other than your character travelling from A to B…which brings me to another issue.

Missions CONSTANTLY require you to travel from A to B, then back to A, back to B about five times before you can proceed to the story mission. This becomes ridiculous and irritating after the third time, and I couldnt help but think I would have enjoyed the experience a bit more had they implemented some kind of teleportation device. And before I get the, maybe they couldnt…they could, as after each mission, you can warp back to leaf village.

However, despite the many gripes I have about this game, and what appears its lazy development, I am still really impressed with the game and have enjoyed playing through it. I have even decided to watch the complete Naruto series, something that up until now I have failed to manage.

So anyway, if you fancy a steal, this game is available from Play.com currently for £17 instead of its £39.99 RRP, so it’s definitely worth the purchase. Either that or go to your local GAME store and you can get it preowned buy 1 get 1 half price, for £22, its a little more, but you have the chance of getting another game too.

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Many of you may know of the yu-gi-oh anime series…but how many of you know about the internet parody that is taking the world by storm?  What is this parody you may ask?  Well, as the title of this blog suggests, it’s yu-gi-oh the abridged series, and its awesome!

I have been watching this series since it first began, and have been amused by the antics of the characters.  The voice acting is brilliant to say the least, and in some cases, these characters sound pretty much like those in the anime, so thats one talented individual right there.  the stories never fail to be amusing, even the random 2 minute ones, so its definitely worth checking out.

Also, the whole point of this parody is to basically put an episode of yu-gi-oh into 6 mins, cutting out all the irrelevant drivvel (of which there are tons) and inserting amazing comedic value to an otherwise attrotious story.

So check it out, and support this young guy a she could really go far.

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