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danbensen · 5 years

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…or how tracking my life told me I was abusing coffee and social media

So there I was, my nails digging into my palms, my right molars pressed into each other. The air hissed in through my nose as my vision narrowed to a point. It was like hurtling down a roller-coaster. It was was terrifying, and I had no idea why it was happening.

I’d be doing nothing especially ominous – sitting down on the couch, carrying my younger daughter, thinking about bread – and suddenly I’d be gripped by this intense sensation of danger. BREAD! The image of a whole-grain loaf gained the mass of a church bell. DOOM! It rang. Toll the yeasty knell, oh brazen fate, for all men shall one day die. Die, oh, mortal flesh. Die and meet thy baker. (whoo! I am so sorry about that pun. Deep breaths now…)

Tiny drops of steam Ebb and flow before the light With each of my breaths.

It was ridiculous, but of course knowing that it was ridiculous didn’t help. I was like a cat, freaking out for no reason. Or was there no reason? Aren’t I supposed to listen to my body, now that I’m meditating and whatnot? But what exactly was my body supposed to be telling me? Avoid carbs? Run from the couch? Something about my daughter…? Yeah, If I searched hard enough for a reason to be terrified, I’d surely find one. Now there’s a reason for fear.

So I meditated more. I stopped using social media. I took my daughters to the park and watched the sky as it changed from brass to rose and the street lights blinked on. I talked to Pavlina. And I realized that over the course of the past month, I’d gone from drinking two cups of coffee a day to four.

The trees turn black and The sky, indescribable. Look up and it’s changed.

Scheduling is hard. My older daughter’s in first grade now, and school starts at 8:10 in the Center. The younger one’s in kindergarten, which starts at 8:30 in Levski G. At some point, it would be nice if Pavlina and I could go to work, which is back in the Center. If we want to have breakfast and drink our coffee in peace, we need to wake up at 6:15. Three hours later, I’m finally in the office and I’m tired. That scares me because I associate being tired with being sick. Fatigue=death.

I’m supposed to listen to my body, but my body is a stupid animal. It’s not going to say, “you’re drinking too much coffee.” It says “coffee reminds me of being happy!” and “not being productive scares me!” It says “I’m tired! I must have cancer again!” It’s up to me to keep track of what I’m doing, cut out the distractions, and give myself enough mental room to notice the patterns.

Right. So that’s why I’m not doing social media any more. Because part of the reason I was too distracted to notice I was drinking too much coffee was the last newsletter I wrote. I posted it on facebook, which made me want to check facebook for likes and comments. And once I was on facebook, why not see what other people are posting? Oh. Oh. That’s what they’re posting. Oh no.

I debated writing this explanation. Why not just stop using social media? Why talk about it on social media? But my litmus test for whether I should write something is “will this help people?” Maybe this is helpful: social media is distracting and depressing. It fills my head with noise. Maybe you have the same problem and this is the solution.

The sky at seven The color of hope that hurts And the crying swifts

I’ll continue to post my work on my website (including these newsletters) and mirror or link to those posts on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Readers are welcome to like and comment, but I’ll only read those comments once a week (Friday seems like a good day). Comments on my website, PMs, and emails to me will get my attention earlier. I won’t read any content that isn’t sent personally to me or that I didn’t sign up for. Hopefully that means I’ll still get news from people I care about, but not about tragedies that I have no power to solve. That way, I can continue to function from hour to hour.

What do you think? Is this going to work? Can I stay connected without sacrificing my mental health? Let me know in the comments. Or even better, email me.

In other news, I had some good writing stuff happen this month. Interchange has hit its 2/3 mark and, more importantly, its rhythm. I’ve managed to block off a fairly reliable 90-minute chunk of time in the mornings, which I use to meditate and then “speedwrite,” which means writing without thinking about what I’m doing. I generally end up with a single element of a scene, such as the conversation the characters are having, how they feel, what’s going on in the environment, or what actions the characters are taking.

Then I usually have some time after lunch (and my second and final coffee), and I can layer those scene-pieces onto each other and smooth the edges. If I have more time, I do research, which usually involves shooting messages to generous experts. In this way, the inestimable and inspiring Thomas Duffy helped me tie a ribbon around the center of my book, in which a biologist’s subconscious belief that she owns the environment she’s studying leads her to destroy it. As the forest crumbles around her, she blames herself…then makes exactly the wrong decision about what to do next. Yeah! Fiction! Thomas, I’m going to send you roses or cacti or something.

Another new tradition I’ve instituted is spending my Friday mornings not working on Interchange. It’s a little release of pressure, a chance to play and remind myself that writing isn’t just another chore I have to do. The first week, it was a short story. That one turned out so well, I’m going to try to publish it. It’s called “The Sales Event” and it’s about smart phones and general relativity. Do you want to beta-reader it?

I got another couple of “no”s from publishers about The Sultan’s Enchanter, but one of them was that very gratifying “no” that comes at the head of a long list of things I could do to fix the story. Making those fixes will be educational, even if that particular publisher still passes. Wealthgiver is rather like The Sultan’s Enchanter, after all, and the lessons I learn from one will be important for the other. The world needs more books about amoral Balkan people!

Yeah, I’m still working on Wealthgiver’s neo-Thracian language. I even posted a little of it on Tumblr. But don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my little goats!

Kapt kapēnon ainē kesa / byźai darsai ypo dēsâ. Ēbron, aiźi, byźâs kâ / skalmon, bleptē, bystâs kâ, As tae yper iatśikan / kapâ pe ta ve abbrinkan.

There were at one time / brave goats under heaven. A kid, a nanny, and a billy goat / clever, loyal, and tough, Who would dance up / a hill for to make themselves fat.

Dâ ispilsen opē rinkon strymē / parân ân, śân târâ dymâ. Iśē iserpa źēryntē / źymlē mērē urdēnē. Byźulâs ada pyrân źilmân / dâ bolvarâs pia rhobton saimân.

But a quick-flowing river blocked / the path with an evil guard. There coiled a beast / a great water-dragon. A goat will eat green grains / but a serpent will slurp blood

Peskēnon ērga ēbron do. / Pliskon ērga śân negō. Źymlē zē semân iglytsa. / “Kis ēs tu?” Neston iglâtsa. “Semâs manon ēm ēźo.” / “San ar ēsti? Abadam so!”

First comes the kid. / It splashes with its hooves. The dragon heard this. / “Who are you?” she roared. “This only am I.” / “Is it so? I will eat you up!”

Things are heating up! I’m still not entirely comfortable with the articles and deitics, but I do like that last line. And the orthography is shaping up nicely. I love googly things over letters.

Another potential conlanging project for that other hundred years I plan to live: Western Hellenism. What if the Greeks had conquered Iberia?

And finally, PROTECTOR! This is the comic project I’ve been working on for literally six years. Words by me and Simon Roy, inks by Atryom Trakhanov, colors by Jason Wordie, and lettering by Hassan Otsmane-Elhadu. What a crazy, fun, glorious process this collaboration was!

Protector is a post-apocalyptic scifi story about a slave who stumbles across “a demon of the Profligate Age,” a military cyborg who’s been in hibernation for the past thousand years. The post-human robots who are terraforming the Earth are not amused, and send in some sweaty future-vikings to put a stop to these shenanigans.

There will be five issues, and issue one comes out in January. If you’re interested, please order a copy, or better yet, tell your local comic or book store to order lots of copies! Give us some numbers that will convince Image to ask for a sequel

And finally, some books and stuff

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown – this book wasn’t as transformative for me as it could have been because I’ve read Brown before and I already agree with her. Shame is bad. Vulnerability is the cure. Bam. What I like about Brown is that she collects good data, lets it prove her wrong, and suggests how the lessons from the data can be usefully applied. It’s not just science, it’s engineering.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold – I think this was the third read. What happens when GM humans become obsolete? What happens when an engineer has a spiritual epiphany? It wasn’t quite as much fun as some of Bujold’s other science fiction, but it has a lot of heart.

Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser – an excellent physics book, examining the concept of space, which lies at the center of the contradictions of relativity and quantum physics. If space didn’t exist, the universe would be chaos, but a lot of experiments only make sense if space _doesn’t_ exist. Great stuff, and it inspired that short story I’m so proud of.

Death by Water by Kerry Greenwood – a refreshing splash of chilly New Zealand sea spray. Phryne pursues a jewel thief and has a little bit of sex, but a lot of good food, drink, and dancing. There’s also a hakka.

Wicked Prey by John Sandford – it was actually a little boring. The police’s side of the story didn’t hold up as well as the criminals’. But this is a relatively early book in the series, which means Sandford is improving.

The Upright Go Pro – it’s a little device that you glue to your upper back so it will buzz at you when you slouch. Immediately after I put it on, I realized I have little tiny tyrannosaurus arms that don’t reach any table or counter-top. It ran out of batteries one day and man did my back hurt that night. So I guess it’s working.

Gravity by Against the Current and Brighter by Patent Pending – Good Interchange music.

Be Kind to Yourself by Andrew Peterson – It makes me feel better.

Song of Durin by Clamavi De Profundis – I haven’t gotten goosebumps from a song in a long time. It’s about dwarves.

The Twits by Roald Dahl – I read it to my older daughter and boy howdy did Roald Dahl know how to write for children. Everything seems utterly ridiculous but it all somehow satisfies. Like eating dirt cake.

Steven Universe – My younger daughter found me rewatching it on my phone and made me cast it on the big TV. Now it’s all “I wanna watch Steeben dabout a Giant Woman. I’m Pearl.” No, younger daughter, you are not Pearl. Pearl is my older daughter. My younger daughter is Amethyst. Nobody is more Amethyst than my younger daughter. (I’m Peridot)

#mystuff #newsletter #simon roy #thomas duffy #Artyom Trakhanov #writing #mental health #science fiction #thracian

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chicbamboowear · 7 years

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“Frozen” heats up Denver: Inside Disney’s multimillion-dollar quest to conquer Broadway

Patti Murin will portray Anna in Disney’s pre-Broadway musical "Frozen," coming to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts on August 17. (Provided by the DCPA.)

Broadway singer and actress Patti Murin shares nearly everything about her work with her actor husband, Colin Donnell.

But not her latest project.

“I’ve been involved in this for a year and my husband doesn’t know a single thing about it,” Murin, 36, said of “Frozen: The Musical,” the stage adaptation of Disney’s 2013 hit animated movie. “It’s been such a closed process. And I mean closed. Nobody we love has been able to see it.”

Dozens of people working on the top-secret production have been camped inside the Buell Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex since May. Even before that, Disney executives had been considering “Frozen” for a stage musical, given the established pipeline for animated Disney features such as “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” to become Broadway (and later, nationally touring) productions.

When “Frozen: The Musical” debuts for the public at the Buell on Aug. 17, it could mark the launch of another theatrical production worth millions, or perhaps a billion, dollars for Disney, which plans to move the show to Broadway’s St. James Theatre in February.

But first, the “Frozen” team must work out countless kinks during the seven-week “pre-Broadway engagement” in Denver, a city in which Disney has learned to rely on the quantity and quality of theater-going audiences, plus skilled crews and facilities that mirror the production’s eventual home in New York City.

“We have about 150 people in Denver working on the show,” said Jack Eldon, vice president of domestic touring for Disney Theatrical Group. “That includes performers, technical crew, the creative team and all our designers. But we also need to make sure audiences there can sustain the number of performances that we need to revise some set pieces, and tweak things like the costumes and music.”

Landing “Frozen: The Musical” is a coup for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA), which hosts the region’s biggest touring theater productions. But it’s not unprecedented. In 2007, DCPA also hosted the six-week, pre-Broadway run of the stage adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, selling a record 95,000 tickets. It has also served as the launchpad for the national-touring production of “The Lion King,” which has been seen by tens of millions since that road version opened in Denver 15 years ago.

“Frozen: The Musical” is just the latest example of the DCPA’s national influence and evolution into touring-show powerhouse, DCPA president Janice Siden told The Denver Post.

“Everywhere I go, our Broadway group is the envy of theater groups around the country,” added Martin Semple, DCPA chairman, who credited DCPA Broadway executive director John Ekeberg with keeping the Disney relationship strong. “Going to the Tonys with John and meeting all these people just confirmed the respect people have for us.”

The DCPA has driven ticket sales for its 2017-18 season by dangling “Frozen” in front of its more than 28,000 subscribers. It has every reason to expect that the broad, crossover appeal of a “Frozen” tryout will help this season surpass last year’s numbers.

As the largest nonprofit theater company in the country, the DCPA sold 685,375 tickets to its touring-Broadway and in-house theater company shows in fiscal 2016, generating $150 million in economic impact and attracting roughly 1.2 million visitors to downtown Denver, according to a DCPA report.

Despite employing the original, Oscar-winning creative team from the film version of “Frozen,” and big-name Broadway veterans — including Tony winners such as director Michael Grandage (“Red”), choreographer Rob Ashford (“Thoroughly Modern Millie”) and music supervisor Stephen Oremus (“Wicked,” “The Book of Mormon”) — Disney is leaving nothing to chance.

Past musical adaptations of the animated Disney films “The Little Mermaid” and “Tarzan” were high-profile flops, and “Frozen: The Musical” has already burned through a couple of directors, three choreographers, two set designers and a pair of Elsas, according to The New York Times.

But flesh-and-blood audiences will have the last word on this reportedly $25 million-$30 million production — not the first.

“The creators get so close to it (that) I promise you they will be shocked at least once in that first performance — for good or bad,” said Dennis Crowley, senior publicist at Disney Theatrical. “If it’s like every other musical ever written, the creators will find something they absolutely did not expect, either something they thought would be a knock-’em-dead moment that won’t, or a laugh they never saw coming.”

Crowley cited the example of “Aladdin: The Musical,” the pre-Broadway engagement of which involved major retooling in the show’s first 40 minutes after theater goers in Toronto failed to respond to voice-over narration, which diverged significantly from the film.

“Audiences said, ‘We don’t know these people. We don’t care about these people. Where’s the pretty girl in the midriff and the hot boy and the genie?’ So they cut all the narration, brought in the genie at the top of the show and,” Crowley said, snapping his fingers, “from the first New York performance it was a different show. And that’s not atypical.”

Disney Theatrical has built in at least three months of downtime between the end of the 46-show Denver run on Oct. 1 and its New York roll-out early next year, just in case it needs a new song, new sets or more. Already, a creative team that includes the married songwriters from the film, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, has expanded “Frozen” from a 102-minute movie to a roughly two-hour musical, with triple the number of songs and a cast of more than 40.

Like most film shooting schedules, the pre-Broadway engagement is a grueling sprint that squeezes the most out of everyone’s time and energy — even if it started in earnest more than a year ago with the film’s original co-director, Jennifer Lee, writing the script and rehearsing the show at Manhattan’s New 42nd Street Studios.

“Right now in (technical rehearsals) in Denver it’s pretty intense,” said Caissie Levy, a Broadway veteran who plays Princess Elsa in the musical. “We’re there for nine or 10 hours a day, popping in for wig fittings and slotting things in like that. The first month of previews we’ll rehearse all day, and there will be a lot of maintenance for Patti and me. A lot of justified massages, sleep and steam rooms.”

There’s plenty of pressure on Levy the role of Princess Elsa, which includes belting out the instantly familiar and Oscar-winning song “Let It Go.” But there’s also opportunity in evolving an animated princess into a three-dimensional character.

It’s a tricky balance: “Frozen: The Musical” must mirror major aspects of the movie, because that’s what is selling tickets for the DCPA right now. Loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale “The Snow Queen,” “Frozen” has resonated with global audiences thanks to its empowering female characters, humor and melody-drenched songs.

But the musical version must also find its own voice. Merely mimicking the film risks alienating fans with a hokey copy of the original — no matter how eye-popping the sets, costumes and special effects are.

And the potential audience is huge: “Frozen” is the highest grossing animated film in history, with more than $1 billion in worldwide revenue. DCPA and Denver tourism officials are anticipating plenty of out-of-state visitors to attend this pre-Broadway run, since 8 percent of DCPA patrons came from out-of-state last year — versus about 4 percent 20 years ago. The percentage of out-of-state visitors increases into the double digits for touring Broadway shows like “Wicked” and “The Lion King,” the DCPA said, which gives officials a good idea of “Frozen’s” potential draw.

This story features a bucket-list experience — check out our complete Colorado Summer Bucket List!

The stakes and tension are high for all involved, even without considering the instantaneous reactions will be posted to social media for all — including curious New York audiences and critics — to see. For that and other reasons, the show will run for about a month in Denver before critics are allowed to officially review it on Sept. 14.

“We must be adrenaline junkies and masochists and overall crazy people to do this, because it’s so thrilling and so terrifying at the same time,” said Levy, 36, who has appeared in “Rent,” “Hairspray,” “Wicked,” “Hair” and other pillars of Broadway success.

“But we need to make sure everyone who’s seeing the show for the first and only time, who bought tickets when they went on sale months ago and are bringing all their kids in their ‘Frozen’ gear, or who got a babysitter and went out to dinner, are getting the show that they’re meant to get,” added Levy, whose 18-month-old son and (as often as he can make it) husband are joining her from New York.

The Denver Post got the first peek at the production, provided this reporter swore to secrecy about any sets, special effects or details that he witnessed.

Inside the Buell Theatre looked like more of a buzzing hive than an empty shell, with dozens of designers and technical staff camped out among the audience seats at tables filled with lamps, computer workstations, hardwired phones and rivers of overlapping wires — more like NASA’s Mission Control than a stereotypical row of producers critiquing from the front row.

Many of them were designers and their associates, including Tony winner Christopher Oram (sets and costumes), six-time Tony winner Natasha Katz (lighting) and Tony winner Finn Ross (projections).

But the final collaborator in the musical, as the cast and crew likes to say, will be Denver audiences. The creative team is hoping to make something that will run for years to come, if not decades — less a time capsule of ideas, more a vehicle for their continual delivery.

Still, no amount of preparation can predict what happens on opening night.

“That is the day that I always say to myself, ‘Why did I do this?’ Because you’re always terrified,” Murin said. “You could be as ready as you could possibly be and still be like, ‘Why did I choose this career?!’ ”

Levy, who already feels a sisterly bond with both Murin’s “hot-mess” Princess Anna character and the actress as a person, said Denver is an ideal place to get acclimated to the show and its audiences. But she won’t refuse off-stage help if she needs it.

“Self-care is super important,” she said. “I’m sure we’re going to get very chummy with that oxygen tank in the wings.”

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baburaja97-blog · 8 years

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New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/batman-arkham-city-3d-review/

Batman: Arkham City 3D Review

3D saves a PC game plagued with bugs and a missing DX11.

Chances are you know who Batman is. If not, he’s this dude who wears tights and likes to swing around tall buildings. Not to be confused with Spiderman, who also wears tights and likes to swing around tall buildings. Chances are you have also played Batman: Arkham Asylum and know the score. If not, Batman Arkham Asylum is a third-person action-adventure game based on that Batman guy. Batman: Arkham Asylum was developed by Rocksteady Studios and was released in 2009. It was a good year to be a Bat, and the game was met with rave reviews and its fair share of awards.

Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to the successful Arkham Asylum. Arkham City is a maximum security prison for the nastiest criminals that Gotham City has to offer. As chance would have it, Bruce Wayne gets his ass tossed into Arkham City for opposing the new prison’s existence, and is forced to go all “Escape from New York”. Within moments, Bruce manages to score his crime-fighting equipment and become his alter ego, Batman. We all watch TV, anything can be got in prison if you know the right people. I don’t want to get all nuts with spoilers, so let’s sum up the story by saying that Catwoman drops in, Batman runs into an old flame, fails to get laid, Robin makes a brief appearance and Alfred is only a radio signal away. On “team naughty”, Batman bumps into a load of our favorite baddies, including Harley Quinn (damn, she’s annoying), Two-Face, Mr. Freeze (possibly the toughest boss fight of the game), The Joker, Penguin, Hugo Strange, Poison Ivy, Clayface and plenty more crazies.

Batman: Arkham City is a single-player game with the main storyline which sees Batman seeking a cure to a disease which could wipe out a superhero or two. In addition to the main story, you will regularly unlock side missions, which can either be completed right away or put aside for later. The side missions are just as good as those that are included in the main story, which makes for a lot of awesome added gameplay. In addition to the side missions, you’ve got the Riddler to contend with. Cataloging and collecting Riddler’s trophies is an addictive game within the game. Then there are the challenge maps, which make for some excellent mindless melee fun. Challenge maps are unlocked as you play through the game, and more are available in DLCs. There are three funky flavors to hone your Bat-skills with, including ranked leaderboard combat, timed campaigns, and custom rules.

Technical

In Arkham City, there is always a superhero around when people need one, in real life, there certainly was no superhero around to help me gain access to the game. First, you enter your key on Steam, then you enter your key for SecuRom (if you’re lucky it accepts it the first time; I was not lucky), then you have to tie it all together with Games for Windows Live. GFWL was the primary bottleneck. I spent an hour trying to log in to GFWL as it gave me some song and dance about needing to update. Like really, what’s the point of this kind of layering? The games are going to get pirated all the same, and according to many, the reason the PC version of Arkham City was delayed was so that they could maximize sales from the console versions first.

When Batman: Arkham City has released just over two weeks ago, PC gamers were disappointed to find out that DX 11 was buggered. Upon launch, Rocksteady immediately recommended DX 9, as reports of DX 11 performance issues began making the rounds. People wondered how something like this, a selling point like DX 11, could have made it through testing and out the door for launch. It took a couple of weeks, but a DX 11 patch was finally released. The outcome was not really worth the wait, and many are still plagued with low FPS and game-breaking bugs. I consider myself one of the lucky, as I only spent about four hours dealing with crashes and bugs that would not allow me to proceed further in the game.

Arkham City comes with a built-in benchmark tool, so using both that and Fraps I grabbed some quick stats to share. Right before publishing this review a patch was released for Batman: Arkham City, which in part addresses the DX 11 issues. Running Alienware M17x laptop /w NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M and 6GB RAM / 3D Vision (not 3D Vision 2), at 1920 x 1080. Both DX 9 and DX 11 were run with all settings max, including detail level, tessellation, and PhysX.

The DX 11 patch seems to be hit and miss. For many people, it solved the issue of poor frames while running DX 11. For others, it buggered things up even more. For me, the patch DID improve FPS in DX 11, but oddly lowered frames with DX 9. Go figure.

On my system, the best settings for performance and aesthetics are DirectX 11 (very high) and PhysX set to “Normal”, this works out perfectly both with and without 3D Vision enabled.

Combat

Combat in Arkham City is ridiculous, while also being ridiculously fun. Here’s the ridiculous bit… there were very few times during the game that I needed any sort of strategy in order to win an encounter. A couple of bosses had an attack pattern that had to be learned in order to defeat them, but outside of that, you can literally finish the game by repeatedly hitting your left mouse button. In fact, I broke a mouse playing Arkham City. Yup, button-mashed it to death. While using special attacks makes combat more fun, it isn’t actually necessary. Now for the ridiculously fun part… combat is an absolute joy to watch, and even if you don’t have mad take-down skills, the simple act of punching, kicking and evading is wicked fun. That said, if you want to kick ass on the challenge maps then you’ll need a bit more than button-mashing. The challenge maps are slightly more skill-based and if you want to rank then you’ll have to use combos and special moves.

Sometimes I thought I preferred combat while playing as Catwoman because she’s mean, lean and fast as hell. But after a while, I’d sort of start missing the Bat. Both characters have their own missions, skills, and gadgets, but the character I really would have liked to play is Robin. While the Robin Bundle DLC will allow you to play the Boy Wonder, you will only be able to do so on challenge maps. I’d rather be able to play him inside missions like you can with Catwoman. Sadly, Robin’s appearance in the game was very brief, and although he was looking buff, tough and not at all like the Robin we all grew up with, Batman simply bitched him out and told him to piss off. So that was that.

NVIDIA 3D Vision

One of my first experiences with 3D was seeing Friday The 13th Part 3 in 3D. I walked five miles through the snow with no shoes to see it at the theater. It was crap, but exciting at the same time, and it was the best we had. For the next quarter century, I would associate 3D with eye strain and headaches. Whenever I post about 3D Vision on VE3D the post is met with comments like “I’m too old for 3D, I don’t need the eye strain” or “3D gives me headaches”. Exactly the things that I had always associated with it. Well, Toto, it looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore! This ain’t grandma’s 3D. I’ll admit that I’ve reached the age where reading glasses come in handy. I didn’t have much interest in 3D. Mostly I was afraid to try it because I thought my head would explode. I guess I had read into the old school hype a bit too much. But I survived 3D, and am loving every second of it. Eye of the tiger baby, an eye of the tiger. Plus I look cool in the glasses.

Since I just recently began gaming in 3D, my experiences are limited. What I have noticed so far is that 3D Vision adds an extra layer of realism to games. 3D games come alive, giving you a greater feeling of actually being there. In Batman: Arkham City this is especially true, particularly when grappling around the city and using gadgets. Even cut scenes are great in 3D. All of the villains in Arkham City look amazing and force you to keep watching, even if you don’t normally enjoy cut scenes. Graphics look sharper, and cleaner and flaws that you would see while out of 3D tend to get smoothed over. If I was to slap a number on Batman: Arkham City without 3D Vision, the game would land a 7/10 (70%). While Arkham City is a truly entertaining trip through the gutters of Gotham, the bugs and the graphic issues that the game shipped with are not acceptable. Waiting over two weeks for a half-assed patch is also not acceptable.

Because 3DV enhanced my Arkham City experience, Batman: Arkham City 3D is a 9/10 (90%), and worth its weight in guano.

What I Liked:

Gloom and doom atmosphere makes for some very immersive gameplay.

The story is actually interesting, you’ll want to watch the cutscenes.

Both Batman and Catwoman show wear and tear in their costumes as the game go on.

Catwoman side-missions, it was fun to take a break from Batman and spend some time crawling on ceilings.

Challenge maps are a good workout and a nice change of pace, actually requiring some combat skill.

Voice acting is great.

I can’t wait to get back in and collect more Riddler trophies.

Arkham City is totally engrossing, and the experience is even further enhanced when playing in 3D.

What I Didn’t Like:

A three-layer activation process.

No side-missions for Robin.

Getting stuck to my Batarang on a block of ice for two hours.

Spending another two hours trying to figure out why I couldn’t dive-bomb.

I would have loved to see Arkham City in the daylight.

A little too much traveling back and forth across the city.

Combat, while fun to watch, requires no skill.

Crashing during the closing cinematic.

Finishing the game before a DX 11 patch was released.

Trying to find a good tutorial on 3DV video rendering.

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