Andrea Romano Week: Batman Beyond: Heroes

Well greetings and salutations my readers and welcome to Day 3 of Andrea Romano Week.  After the success rate of both Batman: The Animated Series and The New Adventures of Batman, head of programming Jamie Keller got the crew in to praise their work and ask them if they could do another Batman themed series.  To gather a wider audience of kids they wanted a teenage Batman and bring this all new show to green lit and production.  With the help of voice casting director Andrea Romano, she managed to find some previous actors from Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series as well as some new cast to handle the load.  This is Batman Beyond: Heroes.

Chilly reception.

Just another crime-ridden night in Gotham as high-tech thieves in rocket belts trying to rip off a new microchip and Batman (Will Fridle of Boy Meets World, Kim Possible, Static Shock, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Green Lantern: The Animated Series) is in hot pursuit when three super-powered beings capture the thieves and handle the damage.

 In a released interview from Wayne/Powers Industries they state these three scientists were exposed to radiation altering their DNA making them The Terrific Trio...  say that sounds vaguely familiar.  Magma (Robert Davi of The Goonies, Die Hard, The Living Daylights and Profiler) Freon (Laura San Giacomo of Pretty Woman, Quigley Down Under, Just Shoot Me!,  Saving Grace and Few Options) and 2-D Man (Jeff Bennett of James Bond Jr., Johnny Bravo, Transformers: Rescue Bots, The Legend of Korra and Jake and the Never Land Pirates) are sponsored by the government and it seems Gotham is in good hands, Terry/Batman wonders if he is even needed now but Bruce remains skeptical about them and the situation.  

Yeah, gonna feel that in the morning.

 As time progresses, Magma starts to resent humanity given he cannot shift back into human and cannot have a real relationship with Freon.   Batman finds out that their physiology is so damaged it may mean they will not be able to survive let alone their condition may not have been an accident.  Will Batman have to fight them?  Will the government cover it up?

Andrea Romano had to team up with veteran voice actors like Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series, New Adventures of Batman, Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League), Teri Garr, Seth Green,Michael Rosenbaum, Olivia d' Abo, Kevin Michael Richardson offers a huge diverse collection like Paul Winfield, George Lazenby, Henry Rollins, Angie Harmon, Carl Lumbly and Christopher McDonald bringing life to the characters and bringing realistic problems and events to a fictional standing.  The series is as well grounded as Static Shock giving the teen issues presence.

To the Baxter... I mean the Terrific Tower!

Andrea Romano Week

Good day and hello to my readers and sorry if I didn't make it clear on Facebook as I was stumped for a week.  Luckily I managed to drag myself out of that, kick my muse in the tuckus and get some neurons and electrons flowing to the coconut to bring you Andrea Romano Week.   Who the heck is that some of you are asking?   Well, this woman is one of the most influential voice casting directors in the biz.   Still no idea?  I feel her work speaks for itself but I am willing to give you some highlights.  From putting voices to faces as far back as the Smurfs and getting recognition in the business for her success with a WB logistics nightmare Tiny Toons, our heroine went on to being forced to endure such bile as The Flintstone Kids, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and The Land Before Time direct-to-video sequels when she got the call that would change her stance in the industry forever.

Yes, I do know Batman's secret identity...

Getting the hero and villains for Batman: The Animated Series.   Yes, scooping up Kevin Conroy for Batman, Mark Hamil for the Joker, Adrienne Barbeau for Catwoman, John Glover for The Riddler and Richard Moll for Two-Face, her ship had come in.  Mind you a gathering of these actors were stuck in a dinky studio during a infamous riot in L.A. and she had to leap down executives throats to point out how dangerous it is for them to be there and to post-pone the filming... hey you need to speak to Conroy or Hamil how that ended.  She is the go-to gal for the animation.  The lady that gets the talent to the pencil and ink and has more than 30 years experience in the biz, it is safe to know she will get the ace folk for the gig.  With that in mind we will touch base on her successful casting with a few episodes for each blockbuster collection.

Andrea Romano, you have been chosen as Green Lantern of Sector 2814!

Ghost of N64 Week: Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker

Welcome N64 fans and all the others that were expecting an movie or TV review.  Today's topic is based on Warner Brothers futuristic Batman story arc.  25 years into the future, Bruce Wayne has become a senior citizen, crime still haunts the mega-city version of Gotham and a new breed of cyberpunks, meta-humans and oddballs still attack the people of Gotham, but along with the wave of criminals comes a new Batman ready to solve crimes, wail on the baddies and bring them to justice.  Based of the animated movie comes a game giving its all to homage the film.  This is Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker N64.

Captivating title screen!!!

Being a typical beat 'em up side-scroller, the play of course is the futuristic Batman who wanders through levels with a fair degree of the depth in background allowing for 3-D movement.  The game allows the player to select and switch out between four bat suits in-game.  Each suit has its own strengths and weaknesses.  Standard Suit is mostly offensive strength and shields allowing for weapons like the Dark Knight Discus (Because Shuriken would have been hard to spell), Magnetic Nunchuku (Yeah, kinda wish I made that one up) and the Dark Knight Staff.  Offensive Suit: Stronger attacks but is easily damaged making it the most fragile of the suits.  Defense Suit: Weaker attacks but does protect from damage greater than the suits in the game, plus allows more items. It also gives the player two defensive shields to deflect almost all enemy attack and lets you bash a head in with the Shield Punch.  Nimble Suit:  Gives the player the double-jump, gliding and jumping kicks.  Allows for some extra items but so far as I know the glide only seems to have that one function.

Also my Big Gulp spilled and may have fried the panels.

And now of course, a few complaints and compliments for the game.

With the cut scenes throughout this game, you get the feeling they were really trying to capture the essence of the movie but without any real attempt to get the voice acting, sound or screen capture it, it feels a bit on the level of 16 bit.  When I got this, I was hoping for a few digitized cut scenes from the actual flick interspersed with the game.  Instead, I get scroll text to read, a looped intro of the Batman Beyond theme music and a Final Fight, Double Dragon feel.  This is a typical and lazy formula not allowing for story to unfold, clues to be found and gives it a very stilted version of Batman we have seen before.

The Batlad is being taught how to fight,survive and be a detective and none of that is coming through the game.  Even fans of the cartoon this is based on could not stay interested in it.  Heck, my best friend's son was playing it for about 25 minutes and he got bored, turned the volume down so the music would stop annoying him and asked for a new game.  With a count of 16 levels I am guessing they mean for each screen to be a level because I thought it was only 4 but most games show or indicate when you defeat one level after another.  Action packed was the original box's claim.  Action packed must mean walk to series of bad guys, punch and kick them, rinse and repeat. No use of the voice work from the movie though.  I mean it was already in the can, so what was the problem there?

The controls are a bit off as R button can be tapped once to switch from swagger walk (because he looks like he is swaying his hips) and running and lastly, the fricking weapons.  No gas pellets, phosphorous flares or even batarangs.  So all the good toys of distraction and non-lethal ordinance we associate with Batman have been scrapped.  That being said, I'd give it to the neighborhood dog to chew on but I don't want the ASPCA at my door for animal cruelty.

WHEW!!!  Avoid that bathroom, people!