Favourite Elseworlds novel?

[Silver Nemesis]

Gotham by Gaslight is one of the best Elseworld stories ever written. A game based on it could have been fun. Obviously the Arkham series is fantastic. But as SilentEnigma points out, the two separate development teams could have led to two complimentary game franchises coexisting, rather than just the one at the expense of the other.

The gameplay would be differentiated from the Arkham series by the lack of hi-tech gadgets in the Victorian Batman's arsenal. Instead you'd have to rely of old fashioned deductive thinking and fingerprint dusting to track down your enemies. Perhaps one day they'll revive the idea for a handheld system.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcqba8moqX8

[Azrael]

Not to mention, bucketloads of atmosphere. I admit I'm pretty big on a game's backgrounds (not just their graphical quality, that's taken for granted, but what they present) and "Victorian" Gotham looks lovely.

[Silver Nemesis]

I admit I'm pretty big on a game's backgrounds (not just their graphical quality, that's taken for granted, but what they present) and "Victorian" Gotham looks lovely.

Same here. I'm a big fan of old-school survival horror games, so atmosphere is a big selling point for me. The foggy Victorian look in that footage reminds me a little of the old Playstation game Nightmare Creatures. It also reminds me of one of my favourite GameCube games, Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain. That one wasn't set in the Victorian era, but it had a Victorian-vibe to it. And the gameplay mechanics involved a mixture of stealth, combat and puzzle solving similar to Arkham City.

It's a real pity they never finished the Gotham by Gaslight game. It could have been a classic. Maybe one day they'll adapt it into an animated movie.

[Azrael]

It's funny, Nightmare Creatures was exactly the game I had in mind. As for Blood Omen 2, the biggest fan of the classic Legacy of Kain series someone is, the more problems with the plot and some character designs of Blood Omen 2 has These two are subjective elements of course, solid (if hard) action/adventure with some great Victorian/steampunk environments..

Yeah, a pity this Gaslight game never materlialized. It had potential to even expand the stories in this setting if it was a success and they made sequels.

[Silver Nemesis]

As for Blood Omen 2, the biggest fan of the classic Legacy of Kain series someone is, the more problems with the plot and some character designs of Blood Omen 2 has  These two are subjective elements of course, solid (if hard) action/adventure with some great Victorian/steampunk environments..

Really? I haven't played many of the other games in the series, so I'm totally ignorant of how it fits into the broader mythology. I completed Legacy of Kain: Defiance on the PS2, and I briefly played Soul Reaver 2 once, but the only one I ever really liked was the second one. I loved the glide manoeuvre and the way Kain used telekinesis to drink people's blood. And the soundtrack was awesome.

I also liked Simon Templeman's performance as the voice of Kain. He also played Lord Nor/General Zod during the New Krypton story arc in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Speaking of Nightmare Creatures, was the third one ever released? I remember hearing rumours about it for the PS2 but I never saw it in the shops.

[Azrael]

With Blood Omen 2 I finally see the pain of Batman fans that hate Batman Returns! To tell you the truth, I loved it in its day, the chance to play as Kain in a 3D action/adventure was irresistible, his various attack moves and special "gifts" were lots of fun. The victorian/steampunk environments, the mansions etc. felt appropriately "gothic", but its aesthetics when it comes to character designs felt a lot more "comic book" compared to the sword & sorcery style of the other games, especially the original. The latter can be explained because a completely different team worked on Blood Omen 2, and much of their designs originated for a Chakan game for Dreamcast. That project followed Dreamcast's destiny, but a lot of their designs made it for Blood Omen 2. Chakan makes an appearance in one of the game's stained glass textures.



Plot-wise, it functions almost as a side-story and if completely removed from the timeline nothing changes really. It's set a few centuries (I think 200 years) after the original Blood Omen, and maybe a millenia before Soul Reaver. The Soul Reaver/ Defiance teams were forced to work the major issue with it, namely the aliens (Hylden) in the timeline, and many a fan tried to work out ways in which Vorador's inexplicable appearance (he was decapitated in the original) was possible. Nosgoth's geography was completelly different too. As cool as The Eternal Prison was, how eternal it was if it didn't exist a mere 200 years before (in BO's timeline) and if the ruins of Nupraptor's retreat survived Soul Reaver (a millenia after) then they would still be somewhere in BO2's map, to name a few. "Word of God" (series director Amy Henning) actually put it in an alternate timeline (the series always played with time paradoxes), but that was a retroactive decision.

Needless to say, it divides fans to this day, but this being your favourite game it shows that it can work on its own merits. Completely agree on Simon Templeman, he was Kain in Blood Omen, and his performance carried the character in all the rest of the games. If David Warner was unavaible, he should have voiced Ra's Al Ghul.

As for Nightmare Creatures 3, frankly I don't know. I loved the original but I didn't like 2 very much. A quick google revealed an IGN article http://uk.ign.com/games/nightmare-creatures-3-angel-of-darkness/ps2-17524

(sorry for this sermon/ wall of text, it was expected, 1996's Blood Omen was "my Zelda"! The video below contains all cutscenes, but much of the story is told through in-game voice overs)

[The Dark Knight]

I'd go with these:

Gotham By Gaslight
Master of the Future
Red Rain
Bloodstorm
Crimson Mist
Kingdom Come
Speeding Bullets
Batman Year 100
The Doom That Came To Gotham
Holy Terror
Red Son

TDK Returns is my undisputed number one.

*edited to include Red Son

[Silver Nemesis]

No Superman: Red Son?

[The Dark Knight]

How could I forget that one?

It's a minor role for Batman, but it's probably my favorite Batman v Superman fight from the comics.

[Silver Nemesis]

Come to think of it, Red Son is probably my favourite Superman vs. Batman fight too.

Another Elseworlds story I love is Batman/Dark Joker: The Wild. I first read this when I was about 9 or 10 and found it profoundly disturbing. I've read it dozens of times since, and it still freaks me out a little. If you like Doug Moench and Kelley Jones' collaborations on the Batman Vampire trilogy, there's a good chance you'll enjoy this too. It's essentially Batman in a Tolkien/Warhammer dark fantasy context, with the Joker cast as an evil necromancer and Batman as a literal winged beast. It also displays some narrative influences from the 1989 movie – most notably the Joker being the one who kills Batman's parents.

I don't want to overhype it. To be honest, it's not a great comic. The mechanics of the supernatural plot are a tad too esoteric in places, and there are some glaring inconsistencies in Jones' artwork. But I still love it for nostalgic reasons and the effect it had on me as a child. It's dark and colourful at the same time. Twisted, imaginative and disturbing. Give it a look.