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Batman Strangles Mark Hamill
Death reports that Mark Hamill is reprising his role as The Joker in an upcoming Batman video game, Arkham Asylum. It's great to see Hamill working in video games - hopefully a Wing Commander relaunch could be done with the same type of voicework/realistic CGI combination. Kotaku says:
The big star, though, is Mark Hamill as The Joker. I’m glad they got him instead of going for a Heath Ledger sound-alike –- it solidifies Arkham Asylum as a Batman game that stands apart from the movies. Besides, the role of main psychopath is a demanding one. From beginning to game over screen, the pinstripe-sporting super villain is there, taunting the caped crusader, goading him and generally being absolutely crazy at every opportunity. You need a star like Hamill to carry the performance.
There's an interesting Electronic Arts connection here, too. EA had the 'Batman' license until December 2008. A series of development issues prevented them from putting out a planned Dark Knight game - first for the release of the movie and then for the release of the DVD. The studio behind the attempt, Pandemic, was among the first laid off several weeks ago. It's not a good time to screw up with that amount of money...
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When You're Write You're Right
Develop, a European game development magazine, has collected a "writers roundtable" of developers to discuss 'the future of the cutscene'. One of the panelists, Rhianna Pratchett, brings up Wing Commander in Part Two:
RP: I think Westwood’s use of them in the Command and Conquer series was always pretty stylistic, as were the Wing Commander games with Mark Hamill. This is another argument for having writers and narrative designers in from the start – you really have to design structure so well to be able to tell a story without cutscenes, or with very few, or with interactive ones. It’s a really high bar for developers to reach, and I think the cutscene, while it has become overused, definitely can be blended with other storytelling techniques.
It's great to hear Wing Commander mentioned - especially from a woman whose most recent credit is writing for Electronic Arts' new Mirror's Edge IP (Part One of the roundtable is available here)
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