ILLUMINATI

To those who have already read Sandman by Neil Gaiman and are accustomed to his writing style, American gods won't be much of a disappointment. It is standard Gaiman: good plot, good writing, a mostly poor execution with a deus-ex-machina ending. American gods is guilty of the same format. The idea of a war between old gods vs the gods of technology is admittedly intriguing and cool. If executed precisely, it could have been a thought provoking exercise on society's reverence & mad zeal for both and the profound implications it has on society as a whole and on individual people. But what we actually have is a shadow of a story(pun intended) which could have been great if it could have been treated much more seriously. Even the deus-ex-machina ending, which could have been made interesting with proper execution, feels like a dud and can be seen coming from a mile away. Provided, Gaiman has always been accused of using deus-ex-machina in a lot of his stories, most notably...

One of the important reasons that I was so excited about this game was for its purported story and the subject matter it chose to talk about. Which is, needless to say, a road less traveled. Every Batman story tries to talk about him at his peak, his most badass awesomeness of being Batman and the cool use of gadgets and the secret thrills of soaring the skies of nighttime gotham terrorizing street punks. The previous Arkham games have been guilty of the same. They were fun-filled games with heavy emphasis on the gadget/stealth/terror part rather than on the actual story of Batman and what made him to be what he is. When one emphasizes on the fun part of being Batman, he clearly forgets what it is to be Batman and what the highly demanding, soul destroying cost was to become Batman. Sure, Batman is amazing and at his best while he takes down thugs sneakily, but one has to understand that after all that is done, he goes to brood in a cave filled with nothing but bats and ...