In the dank and smoke-filled Stacked Deck Club in the grimiest neighborhood in Gotham City, a special table is set in the back. Though the establishment's usual patronage is almost exclusively men of shady backgrounds and ill-repute, not even the toughest, most hardened of them venture near. At the sound of cards shuffling, tapping against the table, and being doled out for a poker game of questionable legality, the patrons try to avert their eyes and pretend they're not paying any attention. Truth be told, they could not be more terrified. For at that table, five of the world's deadliest criminals have gathered to tell each other a tale.
Poison Ivy. Two-Face. Killer Croc. The Penguin. The Joker. As the cards fly and the night grows thick, thicker than the cigar smoke heavy in the air, one-by-one they tell a story. A story about how once, they came close to taking home the biggest prize of them all. Victory was so close, their fingers practically closing around it, the taste of it on their lips, before it was maddeningly pulled away. This is the night they tell each other the story of how they came so close, so tantalizingly close, to finally killing Batman before he grasped triumph from the jaws of defeat. This is the night they talk about how they almost got 'im.
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| As the other three watch Poison Ivy enter, the Joker stares through the television and into your soul. |
Almost Got 'Im was one of the most highly critically acclaimed episodes of the even more critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series. One of the few episodes to feature almost every major character (Catwoman, Detective Bullock, Commissioner Gordon, and Harley Quinn also guest-star), it shows the story of being beaten by Batman from the viewpoint of the villains, and throws in a few good twists involving the Dark Knight himself.
So what does this have to do with video games?
It's the inspiration for the series I'm going to be posting here. As I mentioned in my last post about Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, there is a plethora of games I've played and given up on. Some of them, however, I came so close to the end of that it makes almost no sense as to why I stopped without beating them. I reached a point where the final boss was arm's reach away and then . . . nothing. And I'd never play the game again.
That's why, in the weeks and months to come, I will dig up every single one of these abandoned titles and play them again, from scratch in most cases, and get through them all the way. I've already done one, which I'll talk about now, and then give you the list of the rest of the cases where I left a game right on the verge of finishing.
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| Replace the girl with a copy of Xenogears and you get the idea. |
This is the story of the games that got away.
This is how I almost got 'em.
