2. The Dance Dance Revolution Fight (Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy)
Proper martial arts choreography has filtered throughout pop culture - including the superior fighting mechanics of the Arkham games - thanks to their use in The Matrix, where directors the Wachowskis pinched a load of cues from Chinese and Hong Kong cinema. Along with actually believable punches and kicks, they also employed the sort of wire work also seen in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, with characters flying all about the place as they hit each other really hard. It was super cool in both those films. It is a lot less cool in Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy as it's known in the US). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uT5Z1JG1lE The first big push towards "cinematic games" by the aforementioned French studio Quantic Dream - of course they're bloody French - had a similarly twisty narrative to Heavy Rain, with mysterious murders and the like. It also abandoned all sense fairly early on, bringing in supernatural elements like giant dust mites. It also ran almost entirely on shonky quick time events, from a terribly un-arousing sex scene to the climactic "boss" fight that took the high-flying Matrix choreography to a frankly sill extreme, and which involved pushing buttons to a rhythm like a dancing game. So serious, so deep, wow.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
