Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City

Based on the demo this looks like it might be good. It's out at the end of the month.

High production values, gloomy asylum atmosphere, Mark Hamill etc. Good sense of psychologically torturing the dumb henchman from the shadows. Only problem is it might just turn into a samey gargoyle hopping exercise if they can't keep introducing new things to do at a decent rate. It is also slightly haunted by the spectre of "press x to trigger minute long cutscene of a beating" rather than actually requiring much dexterity. I don't usually mind that sort of shit if it's immersive enough though.

demo for this is great. looks awesome, fun combat.

not really sure who would build gargoyles INSIDE a building tho.

Arkham, apparently. The criminally insane find them soothing.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/batman-arkham-asylum-review?page=3

9s all round, so far. Only lasts 10-15 hours apparently though.

looks like a must rent.

Excited for this. The demo was excellent. Seems like the only knock on the game is that the boss battles are kinda lame.

xps yeah, definitely feels like a good budget PC purchase for next year, maybe along with Ghostbusters

My fellow Amerikaner schweinhund who are interested in this should know getting it at Best Buy gets you a $10 gift card and a couple of B:TAS movies on dvd (Mask of the Phantasm and the less-awesome Mr Freeze movie). A friend of mine preordered from gamestop for the extra challenge level; if it's not a download voucher but rather a code for stuff that's already on the disc (like the "bonus" multiplayer levels for Red Faction) I'll post it here.

tempted to get it today but i will wait until friday

get it from toys r us for $60 and get a $30 in-store credit, I think

you need to be a "rewards r'us" member for that, but i think that's a free sign-up?

That offer's over, sadly- 10 to 2 only today.

the internet and reviewers are going crazy for this game

Sat down to play an hour of this and hey, wow, it's midnight. SO GOOD. The controls can be a bit fiddly, but this is one of the best-paced, most atmospheric games I've played in ages. Only major complaint so far is that the Scarecrow section, which I have no intention of spoiling*, was far too short.

And it's so geeky! I'm not a huge fan of his comics work (though B:TAS is undeniably classic), but it's great to see Paul Dini given free reign to be Mr. Continuity in a high-profile game targeted at the general public instead of sad comic beardos like me. For fuck's sake, THE CREEPER makes a brief cameo appearance.

what? awesome!

Yeah, i think i may have to buy this tomorrow.

Er, I got bored in the second corridor of the demo, as soon as it wanted me to shoot the batarang at those chattering teeth. Seemed like such a lame implementation compared to the batarang use in, say, Lego Batman.

I think they get you to use it in different ways once you get past the second corridor

Well, the first corridor was pretty boring too.

I get the feeling this is going to be really great if ur a big batman fan; I like batman OK but I've never read any of the comics or anything so I think I'll wait till it hits sub-£20 (next month, inevitably)

Seems like a classic rental to me.

Well, the first corridor was pretty boring too.

Would you prefer to learn the controls via a big picture of a controller and a bunch of arrows?

Don't get butthurt, Boy Wonder. I'll give it another go when I get a chance.

http://i36.tinypic.com/2uy5cpj.jpg

Don't get butthurt, Boy Wonder.

rolleyes.gif

videos make the combat in this look kind of annoying (and prince of persia-esque), although i don't know else they would have done it. is it?

Gameplay is average and probably it's weakest point. It's really heavy on tutorials especially at the start where I wish the game would just stfu and let me play. Another stfu goes out to joker. Don't need him to comment every time batman picks his nose. Slightly overrated but still high quality and fun

Yeah I'm not enamoured of this. It's too... cartoony. I know, I know.

i agree, wish it was more based off the movie chars. the comic has too much 50's pleasantville schlock to it

I just ordered this (incidentally, the first PS3 gave I've ever bought), and if it doesn't make me wet my pants with geekery, I'm blaming you all.

The combat is quite good, it's simple but it doesn't reward mashing and there's enough of a sense that you're besieged by a lot of guys but still the favourite because you're the Batman.

For how short the game is it does feel like there's quite a lot of time spent getting used to it, and yeah it's annoying to have the Joker repeat himself so much, particularly if you mess up a stealth bit and have to restart from the checkpoint and trigger the same speech every time.

Boss levels/fights so far have been great (two side-scrolling gimmick levels and a great dumb action movie payoff to a boss fight).

The title screen promises free DLC soon. I'm hoping they'll do a few free bits and pieces because of how short it is.

Also the number 1 leaderboard guy on the first stealth challenge has 0:28, what the fuck

think we're the only msg board on the internet tht is overwhelmingly lukewarm abt this game

I am really enjoying it, I just also enjoy pointing out things that aren't good about things.

i agree, wish it was more based off the movie chars. the comic has too much 50's pleasantville schlock to it

I often thought that it wasn't Val Kilmer-ey enough.

maybe that's the DLC.

this game rules. yall some nitpicky motherfuckers.

Should I buy this on the way home Y or N
GO

plz bear in mind i am still finding enjoyment in civ rev right now

Should I play this on hard? Combat seems too button-mashy and easy at the moment.

so many questions

watching goons get progressively more freaked out as you take down their buddies one by one is pretty satisfying. also the way that pushing the left stick all the way forward doesn't make batman run--dude just walks, very confidently for a guy in a cape.

Yeah it's good how there's often not even much temptation to move faster than a purposeful stride because it just looks about right.

At one point I could hear insane gibbering somewhere in the garden without being able to find anyone, only to realise there was an escaped patient hanging off the top of a huge statue of Arkham, repeatedly slapping the head. I pulled him off with the bat claw and he landed in the most heinously contorted position, possibly the most obvious "uh dude he's definitely actually dead not unconscious" moment I've had.

Batman lore possibly has a slightly creepy/terrible attitude towards mental health

This game is the best. Not only is it the first superhero game that makes you feel like you're the hero in his every aspect (as opposed to the Spidey games, which got swinging and crawling great and everything else sucks) but it's a better stealth game in a lot of ways than Metal Gear. I love how balanced the combat is! The bad guys seem to be able to take about as many hits as you, and you really get the sense that you're up against a room full of bad guys and the reason you come out on top is not that they're all really weak or that you have some artificial advantage but that they're a bunch of thugs and you're BATMAN.

Combat is gorgeous and looks and seems like Assassin's Creed until you realize you actually have to develop skills with it or else you're gonna die!

I got 231 of 240 riddles when I finished the game.. So close.

I think you can keep playing after you finish the story.

The combat is better than Assassin's Creed because they're smart enough to attack you while you're hitting someone else if you don't time it smartly, and you have to balance attack and defence and pick your targets rather than just standing still and pressing the counter button until everybody's dead.

I kinda feel like the short playtime and great reviews suggest this is gonna be in heavy supply in about a month and a half as a used game for 35 bucks.

I've been using pretty much all of my gaminG time to practice drumming in preparation for the inevitable RB: Beatles party, but aside from the weak Riddler challenges, this is still crazy fun. And there's been another Scarecrow attack! I love those. Still waiting on the imminent Killer Croc (Ron Perlman yay) boss fight; I've been finding his interview tapes and he's been popping up to snarl and yell I CAN SMELL YOUR CUNT or whatever.

the Scarecrow scenes start off awesome but become the worst thing about the game once the "fights" start, just boring stealth platforming with a nonsensical end.

giant Scarecrow with laserbeam eyes and hypodermic fingers: that's just dumb.

giant Scarecrow with laserbeam eyes and hypodermic fingers: that's just dumb AWESOME.

fixed

not just dumb, but totally not fun. even once was too much.

The Killer Cros boss 'fight' was some bullshit. Really like this game in spite of the lame boss fights tho.

Croc. Ugh.

haven't played it yet but I kind of applaud the conceptual idea of making the boss fights terrible so that the regular fights, which make up 90% of the gameplaying experience, come across even better

The more epic boss fights involve fighting waves of minions, and yes, those are the best parts.

I think my major qualm is that on most screens the different gameplay styles aren't mixed together enough. Its very rare that you are climbing around and then suddenly have to fight. And some of the tools feel similarly limited. Like when you first get the claw, you use it on like 2 boxes and then its useless (until quite a bit later.)

Best thing I've done so far:

1. String thug up
2. Spray proximity-triggered explosive gel below thug
3. Wait for thug's buddy to notice and run towards him
4. Cut thug down with batarang onto explosives

A+++

I think the moment I knew I would like this game was when I cut down a goon to drop him right onto one of his fellow mooks and was told I'd earned a trophy called "Rope-a-Dope-a-Dope."

Just got this.

When I leveled up for the first time, I was scrolling through the upgrades and saw INVERTED TAKEDOWN!!!!! I don't care that at this point it's virtually worthless, hanging a goon from a gargoyle entirely justifies this game.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/arts/television/05asylum.html

Yeah I hate A Confederacy of Dunces.

My friend got this. I cannot wait until he's beaten it so I get my turn.

*eyeroll* at that NYT review intro

I wonder if one of the things that makes this game so awesome is that in every other stealth game you get pissed off at how stupid the guys are, and in this game they're the Joker's henchmen, so they like have to be stupid by law and it doesn't bother you.

My spatial awareness is so shit that in stealth games I just get confused and run around in front of the guys with guns, so I'm quite grateful for the stupidity of these ones and the fact that I can see them outlined in red.

It does bug me when I carefully knock a guy out next to some explosives on a challenge map and his friends stand around nearby without noticing, though.

I found the B-Movie shitness of the Croc bit quite funny, like the same inexplicable underground whack-a-mole routine repeated endlessly with daft orchestral stings. Third Scarecrow bit drew laughter, especially the load screen.

I thought the reviews were bullshitting about the lifespan of this given how the story isn't long, but I can see playing it again and I'm not remotely bored of doing the four challenges I've unlocked.

if anything is better than a pleasant surprise, it has to be a pleasant surprise involving Mark Hamill.

I keep forgetting that the Joker is Mark Hamill and when I remember, I'm just like "Is there no end to the delights this man has given me during my life?"

Dropping down to talk to tied-up hostages, telling them not to worry and then swinging back up into the roof area to pick off the bad guys one by one is pretty much Batman distilled to the point of perfection.

Kevin Conroy deserves some love.

Okay, this is great. No idea it was so metroidvania-y.

Am I the only person who goes through most of the game in Detective Mode?

haha, no; I keep catching myself doing that.

I feel like a weenie for Detective Moding my way through the game. o_O

Wow, that part with the three electrified platforms is super-rad!!!! I just wish that the Challenge version of that stage followed the same format, that would've been A++.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8256405.stm

Is new DLC out now?

Supposed to come out today, yeah.

Bought this nonsense.

It sucks that the first level of this game is the same as the demo. I really had to drag myself to get through it again last night.

Isn't the demo nearly always the first level? What else would it be?

True but I like complaining about stuff.

ok some game designer really ought to mindfuck us w/ a demo that is the end of the game

Batman would be that game! But it isn't that game. Poly, you have some MGS-level mindfucks waiting for you

Another problem with the first level is that I watched my friend play it and I watched another friend play the demo AND I played the demo, so I got to see it four times.

So yeah, very excited to be moving on to something new.

This is one of the best things I've played this year. I don't know if that's high praise for the game, tho, or just a good indication of how disappointing 2009 has been for gaming (esp compared to last year, which was one of the greatest years of gaming of my life).

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/rebecca-mayes-muses/1052-Batman-Arkham-Asylum

cheesy in so many ways, i know, but i was amused enough

just rented this

this game has been pretty good so far but i wasn't prepared for the awesomeness of the corridor -> alleyway flashback scene. i was seriously blown away by that, competes with anything in the batman movies.

the way it uses videogame mechanics to tell this super-familiar story was so smart and inventive. like the way (after you cough, which alerts you something is up) that the location description pops up as "wayne manor" when you think you're just going through arkham mansion on your way to the next quest... it's a part of the game that you expect to be just a mundane retracing your steps to get back to the main area thing... not prepared at all for something big...

sorry im super hungover right now and i don't think i really articulated that well.

Oh, you've seen nothing yet. There's one Scarecrow scene (the next and final one, if I remember correctly) that's one of my favorite video game sequences in years.

I really should rent this if it's going to persist in not coming down in price

Multiple places have it for $40 on Black Friday.

i think im on that scarecrow scene (if it's the one right after)

lolbritain doesn't do black friday : /

USA! USA! USA!

s1ocki- did you catch the game last night?

the hockey game?

Just testing. You haven't gotten to the awesome one yet.

I got to the awesome one tonight and played till after the Poison Ivy fight. I'm guessing I'm near the end?

i got to the awesome one yesterday. the level after, where you have to walk slowly thru the sewers, kinda sucked tho

^^ real talk. It was the only level in the game I thought was a drag though and it's pretty short

like why they thought a mazey tunnel level, which was gonna suck no matter how you sliced it, would be BETTER if you had to walk slowly and drag it out, is totes beyond me!

I cant see how the developer thought that Killer Croc sequence was cool in any way. You had to work him in some way but damn. Its the only blemish on an almost perfect game.

why won't this damn game's price drop already, argh

^co-sign

we shd just rent it, I guess, but I've never rented a game in my life

I finally finished. Should I work on finishing all the riddler stuff? I do love achievement points...

riddler shit is rad imo

lol, yeah. Just finished it. The ending to the collection stuff is pretty cool. Now I just need 3 medals on every challenge stage... (I may not get perfect knight.)

(xpost) likewise, I've never rented a game either. Sounds like it would take a lot of effort. Batman was £27 on play.com about a week ago, but that's the only time I've seen it under £30. I need something drastic to happen so I can stay under my £20 rule. I'm sure Play will stick it on £17.99 within the next couple of months....

we shd just rent it, I guess, but I've never rented a game in my life

― coz (webinar), Friday, November 13, 2009 1:33 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

!

wait, it would take a lot of effort to rent a game?? have you ever rented a movie? the process is super-similar!!!

you mean like...from a store? do they still have those?

I have never rented a movie either!!!! I don't even have a membership!!!!!!!

http://www.gamefly.com/

and i'm sure britishers have something similar

don't be so sure, we don't even have taco bell

blockbusterdotcom

£27 is a good price, considering people pay £10 for 2 hours of entertainment at the Cinema.

I'd buy it for £27 and hope to trade it in for £10, thus costing you £17.

Its a fun game, and I'm not sure it'll hit under £20 till next summer.

I also have a spare US special edition for cheaps if any britishers are interested. (unwanted prize)

lol, yeah. Just finished it. The ending to the collection stuff is pretty cool. Now I just need 3 medals on every challenge stage... (I may not get perfect knight.)

Why you always gotta make me feel inadequate, Mordy?

I got 3 medals on one of the combat challenges, but the others are brutal. The prowler stuff is much easier.

I feel so small right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2KOeYhBRUs

Finished it last knight(!), and my one tip is when you are fighting both Titans & normal guys, ignore the normal guys and just concentrate on running away from the titans and then getting them to charge through the crowd of normal guys. and when you are on the Titans back, use that to plough into the normal guys.

the End battle wasn't great but I hate to get stuck on the end of game boss for weeks so the straightforward fight was actually quite welcome.

Overall I think it was worth the hype and need to knuckle down and get the challenge trophies.

£17.99 delivered on gamestation.co.uk... not worth trying to figure out how to rent when you can get it that cheap!

Arkham Asylum sequel confirmed, video doesn't give much away but will totally be looking forward to this.

Arkham Has Moved

Wait are they really calling it Arkham Asylum 2? Why not make another Batman game with a new location?

It doesn't have a title yet, people are just calling it AA2 for now. Judging by the video they are moving the action to Gotham itself, at least certain parts of it.

So Dini, Conroy, Hamill (if Joker's in it) are involved?

arkham asylum 2 is an anagram of mark hamill is in it

some leee level analysis of trailer:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gt-pop-block-batman-arkham/60076

I resemble that comment, jerkface.

ok wow. what a great game - just finished it, and it is prob going to get my #1 spot for the year.

I just finished this too (well, the main story), on Monday night. Really is a great game, and I still have lots of the challenges to do before I consider it 'finished' proper. The final battle left me a little bitter, as it was a bit rubbish though (I generally hate boss battles anyway).

Unless my two 3-hour train journeys this weekend get me deep into Zelda I reckon it could be the only contender for the top spot for me.

in the week since finishing it, this really slid down the scale for me - partially because i am not getting into the challenges really, and partially because i have like zero interest in replaying the main game, which is a problem

Finally got round to ordering this - £17.99 at play.com. I'm aiming to hoover up a good <£20 game at least once a month this year to avoid my PS3 becoming a stupidly expensive DVD player.

Status: awaiting stock

bastards :(

okay I played the demo of this over the weekend and WOW THIS IS SORT OF TOTALLY MY TYPE OF SHIT

Still waiting. Fuck a play.com.

That's play.com all over these days. I had "awaiting stock" on three different items for 6 weeks each in the run up to christmas, before I cancelled them all and went to HMV instead.

hi dere - u should play this.

it is insane how much fun it is to hang upside-down from a gargoyle and wait

also, is it cheating to play the whole game in detective mode?

no but i found i switched between both cuz it's sort of easier to take in the geography with it off

I have gotten to Bane. Holy shit this game is fantastic. The Scarecrow level was like OMG

i beat it well before finishing coint and plick. It's a winner alright. Finished with the full riddle and greatest detective achievement; still sorta tempted to go for perfect knight.

Trying to get all the combat challenges but then gave up because I realised only 15 year olds have the time and skill to get 50000 on any of the levels.

I was once that 15 year old but many moons have passed since then.

For realz, you guys are making me feel old.

Still waiting. Fuck a play.com.

― inoffensive alterna-poppage (onimo), Tuesday, 26 January 2010 16:56 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Seriously

finally picked this up for cheapish over the weekend and yes it owns sensationally. definitely would have placed over Uncharted 2 in my C&P ballot, although I guess I haven't gotten to the alleged most infuriating sections yet. I did get stuck for an embarrassingly long time on the first Riddler challenge though.

being in detective mode is not very conducive to solving the first Riddler challenge, tbf

I have actually been trying to resist detective mode as much as possible since it does seem slightly game-breaking (although IRL Batman would probably have detective mode on constantly for that very reason).

Are there notable differences between the PS3 and 360 versions of this? I've been waiting ages for the PS3 one and now the 360 one's going cheap and is in stock.

PS3 version has levels where you can play as the joker i think?

btw guess who downloaded the levels where you can play as the Joker over the weekend? ^_^

Thanks jjj, guess I'll just wait and wait and wait.

The Joker levels are for the online challenges, right?

16/01/2010 Batman: Arkham Asylum (PlayStation3)

£17.99
Posted: 26/02/2010

Better be worth the wait!

btw it is

beating up a room full of bad guys NEVER GETS OLD; this is also the first game where I've really wanted to counter attacks because the fight animation is so rad

Yep, this game is so great. I got it over the weekend. OTM about the temptation to stay in Detective Mode all the time and Scarecrow levels being super cool. Really started to love the combat once I got the rhythm of it.

Questions: I'm guessing there are a lot of hidden areas/Riddler stuff I can't get to until I have X amount of Metroid-style upgrades (say, to get those explodable walls that are above the ground), so I probably shouldn't try to get all that stuff until much later in the game and backtrack then? I'm still picking up a lot but at the end of each chapter I always wonder if I should head back.

Also, at least on PC, I'm encountering some weird control quirks I had to patch out in the .inis since I'm using a PS2 controller (inverted analog stick stuff - most annoying that Evade works opposite the way it's supposed to and can't be fixed) but the weirdest thing is that the D-pad gadget selecting stuff doesn't work right, I can't pick any gadget that's on a diagonal axis (like the Crytographer) and sadly have to reach for the keyboard when this happens. Anyone else encounter this?

I really have to say that the rendition of Scarecrow in this game is like one of the scariest fucking things ever, like it really makes him worthy of being a main Batman villain.

also holy shit at that Szasz interview tapes

yeah theres a bunch of riddler shit that you cant get until you get more gadgets.

xp LOVE the interview tapes, they scratch the same kind of extra-narrative itch the Bioshock audio diaries did

I've played through the first couple of levels and I'm loving this. Combat has a great feel to it, detective mode is aces, atmosphere is spot on. Want all the extra abilties and gadgets now!

I finally picked this up last weekend for PS3 and whaaao. I realize now how long it's been since I've played a third-person action game as I've died quite a few times, but I'm getting back into it.

Kind of disappointed that I didn't find anything really special in the mini-Batcave on the island.

I'm about 30% through. Really liked the two Scarecrow hallucinations. I think I like taking out rooms full of grunts more than the roided up mentalist boss level. Still loving it - the only downside is that it's reprogrammed my combat fingers and I can't counter-attack properly in Assassin's Creed.

I think we're at about the same spot; I'm about to go looking for Killer Croc's lair (aka the point in the game that John thinks is unmitigated horseshit)

I think the last cut scene I watched before switching it off (at 2.30 a.m.) was Poison Ivy being released.

Crocs lair is the absolute nadir of the game but its only like 20 mins.

so far, my favorite thing about the game is how seamless the story is; it really feels like I'm playing a graphic novel (and, oddly, is making me want to buy Batman comics)

also I really need to get all of the interview tapes because Poison Ivy's interviews are taking an unfortunate turn almost as awesome as the Szasz ministory

Croc's lair did not bug me!
Dan you are taking this game SLOW!

i really vibed the zelda meets lovecraft poison ivy boss fight. croc was def the worst.

haha dude, I only have so much time to play it what with my singing side gigs and my crippling WoW addiction

I just started the Killer Croc level

... really?

Back onto this after taking time out to complete Assassin's Creed. Just got to Croc's Lair (about 45% complete). Absolutely love the Scarecrow cut scenes, though the levels themselves are a bit easy so far. Rooms full of grunts >>> pumped up boss dudes, though the one where you jump on the boss's back and get him swinging at his mate was A+ lols. Zip line + batarang power-ups helping out big time. Not happy with these booby-trapped gargoyles (sentences you thought you'd never type).

Fuck a walking around sewers slowly - especially when it doesn't fucking matter how slowly you walk Croc still keeps popping up. About 2 minutes of "oh fuck he's around here somewhere oh shit be quiet" followed by an eternity of creep creep creep batarang repeat. 50% of story mode done. Still to try the challenges.

http://www.spectrecollie.com/archives/2009/09/same-bat-time-same-bat-channel-same-bat-grappling-hook/

Some good criticisms. I share a similar feeling in that I love love love the game (and finally beat it recently after having to take a few months off from video games in the middle of it) but there were some things that took the shine off a little, like how all the boss fights are pretty similar and some choices about the puzzle solving (though I'm surprised nobody has mentioned how aggravating/ridiculous some of those Riddler challenges are, like the ones where you align a question mark at the right angle three-dimensionally that you can only see in Detective Mode) The thing about this blog post though, is that he compares it to traditional adventure games, which was pretty keen - makes sense since he works on the current Sam and Max games.

Love the hell out of the fight system, easily got addicted to getting higher scores on the fight challenges (am absolutely terrible at the stealth ones though). Good point too how one thing that motivates you to get better at it is that you (I'm Batman!) just look and feel more and more awesome as you get better at executing seamless combos. I'll be coming back to this game every so often to try to get more Riddler junk (really I just want to unlock the challenges and Chronicles of Arkham) and get challenge trophies.

ARRRGHHHHH SAVE FILE CORRUPTED. FUCK YOU GFWL

i actually got all the riddler challenges, all the combat medals... well, at least it happened after i did this, but it stings to lose a file that was around 92% complete

sorry dude, that sucks! : /

Sequel named.

Arkham City

end of 2011 which gives me a chance to beat all those combat challenges in the first one.

Optimistic seeing as it'll be the same team working on it, but colour me worried about trying to shoehorn Arkham island into Gotham city.

I would have preferred it being called Gotham City, but I suppose they need the brand continuity.

Looks like more of a sandbox. Cautiously hopeful.

Batman: Macho City

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQjBXVxqFpQ

I was listening to that song all last night and today, as I was finally dubbing some records into the computer.
How odd.
its a total jam tho....

this game is awesome. not very hard so far (just left the batcave), but really enjoyable. actually the hardest part so far was this random two-knife-wielding thug i ran across outside who blocked every hit & batarang i could throw (had to run away and find a rooftop to swoop down from).

It's been a while, but if I'm remembering right you have to do the matador cape-twirl thing to disorient those guys before you can start beating on them.

this is still amazingly fun, though i'm about to hit croc's lair.

the stealth parts are the best - it always takes me a few tries (sometimes more than a few) but never feels frustrating or cheap.

this is still amazingly fun, though i'm about to hit croc's lair.

lololol get ready for the fun to stop now

(it does get better after croc's lair tho, so hold out hope)

I went back to this and it really is a hoot. Croc excepted.

Batman:Arkham City (Batman 2) news:

Apparently one of the villains will be Hugo Strange, and the plot will riff on the Strange Apparitions story arc.

If you don't know the best Batman storyline of the 1970's... this is a very good thing.

I've never read that storyline -- what issues are it included in? Detective Comics? (Any idea which numbers?)

It's in the strange apparitions trade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_St._Cloud#Batman:_Strange_Apparitions

done. you guys, the croc section wasn't that bad, at all! if anything the poison ivy bossfight was more boring/cliched.

i messed around with some of the challenges afterward, but there's no way i'm going back and finding the other half of those stupid riddler trophies.

i hunted them all down just to unlock all the Combat Challenges, i loved them so

I am so amped for the sequel that I sat down and played this from beginning to end this weekend (I'd never actually played much further than the KC level before, also Ivy's boss battle was a ton of fun IMO)

Have there been any reviews of this thing yet? Even if the review is just, "more of the original," I'm sold.

the only thing I've seen is a preview saying "Batman, Catwoman and Robin all play very distinctly (btw Robin's only in the challenge maps)"

seems like no one runs game reviews before it's released these days. anyway i will be playing this.

if a review does come out before release date its usually the day or so before.. =\

in a similar note, that batman impostors game looks like total shit. idgi.

I just started playing through the first one again (just got new PS3 to replace dead one). I love how weighty the combat feels.

I also love that it's really difficult for the random thugs to be any kind of threat unless they all have guns and you just wade into them wholesale with no diversions or disarming techniques

i love tomb raider, uncharted, beyond good and evil, and MGS.. but wasn't really feelin infamous. i should play this, though, right?

YES YES YES YES

Infamous sucks btw

^^^This on both counts. Got Infamous free and still couldn't be arsed to finish it.

btw IGN gave Arkham City a 9.5

it was between this and the new driver game.. i think my choice is made here. THE DARK KNIGHT FOR THESE DARK NIGHTS.

i also have no knowledge of comic books..... hope that doesn't matter?

doesn't matter at all really, at least not for Arkham Asylum; as you play the game you unlock character bios and, in some cases, some very illuminating, unsettling patient interview tapes that fill out the story and often creep you the fuck out (the Zsasz story line in particular is just... yeesh)

Also the voice acting is probably the best of any game I own (note: I don't own that many console games) with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill from the animated series voicing Batman and Joker.

infamous is okay.
arkham is fucking great; i'm sort of going to be hard tasked to find time for dark souls, skyrim and this but i'll figure it out

I've been going back through collecting all of the Riddler shit and deciphering the Arkham tablets... pretty much everything about the Batman universe is desperately fucked up, huh

That's a nice way to put it.

I want a Zur-En-Arrh storyline in one of these games.

Paul Dini is a motherfucker with some dark secrets

Also, since most of my Batman appreciation has been through the animated series, the 60s TV show and the 90s/00s movies, I don't think I realized exactly how many people in his rogue's gallery were flat-out murderers rather than robbers/kidnappers.

good voice acting in a videogame???

it's like, top to bottom incredible

even the henchman interactions are fantastic, as you sneak through the shadows taking out Joker's guys, they switch from bravado to getting more and more nervous, and there are some hilarious guys sprinkled around who are super nervous before you even attack them

theres a review up on joystiq. rocksteady knows their game is dope.

reviews everywhere: mostly rapturous, but this one seems pretty balanced: http://www.destructoid.com/review-batman-arkham-city-213288.phtml

good thing i don't have any other games i want to play, this thing sounds huuuuge.

I forgot that I preordered it and it should be getting here on release day! Stoked.

I forgot to pre-order, no free Robin for me ;_;

Sorry Dan. No free Robin for me either, but as I don't give a rat's ass about chalenge maps I'm not too put out.

I ordered from Amazon, don't care if I get random shit

All I care is:
- Do I get to play as the goddamn Batman
- Do I get to punch criminals in a way similar to the other game

the punching is cool and all, but i'd be fine if it ditched it completely in favor of sneaking and sneaking-related takedowns

according to the IGN review, you should download the Catwoman levels before playing the game as they add a ton to the storyline

also on the second playthrough, all of the button hints and counter indicators are shut off so you basically HAVE to be the goddamn Batman to play it

wonder how easy it is to hang out and do the side missions before finishing the main campaign instead of doing it in new game+

those reviews are enough for me. preordered.

fuck them for locking the catwoman content to a non-reusable code

huh? explain. i thought it was DLC?

Exited for this. The fighting in asylum was so satisfying. I just want to be satisfied.

running across rooftops in this is so unbelievably rad

I don't think I can ever play a Spiderman game now.

Haven't purchased yet, but I watched a bunch of this live stream yesterday:

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/717520/batman-arkham-city-live-stream-lets-play-batman-arkham-city/

Looks amazing.

so much goon pummeling. the catwoman stuff is pretty great--she moves differently enough from batman to be interesting but not so much that i have to relearn shit. the way whips-and-climbs is fun as hell too.

i may have woken up early to play this before work today.

lol

I stayed up late playing, otherwise I might have a similar story

too many good time sinks; where were these games during the summer drought?

they were there, they were just called bulletstorm

why did the demo that i played with that name suck so bad then?

i agree with that! i panned the demo, and it did suck. but the game is awesome.

hm. now you're making me question the foundations of my soul.

I DIED

is Bulletstorm an actual shooter, because if so it can fuck off

I can't even get behind ostensibly fun/directed completely at my sensibilities shooters like NOLF ;_;

yeah its a shooter i guess, but only sometimes and only sorta? like you could play it as a shooter but it would be imeensely boring - its basically like if you took star wars: the force unleashed and made the force powers not suck. also - no grenades, which always makes shooters better imo.

also - what is NOLF

also - i really need to stop spamming every thread with my love of bulletstorm

no one lives forever

fuck them for locking the catwoman content to a non-reusable code

― anorange (abanana), Friday, October 14, 2011 8:17 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

huh? explain. i thought it was DLC?

― Nhex, Saturday, October 15, 2011 12:47 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

New retail copies come with a code for the Catwoman missions, which from early accounts add significantly to the story. The code is single use only, and the content was only tied to the code in order to discourage second-hand sales.

you can repurchase the Catwoman content if you so desire

yeah need for speed:hot pursuit is like that too, and every time the "hey use your code" pops up on the title screen on my used copy i get fucking pissed.

<3 bulletstorm fuiud

my man

i'm gonna play the fuck out of this game this weekend

Want this bad, but I'm not going to let myself get it until I finish Red Dead Redemption.

Just started this. It doesn't waste any time getting started, does it?

I love the Paul Dini supergeekery (stuff like Deadshot doing a little gun-hands gesture at Wayne during the prisoner processing scene in the first few minutes), but the downside is: I just ran into fucking Azrael hanging out on a rooftop, and Azrael, not to mince words, fucking sucks.

so, this is really fun. just gliding around the city is the best part.

yeah I kind of don't want to do any of the missions

just leaping around like a madman is so much fun

oh i did have it glitch out after i finished that first church section (i think it was caused by talking to one of the cops right when batman starts talking to himself), all of the directional controls stopped working but the buttons were fine. it's been bug-free since then though.

I want this but should I get it for PS3 or Xbox360?

should i play this on hard or normal?

I put it on easy

i picked normal, but i wonder if playing asylum gives me enough of an edge that i should've gone with hard

doing normal. so far the only challenging section has been a rooftop where you have to take out four or five guards with guns (penguin stuff prior to entered the museum), but i was kind of being an idiot about it.

I just stealthed around and left them up on the roof. Might regret it later but I wasn't feeling tactical enough to take them on.

This is a blast so far and taking up hours I don't have to spend on it.

yeah, i wasn't sure if you could disable the jammer thingy without knocking them out (or at least i died trying).

taking up hours I don't have to spend on it.

^^^

i wonder if those hugo strange announcements ("7 hours until...") are based on real time in any way, or just triggered by main mission points?

i think reviewers would have mentioned any sort of time constraint as that is a thing that drives some people (like me) absolutely fucking crazy. like in dead rising. fuck.

spent some quality time this morning gliding around the city. i love the goon banter. it really captures the general moronic nature of the gotham criminal underworld (tho i did hear one talk about how he should have moved to bludhaven--presumably because it's a lot easier to do crimes when it's only nightwing chasing you around).

yeah the banalities of henchman life are great.

i was doing one of the riddler rooms and a timer started counting down, and i did not know what i did to trigger it or what it was counting down to, so i just ran across the electrified floor. he accused me of cheating.

there was a sign in the window of the game store stating that they were sorry to announce they were not taking part in the midnight launch for this, i really wanted to take a magic marker and append SUCK IT NERDS to that

if not for midnight launches, of what good exactly are gaming stores?

None. The game shop in Westfield didn't have Shadow of the Colossus/Ico or even a used copy of Asylum. IT IS YOUR JOB TO HAVE GOOD GAMES TO SELL TO PEOPLE.

I was in Gamestation yesterday and they're still wasting shelf space on punting FIFA 2005 for PS2 for £0.49.

I was asking about the pre-order thing for Arkham City:
Me: How much is the Arkham City pre-order?
Gamestation chick: We can't do pre-order any more.
Me: But it isn't out yet...
GSC: Yes but we sold out all the pre-orders.
Gamestation dude: No we got more, it's fine.
GSC: It's fine.
Me: So how much is it?
GSC: Five pounds
Me: No how much is the game if I pre-order?
GSC: Pre-order is five pounds.
Me: I know that. How. Much. Is. The. Game. If. I. Pre-order. It?
GSD: Uh we don't know yet, probably around £45 or something.
Me: So I pay you five pounds towards something you don't know the price of and I have no idea how much extra it'll cost me to actually collect it?
GSD: Haha yes...
Me: Bye then.

Best Buys here in the US seem to still have their bonus content (a playable Robin for challenge mode and two extra maps, and a downloadable copy of a mediocre animated movie on a service nobody has ever heard of or uses).

I stayed up way too late last night to finish the museum/Iceberg Lounge, which was awesome, but: how do you include a shark in a Batman game and not let the player deal with it properly? Was there just not enough room left on the d-paid?

http://www.66batman.com/yabbfiles/Attachments/batsprays.jpg

hahahah, i just got up to that part with the shark

at this point, i don't think i'll ever buy a new game from a brick and mortar store again.
amazon and download and ebay and online rental and used 4LIFE

Buying at a store is great. No wait!

they delivered my game on release day by mail.

got in on that crazy walmart deal - came with Arkham Asylum GOTY AND a $10 gift coupon.. and arrived on release day

Just picked up City. Goodbye weekend.

could have got city today at the "ghetto" game shop on the narrow way but decided to pick up asylum instead, cause I haven't played it yet. kerching

i think that's a good idea. they're both great, and you should play both, but i think going from asylum to city will make more sense than doing city and then going back to asylum (more linear, smaller, less side quests) which might be a disappointment

^agreed. And Asylum's still a great game in its own right.

Just bought asylum on Steam. I wonder if there ever was an official explanation for the hypersexualization of Harley Quinn's outfit beyond the skin-tight full-body suit anywya

How the hell do I do the supercharge grappling. The goddamn instructions won't disappear from the screen. I can seem to find a ledge far enough away for it to work.

Hit the grapple button as normal, and as you're reeling in double-tap the jump button (X on PS3). It'll launch you up at a 45 degree angle for a few feet at the end of the grapple line and let you move into another glide.

Right now I'm stuck on a part (can't be more specific without huge, major spoilers) that requires me to alternate dive-bombing and climbing with the cape, but...I can't climb. No idea how to make this happen; even if I pull right out of a dive-bomb I still just slowly lose altitude.

i'm basically at the same point (i assume you're talking about the AR challenges?) and have just been reattempting it on the assumption that it takes skill that i haven't yet developed. basically you elevate by pulling back on the left analog stick, but i always just elevate too much or smash into the water.

It took me a lot of practice earlier, you have to dive bomb quite low at quite a steep angle then hold down on the stick and let go of the dive button

Knife dodging also takes a while to figure out

one amazing thing about this game is even tho i played asylum, when i started playing again i felt really clumsy with the controls but after 2 or so hours they all started feeling natural again. (knife dodging a good example of something hard that becomes easy when it clicks into place)

Ok, figured out the grapple thing. I was continuing to hold RB instead just tapping it to start the grapple. Once I let go, zooooom through the air.

beat all of the AR challenges tnite. yay. (once you get the hang of the gliding after the dive-bomb, all four are pretty straight forward)

For those who like overhearing the thoughts of workaday goons, play both NOLF games. They're great for that stuff.

Eavesdropping on the two guys discussing The Beatles was great.

No idea how to make this happen; even if I pull right out of a dive-bomb I still just slowly lose altitude.

yeah you have to dive bomb a lot further down than you think (but not too far!).

i'm worried that i'm nearing the end of the story missions (finished the freeze battle not too long ago). :( i guess it's time to mess around with side stuff for awhile.

I'm stuck n the ar training where you start on top of the orange sign. I can get the 4th one but get no where close to the fifth one.

The 5th one = the first one in the second set?

played this game like it was my job and i had to work through the weekend.

i get frustrated really quickly with things like the flying challenges (after the first few that were required) or riddler trophies (especially ones where i see the solution but can't make the crazy remote batarang throw), so i'm blowing through the story. almost done i think.

love the villain-specific side missions though.

changing the way you can find the locations of the Riddler's secrets/puzzles/etc was such a great idea, I wonder why they didn't think to do it that way the first time around

Any tips on gliding? Stuck on the Ra's bit.

oh and I am actually more interested in Zsasz than I am Hugo Strange or the task Joker set me on, lol

Any tips on gliding? Stuck on the Ra's bit.

just follow his sparkly trail when dive-bombing + pulling up, then grappel to those iceberg things as soon as you can.

yeah the zsasz one was my favorite, great excuse to tear across the map with one second to spare.

I suck at pulling up and gaining altitude. So tired of the annoying reloading screens.

Zsasz is the one newish* addition to Batman's rogues gallery that really, really makes me want to start reading those books. He's a really awful** concept that, especially in these games, works so well.

* before Batman Odyssey, I hadn't bought a Batman comic book that was Dark Knight-related since... forever

** "awful" as in "awful to contemplate", not "awful in conception/execution"

So tired of the annoying reloading screens.

ha after playing deus ex i'm amazing how fast the loading screens are

I've been reading about Zsasz on wiki. Equal parts disturbing and fascinating.

COMIC SPOILERS BELOW

Batman hunts for Zsasz, which proves unsuccessful until Zsasz gains access to a charity event (attended by Bruce Wayne) and stabs his beloved butler, Alfred Pennyworth, in the stomach. However, Wayne saves Alfred's life by driving him to a hospital. To lure Zsasz to him, Wayne holds a press conference in which he announces that Alfred is still alive. Having already made a scar for Alfred, Zsasz realises that his tally is off by one (Zsasz remarks: "My skin... it's crawling... every inch of it feels... wrong.")

HELL YES

The psychosis is fascinating.

dan, i haven't been keeping with comics for a number of years now so i hadn't heard of batman: odyssey, but holy shit: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/08/batman-odyssey-neal-adams-insane/

oh Jordan come over here immediately: Can someone tell Batman why not?!?

We've been thoroughly enjoying this for a year now

completely forgot i'd been meaning to get cbrs of odyssey.
Wanted to wait till there was a trade, but that may be 2013 at this rate.
no time like the present.

I am guessing they will collect the first "volume" in that they just started renumbering at #1 for no real reason

how the fuck do i save my game? my copy didn't have a manual in it, if manual's exist that is.

It autosaves a lot.

Yeah, it tracks yr progress very, very well.

ah ace. i'm only a tiny bit in...just freed the doctor that harley quinn was keeping hostage. magical feeling when you first hang from a vantage point and do an inverted takedown on some unsuspecting hoodlum. i love the way their conversation is the perfect inane "i'm about to be killed by batman" variety too.

http://penny-arcade.smugmug.com/photos/i-sB8GTgT/0/L/i-sB8GTgT-XL.jpg

I hate these cunts but I'll give them this one

Now I'm stuck fighting Joker and tons of thugs etc. Not good enough at fighting mobs.

i'm playing arkham asylum right now and loving it. it's so crazy detailed that i almost feel guilty for just running past everything. somebody spent months rendering the hinges on those lockers!

i love the vaguely 50s-ish vibe to the dialogue. "don't worry about me, i know how to handle these LOW-LIFES."

Just beat the penguin part. Thought I could relax a couple of times there. D amn game.

i'm playing arkham asylum right now and loving it. it's so crazy detailed that i almost feel guilty for just running past everything. somebody spent months rendering the hinges on those lockers!

Yeah I fall out with my kid for doing too much of it in detective mode - "You're not even looking at that! look at it!"

Spoiled brats tbh - no idea what used to constitute "good graphics" :(

finished the main story last night. i love that you can go back in and keep playing sidequests and riddler puzzles without starting the story over if you want.

Cannot put into words how little of a shit I give about the little green question marks and whatever in Asylum - stuff like that always makes me think of the "secret coins" you could get in Super Mario Bros if you knew which brick to jump against

The thing is, some of those question marks unlock other pieces of the game. Also, if you aren't trying to pick up the interview tapes, you should really reconsider (or at least get the Zsasz tapes).

Hmm

I am picking up tapes when I find them but I'm certainly not looking for them; I'm doing what the game tells me to do! "Rescue the doctors, Batman!" "No, I think I'll crawl around in these ventilation shafts looking for tapes"

I'd beat the game and then go back and collect the riddler stuff. Tho, now that AC is out, maybe just skip them and start the new game. It made sense after beating AA to do all the riddles (for me at least) bc I didn't want to stop playing. But now that there's a huge new game...

oh yeah, you can definitely grab all of that stuff afterward, I'm just saying that the interviews GREATLY enhanced my enjoyment of the game (plus the history of Arkham stuff... which btw I still need to finish collecting in AA)

also ftr the things that get unlocked are all challenge map stuff so if you don't care about non-story gameplay, you aren't missing anything

i agree that all the extras make the game more fun (and i loved solving the riddles), but i do understand not wanting to bother esp when at the end of the game you have arkham city waiting for u

yeah i thought i wasn't going to bother with the riddler stuff in arkham city, but now that there isn't some exciting story mission to get to, i want to unlock those hostage puzzle rooms. it's a good carrot.

I sense that the Penguin battle is going to infuriate me to no end until I figure it out

also I hate and despise the remote control Batarang

i did the second hostage room and i couldn't figure out the solution so i SPOILER used the line shot to get across SPOILER and riddler called me a cheater.

Love the riddler stuff. Adds to the game and appeals to the obsessive completist in me. 100% is so appealing.

minor 27% completion SPOILERS
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freeze fight was fucking fun. dude gets increasing crabby with each passing ambush. the mad hatter bit right after was good too, i like how this series has batman externalizing all psychological struggle (hallucinations, ra's, etc) into punching dudes.
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vs like the thinky batman writers who have bruce keeping a journal like he's the punisher or something. peter milligan did this and for whatever fkn reason it was lettered in cursive.

kinda wish the hallucination sections included something other than brawls, like the scarecrow parts in asylum. i guess you got to fly around in the ra's part, but eh.

i really liked the ra bit

actually who am i kidding? i've liked everything so far

ra's bit was cool-looking but why are the Trials of the Demon basically pilotwings segments? "only one man has ever passed them before!" how did ra's al-ghul pass them? does he have a glidey cape and bat-grapnel?

10 from gameinformer!

first one left me a little cold, but i might try this out.

xp probably he can fly

i am willing to entertain the idea of an alternate arkham-game DC universe where ra's al-ghul can fly and batman is surprised to learn about the lazarus pit and harley quinn dresses like a total slut.

i think he already knew about the lazarus pits, that's why you go after ra's?

bruce tells oracle about ra's('s) whole setup as if it were the first time he'd seen it. which makes some amount of sense given how much damage the batman begins ra's al-ghul did to the character's general awesomeness and that normal gamer types may not be familiar with early-70s denny o'neil stories.

There should have been a section of hairy bare-chested Batman in his cowl sans cape vs. Ra's.

i love it every time ra's says "detective"

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/10/100906/1894746-batman_vs._ra_s_al_ghul_large.jpg

At least they got that right in the game.

In City, I love that batman essentially keeps reminding people that he's having a bad day and to not screw with him. He's so grumpy.

yes. and how he threatens the riddler informants with grievous bodily harm, gets the information he wants... and inflicts grievous bodily harm anyway. what a dick.

Trippy.

yes. and how he threatens the riddler informants with grievous bodily harm, gets the information he wants... and inflicts grievous bodily harm anyway. what a dick.

I do love this system, though- a hell of a lot more fun and in-character than the Riddler leaving maps everywhere.

Couldn't beat the freeze battle last night. I sucked.

i also played the freeze battle last night! at some point it brought up the bat computer and gave me an inventory of all his weaknesses. probably because i have hints turned on?

Yeah it tells you exactly what to do, I just couldn't execute. Prob too many beers.

i kept trying to do a glide kick but i could never get enough altitude to pull it off.

just flew around last night trying to do riddler challenges and find serial-killed bodies.

SPOILERmaybe? but re: serial-killed bodies I was leaving the subway system after my fight with Ra's and the top level of the subway was full of dead bodies. there was a heap in the middle of the floor with dead bodies stacked one each other. i was sure they were going to introduce Croc here or something but there was nothing. no explanation, no cut scene, nothing. just dead bodies strewn all over the room and I can't figure out how they got there.

i remember that too, and assumed that maybe i had started out in that room and beat up a bunch of people earlier?

and then stacked their bodies in a big pile in the middle of the room???

omg this fukken game

maybe it's a very organized new villain

xp

I thought it had something to do with the virus?

guys i really wanna play this to keep up with you but i haven't even started dark souls yet!

eh skip that bullshit

no way dude, u just mad cuz U DIED

i'm mad cause it doesn't have a demo available and so i'm not bothering until it's in the $5 bin (or until i can borrow it from a friend)

wait, did you never play demons' souls?

Freeze is done. I used: glide, silent take down from behind, silent take down from below the grate, drop attack from above, the weapon disruptor, and the electromagnet thing.

xp i did. if it's basically the same game then i'm even less interested :/

crossedarmstare.gif

i did silent take down from behind, ledge takedown, takedown from the grate, weapon disruptor, blew up a wall on him and takedown through a glass wall. i tried a bunch to get the electromagnet thing to work, but couldn't seem to make it happen.

Lol on easy you only need to do four things, I did ledge, under, shocker, magnet.

Btw did the camera freeze for anyone else after revealing Croc? I ended up resetting and not trying to see him again.

xp i did. if it's basically the same game then i'm even less interested :/

crossedarmstare.gif indeed

i couldn't get the glide or weapon disruptor to work on freeze, i think i did grate, takedown, electromagnet, turn on electricity when he was in the water, and something something.

beat the story mode. surprisingly dark ending... time to tackle those Riddler rooms, challenges and combat rooms! Pretty nice how, unlike AA, the game takes into account that there's a lot of stuff happening after you beat the main story (new missions, new spoken dialogue for all the characters, etc.) not gonna touch New Game+ for ages, if ever

on a side note:

http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/hulk-vs-arkham-city-round-2-bitches-be-trippin/

it's true, the first few hours of the game I was a little irked at hearing the word bitch about every 30 seconds... and it doesn't really stop. i was like OK ALREADY, you don't like the bitches, yes

i mean there's even a part where this minor character Jack Ryder, some newscaster who you save near the beginning of the game has to call Vicki Vale a bitch and I'm like... really? was that necessary? he's not even supposed to be a degenerate criminal, just kind of an idiot

based on this thread, i bought a used copy of AA on discount. it is amazingly fun, but it's a little too breakneck speed for me. do i get to go back and collect the riddler trophies and case histories etc., after i've finished the game? or am i supposed to be trying to do them while i'm skulking around different parts of the island?

For Arkham Asylum they didn't really plan it out that well - you'll get a save point at the end of the game that you can go back to to collect everything, but there's no post-game content like in Arkham City. At the same time, you can't even get several trophies until you get certain bat-gadgets, so don't worry about getting 100% until you have all of the gadgets. Still, skulking around and getting what you can is worth it for the XP bonuses and ability to upgrade as well as the getting to hear the interview tapes, so do what you can.

I'm at the point in the story where you go back to the steel mill. But I'm just going around and doing side missions and leveling up some. And occasionally I try the 2 levels of AR training I can't complete.

I just re-entered the steel mill, and I'm stuck on a fight with the Joker, the siamese twin with the hammer, a Titan goon dressed like Beetlejuice and about a dozen common or garden-variety mooks. So fucking frustrating- a couple of times I've managed to get it down to the Joker and one of the big guys (usually the Titan henchman) and I just can't get enough time to stun him- the Joker always runs up and stabs me mid-combo. RRRGH.

i think i had good luck on that just evading constantly and letting the titan + trains kill the goons?

"You seem to be good at hiding doctor. Stay here and do it again"

I just beat this last night, and while I'm pretty disappointed at some of the more ridiculous plot twists, the last few minutes of the ending and the surprise in the credits...wow. Nice send-off for Hamill.

What was the surprise? I think I skipped most of the credits.

I finished it a few days ago and, as much as I enjoyed the free roaming stuff, the story is pretty weak compared to the first one. Don't see this getting play time once the next Assassin's Creed comes out in a few weeks.

I think I'm going to get every achievement before I finish the damn ar training.

that one where you have to dive into a verrry narrow tunnel space in the subways, then turn left while staying level is killing me

Jeff: it's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UfsIvwzMeY

It starts something like five minutes into the endless credit sequence.

Well fuck, I forgot ILX automatically converts Youtube URLs into embedded videos...

whew. beat this just in time for skyrim. (well, i still have the final catwoman mission left.) i thought i'd end up doing all the joker trophies like i did on the first game but i can't imagine i'll want to play anything else but elder scrolls for the next month or so -- and then mass effect 3 comes out...

the story is pretty weak compared to the first one

?? I just finished the first one and afaict the story was "Get the Joker"

Just finished the Solomon Grundy bit in the game the other day. The character design in this game is great. I love that the Penguin's monocle is the bottom of a soda bottle

Looks painful.

I'm gathering trophies now. I'm having the damnedest time with the one where you have to glide, hit the switch on the walk, go into another glide, hit one on the opposite wall then glide to one on the ground.

Switch on the wall

Those can be tricky - pretty sure I remember the one you're talking about, if it's near the courthouse. One useful thing for me was that if you grapple up to a ledge, using grapple boost (double tap A), since you don't touch the ground it doesn't sound as a "touch" so you can fly around again to try to hit another wall switch.

Aha, good trick.

The sad/funny thing is that I did not figure out the point of those puzzles (hit them all without touching the ground) until after I beat the game!

okay I am now 85% of the way through the main story line

Hugo Strange is a dick

between eventually getting this, skyrim and dark souls i feel like i'm done with getting new games through 2012 at least though i know that's not gonna ever be the case.

oh can I also say, Catwoman mission #3 is FANTASTIC

also is it just me or is Batman's identity basically an open secret by this point

I keep thinking there has to be more Catwoman in the game because there are upgrades I can get for her, and there are Riddler trophies only she can pick up. I think the next time it lets me play as her I'm just going to run around the map for an hour instead of completing whatever task is given.

after you finish the main storyline, you can switch between characters pretty much at will (there are switch points scattered over the map)

I am curious to see what the post-storyline rationale for the continued existence of Arkham City will be

"well we've put everyone down, might as well keep this superjail in the middle of the city open so that Catwoman and I can kill some time"

^^ good enough for me

yup more or less lol

Just started playing this as a break from Skyrim. Does/did anyone else have trouble in working out exactly where to go? One of the early missions involved getting into a building, and I had to circumnavigate it a dozen times before finding a way in. The map's terrible as well.

Also, PC version needs a cobbled-together unofficial patch to use a non-xbox controller. Come on guys, loads of people use PCs, make it so it works.

no - never found that to be much of an issue - in any case, inspecting and stealth observing was part of the fun.

Just started Asylum after completing and loving City but I have to say it doesn't do it for me

I had no issues. But I have experience breaking into buildings.

Maybe I just need to get better at it then. I think skyrim's clairvoyance spell has made me rather complacent.

This game has some weird writing choices.

playing this now and my feelings are...mixed? at the risk of excommunication from ILG, it seems like the work to fun ratio is a bit off? idk.

well this depends, are you:

- trying to finish every mission as soon as they come up, as quickly as you can;
- leaping off rooftops and shouting "WHEEEEEEEEE!"

Yeah, there are a lot of tasks and things to do. I feel like some of the open world stuff was a little too "ok, now you have another quest with these five objectives." Very few instances of just finding situations you can instantly defuse

the best missions in the game without a doubt are the Zsasz missions, although I still haven't finished the Hush or Azrael ones

Mad Hatter was also super dope and very self-contained

nah im doing lots of the side mission stuff - i think a little of it comes from (blasphemy) thinking that just cause 2 actually got the grapple open world a little more right so thats a bit frustrating, also the combat seems a little more button mashy and less tactical this time around? also i live in constant fear that i am wasting my level upgrades on fancy stuff when really i should just be maxing out my bat armor or whatever.

also ive only had the game for a couple of days so the rhythm might not have set in. nothing is more frustrating than finding the first ringing phone and then realizing there are a bunch of low level mopes that wandering around near it and knowing that it will stop ringing just as you ko the last one.

basically I said "fuck you, bat armor" and loaded up on goodies because that was more fun

also the thing about combat is that you don't HAVE to do anything fancy to tear through the mobs but the game gets super zenlike and just moves into this awesome flow zone if you do

I never played Just Cause 2 because fuck aiming

also being less mashy and more strategic allows you to take mobs out faster, allowing you to get that ringing phone

ha ha i just started arkham ASYLUM. so far behind the times. it's pretty fun though i'm worried it's a little too easy, even for me who likes easy games. hopefully it'll get more challenging.

it gets harder, but also you can bump up the difficulty, right?

it doesn't really get much more challenging in the story game, but i recommend you try out the the fight/predator maps if you want more of that kind of thing

you don't really need to max out bat armor, it just helps make some of the later game stuff less annoying when there are guys with guns everywhere

They make weird writing choices in City, some which are total bullshit which needed an editor to put it in the right sequence. The Mr Freeze fight was fun but completely broken where it is in the storyline.

lol yeah the last two or three hours of that game were kinda confusing to me, plot-wise

plz note that despite my reservations i am about to go play this until i start passing out on the couch so

So this ice room level seems very killer croc like

maybe that's why I liked it. A nice change of pace.

the footstep part is only a small bit. also i love the slightly later payoff for it

Yeah the ice room was no big deal in the end. I think I still like this game more than I love it I guess? I dig what the riddler informants add to the tactical side of combat, but the combat is otherwise really kind of repetitive, and I would have loved to see them bring a little more to the table with the stealthy hunting missions. It might just be my faulty memory , but I think that AA was actually much harder wrt the stealth stuff, here it's just pretty much wait for isolated dude, glide kick, batcla to gargoyle, repeat.

First game was better than the second. I usually like games where I roam about as a bad ass, but the focus in the first game was incredible. The second meanders a bit because they built in farting around in the city.

I loved farting around in the city, and there were none of the things that turn me off to GTA as a gaming experience

Batman doesn't deliver pizzas, that's true.

I just felt the farting around (which could be fun, no doubt) lost the urgency and tightness of the first game. Then, when you couldn't fart around for certain sections where before you could it felt weird.

Fartham City

I'm Gasman.

batman is a bit ADD in the second game

"must locate joker! wait, gotta go save a political prisoner, he's over there! no wait! gonna practice my gliding"

cannot glide all the way into that fucking tunnel to save my life btw

"Is that a phone I hear? Oooh, a ? tempts me sorely."

by the way i LOVE being catwoman. i feel like this is what catwoman has been building up to ever since she was dreamed up for comic books. (it's too bad the voice actress is a bit below standard, but whatever)

I'd play a Catwoman game. Her missions were great - but just, ahem, farting around as her wasn't as much fun as with Batman.

leaping up the buildings was awesome tho

AA had tighter focus yes, but AC had a much, much, much more developed game world/characters/story etc. easily worth the tradeoff IMO

I thought the AC story was horrible. Though the ending was better than the end of AA.

the thing that bothered me most about AC was the Penguin

I mean, why hasn't his eye fallen out

Arkham City took too much time acting clever about "WHO IS THE REAL VILLAIN" when it was pretty obvs

Considering how frustrating this freeze battle is I am voting for him as the real villain tbh.

fair enough

got to the joker/titan/one armed dude battle and was dreading it given some upthread fist-clenching but got through it on the first try with liberal use of the dodge with a button technique

game is def growing on me, i do think that the riddler stuff gets a lot more fun once you have the gadgets you need to get most of them, although the fact that every time i see a fuse box i just hang my head in irritation. the moment where i figured out how to block the steam pipes was def a big relief moment after being taunted by them through lots of the game. HATE the remote control batarang - anybody know if there is a way to switch out of inverted view because i am old and i dont like to learn how to do things anymore.

oh I basically gave up on the RC boomerang

it is the worst thing ever of anything imo. also unsure if i want to go through the frustration of the further AR challenges now that i have the super grapple or whatever

haha I did like two of those and then went "oh hey, I don't ever actually have to do these *shoots grapple, zips off to someplace fin*"

er, fun

though I did eventually finish the storyline

RC batarang is much easier once you realize you can slow it down

yes... and yet, no

INVERTED LOOK IS THE DEATH OF ME

cool made the turn now if i just level it up a bit *crashes into floor*

you don't get anything from beating the last set of AR challenges, except a smug sense of satisfaction

but you will get used to the RC batarang, too many riddler trophies require you to do crazy stuff with it, and you know you need to see that through now

what helped me a lot was hitting the shoulder button that autolevels it

realllly hope i don't need to give a shit about riddler trophies this time around

I think they're one of the best parts of the games. I like achievement based gaming. The cult of the 100%.

NEW DLC!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXkuaCEXmiY

yesss

Finished Arkham City after it appeared on Steam a few weekends back at £10 (!). Like a sucker I underestimated I how fond I would get of it, so I went Easy clear everything -> Normal story only -> Normal clear everything with a walkthrough (to see how easy it gets if the first thing you do is find 150 Riddler trophies) -> Normal New Game + for 10 secs -> Hard for 5 secs. So that's about 60 hours I won't see again.

The henchman chatter is mostly really good, both the show-don't-tell (okay, tell-don't-tell) where they're flagging stuff to you and the random stuff you hear while flying around (I dropped Batman in water the first time I heard "Did they ever explain what the island was?")

That said I'm totally down with Film Crit Hulk, but I used my superpower of privilege to ignore all of that, mostly.

The Mr Freeze fight was fun but completely broken where it is in the storyline.

I think what's going on there is that Batman is more aggressive than necessary because the main plot point of the game is fucking him up, hence the flash where he's beating on Freeze and his head turns to Joker. To confirm this I'd have to not skip the sequence when it comes up, though.

i did the second hostage room and i couldn't figure out the solution so i SPOILER used the line shot to get across SPOILER and riddler called me a cheater.

Haha no that's entirely how you're supposed to do that I think (if it's the one with the rotating blades of death?). I actually spent ages sending the remote batarang down the spinny death corridor to where the doctor was and getting 3 seconds of "okay, what in this room do I need to hit.... bollocks it's crashed again". But yeah that's the right way, Riddler's superpower is just being a whiney little fucker.

I imagine the remote batarang is less use with the gamepad than the mouse, but then I imagine the fighting would be easier - like Nhex said earlier, I like how there is incentive to get better at what is usually the most boring part of games like these because it just looks coool.

I did love the two ways that you can get riddler icons onto the map, but I wish they showed you the 'scanning' method the first time that you see a trophy you can't get yet, as I had copious notes on which ones I'd have to go back for by the time I got to the Steel Mill. Sorted by what device I thought would be involved - some of the imaginary devices include something to stretch a cable between two bat-claw rings, and something to construct decoys of the Batman (for all those three-button problems). This is one of the reasons I did my second get-everything run, because I eventually figured out/looked up that I could have done about 20 trophies right from the start. Also because I am wrong in the head.

Things noticed from a second playthrough = a bunch of hints of the final twist, both from the first steel mill scene and chatter from goons. Also I hadn't noticed that the poppable balloons in the northern part of the city don't actually appear until Joker's extends his territory to there. Really love the different looks for the gangs, and that there's a look (and a 3-d trophy!) for those who have swiftly changed allegiance from one to the other. I think this is also supposed to explain the pile of dead bodies in the Subway.

I am curious to see what the post-storyline rationale for the continued existence of Arkham City will be

There's some new chatter added about "They are picking us up, right, they aren't just going to let us rot here... right?"

The combat is better than Assassin's Creed because they're smart enough to attack you while you're hitting someone else if you don't time it smartly, and you have to balance attack and defence and pick your targets rather than just standing still and pressing the counter button until everybody's dead.

Yeah, also crowd control - separating out targets with bat claw / batarang / freezing is an important skill (which I'm not sure I'm interested in mastering sufficiently to get to the challenge maps, but I'm glad that there is real depth to it)

Since finished Arkham Asylum - not a lot to say about it.

i imagine it's pretty weird to go back to that after Arkham City?

Harley Quinn's Revenge out today. Playing it some and I've totally forgotten everything on how to brawl effectively. I'm so bad at this again.

Is it worth the money?

i imagine it's pretty weird to go back to that after Arkham City?

It's not even back - I'd started it up about six months ago, but I'd been trying to get it to recognise my Logitech controller on the PC, which involved installing three different helper programs and going through the start - try to get it working - restart - try cycle a few times. I just gave up, and then recently started Arkham City on a whim with keys & mouse and was surprised how well it worked!

So yeah, if you've completed Arkham City but never played Arkham Asylum, there is really no reason to apart from story-hunger. Not being able to slide or grapple while falling are probably the most regularly annoying, but it also just felt so small and short, nearly no story, worse acting... I can see it would have been great, but it seems very superfluous now.

I did wonder how sarcastic they were being when, having fed you increasingly heavy hints about the identity of SPOILER, the last one reads "come and find me if you can (PS I am blatantly SPOILER)", and when you do the achievement is called "WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE" :)

I haven't gotten very far to determine if it is worth the money.

I'm not sure what these spoilers or "the last one" refer to. You talking about the ending?

Ah no, I can see that's really unclear - in Arkham City, the circular scratchings that you find around the place, that tell a story.

ah yes - I gave up on that side mission since there seems to be a bug in my saved game whereby the third scratich does not appear (apparently a common bug)

downloaded the dlc, probably won't have time to play it for a couple weeks. i should probably go brush up on some skillz first, or at least try and remember how to work all the gadgets.

I LOVED Asylum. I haven't finished City yet, but I actually think the dialogue and acting is marginally worse in City.

Cute that they're already teasing sequel potentials in AC

BTW if any of you were wondering, Arkham City Lockdown - the iOS Infinity Blade/Punch-Out clone - is kinda weak. Maybe if I hadn't played IB already it would seem OK, but it can't help but suffer in comparison, as the controls and graphics aren't up to that standard. I guess it was kinda worth the $3 I paid.

Harley's Revenge was too damn short. And not much new other than getting to play as Robin for like 5 minutes.

I would have rather played as Harley Quinn.

I am happy that they're putting out DLC this late.

Holy awesomeness prequel rumors!

Silver Age Batman

Big, big smile on my face.

Though, reading the article, it might be Golden Age too (if they're doing first Joker run-in).

I would play the heck outta that.

Lord yes. Unless you play through the entire game as Snapper Carr.

snap!

I wouldn't be against some tasteful BOOM! POW! cartoon sound balloon action...

that's the first time i've heard about a JLA film btw

They were talking about it before Green Lantern. I don't know if that helped or hindered the process.

honestly, this could suck pretty bad if they're try to go all gritty with it. if they take their cues from New Frontier or JSA, though...

they've talked about JLA/world's finest for years, but it never ever seems actually close to happening due to the lack of synergy with the existing Batman/Superman movie franchises, so i never take it seriously. gotta give Marvel credit for actually pulling off all the movie franchises

Original JLA barely features Batman & Superman so they could probably do one without too much trouble.

Hah, I am now wondering if the reason they haven't started on a JLA movie is because they have no guarantee that they won't re-fuck their continuity before it comes out.

i'm playing this! and it's really good!

and yes that one last 'augmented reality' glide training thing is fukken impossible!

i like that it doesn't give you one lick of instruction on how some of these riddler puzzles are to work. i think i was HOURS into it before i realized i could grab those things with the claw.

it takes all my zen willpower to calm down in fights and hit one button at a time and try to throw in variations instead of mashing strike.

ok, i'm borrowing this so i don't have the dlc code: is it worth it to pony up for catwoman?

I think Catwoman is a lot of fun; her playstyle is different enough that it's a whole new flavor to the fighting, plus she fills in the backstory a little bit

how much is 800 xbox points in $USD anyway

$10 apparently

lol ok: http://thewrongadvices.com/2007/03/05/xbox-live-points-converter/

ten bucks for catwoman, y/n?

haha xp

will shit get weird if i drop that dlc into an existing game?

no idea tbh, I had it from the getgo

I doubt it, it may play catchup with you if you've already gone past a trigger point though

I think there are only two Catwoman side-quests and one is right at the very beginning.

there are 4

i still have like 90% of this to play.. savin up for the cold weather

i wouldnt bother with catwoman at all for $10

hmm all right.

be warned if a get into an ocd mode with this shit, not being able to grab those red trophies is going to drive me nuts

pick up the goatee edition!

this is really good. i think it's really quite an achievement. great job of weaving together all these villain characters in a believable way, plot shifts that make sense (this is super rare in games)

i liked the scarecrow segments in AA; the mindfuck bits in AC (ra's al ghul, mad hatter) are great also

gotta say, Dini's writing in these games really makes me want to check out his comics work

Just watch the Batman Animated Series from the 90s and Mask of the Phantasm. His comics pale in comparison to his cartoons.

lol already ahead of you on that front

Mask of the Phantasm is one of the best Batman movies ever

It flat out IS the best Batman movie.

I go back and forth between that and The Dark Knight

(and Batman Returns tbh)

Batman Returns is 2nd for me. My disgust at The Dark Knight is, I think, documented on that enormous thread.

well that's foolish, TDK is awesome

Cut 45 minutes and rewrite huge chunks and I'm right with ya.

You should definitely check out Dini's comic adaptation/expansion of Mad Love if you get a chance. But also note that the video games are based on darker, edgier material, like - strangely - that Arkham Asylum: Living Hell mini from several years back. Worth reading if you like the games - although Dini didn't write it, Dan Slott is no slouch, and it's fun enough.

his run on detective comics is worthwhile

ok nerds is it "raysh" or "rahz"?

xp oh yeah, i forgot about that. post-Infinite Crisis, right? that was pretty good

Ok i started playing this yesterday. It was a little choppy and then around the point i got to the courthouse for Catwoman's trial it started absolutely CRAWLING. Detail was set to high, so i set it to low and it seems to be doing ok now. Weird thing is i can run Tomb Raider just about maxed out and it doesn't slow down nearly as much. There was a point in Batman where it was pushing single-digit fps, and I was wondering if some bullet time was activated or something.

Seems pretty cool, the fighting is nice, but I've already played "Sleeping Dogs" and that ran and looked way nicer, and the combat in that (which is influenced by this?) was pretty great. I'm not a big fan of the camera here though. The field of view seems really stretched out at times, like looking at the world through a fish-eye lens, so it's all a bit distorted and Batman is kind of small on-screen.

Modern gaming conventions are starting to get really old to me. This is the 3rd or 4th AAA title I've played where your character starts out chained up/in Jail/etc and has to escape. Also playing this after Tomb Raider and then early in the game coming upon Catwoman tied up upside-down as well was kind of an eye-rolling moment.

It was cool to access awesome 3D models of Animated Series characters that are way cool but just makes me want to play Batman: Arkham Animated or something instead.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to "Interrogate the Joker" next. If I have to push a button to torture this guy then fuck this game I'm replaying the NES Batmans instead.

You're playing on a PC, I guess? I didn't have any frame rate issues on console.

This is the 3rd or 4th AAA title I've played where your character starts out chained up/in Jail/etc and has to escape.

I'll go with like 30th or 40th.

Yeah PC. Windows 7 Quad-Core CPU pretty decent graphics card.

sorry man, but that's what you get for being in the PC Gamer Master Race

lol and yet when i go to controls it has a picture of an XBox controller, not my keyboard and mouse

Oh who was i kidding, this game is effing amazing!

Using a Xbox controller for PC games is pretty nice.

I bought a game controller for the first time in years recently, and for some dumb reason I got one that is more or less a Super NES controller. It's fine for emulators (which is the main reason I got it) but i didn't realize at the time that for another 10-15 bucks i could have gotten one that I can actually control the camera with in newer games. That's the main reason I use the key/mouse setup.

I read plenty of reviews and none of them really went into how awesome the basic open world rooftop-leaping experience is. It might be an even better time than jetpacking around Las Venturas.

Easy call imo!

Ok so I was pulling myself across this ice water when a shark jumped up and BATMAN BEAT UP THE SHARK. This game is amazing.

'twas one of the funniest moments of the last gaming generation. i guess half the fun is not knowing it is coming, especially since 5 minutes earlier in the game, the shark would just kill you if you got near it. the second time through Batman must've just thought to himself, "eh, fuck it"

total reference to http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljtto2X1dH1qe98v0o1_400.gif, right?

now i want to play this gain.

Right now I'm gliding through a surrealist realm with streams of levitation water and fighting dreamland ninjas in the desert.

Also, yeah Catwoman is a total joy to play, crawling up the sides of buildings, whipping guns out of baddies' hands, crawling on the ceiling, etc. And hell, even Robin is fun to play! Thank God for these combat campaigns.

xxp damn, I don't remember that at all.
That game was so awesome - it lured me into thinking that I had been missing out by ignoring my PS3 for the last 5 years. The last 6 months have painfully reminded why that was.

why's that?

cuz I'm too old and have too short of an attention span to get into new games nowadays

Yeah, the open world stuff is tempting and the combat campaigns are fun, but every time i go into the story mode, it's pretty damn entertaining.

I just completed first AR training HOLY HELL was that worth it! Flying around the city like this more than makes up for having to listen to a million phone messages back-to-back while I do it.

While I'm there, if it was up to me, no videogame character ever would own a cell phone.

Wait until you get to those advanced AR missions 0_0

Hated those. Could not win.

I can imagine they get pretty difficult. Still seems a bit easier than, say, the flight school in GTA: San Andreas.

This game is pretty tough though! I'm playing on normal and I die constantly. I'm probably just too impatient. When I see a group of baddies I hide in the shadows a little and take a few out but before long I'm fighting 2-3 guys armed with guns, which is a bad idea. I feel like the combat is in the Final Fight heritage of just hitting two buttons over and over to beat up crowds of lookalike baddies, and it triggers whatever part of my brain derives pleasure from brainless button-mashing. You really have to slow down, from the overall way you approach a combat situation to in-the-thick-of-it combat button-clicking. You sort of have to find the right rhythm (half a second between clicks?) and time them so that you can see any hazards far enough in advance that you can hit that counter button before you mash attack again.

it's far from brainless though! the depth of the timing and combo system is comparable to most Street Fighter-style games - that's why I loved the challenge rooms

a lot of the fun is figuring out which moves link best to each other, the time you have available between attacks vs. the quickness of it to avoid getting hit and breaking the chain, whereas most third-person action games are a rock-paper-scissors repetition of roll-dodge/lock-on/shoot-attack. you get well rewarded for fighting effectively, using the combo system to get more XP and more unlocks. and of course the smoothness of all the transitional animations is super impressive, i never got sick of that

Yeah it's pretty damn sweet! Almost brings to mind the classic 60s Batman show at times, in a good way!

Lack of the disarm special was one of the many pains of going back to finish Arkham Asylum.

Catwoman in the combat missions is awesome, but in the predator the lack of cape is a killer - she'll jump towards a spot but if there's rails around (like the one at the bottom of Wonder Tower) then 50% she'll just glue to one of those rather than the walkway, leaving you with a few seconds of "Oh no, just perching awkwardly here, please don't shoot me in the face".

Actually tip #1 is that you can always just jump over people without breaking combo and you can see what's up while you're jumping around.

haha yes, it's great that the jump-dodge is a chainable combo move - i remember figuring that out and feeling like my world was blown open. the temptation becomes jumping all over the damn place like spider-man

predator is a cool mode, but i could never finish them all - a lot of those special goals drove me absolutely nuts

I just completed first AR training HOLY HELL was that worth it! Flying around the city like this more than makes up for having to listen to a million phone messages back-to-back while I do it.

Actually yeah one of the other frustrations of return to Asylum was not just being able to throw off a grapple while flying.

Beat the story mode. HELL YEAH. Now i can just roam around and have fun, switching characters when i want, using alternate skins. That 70s Batsuit looks awesome.

The last Catwoman chapter's pretty good too

yeah, i just broke into the courthouse and there is a room full of tons of guys i need to beat up. i love these brawls!

It's probably the most satisfying game for me. To just go I'm a room, string together massive combos and take down like 40 goons. Really feels like I've accomplished something.

So am I on my own in wildly anticipating this or are you people too deep in GTA to care?

after spending the last few hours taking photos on my cameraphone, using the stock market, piling up containers using a crane and towing cars across town i'm chomping at the bit for some actual FUN so yeah, im anticipating this a lot. last two were great and i need to revisit them really

i pre-ordered it in a moment of weakness/work stress, hope it's fun.

i was pretty cold on it originally, but slowly getting hyped up. i'll wait for the inevitable half-price Black Friday sale, though

incredibly fucking pumped for this

never managed to get into the first one but AC was probably the best game I played in the last 5 years - i'm hoping new one builds on that

I got somewhere around 120 hit combos at one point before i stopped playing Arkham City. Very interested in this!

Hopefully they tone down the misogyny. Probably one of the worst games I've ever played in that regards.

yeah, catwoman in the last one was some grim shit, just embarrassing

Hmm, no Paul Dini and it's not made by Rocksteady, plenty of reason to wait for the reviews this time around imo.

I think Dini only did the story for those two - I doubt he approved of what they did to Harley, for instance

who's making this new version? what's their track record like?

Warner Brothers Montreal, and they have no track record, only thing they've made before this is the wii u port of arkham city.

Misogyny definitely downgraded to typical t for teen aaa VG levels

Pretty sure this'll be gr8 but can't say 4 sure til real ppl c it

anyone played an, uh, advance/review copy of this yet? verdict?

those are incredibly scarce, for some reason.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Why-There-Batman-Arkham-Origins-Reviews-60093.html

like i said, i pre-ordered in a moment of weakness, so i hope that wasn't a dumb thing to do.

not just a late embargo--many outlets haven't even received review copies yet.

(it is out there in the www.wild west so hoping some badlad would have come up with some thoughts, gta5 leakstyle)

here's one: http://www.videogamer.com/reviews/batman_arkham_origins_review.html

played for an hour or so, still brilliant. same ultra-satisfying fighting mechanism, detective view etc. people might moan that it's barely any different from the last two (it starts with batman wandering through a prison/asylum again) but i'm not complaining. can already sense this is going to become my go-to game for easy fun that will never ask me to drive across a make-believe town for 40 minutes or go on the internet to deal in stocks and shares etc etc

ha. reviews are mixed but i'm ok with more of the same.

Played up through the first boss. Yes I am pretty certain I will love this game; also semi-hoping there are playable side missions for the assassins.

UK launch weekend sale were half those of City. Although I suspect that's at least partly to do with people still having GTA on the go.

Also hasn't been a full week yet. Anyway here's hoping y'all like it.

I've been playing with 'hints' (incl. combat prompts) turned off, which is way better, but had to turn them back on to get through the Deathstroke fight. Loved how hard that one felt, but I just couldn't make it through the final third, partly because I thought that maybe I had to do blade counters.

batman flying through an infinite void, i want to make a music video out of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9GR2jK26dGU#t=21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-AdTxB2ifI

laughing so hard at sad batman

weird that in an industry primarily based on samey sequels/franchises, this is the one that's getting shat on a bunch. really having fun with it.

have the reviews been harsh? thought it was p much more of the same. i like it enough though got a bit overwhelmed/annoyed by all the choices early in the game - so many things to do with no real guide as to when. one esp irritating bit was gliding to some offshore building to smash up a satellite dish highlighted on the map, spending about 40 mins trying to get in there with no luck. youtubed a how-to video and found out i need to wait til much much later in the game when i get a glue gun. SHITTY DESIGN.

just got up to the big battle with the newly-escaped prisoners in the basement of the police cells and i've decided to sack it off for a while, but i think that's more my growing boredom with games in general rather than this specific one.

later in the game when i get a glue gun.

http://www.dadcando.com/Making/BasicModel/Images/glue-gun-425.jpg

Bruce fallen on hard times, has he?

i think the reviews are pretty accurate. there's definitely a feeling of 'done this all before', but it's still really fun.

Gorblimey guvna, the bleedin' Penguin in Origins has the least convincing Cockernee accent since Dick van Dyke.

And it's Nolan North!

He was dreadful in City too.

I love how, in the investigation sections, Batman examines corpses that have been mouldering at the crime scene under a GCPD tarp for up to three days. Is Gotham so crime-ridden that the cops can't find the time to take murder victims to the morgue?

this is so much better with hints turned off, more immersive and less distracting during the brawls, but i have to remember to turn them back on for the boss fights or else they're basically impossible (lots of quick-time prompts that result in instant death).

Completionism inspired me to pick up Arkham City GOTY, to finally do that Harley Quinn chapter before moving on to Origins. It was fun to play as Robin for a bit, but the map design and tone were so dreary, it kind of sank the whole thing. Worst part was when you switch back to Batman, I wasted an hour flying around the whole island before figuring out how to get back into the damn building, but that's what I get for playing this years after I beat the game the first time around.

That said, I got my money's worth out of that Joker's Carnival challenge map. Damn addictive, I spent hours trying to get the first medal, but it's so brutally unforgiving - you can't even get hit once. Really great for people like me who love those combat challenge rooms.

playing though Arkham Origins. Does anyone think it looks a bit under-finished, even compared to Asylum? The menus look really nice, but the actual game world looks a bit dodgy, particularly compared to Arkham City.

Just went through it myself. It has that feeling, i think, especially since so many assets were reused, not to mention there are sections of Arkham City that were reused AND shrunk to fit this version of Gotham. That said, the game actually overall has a nicer look than Arkham City - it's kind of subtle, but the lighting effects/in-game engine are slightly improved. As you progress though, you'll see where all the money went - into the new specific setpieces, cutscenes, detective mode, etc. I do think that most of the best stuff is in the second half. I'm saving some comments for my P&C ballot.

fair enough, I will reserve judgement. I did really enjoy the Deathstroke set-piece, which was pretty tough and seemed a natural extension of the (still excellent) brawling aspect of the game.

and it's good to know there's plenty of fun to come!

welll i don't want to get your hopes TOO high - but I think there's a handful of moments that ultimately made it worth it for me

i thought it ended very abruptly & anticlimactically (from a gameplay perspective at least -- the story is probably better written than any of the other games, maybe?).

i'm definitely leaning that way. but I would also say that the boss encounters at the end of Origins made more sense to me than the ones at the end of Asylum/City, which both featured slugfests with giant mutants that didn't really feel in tone with the rest of the game. but i appreciated that the "true" climax happens about 75% of the way through.

this is on sale for 4.99 for xbox gold members right now

oops wrong thread ):

Origins also does a decent job of making some of Gotham (the new stuff obviously) feel properly multi-level.

Firefly is probably the best boss fight of the entire series

it was boss. like they stole it straight out of what should be a Spider-Man game, except none of the ones that exist have anything so well executed

Beat Copperhead last night, that was pretty good fun. I'm definitely getting more into this one. Is there any environment analysis in terms of taking photos of landmarks in this one?

yeah, the Anarky tags, but there's no hints for 'em - you just find them in Detective Mode when you're traveling around the city

thx, that's cool, I think I have noticed one of those...

I just finished this last night, and yeah it did feel like an abrupt ending (I went into Blackgate at 39% completion so I was only sort of expecting it to end there), and I feel like the expanded city maybe wasn't used to its full potential... but I guess there'll be DLC, and anyway, I wanted another Batman game, and that's what I got, so I'm not really complaining.

Also even though I am really terrible at the fighting in these games (I managed to get an 'S' ranking once, somehow) I found the combat system more satisfying in this than previous games. That may be because the glue bomb/grenade, remote claw, and shock gloves make it possible for shit players to be almost not shit players. But even aside from that the combat is so smooth, like I still can't get over how amazing the Deathstroke boss fight was (and lucky me, because I suck so hard at Batman combat, I got to do Deathstroke three times).

I also like that there's some post-game stuff, even if it's just detective work. Re: environment analysis, in addition to the Anarky tags there are also commemorative plaques that tell you a bit about Gotham buildings/architecture/Solomon Wayne. Like the Anarky tags, though, they're really difficult to find.

tldr, BATMAN IS GREAT

I don't think I found any of those plaques! Damn. Like in Arkham City, the post-game stuff is pretty good; basically feels like stuff they couldn't bother to fit into the main plot of the game, but just fun little missions. I don't know how much story DLC is coming at this point, but I'll wait until it's all on sale or for a GOTY version to come out.

The delay on the Glue Bomb vs. the Ice Grenade from Arkham City slows the fight tempo down a bit and is a nice sidegrade; the remote claw device is much easier in combat to use than the similar device from AC as well; the rest of the stuff is basically the same. and make The Shock Gloves are practically INVINCIBILITY CHEAT CODE and feel awesome.

saving the NG+ for a while, but looking forward to going back to this. I agree the combat feels refined as compared to City, though it's not the same as the difference between Asylum and City. But yeah this game is really fun!

Ha there is no way I could do this on NG+, good luck to you. I'm kind of tempted to revisit Arkham Asylum but I don't know how jarring/regressive the gameplay would feel at this point, and I really don't want to do that Killer Croc sewer 'boss fight' ever again.

Actually if there's one thing that was really dreadful about Arkham Origins, it was Penguin & associates' 'cockney' 'accents' - could they really not find actual Brit voice actors for these parts!?

I'm not really sure why they bothered to make him British at all! And then - surely as a goof - doubled down on it by giving him an English henchwench in this one

I'm tempted sometimes to do New Game+ or play in the super hard mode, it's actually pretty thrilling, next-level stuff to get through the combat without any of the counter indicators, on top of the already amazing feeling of Flawless Freeflow Combat

That Croc fight was pretty terrible

in City I got a bit obsessed with the fight challenges, to the extent that I would immediately restart a bout if I didn't do it perfectly #madskillsyo

Did you ever do that crazy ass Joker's Carnival challenge map, with the countdown round timer? Man that was a bear.

no, but I shall investigate

speaking of these games- new game trailer, which is dare I say it a little bit on the pompous side

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dKjR9-dDvA

SO EPIC BRO!

sigh though maybe i'll actually go next gen for this

there was that infuriating moment at the end with Harley Quinn too. But yeah strengthens the case doesn't it.

The Joker's Challenge map in AC (probably available as DLC now) was originally a pre-order bonus, I didn't play it until I got the GOTY version. Basically it's a long, single round, challenge map where you have to keep up your scoring to extend the timer, and harder enemies spawn in as you defeat them.

Heh - Harley looks goofy, but at least they tried a little harder with the redesign, I guess

Yup, next-gen and PC only for the new one. Crap.
Kinda shaking my head at "You can drive the Batmobile!" as a selling point, and what sounds like more of that half-assed multiplayer mode

at 1:00 bruce looks like a little person with a giant head.

Holy shit free on ps plus for April

Sounds about right, the game's almost three years old at this point

Oh goddamit. I was thinking of arkham origins or whatever. Ignore me

Deathstroke fight is the new killer croc level from asylum. Fucking stupid, prob enough to make me not bother.

I didn't think think was all that bad tbh, I liked the fight. They should've cut down the number of QTEs, though, no doubt

I am very late to this party. just started playing Arkham City. What a flippin' game!

yeah played it at the same time I dug into the Assassin's Creed series (playing ACII) and was thinking the whole time "why the hell did I not play console games for such a long time" - quickly after finishing those two games I remembered

too much time investment?

oh good god wtf is this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn-twZm_wEY

a heartwarming incitement to vigilante justice

is that a machine gun mounted on the batmobile at 1:07??

be the batman! have your parents killed in front of your eyes at eight years old, devote your life to honing your mind and body to the peak of human achievement then savagely beat up the underclass in rain-soaked alleys!

xp from what i've seen in other footage the batmobile is bristling with weapons, which is kinda troubling even if rocksetady insist they're non-lethal and/or only used against robots etc

It's a terrible ad, but I am already hype - back to Rocksteady after the buggy nonsense of Arkham Origins.

pew pew pew

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pO2_iUkojCY/maxresdefault.jpg

http://i2.wp.com/www.timemachinego.com/linkmachinego/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wondermark-batman.gif

everywhere i look i see old men having their hats taken by hoodlums
THIS MUST END
criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot... i will dress up as... a commuter...

I cancelled my preorder on this, really want to play it but there's so much DLC coming, and the season pass is so overpriced, and complete everything-on-the-disc GOTY editions arrive so fast these days (Shadow of Mordor's out already, Far Cry 4 in a few weeks) that I can't justify buying day one.

yeah, WB's killing me with their season pass stuff. if it were all garbage i could ignore it, ironically. time between Shadow of Mordor and GOTY version was 8 months.
MKX right now has me hemming and hawing over the season pass with Jason, Predator, etc.
I haven't pre-ordered Batman yet, but I probably will anyway, it's one of the reasons I jumped to this console generation. if you pre-order from BB you get a gift card, but those saving will probably get funneled into the season pass.. urk.

the bat mobile weapons are only for shooting darkseid w/ Radion bullets

LOL that comic is brilliant

as brilliant as that ad is terrible

Was waiting for the whooooomp

xp from what i've seen in other footage the batmobile is bristling with weapons, which is kinda troubling even if rocksetady insist they're non-lethal and/or only used against robots etc

http://i.imgur.com/zuPHfq5.jpg