Batman: Arkham Asylum

[Armacalypse]

The demo sucked, but that was mostly because you could play it blindfolded, and you can't judge the full game on it since the demo is set in the tutorial with the game set on easy.

What Annie Carlson wrote was pretty stupid though. The SLOWMO YEAAAHH finishing moves are really poorly animated, and even VATS is more impressive. Also there's nothing wrong with a separate tutorial, it worked well in Half-Life to not disturb the atmosphere in the main game with stupid popups. Even Gears of War used one.

Okay fuck this shit. Hard is great for minions, so that they actually do proper damage, but bosses are WTFhard. Fucking Bane. I played this game so I could be rewarded for playing cleverly and punished for making conscious stupid mistakes, not so that I could be slaughtered if I don't tap my buttons 100% perfectly.

How does the difficulty on hard compare to say, Ninja Gaiden on normal?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

OK, you have a problem with a demo giving you instructions? Seriously? To be honest, from a developer's perspective, one of the requirements from a publisher is "make this game playable without the manual," and they hate including tutorials as a separate section. And they never have 4th wall breaking stuff where Batman says "I think I need to use A to jump" - it's a pop-up, and you can ignore it if you want to. There are a few sections where Batman "thinks out loud," but really it's a game direction more than anything else, and it's a sort of necessary evil that a large publisher will not, I mean WILL. NOT. let you be without. Can you think of many recent, large-scale games that have?

With the exception of the room full of armed guards that you take out at the end, the demo really IS the very beginning of the game, and a pure introduction to the sort of encounters you have during the course of the title. And if it makes you feel better, the takedown of Zsasz (sp?) isn't a terribly commonly-used mechanic, but something meant to make you realize that it's not about what Batman can endure, but the people he's trying to save.

And actually, with the variety of finishing moves, I DIDN'T get tired of it. There are a tremendous amount of them - kicks, punches, fists to the groin, slaps into the wall, etc - and at the end of a rather frenetic combat, they're a nice, satisfying, FUCK YOUUUU to the last goon that you wipe the floor with. If you play on Hard - and it really is punishing - you won't find those sequences to be tiring. And to be frank, there really aren't ALL THAT MANY brawler sequences - not enough to make the game feel like that's the main draw, or all that it has to offer.

And quitting where you did? You missed where you get to sneak around a room and hang goons by their feet. Missed where you get to watch Joker's henchmen progressively break and lose their shit as you take them out, one by one, and Joker goes from yelling at them to take you down to ROOTING FOR YOU. You're missing out on Mark Hamill's performance there, which is really one of the major highlights of the game.

Also, you can say the demo is bad. Even though you didn't play all of it, like you said. Saying the GAME is bad? Not so much. You didn't play that, now didya? Can you imagine that the game might get harder?

I'm curious - what DO you want from a Batman game? I don't mean this to sound pissy, I am honestly curious, as people do want different things from Batman. Some have wanted more predatory options, some want more brawlery bits. If you're letting the fact that the demo is a bit tutorial-esque get you down, well, fine, you don't like it, that's a fair cop. But if you imagine that the ENTIRE GAME is going to fall into the game kind of tutorial-type pattern despite all we're posted here, that seems a bit disingenuous.

I want side scrolling like the Nintendo Batman Returns were you kill enemies by punching things and they burn up. While this new one tries to be all gritty, the NES one has guys with wolverine claws and they jump. Also, they have landmines that walk and attack you so you have to destroy them by tricking them into exploding.

Recently I saw the newest Batman movie with that guy that killed himself in real life. IT wasn't so bad, but they've already made a movie with the Joker and he died, which reminded me why comics are stupid anyways and why I don't read them anymore aside from mini-series. You see, they make these characters and they go on and on and on and on and the character should be like 50 years old and yet they still make them like they were when they first were created. They kill off a character and then they make him come back over and over again.

Not to mention a million different retard writers come in and muddle things up. Each one trying to make their imprint. "Lets make Captain America confront the Vietnam War!"

You know who my favorite comic character is? Solomon Grundy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our latest dumbfuck. DU, please do the honours.

 

[amorax]

Graphically the supervillain models are overdone and Batman is the only one who looks 'right'. Your average thugs are all buffed up Vin Diesel types with no variation and their death animations start to repeat *very* quickly.

The game doesn't use death animations so I have no clue what you're talking about here.

With the amount of voice acting in this game I would have expected the lip syncing and and facial animations to match the quality of the VA but again, nopesies, unbridled stiffness that is nigh on embarassing to watch. With this new generation of games I truly feel that graphics have gone downhill, there's simply too much of everything and each object has no distinction or rather, EVERYTHING has distinction and it just burns your eyes and this game is no exception. Getting a five o'clock shadow and having your costume torn up (only after scripted events and not from scuffling with your enemies) is no longer 'cool' after your first instance of it.

Subjective and a nitpick. I personally found no problems with the lip syncing or 'stiffness' as you call it. It wasn't the best, but it certainly did its job. I also don't understand how you can complain about Batman looking torn up seeing as that doesn't affect gameplay in any way and was obviously never meant to be anything more than a 'nice little touch'.

Fighting is buttion mashing at it's worst when you're engaged up close

Wrong. And I don't mean I disagree with your opinion. I mean that is just a blatant lie right there. The combat isn't based around memorizing elite ultra face smashing combos. It's based around situational awareness and the combo multiplier. Yes, it's true that there's only really one attack button, but just mashing that button over and over again will NOT result in victory, even on the lower difficulties. Seriously, I have no idea where this complaint comes from either.

and stealth is on the Fisher-Price tier since it's fucking OPTIONAL! As Hanover said there's very little instances where it's needed, the main problem is that the goons can't look up until you've been spotted and are painfully deaf.

Again, dead wrong. Trying to run up to the goons and punching them in the face in the sections where you're supposed to use stealth will result in you getting shot. I'm also getting really sick of hearing the 'OMG GARGOYLES MAKE IT ESAY' because it completely misrepresents the game in addition to being, once again, dead wrong. While it's true that on easy mode the guards will never look up until you've been spotted, on the normal and hard difficulties, when the guards have been alerted to your presence, they will occasionally look up (moreso on the hard difficulty). I also don't understand why you would complain about them not looking up because the stealth is more or less built around the gargoyles being your emergency escape route of sorts.

While dipdipdip was impressed by the easter eggs I felt they were again for your average gamer/movie goer Batman fan, I think they did a disservice to the game by their sheer frequency, easter eggs are meant to be a special occasion like in the PSX Spiderman game, then again you could say that it's Arkham where the baddies spend most of their time but they just didn't click with me. A big gripe for me are the Riddler's trophies scattered about all over the shop with the sole purpose of item collection and getting 100% endgame, after all these years of reading comics I honestly never knew Batman was really Spyro in a cape! They should have lessened their occurances and added a riddle to every one ala Betrayal at Krondor if they really think that Bats goes treasure hunting whilst people are dying and Joker's planning on taking over Gotham.

Like before, subjective and a nitpick. I personally thought the riddles and trophies were an absolutely brilliant touch that helped reduce the monotony that would otherwise have inevitably ensued while exploing the asylum grounds. I also don't know why you'd complain about having more content that the devs never needed or promised to put in but there you go.

To sum it up if you're a console gamer, non-comic reader Batman fan, or your favourite writers are Loeb, Winick, Liefeld et al this is a game for you. Going I AM THE BAT wears off pretty quickly and I don't feel this game warrants replays.

To sum it up, I think you're full of shit. There are literally no other games or even movies (and perhaps even a few comics) out there right now that so faithfully represents the world and character of Batman. If you're a screaming faggot, a crybaby nitpicker or someone who uploads pictures of their penis for hundreds of anonymous strangers to see, avoid this game at all costs. If not, carry on enjoying an objectively high-qulity game.

 

[amorax]

What Annie Carlson wrote was pretty stupid though. The SLOWMO YEAAAHH finishing moves are really poorly animated, and even VATS is more impressive.

Again, you are objectively wrong. The animations are good, period. I really can't go any more in-detail than that because this is probably more of a subjective thing, but to say that any animation in this game is worse than the shit in Fallout 3 is just on its face wrong.

Also there's nothing wrong with a separate tutorial, it worked well in Half-Life to not disturb the atmosphere in the main game with stupid popups. Even Gears of War used one.

So, what exactly is wrong with an in-game tutorial?

 

[Phelot]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our latest dumbfuck. DU, please do the honours.

Are you coming on to me?

 

[Mangoose]

How does the difficulty on hard compare to say, Ninja Gaiden on normal?

I'll get back to you in a week; just ordered it. Bear in mind I'm not an action gamer at heart, and I bought Arkham Asylum mainly for the stealth aspects.

The problem I had was trying to fight off/avoid like 8 henchmen while making sure to avoid a boss barreling into me from 50 feet away. If Ninja Gaiden is like that then oh well, I'm screwed.

Subjective and a nitpick. I personally found no problems with the lip syncing or 'stiffness' as you call it. It wasn't the best, but it certainly did its job.

Eh well if you've watched the cartoon with the same VOs then the animations in Arkham Asylum leave much to be desired. Not that they're bad at all.

 

[Satori (original)]

The game doesn't use death animations so I have no clue what you're talking about here.

Hokay then Mr.Pedantic I meant knock-out animations.

Subjective and a nitpick. I personally found no problems with the lip syncing or 'stiffness' as you call it. It wasn't the best, but it certainly did its job. I also don't understand how you can complain about Batman looking torn up seeing as that doesn't affect gameplay in any way and was obviously never meant to be anything more than a 'nice little touch'.

As I said before this game is all style and no subtance, EVERYTHING in this game is a 'nice little touch' with nada else.

Wrong. And I don't mean I disagree with your opinion. I mean that is just a blatant lie right there. The combat isn't based around memorizing elite ultra face smashing combos. It's based around situational awareness and the combo multiplier.

In my books that doesn't disqualify it as a button masher, of course you're bloody going to hit the guy that comes up closest to you. See Ninja Gaiden and Godhand for how to do fighting correctly ie. challenging, entertaining and tense.

I also don't understand why you would complain about them not looking up because the stealth is more or less built around the gargoyles being your emergency escape route of sorts.

Because it's cheap and the easy way out for the game devs.

Like before, subjective and a nitpick. I personally thought the riddles and trophies were an absolutely brilliant touch that helped reduce the monotony that would otherwise have inevitably ensued while exploing the asylum grounds. I also don't know why you'd complain about having more content that the devs never needed or promised to put in but there you go.

Item collection does not equal more content, it's padding.

To sum it up, I think you're full of shit. There are literally no other games or even movies (and perhaps even a few comics) out there right now that so faithfully represents the world and character of Batman.

Of course there are no comics out there right now that portrays the character of Batman, since he's fucking dead. True I did set my sights too high, I expected atmosphere and tension on the level of Morrison's Arkham Asylum, you know, its namesake?. Besides this isn't a correct portyal of Batman, Batman the Animated Series maybe but not comic Batman since we all know what happened when Batman took on every one of his enemies in a row never mind hundreds of enemies and bosses hopped up on Titan. I should just accept what I'm given like everybody else and should judge things by what the state of it's surrounding entertainment level is at right now yes? Mmmmmmm delicious Bioware standards.

If you're a screaming faggot, a crybaby nitpicker or someone who uploads pictures of their penis for hundreds of anonymous strangers to see, avoid this game at all costs. If not, carry on enjoying an objectively high-qulity game.

High quality for its time? Yes. Will that high quality remain into the future? No.

Also, JEALOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

[Mangoose]

Because it's cheap and the easy way out for the game devs.

Actually I've gotten killed quite a bit if I grapple onto Gargoyles straight in front of someone. Or one time I spammed Batarangs from atop a Gargoyle and they shot me down.

 

[Armacalypse]

What Annie Carlson wrote was pretty stupid though. The SLOWMO YEAAAHH finishing moves are really poorly animated, and even VATS is more impressive.

Again, you are objectively wrong. The animations are good, period. I really can't go any more in-detail than that because this is probably more of a subjective thing, but to say that any animation in this game is worse than the shit in Fallout 3 is just on its face wrong.

Well I didn't really think about the melee in VATS. But someone being shot in slow motion in VATS does look a bit better than Batman jumping in the air doing some downward punch or something equally stupid and missing by several decimeters, after which the enemy falls down as a lifeless ragdoll yet with his hands in front of his head.

That's not to say that VATS isn't one of the most retarded gimmicks in any game ever. If this game had it for every single attack it would be comparable. As it is it's just severe nitpicking to complain about it, but that doesn't mean you need to call it brilliant like a nerdraging fanboy to defend a game that otherwise might be excellent.

Also there's nothing wrong with a separate tutorial, it worked well in Half-Life to not disturb the atmosphere in the main game with stupid popups. Even Gears of War used one.

So, what exactly is wrong with an in-game tutorial?

I haven't complained about in-game tutorials. I was defending having the tutorial separate from the main game or in an optional area, and I think it can be just as viable as having it in the main game.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

How does the difficulty on hard compare to say, Ninja Gaiden on normal?

Just having played the demo I can tell you the two do not compare at all. Difficulty doesn't apply in the same sense because in Batman you basically have attack and counter commands and that's all you do, and its heavily dependent on timing and... that's it. Ninja Gaiden... yeah, do I really need to go further? I would say it's similar to Assassin's Creed's combat.

 

[Mangoose]

How does the difficulty on hard compare to say, Ninja Gaiden on normal?

Just having played the demo I can tell you the two do not compare at all. Difficulty doesn't apply in the same sense because in Batman you basically have attack and counter commands and that's all you do, and its heavily dependent on timing and... that's it. Ninja Gaiden... yeah, do I really need to go further? I would say it's similar to Assassin's Creed's combat.

That's because you played the fucking demo and it's not on hard.

If you mistime your counter you will lose 1/3 (guesstimate, could be 1/4) of your health if you get hit by a henchman.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

If we're talking the "animations" of the henchman when you knock them down, yes those aren't going to be impressive, as they're just a ragdoll that auto-snaps the hands to the head so they don't go flailing about. I knocked Szasz a bit too hard into a wall the first time I played it, and WHEEEOOOO ragdoll flailing fun! That's just ragdolling, tho, and to be honest, that's another thing I know from dev experience is just something UE3 does.

What I was referring to was Batman's animations when he takes someone down - I'd been playing the game for 8 hours and would now and then come across finishing moves I hadn't seen before, like Batman downing an enemy by knocking him over and then kicking backwards (almost like an afterthought) to smack the guy in the back of the head.

Again, dev consideration: Rocksteady isn't a big team. Someplace like Naughty Dog can have silky-smooth animation blending because they have GOBS AND GOBS of animators, but with both a lack of animators and UE3's less-than-awesome animation blending, I was actually surprised the game came out looking as well as it did, especially with as many anims as it had.

Am I also the only one who thinks that having a demo be kind of EASY isn't a bad fucking thing? Really. You're aiming to cast a wide net. If you make the demo easy BUT don't have an adjustable difficulty level in the game itself, that's less than clever.

P.S: Satori - Batman also had a murderous cold and was up for several nights in a row when that happened. Dini actually doesn't like Bane at all (why he was only in two episode of the animated series - and one of those was a dream sequence), and that's evident in him being the first boss. Bane in the comics = calculating and ruthless as well as hugenormous. Bane in the game = big and mean. Which I think suits him well enough, as the Joker and the Scarecrow play the scheming types well enough.

 

[Redeye]

I'm tired of this regenerating health shit.

Regenerating health should make the character tired.

If it's going to be in.

 

[Satori (original)]

P.S: Satori - Batman also had a murderous cold and was up for several nights in a row when that happened

Yo ho ho a fellow comic aficionado eh ?

Dini actually doesn't like Bane at all (why he was only in two episode of the animated series - and one of those was a dream sequence), and that's evident in him being the first boss. Bane in the comics = calculating and ruthless as well as hugenormous. Bane in the game = big and mean.

True but just because the writer has a grudge doesn't mean he should gimp the character altogether, that's pedantry on the lowest level after all. I'm not so much bitching about that soley I mean he's been the bitch of the cartoons (which Dini write) and the movies so we can't expect much from Bane after all this, but to be be honest I wasn't expexting him to be the best he has to offer, knowing Dini's bullshit fanservice ways, I was simply hoping for something more on the intellectual level even if it would be deemed as as hipster bollocks. I would risk that in the hopes for something more than the average console game. Not that I'm blasting consoles mind you, I just know now not to expect the epiphany and enlightenenment of gaming from them, which hopefully now I've learnt to the fullest extent.

Let's just say I was hoping for something that couldn't nowadyas be achieved, yes?

 

[1eyedking]

I'm tired of this regenerating health shit.

 

[Mangoose]

I think health only regens a little after you finish a situation.

 

[HanoverF]

Health regens when you get xp from finding crap or after beating a room full of thugs. In a few boss fights you get it at certain points.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Of course there are no comics out there right now that portrays the character of Batman, since he's fucking dead. True I did set my sights too high, I expected atmosphere and tension on the level of Morrison's Arkham Asylum, you know, its namesake?. Besides this isn't a correct portyal of Batman, Batman the Animated Series maybe but not comic Batman since we all know what happened when Batman took on every one of his enemies in a row never mind hundreds of enemies and bosses hopped up on Titan.

Doing the same thing myself, I would point out that Morrison's Arkham Asylum isn't a realistic point of comparison.

There's also the thing that the comic Batman has taken part in fighting beings far above what was in Knightfall, such as the Sinestro Corps.

 

[yes plz]

There are generally two types of Batmans (Batmen?) -- Noir Batman (Legends of the Dark Knight, usually Detective Comics, B:TAS) and Superhero Batman (Morrison's JLA). Dini is obviously a fan of the former, so I expected exactly what we got in this game.

 

[Mangoose]

He fought Superman too.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

If you mistime your counter you will lose 1/3 (guesstimate, could be 1/4) of your health if you get hit by a henchman.

Is it even possible to mistime it? You can press the counter button at any fucking point of the attack animation, not just when the attack actually connects, like it's done in good action games.

 

[Mangoose]

If you mistime your counter you will lose 1/3 (guesstimate, could be 1/4) of your health if you get hit by a henchman.

Is it even possible to mistime it? You can press the counter button at any fucking point of the attack animation, not just when the attack actually connects, like it's done in good action games.

Well I guess I usually don't. But sometimes I pull something stupid like countering an attack that is too far away to hit me, leaving me open to someone else attacking me.

Countering, however, doesn't do a lot of damage, so you do have to balance attacking and defending. You can just spam counter but that will take god knows who long to finish off six henchmen. But if you choose your attacks poorly they can hit you during your animation and you can't counter.

I don't have great twitch-flexes, though I wasn't complaining either; I felt the difficulty was perfectly fine like this. TBH I think they do less damage than what I said earlier, though some of them have melee weapons and do a lot more than punching.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Yo ho ho a fellow comic aficionado eh ?

Maybe a bit. ::smirk::

Fair note about Bane. I also missed Dini's original take on Killer Croc, where he wasn't a half-reptile man who was a kabillion feet tall, but a large, deformed-croc-like-looking guy who was kind of stupid, vicious, and (despite the efforts of some) without mercy or understanding. You know - the kind of sociopathic nature that WOULD land someone in Arkham versus Blackgate.

But that does beg a bit of the question about Bane. Bane's not exactly crazy when you see him in the comics. One thing that Dini actually did in Batman Beyond was show Bane maybe 50 years in the future - worn into a frail husk and decayed completely from Venom use. Seems reasonable enough - how many times has Batman overloaded that pump, even, and sent him squalling from a massive overdose? I could see his mind eroding after that.

But - fair cop. My point behind all this is that the characters we see in B:AA aren't Dini's version - not completely - and not the comics one so much, either. You'd think also that Batman had gotten through the Scarecrow's - er - "antics" before, but yet we experience their effects. And I'm not complaining, as that particular scene in the mansion (YOU know the one) was fucking cool, but all the same, it's sort of an amalgamation. Which sort of tells me that Rocksteady (and shall we say Warner Bros/DC while we're at it?) knew that attempting to adhere entirely to one or the other would leave folks cold. Shit, Harley's first appearance isn't even listed as the TV show, but in the comics. That seems clear enough evidence to my paranoid mind.

Let's just say I was hoping for something that couldn't nowadyas be achieved, yes?

I can understand that. Transferring a subject from one medium to another has never been the easiest process. Inevitably it will leave someone cold. And, funnily enough, I come at this from the perspective of someone who's picked and chosen her Batman media very carefully - a lesson learned from my days of reading X-Men, as I experienced the agony of watching something I enjoyed curdle and grow vile like milk left in a sauna. Don't even speak to me of X3 - in this world of mine, it doesn't exist.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Yo ho ho a fellow comic aficionado eh ?

Maybe a bit. ::smirk::

Fair note about Bane. I also missed Dini's original take on Killer Croc, where he wasn't a half-reptile man who was a kabillion feet tall, but a large, deformed-croc-like-looking guy who was kind of stupid, vicious, and (despite the efforts of some) without mercy or understanding. You know - the kind of sociopathic nature that WOULD land someone in Arkham versus Blackgate.

But that does beg a bit of the question about Bane. Bane's not exactly crazy when you see him in the comics. One thing that Dini actually did in Batman Beyond was show Bane maybe 50 years in the future - worn into a frail husk and decayed completely from Venom use. Seems reasonable enough - how many times has Batman overloaded that pump, even, and sent him squalling from a massive overdose? I could see his mind eroding after that.

But - fair cop. My point behind all this is that the characters we see in B:AA aren't Dini's version - not completely - and not the comics one so much, either. You'd think also that Batman had gotten through the Scarecrow's - er - "antics" before, but yet we experience their effects. And I'm not complaining, as that particular scene in the mansion (YOU know the one) was fucking cool, but all the same, it's sort of an amalgamation. Which sort of tells me that Rocksteady (and shall we say Warner Bros/DC while we're at it?) knew that attempting to adhere entirely to one or the other would leave folks cold. Shit, Harley's first appearance isn't even listed as the TV show, but in the comics. That seems clear enough evidence to my paranoid mind.

Let's just say I was hoping for something that couldn't nowadyas be achieved, yes?

I can understand that. Transferring a subject from one medium to another has never been the easiest process. Inevitably it will leave someone cold. And, funnily enough, I come at this from the perspective of someone who's picked and chosen her Batman media very carefully - a lesson learned from my days of reading X-Men, as I experienced the agony of watching something I enjoyed curdle and grow vile like milk left in a sauna. Don't even speak to me of X3 - in this world of mine, it doesn't exist.

From what i understand Bane was not meant to be in Arkham and Batman seemed surprised to find him there. He was moved there by request to be used for project titan from what i can remember.

So far the most interesting batman related thing with only TAS and the Dark Knight Being better.

Also the Joker is very well portrayed in the game. Only thing i was missing was more harlequin antics and more of her in her original uniform.

The only ones who would not like this game are Comic book purists who make the denizens of the Codex look like happy out going social individuals.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]