Be Excellent To Each Other

It's not a driving section, you'll need to use the Batmobile to get around because it's so HUGE.

Sounds awesome.

Can't wait, I'll be buying to play over xmas.
Be glad to not play another Assassin Creed game over the festive period.

Edit - Unless a Fallout game is announced at E3 for release this year.

I do think Fallout 4 will be this year and will be announced at E3 or around that time

I'd be very surprised if this year. 2015 I think hopefully it will be next gen machines only. I'm hoping this E3 we will see developers focusing on the PS4/XB1/PC releases only without having to make a version for 360/PS3.

I think your still going to see 4 versions for at least this year with the older systems falling back slightly next year.

This nonsense must be driving the developers insane, imagine having to develop and test four versions (+ the PC as well in most cases) of everything. I'd rather see them plowing all their resources in the 'next gen' versions rather than dividing up their staff and potentially making compromises to get stuff running on the 360/PS3, which would also encourage people to upgrade and mean the industry can move on quicker.

I think we will see more games at E3 go PS4/XB1/PC only this year. Batman Arkham Knight for one is not coming out on 360/PS3

Nicely back on topic !

(FYI should not be a surprise but the version of Titanfall with the most sales at this point is the 360 version)

I have to use the batmobile to get around your mum because she's so huge.

Welcome back.

Not back yet, she was just getting dressed. Enough time for a drive-by your mum joke

Your mum has everything Batman has in his utility belt on her regular belt. Because she is so fat.

Also: suspiciously well prepared.

Fuuuuuck. Arkham Knight delayed until some time in 2015.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/06/03/batma ... into-2015/

Cool, means I don't have to buy a PS4 for ages now.

All the cool kids already have a PS4

I hadn't played any games at all in nearly a month until Mario Kart 8 came out, so I really have no inclination to buy another console to gather dust right now.

Hopefully things will all change again once I get my own place.

Yeah, that reply was more mocking me than anything.
Although I do rather like the console.

New trailer

New video

/chokes

Well, I probably won't be getting this for the PC anytime soon.

This was always going to be a PS4 game for me anyway. I'm not actually sure what would have to happen to make me upgrade my PC. Well, some kind of demanding PC exclusive is obviously the answer but that just never happens these days.

Holy apathy, Batman. I couldn't give a flying fuck about Batman after that trailer.

I don't like their design for Robin at all.

I also don't like that the Batmobile is more like a tank than a car. Seems to be quite shooty, too.

First review is up and it plays a bit to expectations i.e. good game but Batmobile bits are a major flaw.

Free 'New 52' character skins for the console versions:

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-gb/ ... NNEW520000

https://store.xbox.com/en-GB/Xbox-One/D ... 414a839868

To be honest, I bloody loved Asylum but I didn't enjoy City nearly as much. I don't fancy this one at all.

I've been playing it today and it is very, very good. But then I liked Arkham City. The way Gotham has been laid out in this makes the Batmobile a worthwhile addition for getting around, although the controls are a little sketchy and the combat in it isn't as enjoyable as the fisticuffs when on foot. All the same though, if you liked Asylum and City, you should love this one.

I bought it yesterday but accidentally ended up in the pub getting really drunk instead of playing it, I'll try to remedy that this evening.

I still haven't managed to play this! Got home last night and put the disc in the drive which kicked off a ~3GB patch download. I then redeemed the codes for all the extra content that came with it which added another couple of GB to the download list. Plus the Games of Thrones and Borderlands Telltale games wanted updating as well so I just left the PS4 to it and did something else. Obviously I could've played the game anyway and just let things download in the background but with all the shite happening around the PC version I'd prefer to be fully patched up before starting just in case; and with the various add-ons already integrated as I'm not sure how and when they key into the game. Tonight though! Maybe.

And in related news, the PC version has been pulled entirely while they fix it because it's apparently such a shambles. Fuck sake.

Looks like the PC version is a total trainwreck at the moment, with shocking performance, 30FPS cap by default, missing console graphical features (!), and generally just being an obvious rush-job to get it out of the door.

It's sat in my Steam library ready to install but I'll just wait until it's had a few patches, the problems have been 'acknowledged' and are being worked on apparently.

I think a good rule of thumb these days is not to jump in right at launch, The Witcher 3 for example is already up to 1.06 and 1.07 is incoming which will feature many more improvements and fixes. (I'm holding off on getting involved with it until the dev says there's nothing more of any significance they want to patch.)

I'm not right fussed on the Batman games anyway, but as it was a freebie with my graphics card I may as well take a look - WHEN IT WORKS PROPERLY.

Crikey, withdrawn from sale on Steam now.

Guess that new Steam refunds policy was hurting them eh? (Especially since the distributor doesn't get the Steam cut back as part of the refund apparently, and of course they don't even get a physical product returned.)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015- ... t-pc-sales

I'm glad I plumped for the PS4 version of this now. I got the previous three on PC as they were all generally much better versions than the console ones, but I had a feeling my PC wouldn't be quite up to the task of this one. Apparently this time around, Rocksteady worked primarily on the console versions (PS4 was the lead format I believe) and the PC version got farmed out to someone else - whereas Asylum and City were both produced in-house. Pretty shocking state of affairs really.

It's a real shame - the more I play this game, the more I love it. I honestly think it's so far proving to be the best in the series (having very recently replayed both Asylum and City in the build up to this). Some of what they've done with the plot is very, very clever indeed and it feels like a big finale to the series.

One of the little touches I love involves a big set-piece fairly early on into the main plot:


Plus, any 'gritty' Batman game that lets you play as Adam West Batman, with your Bat-tank-mobile painted black and red like the 60's Batmobile is always going to get my vote.

Batgirl DLC

I 'finished' this, plus the Harley and Red Hood DLC, last night and as I mentioned in the Finish 52 thread it was a bit of a mixed bag. The basics that you'd expect from any Arkham game were all present and correct but the additions and changes were all over the place so have a random list of good and bad stuff.

The good:

• Graphics. It looked utterly fucking lovely and is a very good sign of things to come from proper current gen games. The only slight downside there is that there's so much detail and stuff in the city that in some of the racing sections with the Batmobile it's difficult to plan your route because you can't see what's coming up.
• The plot. Generally speaking I think this is the most engaged I've been with any of the Arkham games and I really liked the writing. The stuff with
  ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

  The Joker
  being an obvious highlight and the way they worked him in was incredibly well done.
• The Batmobile. When used sparingly it was capable of being a nice addition to the game. It was hard to adjust to seeing it as another gadget and adding it to my mental model of possible puzzle solving tools but that was temporary. The parts where you had to work out how to get the Batmobile inside a given arena were pretty satisfying because once you succeed you get to blow the fuck out of all the enemies and gun turrets that were giving you such a hard time moments earlier. It was also very useful when hunting down Riddler trophies because the game would give you a GPS trail to follow when in the car that really speeds up the time taken to find each one.
• Being a badass predator. This is still as fun as it always was and the new fear takedown mechanic is not only brilliant fun but genuinely encourages you to get in close for silent take downs in order to power it up. Pro-tip: doing a silent takedown instantly powers you up for a fear multi-takedown so if you've got a row of guys you can dive in to silently take down the one at the rear then instantly start a chain of fear takedowns to drop the rest, which is very satisfying.
• Multi-character combat. There are arenas where you've got an ally with you and can do hilariously brutal dual-takedowns These are incredibly satisfying in general but also automatically switch you to the other person which requires you to instantly adjust to their fighting style on the fly. Good fun all in.
• General variety. Between the core plotline and the various side missions you never need to be doing the same thing for any length of time so you could certainly never accuse the game of being boring. Also, the way the side missions activate and deactivate as you progress is very well done and means you can't just charge through an entire set in one go and get bored of it as I have a tendency to do. This compromise between fully open world vs linear guided play is a great bit of game design. I realise other games have done this to an extent but the way it's handled here made everything feel properly integrated. The other nice thing is that a lot of the side missions weren't initially on the map and you'd just stumble across them as you flew from one objective to the next (listening out for the opera music of the serial killer or the shriek of the Man-bat being particularly highlights). But after a while someone would report an incident to give you an objective if you weren't finding them yourself fast enough so another excellent balance in game design.
• Riddler stuff. His proper side mission where you and Catwoman are doing puzzle rooms was really good fun. Rocksteady's Catwoman is nicely sarcastic which played well with their Riddler characterisation and the actual puzzle rooms were well designed. Although the racing track sections sucked fucking ass as mentioned below. I'd really liked to have seen this through to the end and properly kicked his ass but see below comment about there being just too many trophies spread through the city.

The bad:

• The Batmobile. There were huge tranches of the game where it was utterly rammed down your throat; most especially the beginning when you're just trying to get back into the swing of things and the mental load of this whole new thing to learn was pretty off-putting. Also the tank battles with it were a nice idea that were massively over-used and got really irritating after a while. If I never see the words 'missile lock' again it'll be too fucking soon. Although I did quite enjoy the parts where you had to stealthily take out the bigger tanks, not least because sneaking around in a fucking tank is a concept that still makes me laugh. Oh, and the Riddler stuff where you had to race the thing round his underground tracks can get to fucking fuck; that was teeth grinding stuff. Basically it was good stuff when used more sparingly but the designers were just too desperate to make sure the time they spent on it didn't go to waste.
• Over-stuffed combat. As of Origins the Arkham games already have a huge array of enemy types which present different challenges in a fight and need different button combos or gadgets to take them down. With Knight they ramped it all up again by adding even more shit into the mix and while some of these idea were fine in concept some of the fights just got completely over-whelming when they threw too much shit at you. I eventually gave up with the Occupy Gotham and Own the Roads challenges because some of them just threw everything and the kitchen sink into some of the fights and it wasn't fun any more. The mental load required to juggle guys with guns and guys with knives and guys with shields and guys with cattle prods and guys who were untouchably electrified and ninjas with swords and medics and titans and titans with knives and titans with shields and titans with fucking electric gauntlets and titans with knives and shields who would occasionally also draw out electric fucking gauntlets and guys who charge at you from the other side of the room and lethal drone guns on a timer was just ludicrous and resulted in my control pad getting launched across the room on more than one occasion. There were times I actually had to pause a single fight to Google the button combination for dealing with a specific enemy type because I couldn't keep it all in my head and that can just fuck off frankly. By no means all, or even a majority, of the fights were like this but enough of them were that I started to slightly dread each new encounter until I could see what I was up against.
• Riddler stuff. I loved it in the first game and happily spent hours tracking down trophies in Arkham City but there's just too fucking many of them this time round and I got bored about half way through. They generally do a good job of mixing it up and forcing you to use all your gadgets and stuff but the sheer number of the bloody things sucks away your desire to go for them. They need more of the ones where you get a hint of what you're looking for and have to 'scan' certain items, those are always good fun and there's nowhere near enough of them.

So, yeah; some aspects of it made it the best Arkham game and other stuff made it the worst. Absolutely worth playing and a great game by any standard but definitely flawed.

I thought about getting this recently then decided I should probably play some of the games I've already got but haven't touched.

I take a look at my shelf if games and lo and behold, there's a copy of Batman there. I guess I bought it and totally forgot.

Anyway, I'm playing it now. It's fucking good, isn't it?

I AM THE GODDAMN BATMAN.

It was the game you used to demo your Steam Link to me on New Year's Eve HTH HAND

It's decent, apart from the GODDAMN BATMOBILE.

Wasn't that Arkham City?

Wait, is it the PC you've got it on then? I don't know if I'd bother with it there given how badly implemented it apparently is. I would suggest getting a refund and buying the PS4 version but I think you missed the boat on that.

No, I don't think so. Because I've played City but not Knight, and that's why I picked it. Check your Steam purchase history and see when you bought Knight.

Nope, only Asylum and City and City GOTY, and only the latter is installed.

I'm playing Arkham Knight on the PS4.

I've been playing this recently after grabbing it with the season pass for under £20 from an Amazon price error.

The game says I'm about 50% of the way through it, I think I am close to the end of the main story now.

I agree with everything Bamba said up there.

I think they've stretched this format about as far as it can go, and the cracks are starting to show. It's not a bad game, but none of the sequels have really surpassed Asylum for my money, and I want to see Rocksteady start again from scratch on something else (even if that something else is a Justice League, Superman or DC movie adaptation game).

I'm enjoying it, but if they put out another game that is the same again but biggerer in a couple of years I'll probably check out.

I loved Asylum a lot. City I've just not got around to finishing - it's just more of the same but with more silly gadgets. I can't be arsed with this one or Origins.

I've played them all apart from Knight so far. Origins was a bit pap compared to City but I guess that's because City was so, so good.