https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLae_AFHRR5HlGrWSz0sHebp8qgpRtfY6N

Here's 28 hours of footage to get you caught up.

I've been asleep for the last 6 hours, and wake up looking, let's say, not my best.

Meanwhile, the girl who we hired to clean our windows is fucking gorgeous, and she's almost done.

Fuck, man. I can't catch a break.

inb4"deez nuts"

Can't wait to read this beauty. I've heard really good things about it. I found The God Delusion to be quite boring, so hopefully Hitchens' work ends up being bit more interesting.

Discuss other books we should read and/or opinions on this book.

Edit: My phone takes these huge fucking photos, I don't know why.

Edit 2: For those just joining us, here's a run-down of what's going on.

Page 1: Deals with religion as well as pessimism and why it's logical.
Page 2: Mostly off-topic until Iron man makes a joke at Verbatim. Then deals with the definition of enemy.
Page 3: Continues the "definition of enemy" discussion.
Page 4: Some veganism discussion, but lots of other stuff was said.
Page 5: Is just starting off, but everyone went to bed. It's still about veganism.

Not only does this confirm that Kojima will continue making games, but it confirms he'll continue making great games.

In an interview with IGN, del Toro said, "I love working with Kojima-san. We are still in touch. We are still friends and working into doing something together, but that’s not going to be [Silent Hills]."

What are your thoughts on the issue? Have any of you played P.T.?

She hot. Plus she has a decent voice for a girl.

Solid Snake really does look like Big Boss. Here, at least.

Post other cool screenshots and stuff.

[Edit: Maybe we should spoiler our photos, yeah?]

[Edit 2: And if you feel the need to, I don't know, discuss sexual exploitation within certain video games, ala, Witcher 3 or God of War, feel free. It won't be off topic at all, and surely wouldn't justify a lock.]

I have the base drawn decently well, but my shading sucks. I'm not even sure how to approach it.

What does it do? Does it function as some sort of 'mute' system or something?

I was going through my profile and I had never noticed it before.

I'm just realising they're not here anymore.

Suicide Squad Trailer... kinda not good.

Okay, so... that was pretty good, IMO.

I'm completely sold on Affleck, now. I wasn't ever against him, but he straight up looks the part perfectly here.

Eisenberg is still a no. That "the red capes are coming" line is just cringe-worthy.

Gadot I'm still not happy about. She just isn't a good enough actor to play Diana, IMO. Still, I reserve the right to change my opinion later on.

I love Martha Kent. "You don't owe this world a damn thing. You never did." Bless her.

It's nice to see Irons in his costume, although, it's going to be hard to beat Caine.

As always, Cavill is the best Superman we've ever had.

I wish they whited-out Batman's eyes when he's in his normal costume, though. He looks weird...


That's basically all I have to say. Thoughts?

Edit: I've started making gifs from the trailer. Use 'em if you want.


Side note: Batman: The Killing Joke Animated movie coming next year.

In your opinion. And please don't say Skyrim/TLOU/GTAV/Fallout 3.

If I had to wager, it would probably be one of the earlier Zelda games. Though, I haven't played them. The best game I've ever played is Metal Gear Solid.

...Geoff Johns?

Why?

The link from Game Informer. I don't know why I saw it there...

Johns is notoriously bad at writing Batman. If anything Scott Snyder would have been an amazing choice. Or maybe Morrison...

Still, could be worse. It could be Frank Miller.

I'm in a comic book mood at the moment.

Feel free to post lists or paragraphs of shit.

Spoilers ahead.

This is sort of a review. But whatever.

Anyways, I've put my fair share of time into Arkham Knight. I've 100% the original story, with all the bad guys taken into custody. I've beaten the New Game +'s story mode. Got all stars on all the AR Challenge maps. Unlocked everything there is to unlock. Just like I have with Arkham Asylum, City and Origins. The game still carries everything I loved from the previous game's mechanics, but it also brings it's faults with it.

I'll start with the story.

It's probably the most fan-fiction Batman story I've witnessed in recent years (though, Batman V. Superman is sure to take it's place soon enough.) The opening section with the Joker is great, but is somewhat ruined by the MOTHERFUCKER who voices Jim Gordon. God, he is awful. He just sounds really fucking amateur in his delivery. "This is how it happened. This is how the Batman died." Gross. Moving on...

We get an introduction to Scarecrow, who is thankfully brought to life by an excellent voice actor. The opening of the game is no Arkham City, but it gets the job done.

Once we finally get to play as Batman, things take a nosedive into snoozeville. Firstly, he looks so out-of-fucking-place with his Arkham City costume. While it DEFINITELY looks better here than it did in City, he still looks like he's wearing pajamas, IDGAF.

You go rescue some cop, you get into the batmobile, and you find out Poison Ivy is being held hostage. Rescue her, and you're introduced to the game's biggest gameplay flaw: battlemode. Not only does it make no CANONICAL sense for Batman to have a fucking tank, as he's literally hoplophobic, the Arkham Knight is so ridiculously stupid that he makes the opposing tanks UNMANNED. He fucking KNOWS that Batman doesn't kill, yet he goes out of his way to buy billions of dollars worth of unmanned fireworks. His justification? "I would be in there myself but, you'd only hold back." Why the fuck do you care if he holds back? You claim you just want him dead, you moron. Ugh.

Again, moving on.

Once you're introduced to the battle mode, it's a nice change of pace. While not as refined as the combat or predator mechanics, it somewhat fits in with what we're used to. My main gripe isn't how the battlemode works, it's how much it's used. A good 60% of the riddler trophies need the batmobile to finish them, there are several puzzles that require you to slide up and down buildings in the most ridiculous way possible. I guess my main gripe with both it's function (Battlemode) usage and canonicity is that it all feels contrived. Why would Arkham Knight need tanks to take control of a mostly abandoned city? So that we can justify Batman needing a tank. It just makes no sense, really. And the rest of the game suffers as a result of the overreliance on the batmobile. Yeah, pursuit mode can be fun, but I'm so bloody tired of fighting waves of tanks in place of a fun and challenging boss battle, like Ra's al Ghul or Solomon Grundy. And that's another thing.

Boss battles suck. They amount to:
-various tanks for you to sneak up behind and eliminate.
-shitty predator rooms

That's it.

Back to the story.

After you bring Ivy to GCPD, you have to go get your new suit. Which thankfully, looks awesome. For once, Batman actually looks cool. He has a menacing walk, whereas in Asylum/City, it always looked like he had a stick up his ass. My only real complaint with the costume is that the cowl's mouth slits go up the cheekbones a little too high. But whatever, I'm fine with everything else.

The game tasks you with finding out where Scarecrow is creating his toxic bubble blast, and logically, the only place where he could do this is ace chemicals. I don't know why we didn't just go there in the first place instead of wasting an hour of gameplay finding out how to jump out of a floor grate and press square. But I digress, because this is one of the game's finest sections.

The entire Ace Chemicals plant chapter is really, really, good. We get an introduction to Arkham Knight, who at first, is actually pretty cool. I mean, he's ruined more and more as the game goes on, but for now, he's menacing and interesting. He knows all your moves before you make them, and he goes on a rant about where his men should shoot their weapons based on armour plating weak points (I don't know how he could know where the weaknesses are considering this is the newest model of the Batsuit, but whatever. It's cool).

He goes away, there's some expositional dialogue between Scarecrow and Knight about why Knight hates you.  Eventually, you have to use the batmobile in a pretty contrived (again) way to get down to the basement where scarecrow is turning the main generator room into his own personal hot box of fear toxin. Once you get to him, he seemingly surrenders, you try to turn off the generator making his bomb, and then you realise it's a trap. He locks you in Bob Marley's garage on Halloween, and you're tasked with reducing the bomb's radius to only the chemical plant. Slowly, the fear toxin starts to leak, where it can now be absorbed through the air. Just as you're about to finish the job, you turn around and find joker has a gun trained on your head. Yup, Joker.

Anyways, it turns out that he's a figment of your imagination and has manifested in your consciousness via the fear ganja. At first, I was scared by it. I didn't expect it. However, my second thought was.

"Really...? That's how you're going to play this, Rocksteady?"

At that point, you've reduced the blast radius to the plant and must get out in time.

So in recap, not only has Rocksteady cheaply brought back Joker (AGAIN), they've also ruined any of the stakes they set up beforehand. Within the first two hours, the game destroys it's own sense of urgency. The blast radius was going to affect the entire eastern coast, but now it's just a small plant that no one is in. Yay.

And the game just goes downhill from there. The Arkham Knight is given way too much spotlight. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but it is because every time we see more of him he gets a) more whiny as a character, therefore losing any intimidation he had before, and b) more obvious as a character. By the end of the game, you simply aren't expecting him to be Jason Todd because the game so heavily sets up that character arc. You end up thinking "No, there's no way Rocksteady is going to make the Arkham Knight Jason Todd. They're better than that." Nope, they're not. Not only did they lie about AK being an entirely new character, they butchered Jason Todd as a byproduct of their unoriginality. His change to the "Good side" is so jarring at the end that it leaves an awful taste in your mouth.

Scarecrow doesn't get nearly as much screen time but is a much better character this time around. Joker gets the most screen time a-fucking-gain.

I'm literally so tired of this. We get it! Joker and Batman are one in the same! The reveal here (and for Jason Todd) are so bad. Honestly, Origins did the Joker reveal better than Rocksteady did here. That's...bad news bears.

Anyways, I'm tired of ranting. Here are some other gripes I have in an easier to digest format.

-Side missions suck in comparison to City. Not only are there less, they feature shit-tier villains like Deacon Blackfire and Firefly.
-Hush is butchered as a character
-a fraction of the challenge maps that ought to be in the game. there are 3 challenge maps. The rest will be sold as fucking DLC. Fuck WB, man.
-riddler trophies are god awful. Worse than City, and less of them too. "Quality over quantity" my ass, RS.
-You can't play as Robin, Catwoman, Azrael or Nightwing in any of the challenge maps. No doubt for DLC purposes
-No Superman cameo
-Deathstroke's boss battle sucks fucking balls


I'm sure there's more but like I said I'm tired.