I've never experienced that kind of friendship. But I would give my life for those closest to me.

Sorry for the incoherent mess of thoughts. I had to get this shit off my chest.

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.

Quote from: Snake Wilson on July 05, 2015, 03:54:50 PM

Quote from: DAS B00T WILL RISE AGAIN on July 05, 2015, 03:52:26 PM

Quote from: Snake Wilson on July 05, 2015, 02:02:20 PM

I just don't understand how people can be this... irrational.

Because we've got other things to concern ourselves with in life.

Cop-out response to a statement that didn't need a reply.

Quote

Philosophy is the hobby of fat old men and liberal arts students.

False. I'm neither.

Stay mad that I've no qualms about killing an animal to eat or to eliminate pests from the area... like those goddamn feral cats at the airport.

Boot, I'm not mad. Just disappointed.

Quote from: Flee on July 05, 2015, 03:47:20 PM

See, it's things like this that make people think you are a troll. You make threads calling out atheists because a bus burned down but a bible survived, claiming it's a miracle and proof of god's existence while every person with a basic understanding of science can explain this perfectly natural and common occurence.

Then, you somehow think you're making a point by referencing a book written by a woman who is either delusional as a result of grief, or who is a lying scammer making money out of fools who buy into such cheap stories because it fills a void they are too scared to address with logic and reason.

I personally have little to no esteem for religion and think it is no more valuable than fairy tales, but I am all in favor of living and letting live as long as it doesn't harm others. You are welcome to have these opinions and be a Christian, but do realise that it's things like this that make people think you are just a troll.

Prove to me heaven isn't real.

Actually, just prove to me ANY afterlife isn't real.

Until then, you can call me a troll all you like. But you're wrong.

Do you not understand the sheer retardation in asking someone to prove a negative?

Unless you believe in literally EVERYTHING that cannot be proven (such as the infamous spaghetti monster in the sky), you're a hypocrite. And if you do believe in such nonsense, I'm 100% certain you're contradicting your beliefs about God, whatever they may be.

Which is fine, but you have to realise that you make no sense, and aren't really justified to argue in conversations where logic and reason are at play, because you don't play by those rules.

Manly tears for manly men

Still gets me every time.

Here's to hoping that Konami will reimagine every game in the series using the fox engine.

Am I the only one who didn't find it that funny?

Nope.

Quote from: Snake Wilson on July 05, 2015, 12:38:01 PM

Quote from: TBlocks on July 05, 2015, 12:34:30 PM

Next time I see you remind me to lend you "Better to have never been" by David Benatar. It explains some of the stuff Verb's trying to get across.

The logic is flawless. The viewpoint is infallible if you believe in any kind of contemporary morality (which, I'm fairly sure you do). It just might be that Verb isn't explaining it all that well to you.

Very possible however I'm sensing my view of morality might differ quite a bit.

If you believe that making others suffer for your own happiness is a bad thing (I.E., taking someone else's candy bar because you'd rather eat it, even though they paid for it), than we have the same view of morality. Verb and I have... just thought it through to it's logical (and, admittedly, counterintuitive) conclusion.

Next time I see you remind me to lend you "Better to have never been" by David Benatar. It explains some of the stuff Verb's trying to get across.

The logic is flawless. The viewpoint is infallible if you believe in any kind of contemporary morality (which, I'm fairly sure you do). It just might be that Verb isn't explaining it all that well to you.

Quote from: Snake Wilson on July 05, 2015, 12:28:09 PM

Quote from: PSU on July 05, 2015, 12:26:21 PM

I'm a comic book stereotype of an American?

Really not true at all but ok kid

Based on my experience with you, you don't have an original bone in your body.

But good job ignoring all of my arguments.

Your arguments are all terrible.

Anyways, stereotype of an American. A fat, Texan who is eating McDonald's that loves guns.

All I do is love guns.

That isn't how I see it. At all.

Religion. Football. Guns. You apply to all of those.

But we're getting off topic, and you've already admitted that I won the argument.

I'm a comic book stereotype of an American?

Really not true at all but ok kid

Based on my experience with you, you don't have an original bone in your body.

But good job ignoring all of my arguments.

"The majority of the scientific community isn't"

>graduated with a minor in astrophysics

What does that have to do with anything? The majority of the scientific community is still secular.

Makes sense bro.

It certainly does.

If anything trying to be atheist is the "cool and hip" thing to do.

Not on the internet, or in the scientific community, where, like I said, secular ideologies are the majority.

Oh you know so much about my religion! What religion exactly am I tho?

I don't care. I was using Christianity as an example, and that's what I assumed you were, considering you're a near-comic-book-level stereotype of your average american.

Informed meat/dairy consumers. A lot of people don't truly realise the horror of those industries, so it's not necessarily their fault for consuming them. But for example, there are tons of people who KNOW what these animals go through and still do fuck all about it 'cuz "bacon tastes good, fam."

Racists.

Rapists.

People who like Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns".