Riddle me that, why is the latest Batman game getting so much flak? (PC people I feel you though)
Batman: Arkham Knight puts you in the boots of the Caped Crusader one last time as he fends off evil doers who have now invaded the city of Gotham. This time Scarecrow gets the spotlight after the sad passing of The Joker. With the help of a new enemy, dubbing thee Arkham Knight, Batman faces his toughest challenge yet as he must fight an entire mercenary group equipped with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos. Not only does Bruce have these nemesis' to worry about, he also has another that hits too close to home, deep within his subconscious as he finds out he has been infected with The Jokers blood.
As you progress through the story and soar around Gotham, you "see" the Clown Prince adding his own twist on certain events by adding some ingenious dialog. The more the infection spreads the more frequent his appearances become, and when things finally come to head you are treated to some pretty darn good scenes. So even though he isn't the star of the show...he still sort of is.
But getting back to Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight. The Knight wants revenge on Batman but his identity is a mystery. All you know is that he wants the Bats dead and has his own private army to help get the job done. Crane teams up with him to deploy his own plan that will leave Batman's legacy and City tarnished by releasing a massive blast filled with his fear toxin. Gotham City dwellers have evacuated leaving the entire City as one giant playground.
With the odds always against the Bats, he has some new toys including the famous Batmobile...tank. Cruising around Gotham while bringing the hammer of justice beat downs is just a blast. Controls do take some getting use to but once you get it down maneuvering around the City will be cake. I also liked how few objects can halt your momentum to help eliminate possible frustrations while driving, especially in some high speed chases. I also thought that not force feeding you this new piece of equipment down your throat was a nice design choice. Usually when something is new they have the damn thing attached to you at the hip. There are instances when the Batmobile is required to progress to through the story, and have some tank on tank action, but it didn't feel overly used.
Also, a knew combat mechanic is introduced when pairing up with other characters like Robin, Nightwing, or Catwoman. You can switch on the fly between two characters and ultimately doing a combo take down when your combo meter is full. It's a small new feature, but fun as heck. Unfortunately there aren't many of them. Outside of those two features and a couple of gadgets, there isn't really much new to fighting mechanics, which is perfectly fine by me. I like the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" motto. I do wish they had some engaging boss fights however. This part of the game was pretty lacking as the battles just didn't feel as in tuned as previous installments.
Once you dive back into the Arkham series, everything will feel exactly the same. Now if you're like me and haven't played a Batman game since City, it will take a bit of time to get yourself reacclimated to the controls as there are a lot of button combinations to use your gadgets quickly in battle, pick up weapons, or deal a knockout blow. Once you get it, it is smooth sailing as the combat in the series is extremely fluid and enjoyable. Every bone shattering kick and jaw breaking punch is visually satisfying.
And speaking of visually satisfying, Rocksteady brings new life into the world of Gotham utilizing the current generation hardware. The heavy, constant rain leaves specks of water droplets on the batsuit as they drip off, or even glide down the Batmobile. The new update has Photo Mode which gives the user the ability to take pictures of a still frame with freedom shows off some impressive detail to character models that catches wrinkles, and some skin imperfection.
There are some hiccups on the technical side of things that almost included a game breaking bug where Batman fell to infinity beneath the City of Gotham. I tried to restart, quit but eventually it was sorted out...thank god. Also sprinkled in were some rendering issues, and odd AI behavior but nothing worth harping over for too long.
Once you finally stop gushing over the visuals, there is still much more to do in Gotham. Plenty of side quests with variety will break you away from the main missions if you are looking to take down some notorious criminals. Those annoying Riddler trophies are there to collect too. If you choose to complete it all, you will certainly be rewarded to the true ending. AR missions are scattered around too that will have you doing certain tasks in order to complete the mission.
There are also a couple of preorder DLC packs if you were able to get. Nothing spectacular as you get to play in very quick missions as the Red Hood or Harley Quinn. Basically there are just small rooms and you must take out the enemies. Definitely cool to play as someone else, but nothing major in terms of the plot or even the game as a whole.
Batman: Arkham Knight wraps up one of the best gaming trilogies in recent memory. When it was announced that this would be it, you can only hope for a game that is familiar to the Batman universe, true to the series, and a send off that is all but satisfying - that's what I at least got. I got a game that of course reminded you of Batman. With some of B-Man's notorious villains and the explorable city of Gotham. I got a game that stayed true to the series by not implementing too many features. The gameplay is certainly not broken so why mess with a good thing? And the send off to the Arkham series was nicely wrapped up with Bruce Wayne playing role of hero one final time.
Being the Batman never felt so good.
Games such as Mad Max, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Batman: Arkham Knight desperately deserve a modern-day revisit.
RDR2 still looks astounding on PS4 Pro. i cannot imagine how it could look with a next gen upgrade.
Probably not very different.
No idea why this article is highlighting recent beautiful graphically-advanced games and saying they need current gen makeovers. They already look better than most new releases; just compare Arkham Knight and Suicide Squad!
It's obviously never gonna happen since Sony killed the game and studio, but Driveclub. Even in its current state, 10 years after release, it still puts many competitors to shame ...
It's a shame they cancelled the game. Definitely the best racing game I've ever played on Playstation. Just got GT7, but it feels so slow and less arcade-y, which is to be expected of a sim racer of course, that I just enjoy it less.
Driveclub also graphically looked insanely good for its time. I wonder what a Driveclub 2 would look like for the PS5.
Mad max ikr! Far cry primal, it amuses me how ubisoft just left ac unity hanging, sadly most of the good staff left from rocksteady while being forced to make that abomination smh
One way or another, these games provoked strong reactions.
I don't think Days Gone divided fans. For the most part, gamers loved it. It was the reviewers who were divided. Self-loathing racist pieces of shit that took exception to the main character being white. This was a fantastic game, one of the best open-world games I ever played, and I've played them all.
Second you on this.. I had absolute blast playing this game!! Memorable!
TLOU 2 I thought was utter s***.. I still haven’t finished it and stopped about halfway (apparently).
It wasn’t fans divided around The Order, it was a period where xbox fanboys were thinking Rise was a more engaging game so they were spreading a lot of hate..
Today they are hibernating with nothing to play
The Order was short, no denying, but a great game with huge potential
I enjoyed days gone and last of us 2. PeoPke trippin.
I always thought the order was kinda whack seeming so I never tried it. Id like to now though.
No thr order was a short, clunky mediocre yet visually stunning game. I thoughts so and pretty much every other reviewer did too.
The Order, where length was a criterion for rating a game, but only this particular game and no others.
While I enjoy what is there in Days Gone, I mourn what was lost. The first trailers for Days Gone showed a morality system that looked interesting. For example, in the beginning when you are chasing down Leon and after you caught him, you could choose to shoot him or leave him for the freaks. You can see hints of it in other places, like if you catch a bandit unaware sometimes they will disarm and it seems like Deacon had the option to shoot them or let them go (he automatically lets them go).
Whatever...those systems unless revolutionary don't add much...they rarely do in games that do have them.
For the most part, when it comes to Last of Us 2, incels, homophobes, and closet national socialist types didn't like it. I repeat not all, but most.
Days Gone is a great game and it was attacked by the leftist socialist people that are actually closet fascists. As a great poet once said: "Socialism is the mother of fascism."
The Order got hit from anti-Sony Xbox fans.
Out of these 3, Last of Us 2 stands above as being a work of art. It's still generating a ton conversation to this day.
-"Last of Us 2, incels, homophobes, and closet national socialist types didn't like it. I repeat not all, but most."
It's so weird & cringe to see other gamers paint this broad brush of *who* didn't like Part II. Why take the "most who disagree with me are Hitler" type of mentality over game tastes?
-"The Order got hit from anti-Sony Xbox fans."
No other community I've dabbled in - be it social media or gaming forums - has built up such a dedicated defense for The Order like N4G. This attitude fundamentally blows my mind, especially in the face of similar older titles (hello Uncharted 1) that already did a marginally better job at storytelling and gameplay. It almost feels like some N4G group chat made this reflexive defense as a meme and a bunch of posters are still playing along with it. No offense to genuine Order fans, but I simply can't shake that feeling.
Well to be fair, I remember being only one of a few people on this site that actually praised The Order when it for came out and got alot of flack for it. Over time it seems opinions have changed about it.
saying something is "cringe" doesn't prove me wrong. You just throw words out and hope they stick. Bring some evidence to prove me otherwise.
I got:
Letizi, R., & Norman, C. (2023). “You Took That From Me”: Conspiracism and Online Harassment in the Alt-Fandom of The Last of Us Part II. Games and Culture, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/155...
You're up. Maybe you can change my mind.
Because NG4 defended it doesn't mean NG4 is the gospel of gaming.
Yeah Yui, it was "the game to hate" at the time. What was bizarre was the, as usual, journalists that were lying about the game and their stories were approved.
It was all clickhate all the time for the Order. I defended it too.
@Yui
-"I remember being only one of a few people on this site that actually praised The Order when it for came out and got alot of flack for it."
That could've been the case right at release, but you should see more recent opinion articles on here. There's a pretty substantial cadre who defend it on here as being "unfairly tarnished" that I simply don't see elsewhere.
Most of the backlash against The Last Of Us 2 was people upset that Joel was killed off, simple as that.
There is that too, but the other groups pilled on too, which increased the numbers. I really don't see why we have to ignore everything but Joel being killed.
I didn't like Part 2 and I'm not any of. The game sold like crazy, it's just hard for people to understand that most found the story to be arse.
Prove what I say is wrong. I will need evidence. I didn't not say all. Your exception rule doesn't work. Find evidence that counters mine. So, we can have a real discussion.
There are plenty of legitimate criticism in hours long analysis videos and reddit posts actually critiquing Part 2. The people you're talking about are such a minority, and they attack just about everything because they see the "wokeness" in the most subliminal ways. They're insignificant because the game still sold pretty well, and reviewed well regardless. Keep in mind the game released world wide, and western politics and views can't be applied to every corner of the world. I can agree that Days Gone was attacked, and unlike Part 2, due to these sites being so heavily political biased it did do some damage.
I am at least showing the group was large enough of a concern for a journal to publish an article.
Where's your evidence?
The last of us part 2 was bad story wise. Not some nonsense that you speak of...most of the negative people were random...lots of the critical reception from anything other than mainstream journalism thought that the game had huge problems.
Angry Joe and skill up being prime examples of that...unless of course like most socialists out there you wanna just lable people.
@anast
Oh geez...Twitter is full of trolls...common sense.
The YouTube critics I mentioned are innocent till proven guilty. And proven with facts not opinions. I gave you evidence of 2 prominent youtubers and yet you ask for more...either you can't read or you aren't looking for evidence.
As far as groups being "large" for journos to get their panties all tied up...well then again you must be extremely gullible. As if we haven't seen thousands of articles claiming players are offended, angry or backlashing based solely on 1 or 2 posts. They love grabbing very specific individuals and using them to represent a much larger base....whatever is convenient to them making the case that gamers bad and journos good.
-"saying something is "cringe" doesn't prove me wrong. You just throw words out and hope they stick. Bring some evidence to prove me otherwise."
It doesn't "prove" it, but I have a solid success rate with the term - which seems to be the case here too. With regards to your article, I should break this down into parts:
1.) For starters, bleating for countering "evidence" after brandishing a media analysis paper (or papers) shouldn't be treated as some kind of trump card. That's not to say these researchers did nothing, mind you. Only that expecting counter-ideologies within this field who'll make this specific kind of work for TLOU Pt. II is absurdly demanding on its face. Nevermind the probability of non-progressive types getting the administrative approval being next to nil, but that's another can of worms.
2.) While I have critiques about x or y (some anecdotes being more flimsy than others, GG speculation, etc.), let's say for this argument that it's a solid piece overall. Having read the whole thing, there is literally *NOTHING* that validates the broad brush with which you painted TLOU2 critics in your first comment (speaking as someone who thinks it's a good game). The discussion about alt-fans, anti-fans, etc. does paint an ugly picture about the TLOU subreddit, Twitter users, certain YouTubers, and more; however, there's no positive declaration about TLOU2's critics ending at these particular clusters either. Even if you say "most, not all" in your first comment, that still seems overly broad compared to the text I read. (EDIT: That's not to disregard the nastiness or modest size in its own right.)
It's also worth noting how much of that paper's material is inspecting a pre-/at-release sort of backlash. But the game's been out for several years now. More and more people who AREN'T incels, homophobes, closet Nazis have played it past 2020 and you don't really see this new broad consensus about its accomplishments; in fact, you see more of a continued split over whether or not it deserves such monumental praise. Here's just a few other sub-communities near its release that don't fit your description:
- https://www.youtube.com/wat...
- https://www.youtube.com/wat...
- https://www.youtube.com/wat...
-"Because NG4 defended it doesn't mean NG4 is the gospel of gaming."
Correct, but you're just solidifying my point. Even PS fans elsewhere (social media or gaming forums) don't go to bat for The Order with the enthusiasm and consistency they do here in my experience. That's what makes your assessment of "anti-Sony Xbox fans" so fascinating to me.
1) Speculation and emotion
2) Speculation and emotion
2a) Might be an argument if you gave me something other than your own opinion and emotions over the subject, but it's left as an anecdote without any real research. By the way, we can't negate the at release behavior, because it fits your narrative. It existed and those groups were involved.
The article is not a trump card and the fact that you seem to think so is more troubling on your end than mine. The article was to see if you could find other people that researched this phenomenon and we can have a conversation, but you still refuse to do this. Instead you wrote a sermon, which is a shame because maybe you had something with point "2a: It's also worth..." But this point still tries to side step actual events.
The final point doesn't solidify anything unless you are trying to solidify your own opinion. Albeit, it is passive aggressive, which is strange.
-"Speculation and emotion"
I mean... okay? Where am I wrong on 2.) though? Asking for a conflicting media studies research paper on this specific topic is already a random ask, given the environment with which these are made.
-"Might be an argument if you gave me something other than your own opinion and emotions over the subject, but it's left as an anecdote without any real research."
Wait. Just so we're clear: a research paper that focuses most of its attention towards a subreddit and social media comments to Neil Druckmann means you get to sustain your overly broad claims while contrary social media sources that don't exhibit the same kind of "alt-fan/anti-fan" rhetoric can't be counted? Now I feel even more confident in my initial assessment b/c all you're after is just whatever can be found with some accreditation behind it - regardless of quality.
-"By the way, we can't negate the at release behavior, because it fits your narrative. It existed and those groups were involved."
That's the thing: I never said they wasn't a sizable contingent of that either. From the start, my response was just how wild it was to paint *MOST* detractors with such a broad brush. I still don't think I'm off-base in saying it's cringe to just say "most people who shit on x game are closet Nazis or bigots of some sort," especially when your research doesn't really validate that.
-"The article is not a trump card and the fact that you seem to think so is more troubling on your end than mine."
Bro, you literally responded with "Bring some evidence to prove me otherwise.... You're up. Maybe you can change my mind." I don't really see how I'm speaking out of turn there given this and your original comment.
-"The article was to see if you could find other people that researched this phenomenon and we can have a conversation, but you still refuse to do this."
If no other people *HAVE* researched this phenomenon, then I don't see how the next best option is highly-popular sources which counter your original claim. Given that all you're promoting is a media studies paper hyper-focusing on a specific cluster of media, why wouldn't other forms of media work as some kind of substitute? That's not side-stepping events in the slightest.
-"The final point doesn't solidify anything unless you are trying to solidify your own opinion. Albeit, it is passive aggressive, which is strange."
I don't know what that first sentence means, honestly.
Look, I'll just put it like this: try to have a frank conversation about The Order on some other non-N4G gaming forum. There isn't going to be this clean split between 'Sony fans' and 'Xbox fans' that love it or hate it. Ask Sony fans how they'd feel about paying full-price for it and you're not going to get the ardent defenses compared to some of its most popular comment sections here.
Still no evidence. I ask for you to bring contrary evidence, so maybe I might change my mind, all research can be falsifiable. This is what you are missing. We are thinking in two different universes.
You are writing sermons, which is a waste of everyone's time including yours. Bring some research and we will discuss it. As of now you have only brought superstitions.
-"I ask for you to bring contrary evidence, so maybe I might change my mind, all research can be falsifiable."
But I literally read YOUR evidence and it doesn't support the broader claims you made at the start. I'm not sure where else to go with that.
-"Bring some research and we will discuss it. As of now you have only brought superstitions."
Bro, leveraging this kind of language is so wild in the face of what you've provided. It's like unless those different communities I linked where fused together in a random media studies paper, you'd magically consider it valid. I don't understand how you're leveraging that, especially when it doesn't fortify your initial claim. You're basically retorting to me writing too much, regardless of the content itself. Just the oddest conversation with you thus far and I don't quite get it.
Amazing gameplay, but TLOU2 had one of the worst, most convoluted and uneccessary plots I ever seen in a sequel. Terrible story and the characters were forgettable. I didn't give an F about anyone in the story.
I don't think any of these divided fans, other than LoU2. The rest were either victims of biased reviews or just generally agreed that they weren't as good as they could've been or just overall disappointing.
Batman: Arkham Knight is considered by many as one of the best-looking games that Rocksteady released. And, since Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is now out, YouTube’s ‘NikTek’ shared a comparison video between them.
OK. I guess I should now give up hope for this game. I read somewhere someone saying the graphics were great. Man that just.... @#$!!
There's a massive amount of cherry picking here to make Suicide Squad look bad here. The person is purposefully playing the game poorly. And it's definitely downgraded in the PS5 capture, because it doesn't look that bad.
Look, there's enough to 'hate on' in the game as it is, people don't need to play poorly to make it look even worse to make a point.
This is a dumb comparison. This is a combo shooter being compared to a combo battler but they showed nothing of what makes Suicide Squad its own game.
OMG you are defending Suicide squad... actually I'm not surprised.
Game is garbage, disrespecting OG Dc characters.
Should I explain, no. You already know my stance.
@Christopher
While i agree overall with your point about cherrypicking (play poorly, if that was actually the case), i think that comparing melee system was useful, because:
1. It shows how undercooked the melee system feels/looks (starting from 2:50, the player tried to start a combo and instead, it was just a mess, hits not registering, enemies flying all over the place - those 2 attacks at 3:10 should've been a hit);
2. Highlights the worse looking animations for melee system and overall lack of them (hence the inclusion of AR challenge section from Harley Quinn DLC for Arkham Knight).
Before you'll say that it's not important in a coop looter-shooter, consider this:
- they (Rocksteady) have added a melee system and Harley Quinn (known for her melee and acrobatics in previous games and in DC overall) to the game;
- they decided to make the melee system as basic as possible. Yet, they know how to make it better, they have the experience of doing so, but decided it's not worth the time and/or money.
If they would've spent more time with it and shown some care, this would not be seen as another reason to dislike the game. But now it just shows the lack of passion from them, which is disheartening, in my opinion, coming from Rocksteady.
***1. It shows how undercooked the melee system feels/looks ***
It's not a melee game, though... Heck, Deadshot's melee is gauntlet guns. The only reason you melee is to 1. pick up shield buffs after shooting in the leg or 2. to pop them up for higher chance at crit shots.
***2. Highlights the worse looking animations for melee system***
No, again, it doesn't. I have no clue how they got that singular animation off over and over, but it's not great but it's also not that and I never saw Harley do that animation in my short gameplay. They didn't show any other melee animations, just that one shitty one they repeated over and over.
Having said that, I'm not saying they're 'great' only that they're not as bad as they made it out to be with cherry-picked gameplay.
*** Before you'll say that it's not important in a coop looter-shooter, consider this: ***
It's important to rate a game based on what it is. One is a shooter, one is a battler (melee focus). Even more, Squicide is a rapid traversal/shooter game, but they showed absolutely none of that in good taste, only really shit traversal from Harley and nothing about jumping around the battlefield from roof to roof shooting.
***OMG you are defending Suicide squad... actually I'm not surprised. ***
I'm just not defending crap comparisons that aren't at all done in good faith. You can enjoy being ignorant in your opinion if you wish.
Just in terms of visuals, I checked out since other YouTube videos, presumably 4K, and the graphics looked really bland. Like the lighting seems so basic and textures look bland. Draw distance looks good, and in the daylight it looks ok at best imo
Actually, agreeing with you here Christopher. In addition there are totally different moods and art styles for each game. Can't wait to play SSKTJL on Gamepass PC soon!
Contradicting yourself, saying you're not impressed with Sony's recent State of Play, yet you're defending this which looks way worst than any of the games shown.
I love this series and this Batman is my favorite one.
Good story, awesome graphics (one of the best of this generation so far, both for the art style and tech), awesome gameplay, great voice acting and soundtrack.
I didn't get bored by the batmobile, but probably because I never use it to move from around the city, so maybe this helped...
I hope this game will get at least one, big DLC.(I didn't buy the season pass).
Arkham City > Arkham Asylum > Arkham Knight > Arkham Origins.