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The game says I'm at 90% done on the plot of Origins (even though it feels like barely anything has really happened yet), and I'm really starting to wonder why I see so many people raving about the plot. Am I the only one who's sick of The Joker? Not only does it turn out that Joker is behind the whole thing, but the assassin plot is relegated to half-assed side quests outside of Bane and Deathstroke. I guess Copperhead got her fight into a plot mission, but you could've dropped her and the rest of the "SUPER DEADLY ASSASSINS" and next to nothing would've changed. The Black Mask plot could've gone somewhere interesting, but nope, turns out it was just The Joker with a bunch of bombs. Oh, and he's already murdered dozens of people before you ever got there. Great job, Batman. Riddler's there, kind of. He talks to you when you take out the Templar towers, but instead any cute little riddles or neat puzzle rooms, you just spend time picking up big glowing VHS tapes, because actually thought the Riddler Trophies were the best part of his subplots somehow. Calender Man shows up for absolutely no reason, gets no lines, then disappears forever. I don't know why they included Croc in the assassin list since he had a plot reason to show up without them, and the assassin plot is completely meaningless. I thought the Electrocutioner thing was pretty funny. Until I fought Shiva, and then I realized all the assassins were jokes, the game just didn't expect me to notice. Deadshot is already too much of a chump for me to give him a second thought, and then it turns out his fight is just reskinned Two-Face. Shiva is just an ninja with a health bar. Bane is just Bane, and although his fight was more fun than Asylum's million Banes, it was still basically the same thing. Copperhead feels like a much better opportunity for a Scarecrow sequence than the bug-riddled mess The Hatter's poo poo is, but she's ultimately just another fight with a bunch of enemies. Croc is a glorified tutorial, and Firefly has had so little screen time that when he showed up in the hotel cutscene, I didn't realize who the gently caress he was supposed to be until like ten minutes later. Everyone keeps going on about "all those crazy assassins gunning for Batman", but they've had less impact on the story than Clark loving Kent. After Deathstroke, I was really pumped. The fight was intense, the victory was satisfying, and the events leading up to it had been entertaining. I was actually starting to think that I'd be fighting for my life against a gang of bloodthirsty bad-asses while also trying to solve a mystery. Instead, I solve the mystery an hour later and I only have to worry about the assassins if I go to them. Instead of Black Mask gunning for Batman for some unknown reason, it's just the Joker, and he's gonna blow up a bunch of stuff because why not? He's the Joker. And you have to look at hallway after hallway filled with corpses of innocent people that he killed before you confront him because body count is all that matters in a villain, right? People play Batman games to feel like useless failures, right? Finally, Bane shows up, and you fight him until the cops show up. Then, Bane's men blow up the cops but Bane still runs away despite the fact that he's winning because the spotlight has left Joker for almost 5 minutes now, and we can't have that. The Black Gate joker sequence is kinda cool, but ultimately you're just walking down a hallway while Troy Baker paraphrases the "One Bad Day" speech. And then Harley falls in love him with after listening to him talk for five minutes because gently caress character development, everyone is how the fans remember them right the gently caress away. I decided to take a break for the plot now that I have all the gadgets and collect Riddler poo poo, but the audio files you unlock are only pissing me off even more. Everyone except Gordon is corrupt. Everyone. And not even just a little corrupt, like full-on cartoon villainy corrupt. The Commissioner who dies at the start? Corrupt. The prison warden we meet for two seconds? Whoa, mad corrupt. A judge who never even shows up? Holey moley, he is so corrupt. Even Harleen loving Quinzel? Guess what, she works for Hugo Strange and threatens mobsters for a living. Ra's Al Ghul is apparently the one who had Arkham reopened, because nothing can happen in Gotham unless a bad guy did it. Everything is lovely and terrible, and everyone who tries to improve things fails. Gordon, Barbara, even Bruce. Every victory has been Pyrrhic, and everyone is quick to remind me that none of the villains I beat will be gone for long. That may be fine for some people, but I don't play superhero games to be reminded of the futility of human existence. I play superhero games to punch bad guys, save the day, and be a goddamn superhero. Asylum and City were bright and colorful in their own weird way. There was an air of optimism, this sense that, when the sun rises, everything will be alright because Batman can handle it. Origins just reeks of the same bleak nihilism that's driven me away from DC's comics and films. This game is more depressing than Spec Ops: The Line. Unless the last ten percent of the plot has something as good as the Deathstroke fight was, I'm not sure if I'll even bother to finish it. Crowetron fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 10:29
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:24 |
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jneer posted:There's a wealth of games out there that give you sunshine and rainbows, I think the fact that the game makes you feel anything is an accomplishment. I wasn't expecting Bruce's Funtime Elf Adventure, but I was expecting to feel like I was actually accomplishing something. Nearly everyone I beat makes it clear that they're gonna escape soon or has already done their damage. I'm basically walking up to madmen standing on a mountain of corpses and saying "Hey, that was rude." If a game making me feel frustrated and useless is an accomplishment, then Metroid: Other M must be a goddamn masterpiece. quote:As far as the story goes, is it worthy of the great Russian writers of the 19th century? No, but it's more complex than AA's "Lunatics take over the asylum" and more coherent than AC's hodgepodge mess of villains appearing whack-a-mole style for Batman to beat down. That's exactly what the assassin plot is, though. It's just an over-hyped excuse to throw a bunch of random baddies at you to get punched. You could drop all of them except Bane and Deathstroke and nothing in the plot really changes. The only difference is that AC used bigger names. Rookersh posted:Yes, it does. The end of the game has Batman and Gordon working through their differences in a really nice way, and becoming allies/friends. It's also where the best fights/sequences happen, and most of the plot payoff occurs. This is encouraging, though. So far, the thing dragging the game down so much is that none of my victories actually feel like I've done anything. I stopped the Joker, but only after he racked up a kill count in the dozens and blew up a building, and I was immediately treated to a scene reminding me that not only will Joker escape, but he'll become bigger and badder and more destructive. I storm Penguin's hideout and...he gets away. Best I can do is gently caress around with a few of his weapon crates. Take down Black Mask and he rants and raves about how he'll be out on the street by morning. I've played City, so I know he's right. Foiled the Hatter, but only after his damage was done. I couldn't do anything for his victim, all I could do was punch a mentally unstable goon and then leave. At least Deathstroke stayed down until I left. If the ending can give me some sense of accomplishment, let me have a victory without screaming at me how fleeting it is, and give me some fun fights in the process, maybe I'll turn around on the plot.
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Oct 28, 2013 23:59
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I also have a really dumb and petty complaint about Origins, and the other two games, actually. Stop putting a mouth-hole in Bane's mask, art dudes. It makes him look like a swole as hell gimp instead of a luchadore. The rest of his outfit in Origins in pretty stylish, though. Edit: Joker also looks kinda weird this time around, but I can't put my finger on why so that may just be me. Crowetron fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 01:49
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Logical (and probably correct) explanation: A different team made him this time and they wanted him to look younger. Yeah, that's probably all it is. Still hate the mouth hole on Bane, though 
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Oct 29, 2013 02:05
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I managed to get turned into Bane during a multiplayer match, and holey moley, give me some Bane challenge maps right the gently caress now. I don't even care if they give him more moves or gadgets or whatever, just let me slam dudes into walls like Frankenstein on PCP all goddamn day!
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Oct 29, 2013 10:16
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:24 |
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Well, I beat it and I'm still pretty sour on the whole experience. The Firefly fight is pretty spectacular to see, but the actual button-pushy game play element of it was terrible. It was a lengthy quick-time event, complete with button prompts constantly flashing on screen. It was a nice set-piece, but the Ivy fight in Asylum was more interesting, and the Ivy fight was garbage. Everything after that just dragged on forever. Joker breaks out! There's that feeling of futility again, since we just put in him jail one boss fight ago. And naturally, once I get to Blackgate, I'm treated to another sea of corpses. I think Joker's killed more people in one game than most FPS protagonists. I'm glad they reused the arriving at Blackgate FMV from the beginning of the game; it prepared me for reused boss fights in a reused setting. Oh, Joker takes over a prison? Haven't seen that since two games ago. Then I fight Bane, which is the same fight as last time except the area is different. Gordon jumps in front of a bullet despite standing so close to the gun he could've swatted it aside without even needing to extend his arm, Joker rants about killing, and Bane breaks Batman's spine (except not really, since he gets right back up). I thought that was just a neat little referential animation they threw into the multiplayer, but nope, Bane only ever did one thing so we gotta get it in there somehow. The Mega-Bane fight was really bad. I get that they were going for a Mr. Freeze thing, but they forgot that the Freeze fight was all about options. Here, you get to use a vent and a grate, and then just do a lot of corner takedowns. At least the time limit seemed to only be a narrative thing. So, Bane's the final boss, but gently caress that poo poo because it's the Joker show again! You corner Joker in a chapel, because I guess that means symbolism(?), and then you punch him a lot. Dude's committed mass murder twice in one night, but you just slap him around a little and then leave. And they give the Joker the penultimate lines of the game, because it's The Joker show guest starring some dude in a cape. Arkham City being so focused on the Joker didn't bother me this much, because that was his last big hurrah. Mark Hamill was retiring and the character was dying. He did die, in fact, and it was the greatest thing that ever happened to the Batman series. Well, it almost was. They could've done so much with the fallout of that huge event. But, instead we get a prequel because Batman doesn't sell; The Joker sells. The whole game felt so cynical. The last one sold, so just do that again. We'll even make it a prequel so you don't actually have to deal with any character developments of plot hooks of the previous two. Don't do anything new or interesting or risky, just make it sell. And make it grim and dark and lots of growling, because people really liked the Nolan films. Asylum and City felt like games borne of the Animated Series and the DCAU in general. There was color everywhere, the villains were all big bombastic characters, and they made ridiculous, goofy things work despite keeping a straight face all the time. The Clayface stuff in City is crazy-rear end comic book poo poo at it's best. Origins didn't have that fun, adventurous comic book feel. It had a comic book feel. It felt like playing The New 52: The Game. Wanton death is everywhere, everyone is either miserable, angry, or evil, and a bunch of pointless retcons are thrown in for no reason then proceed to add nothing. Bane created Titan now! Nevermind that Titan being a totally new thing was a major element of Asylum, Bane made it years ago and Batman's known about it the whole time. Guess he forgot. Also Bane totally knew Batman's secret identity, but he has brain damage now, so who cares. Harley worked for Hugo Strange! This never came up in the previous game, where they both had starring roles, but it totally happened. Ra's Al Ghul opened Arkham! Cuz why not?! Even the Batsuit reflects this change in tone. In City, it was basically just Batman's usual cartoony digs, complete with underwear on the outside, except they added some big ol' comic book armor to the gloves and boots. Now, it's a tactical military get-up, all in one color, with the cowl from the Nolan films, because Batman's gotta be realistic. What do you think this is, a children's cartoon!? Throw in some cheap sexual violence and this game would include everything about DC that drove me away from their books. I don't know, maybe I'm just being overly sensitive. Maybe it's just franchise fatigue setting in. All I know is, if I had seen a room full of twenty+ guys waiting to fight back in Arkham City, I would've been pumped as hell. When I saw it here, all I could think was "Can we just be done already?"
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Oct 30, 2013 16:26
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