Batman: Arkham Knight (spoilers Included)

[DomsBeard]

I'd thought I'd start a thread so we can waffle on about Arkham Knight and not hijack the Batman thread.

If you are wondering where I am so if you can/can't read the spoilers I've just met Catwoman.

Loving it so far and it has superb pieces of fan service such as in Wayne Tower

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The voicemail messages from Batwoman, Lex Luthor

Only negative for me (and it could just be me)

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The "return" of The Joker I wish they had the balls to do it without him

If the Arkham Knight isn't

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Jason Todd

I'll eat my hat.

[Bakers_12]

I'm still at the beginning and some of the side missions are staring to open up. Loving it so far. I have had a couple of small moments that I don't want to spoil that take place in GCPD

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In the opening in the dinner I did not shoot anyone (but I'm guessing that you can), you see him in the lockup and his colleges note that they are imprested that he kept it together enough not to shot. Does any one know if it is possible to shot people in that bit and have different dialog there?

Edit: I just seen the prologe played difrantly to how i did it, i wonder if other things will react to how you do things?

The other thing was when you see the first driver that interrogated in the lockup and is winding you up I decided to press the attack button expecting batman to punch thin air, but no he grabbed the dude though the bars of his cell and smashed his face into them knocking him out.

If these little details and moment go throughout the game I'll be very impressed.

[ratsoalbion]

Initial impressions (from an hour or two of play) are that this is very much a continuation of City rather than Asylum. Those who preferred the tighter, more focused original and were bored or ground down by the sprawl of City will likely not enjoy this any more.

I rather liked City, in that it offered a different experience to Asylum, but I acknowledge that it lacked some of the pristine pacing of that first game.

At least Knight, being a current gen title, adds some serious visual sparkle to proceedings.

[James]

Interesting. I'll be starting this tonight and will be intrigued to see how I find it given your assessment, Leon.

As you may remember, I loved Asylum, but found City a little directionless in its pacing and narrative focus, with some plot points that were particularly tough for me to swallow (the core premise, for example).

That said, I did enjoy Origins quite a bit, so the larger open world in/of itself isn't necessarily a problem for me. If Arkham Knight can pull a great, focussed story out of a Gotham-sized play space then I might just fall a little bit in love with Rocksteady again.

[Lego Solo]

Oh man, I need to finish the Witcher 3 before I'll even contemplate buying this. But it's so damn hard to resist. Everywhere I go there's the batman winking at me.

[Flabyo]

I've been struggling with the batmobile controls, the decision to not have the brake on LT and to have you have to hold LT down to stay in tank mode is idiotic.

Turns out you can change that so LT *is* brake and you tap RB to toggle combat mode. But the option really isn't obvious at all.

Here's how you change it.

Because putting it on the controls menu would clearly be FAR too obvious...

[DomsBeard]

I've been struggling with the batmobile controls, the decision to not have the brake on LT and to have you have to hold LT down to stay in tank mode is idiotic.

Turns out you can change that so LT *is* brake and you tap RB to toggle combat mode. But the option really isn't obvious at all.

Here's how you change it.

Because putting it on the controls menu would clearly be FAR too obvious...

I've not been braking at all I've been using drift and smashing through everything

Just been introduced to those new death star inspired tanks.

I've become addicted to doing fear takedowns, I love them!.

[James]

THANK YOU, GLEN!

One question: The winch is RB/R1 by default, where is that mapped to in the Battle Mode toggle setup?

Tucked into a bit of AK last night (should that be Knight), and I am thoroughly enjoying it so far. A couple of niggles, but overall enjoying being the Bat again!

For reference (in terms of progress), I just provided an escort to the Clock Tower and had a tough conversation within. Here are a couple of highs and lows so far:

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I didn't buy Jim Gordon walking out on Batman at all. I don't know if it was the delivery by Gordon's voice actor or the situation in/of itself, but it seemed a forced narrative point.

Also, why do the GCPD have a museum exhibition in their Evidence Room, complete with Cash voice-over? That was weird!

The Multiple Fear Takedown that Batman can do is incredibly satisfying. It's really nice to have access to so much of Batman's repertoire from the off. I tucked straight into the first 6 AR Challenges that unlocked at the antenna and felt right at home.

The way Scarecrow's toxin (or is it something else? ) is affecting Batman is great. Like taking the Scarecrow stuff from Asylum and blowing it out in scope. I really like that aspect.

[Flabyo]

I've not been braking at all I've been using drift and smashing through everything

That works for the outdoor bits, but those Riddler driving challenges need far more finesse and I kept hitting LT to stop and not actually stopping...

[DomsBeard]

Ah I've not done any of those yet.

Forgot to add I love the detective sections, remind me of Origins in that way.

[The_Rooster]

Lots of spoilers!! Don't read until you've completed story!

I love this game. Everything about it. Now I've completed the story and

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enough to start knightfall protocol.

I love the way they have put joker in. Feel the a batman game without him would feel like it was missing something. Plus he really made me jump a few times at the start.

The driving sections I thought would get annoying but once I've figured out not to use L2 to stop I grew to love them. Plus

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when "Lucius made a spare." really made me laugh.

The ending was well done and something I could see happening given they said it would be last rocksteady game.

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The joker fight in crime alley was a highlight with the joker constantly talking about what he will do to gotham after he takes his mind.

Riddler is a strange one, I loved it at the start however once I had reached the end of the him and catwoman story

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and you get riddler meets aliens now in order to fight him I must find every riddle in the game. Which is nearly 250!

In summary I feel it the best of the arkham games by some distance. Looking forward to see what Rocksteady have in the pipeline for their next project

[DomsBeard]

I'm at 95% of the main story but think I'm going to complete all the side quests including Riddler before going into the end game. Wonder if there is more than one ending?

Eg you can or cannot tell Robin

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Oracle is dead

[James]

I loved the way Joker was integrated too, The_Rooster. In fact... (major spoiler ahead)

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I wish they hade cut the story end sequence about midway and gone with a truly dark ending in which Batman had become Joker, rather than inexplicably deciding that Batman can overcome Joker and his fear simply by being Batman.

The psychological aspects to the story were very well implemented I thought, and the combat and traversal were every bit as good as they always are in the Arkham games. I felt pretty luke-warm about pretty much everything else, sadly.

The main story I didn't like at all (premise, twists/turns and resolution all equally missed the target). In particular, I felt that the proceedings of Arkham Knight showed a lack of forethought for the "trilogy" as a whole and a lack of conviction in the story telling.
Another major spoiler:

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Oracle being alive was the most egregious offender in this regard, but the Arkham Knight reveal and several other plot points actually robbed the story of the poignancy that I think Rocksteady were aiming for (in my eyes).

Anyway, I should really let the dust settle on this one. I don't mean to sound so negative; it's a good game, but Arkham Asylum casts a pretty big shadow that I never really felt City, Origins or Knight got out from under.

[Flabyo]

I'm feeling fairly down on it at the moment because the last third feels like a slog, far too much repetition.

Which is a shame because...

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The way it handles the affects of the fear toxin is incredible.

It's very easy to do 'altered state of mind' things in a traditional 'spooky sound effects, blurry edges to things, yawed camera' way (think Eternal Darkness), but here it's done with no obvious leap between normal and twisted.

In particular I'm a huge fan of how often they change the scenery while you're looking the other way. They do it lots of times, and it never gets old. There's a really clever one early on with the 'Killing Joke' scene where you turn away from Barbara to a wall which has a message painted on it, to read it you have to walk over to it, which allows them to then change the rest of the room behind you so when you turn back you're in a completely different location.

That's actually very hard to do, both from the practical way Unreal Engine 3 works, and from a more considered level designer approach of 'how do I manipulate the player into moving away from the bit I want to swap out'.

And it isn't just set pieces where they do it. In loads of places in the game they very subtly change the background details. Usually putting Joker's face on a poster, or replacing a gargoyle with a smiling Joker face, but if you turn away then back, it's gone. Watch for it, it's near omni present.

The next game they do, and I suspect it won't be a Batman one, they really need to mix things up more. They've gotten deep far down their particular design rut.

[DomsBeard]

So all done bar the riddler. Going to rank them various ways. I think (dons tin hat) Origins is my favourite out of all of them but:

"Feeling like you are Batman"
1. Knight
2. Asylum
3. City
4. Origins

"Story"
1. Asylum
2. Origins
3. City
4. Knight

"Combat"
1. Origins
2. Knight
3. City
4. Asylum

"Bosses"
1. Origins
2. City
3. Asylum
4. Knight

The fact Nightwing/Catwoman/Robin are so criminally underused points to dlc.

[James]

Origins isn't my favourite, but only because Asylum nailed story and atmosphere better (in my opinion).

I sat down yesterday and got down some notes as to how I feel about Arkham Knight and the longer I wrote the more patterns I saw emerge as to why it felt quite underwhelming.

For example, the more I thought about the combat aspects, the more sure I became of my notion that there are some severe issues with how it's done in this game. The design of the combat spaces and some very exploitable takedown techniques made the combat feel very repetitive in ways the previous games never did. And I'm pretty sure that there were some issues with inputting combos - at least I don't remember being *this* bad at taking down shield-wielding enemies!

[Flabyo]

So hey, it looks like I've hit a glitch which means the ONLY ending I can get to see is the one for getting 100%.

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It says right now I can press X to initiate Knightfall, i.e., see the ending, but when I press it nothing happens. Turns out a lot of people online have this issue, since the first title update. Looks like if you have more than the minimum 7 most wanted you need for the ending at the point you finish the 'City of Fear' storyline it glitches out and will only allow the 100% ending from that point.

Fuck. That.

Might go back if they patch it.

[RobC]

Is there a 'point of no return' so to speak with regards to triggering the ending? I'm about 75% through the Arkham Knight mission chain and hoping to go for the 100% ending. I don't want to accidentally go too far as from my own understanding (trying my best avoid spoilers) it's not something you can go back into after you've seen the ending.

[Flabyo]

It lets you go back and carry on after watching the ending (which I finally managed to persuade it to show me, had to beat another Most Wanted to unstick it).

[James]

You can complete each ending in turn simply by finishing the main story (early, so as to avoid the bug Glen/Flabyo hit) and then picking up side missions afterwards.

I'll leave it at that (to avoid spoilers), but please feel free to ask if you need any more info.