Video Game News and Miscellany

GfWL broke my copy of Bulletstorm. I'm still pissed about that.

As for the Batman games, I thought Asylum was decent, but I loved City. And I don't want to play Origins, to avoid sullying my happy memories of Asylum and City.
 
Yeah, I liked Asylum but loved City. I loved how there was TONS of things to do between missions and almost all of them were fun or engaging (Zsasz's races grated on me after awhile). Admittedly, Asylum had a much stronger narrative overall. But I think City greatly improved on the gaming experience, especially in combat. It was more varied and the bosses were much more interesting (save for the Scarecrow missions from Asylum, arguably the highpoint for that game). I would argue that the Mr. Freeze boss fight is one of the BEST boss fights in a very long time. Especially in Hard mode, where you need to think of a way to hit him in just about every possible way.

Haven't bothered with Origins and I doubt I will. It's not by Rocksteady and thus shouldn't even be judged against Asylum or City. It's just a bad, broken game with no innovation to add. City, at least, added a lot of new things, like the combat, gliding, new gadgets, and bosses. From everything I've seen, Origins is a cheap, derivative quick cash-in. Not to mention that the developer has OPENLY ADMITTED they won't be fixing any more bugs in the game (even game-breaking ones) in order to focus on DLC.

Fuck them. I'll stick with Rocksteady. They have a better track record.
 
Last edited:
Origins isn't terrible. It basically plays like a fan-mod of city, with slightly shittier gameplay. I don't know what they did, they're using the same engine and assets from City, and somehow the combat feels less tight.

There are some good things about origins though.

1) The first boss fight, against Deathstroke, is from a different, much better game. It really really showcases the intensity of a fight between Batman and someone equally skilled at hand to hand combat.

2) Investigation missions. There aren't enough of these, but the ones that are there are pretty cool. They involve Batman recreating a crime scene, and using his link to the bat computer to simulate what happened, with the ability to rewind and fast forward through holographic simulations to try to piece together what happened.

3) ... there is no three. The story isn't bad... but it's far fetched. Batman just happened to meet every one of his biggest rivals on the same night. Ok, there is a 3... it handles the first meeting of Joker and Batman really well. And even has this great little scene



But overall, it plays like a shittier version of the other two games. It's not -bad- just... doesn't live up to the others. Oh, and navigating the city isn't as fun anymore... for some reason not all ledges are grappleable anymore, meaning half the time I think I can hook onto a ledge and I really can't, all because the game doesn't want me to go that way.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Eh, I disagree, I found both games to be fantastic and have great replay value. Haven't heard good things about origins so I haven't bought that yet. Figure I'll end up getting it for free on ps+
I replayed boy B:AA and B:AC, played both on normal difficulty for the first run through, and then did Hard and New Game + difficulties, respectively. I loved the combat, and even though the story was a repeat, the ramped up difficulty made the fights feel fresh.[DOUBLEPOST=1400730053,1400729997][/DOUBLEPOST]
I'd have loved Asylum if not for GFWL.
GFWL has been removed from the Steam versions of both Asylum and City, they're both now fully Steamworks.
 
I gotta admit, the guy that did Joker's voice in that video is fantastic. He's similar and yet different enough from Mark Hamil to make the character his own.
 
He just did an interview with Game Informer. They made the audition a secret, putting the name Jack White as the character, but when he saw the sample lines, he immediately recognized it as the Joker (there was even stuff from The Killing Joke). He initially had said he didn't want to do it because to him, Mark Hammil is the Joker, the one he grew up with (like probably several of us). After watching that video, I think he did a fine job.

Though he's pretty good at doing anything with his voice. Voicing both Joel from The Last of Us and Booker from Bioshock Infinite, who have pretty similar demeanors, I would think the two would sound the same, but nope. Didn't even know they were voiced by the same voice actor until someone told me.
 
So I've been watching some new gameplay videos for Watch Dogs. It's honestly looking like a great game. I can't afford to get it or the right system to play it on, though. Not right now. But it looks like it'll be worthy to get on either a next-gen console or PC.
 
How in the fucking fuckity shit is Wolfenstein 40+ gigs? HOW?

Oh yeah, Id Tech 5, the most bloated engine of all time.
 
Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap is coming to the Wii U Virtual Console.

I've been abstaining from buying any of the GBA titles on there, waiting for the day they release onto 3DS, but that's gonna be hard. I only stop myself because I still haven't finished A Link to the Past.
 
Top