StarDestroyer.Net BBS

It seems nobody's made a thread yet. Zod is too lazy, I guess.

Anyway, as everyone probably knows, the best part about BAA is the voice acting. It's great, there's heaps of it, and it works really well. Thematically the game is neat; touches like the Riddler having actual riddles (instead of exploding presents or other physical silliness) and Batman being dumb as hell are great. The plot literally hinges on Batman NOT hearing something the player can hear clearly and having to work it out later.

I'm playing on hard, and the game is proper hard; the way health works is neat as it returns with XP, so you don't generally actually run out but it doesn't come back automatically or require pickups (which amusingly are everywhere but Batman won't use them). The combat, however, is extremely boring, even against 8-10 guys. It's hard because you can't take hits, but the enemy combat AI is hopeless. However much fun it is to knock people off footbridges with explosions, it's not showing off the game very well.

The Metroid-em-up aspects are pretty broad, but pretty annoying. Your vision shows you a forcefield, with a wire going to a box... that you can't turn off/destroy/blow up/etc. Amazing!

The vision is also a no-loss situation. There is essentially no reason not to have it on all the time, whcih makes the 'detective' stuff pretty retarded. Amusingly, Condemned 1 and 2 actually had more sophisitcated detection. The vision reveals all the Metroid barriers and generally tells you what you need, which makes it less frustrating, but it's less successful than Shadow Complex's torch (whcih you at least need to point in the right direction).

I haven't finished it, and I probably won't. It leads you by the nose and while it succeeds as a very pretty and exciting episode of BAS, it's not really a very good game.

I've been doing a second run through on hard, which isn't honestly much harder than normal. The badguys just have more health and it isn't as easy to counter their moves. I do think the stealth levels were fairly well done, but there honestly should have been a lot more emphasis on stealth take-downs. The upgrade system was also handled mostly well, they don't bother injecting forced realism (lol) into the game to bog you down with inventory micro, you just select which upgrades you want to get or get new gear as plot demands it.

I do have to agree about the vision mode. It makes things so easy there's really no point in using normal vision most of the time, which kind of makes a lot of the design a waste. Now if they'd just made it so that only things you needed to examine stood out and everything else remained the same, it would have been a little better. But the detective mode just isn't as good as it could have been. And yes, I was too lazy to make a thread.

You find the combat boring, Stark? If you don't pay attention, you get the shit knocked out of you.

Yeah, and there's three whole buttons and 2 whole strategies. The combat is fast, but it's not comlpex or interesting. Punch-punch-punch-cape-rang-cape-punch-punch-punch-jump-cap-rang-punch-punch-punch. On hard the counter indicator doesn't appear to exist after a while, which makes counters pretty much luck due to the waving camera.

Thrilling stuff. It's actually more fun to WATCH than to DO.

I noticed
Spoiler Is that some kind of technicality?

And what's up with 'finger in ear walking slowly' gameplay from Gears? Can't Batman talk and run at the same time?

Gotta hide those loading zones somehow dan.

Stark wrote:I noticed
Spoiler

Batman kills a bunch of people

Is that some kind of technicality?

Turns out he just knocks them all unconscious.

And what's up with 'finger in ear walking slowly' gameplay from Gears? Can't Batman talk and run at the same time?

I hear they borrowed a lot of engines Gears uses? I was more annoyed at the camera myself. For this type of game it doesn't really work well to have Batman taking up the nearly entire left hand side of the screen when he's doing anything but running.

General Zod wrote:Turns out he just knocks them all unconscious.

No way.
Spoiler I didn't know Batman 'didn't kill'... except when he indirectly does. Or when it's easier or funny.

General Zod wrote:Turns out he just knocks them all unconscious.

Well, of course he does, just as my City of Heroes rifle blaster pumps criminals full of lead, blows them up with explosives, sets them ablaze, and then just arrests them and lands their asses in prison.

As for the topic at hand, I've only seen Sage's review so far, and I kind of inferred the same complaints that Stark made regarding the easy mode vision. Still, the game seems atmospheric enough to warrant a playthrough.

Stark wrote:

General Zod wrote:Turns out he just knocks them all unconscious.

No way.
Spoiler

He drops a guy into gas to break a window (ps, murder) and he crushes Bane with a car and trapped him under the ocean. They're dead. He could have just shot Bane with a G36 if his plan was 'main and then murder Bane after a silly bossfight'.

I didn't know Batman 'didn't kill'... except when he indirectly does. Or when it's easier or funny.

I was under the impression he stopped the gas from killing the guy he dropped into the gas just in time. Though with Bane it came off as being more a desperation move. He didn't expect him to still be conscious after finishing him off and had to do something. Spoiler

LordOskuro wrote: Well, of course he does, just as my City of Heroes rifle blaster pumps criminals full of lead, blows them up with explosives, sets them ablaze, and then just arrests them and lands their asses in prison.

Which is completely relevant how? Oh wait it isn't.

General Zod wrote:I was under the impression he stopped the gas from killing the guy he dropped into the gas just in time. Though with Bane it came off as being more a desperation move. He didn't expect him to still be conscious after finishing him off and had to do something.

Something like... maybe restrain him or remove the tank? The spoiler doesn't surprise me, but it means Batman knows he could basically do anything in his power without killing him, so his inability to do anything but kick is pretty weak.

Maybe I shoudl go easy-vision the guy to see if he's listen as 'unconsious', but seriously dropping a guy into deadly gas and hope he'll be okay is pretty lame for Mr No-kills.

So...just how hot is Harley Quinn in this?

People think Harley Quinn is hot?

Stark wrote:

General Zod wrote:I was under the impression he stopped the gas from killing the guy he dropped into the gas just in time. Though with Bane it came off as being more a desperation move. He didn't expect him to still be conscious after finishing him off and had to do something.

Something like... maybe restrain him or remove the tank? The spoiler doesn't surprise me, but it means Batman knows he could basically do anything in his power without killing him, so his inability to do anything but kick is pretty weak.

Maybe I shoudl go easy-vision the guy to see if he's listen as 'unconsious', but seriously dropping a guy into deadly gas and hope he'll be okay is pretty lame for Mr No-kills.

You drop the guy to break the glass ceiling and Bats says "I can't let that man die I have to shut off the gas" and conveniently with the ceiling now broken you can throw a Batarang to turn off the gas so the man doesn't die.

Stark wrote:People think Harley Quinn is hot?

Yeah, fucked if I know how that works either.

(Nostalgia Critic agrees she's hot lol)

General Zod wrote:I was under the impression he stopped the gas from killing the guy he dropped into the gas just in time. Though with Bane it came off as being more a desperation move. He didn't expect him to still be conscious after finishing him off and had to do something. Spoiler

Though in the ending it pretty much shows that Bane survives as he comes up out of the ocean

Actually, that's only one of the possible endings. I got Spoiler

Vympel wrote:Yeah, fucked if I know how that works either.

(Nostalgia Critic agrees she's hot lol)

In the animated series she was a random chick in a stupid outfit with a stupid voice; in the game she's a typical videogame woman with enormous fake breasts all over the screen with an annoying voice (that you mysteriously don't disable the first time). I guess I'm not fat enough?

DP wrote:You drop the guy to break the glass ceiling and Bats says "I can't let that man die I have to shut off the gas" and conveniently with the ceiling now broken you can throw a Batarang to turn off the gas so the man doesn't die.

Are you serious? I tooled around after that (I was laughing with someone about how Batman totally just killed a guy) so I guess Joker gas is a little bit deadly but not really?

The more people try to explain it away the more it amuses me that Batman is repeatedly killed because he's too dumb to pick up a sniper rifle. He'll strangle a man with a grapple claw (fucked if I even know how that works) but he won't do anything actually effective because they might die... unless he wants to!

You can use the grapple gun to pull a gun into a bottomless pit.

I'd say that Batman won't kill you, but he doesn't have to save you, but he'll actually kill you. In a pretty horrible way actually.

General Zod wrote:Which is completely relevant how? Oh wait it isn't.

Woah, guess the next line starting with "as for the topic at hand" didn't give it away.

Stark wrote:The Metroid-em-up aspects are pretty broad, but pretty annoying. Your vision shows you a forcefield, with a wire going to a box... that you can't turn off/destroy/blow up/etc. Amazing!

In true Metroid fashion, you get the ability to do that later.

neoolong wrote:

General Zod wrote:I was under the impression he stopped the gas from killing the guy he dropped into the gas just in time. Though with Bane it came off as being more a desperation move. He didn't expect him to still be conscious after finishing him off and had to do something. Spoiler

Though in the ending it pretty much shows that Bane survives as he comes up out of the ocean

Actually, that's only one of the possible endings. I got Spoiler

Scarecrow clutching the Titan crate.

Admittedly I was only half paying attention to the ending. It could have been Bane, Killer Croc or the Scarecrow.

Voice acting that even Stark can approve of? I'm already halfway convinced.

The other half is after playing the demo. I had a crash that was disconcerning a bit and the camera needs to be a little further from bats, but otherwise, I think the game should be competently done and good to play.

Zixinus wrote:Voice acting that even Stark can approve of? I'm already halfway convinced.

It's basically the same voice cast as BTAS. Harley Quinn sounds a bit shriller than usual, even for her, but then she's fucknut crazy, so that's possibly to be expected.

Stark wrote:I'm playing on hard, and the game is proper hard;

It's not much harder than normal really, except there's no easy mode counter indicator. Even the second to last battle, *SPOILER*the two Titan bit*SPOILER* was pretty easy to one shot, I just finished doing it a few hours ago. Once you've done three medals on the Extreme combat challenge maps, the story fights don't really offer much of a challenge.

The combat, however, is extremely boring, even against 8-10 guys. It's hard because you can't take hits, but the enemy combat AI is hopeless. However much fun it is to knock people off footbridges with explosions, it's not showing off the game very well.

Were we playing the same game, or have you just not got far enough in to unlock some more of the better moves? The combat is one of the more fun aspects, once you start building up decent varied combos instead of just "Punch-punch-punch-cape-rang-cape-punch-punch-punch-jump-cap-rang-punch-punch-punch" it's a lot better, using instant take downs, throws and ground pounds and counters, probably a good idea to use them, makes it not so hard...

Your vision shows you a forcefield, with a wire going to a box... that you can't turn off/destroy/blow up/etc. Amazing!

Turns out you can when you get the gadget to do it, like pulling grates and walls with the claw and blowing up walls with the gel.