The Joker does reasonably well playing Batman in... wait, what?!

Started by JasonPratt, August 02, 2016, 08:56:34 PM

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JasonPratt

I remember that as "Calvinist Cat is watching you!" So it still counts.

Glad the original topic has memed out; amused but not surprised the new topical base has upgraded to deity-cat.

How has the internet not yet crossbred this meme with the Batsignal?!

(Topical loop achieved.)

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Episode 3 comments:

* Huh. They kept the undercover plot running longer than I thought they would. Wayne literally suits up as Batman only once, to go answer a signal call from Gordon who wants a favor -- one Batman can't grant, and certainly not as Batman. So then he suits down back to Wayne again. (I'm avoiding some minor plot spoilers here.)

* I wasn't upset at this. Wayne gets to be better than the ersatz Task Force X expects because he's really Batman. But still recovering from a curbstomp battle so not up to par yet.

* Classic Batman deathtrap cliffhanger, approved. I have very little doubt this will be resolved in an overly plot-convenient (if still perhaps reasonable) fashion, rather than being resolved because Batman is supposed to be the world's greatest escape artist. (Note that due to plot variants, I am assuming someone else might end the episode in the trap instead.)

* Speaking of the Suicide Squad / Task Force X, I shouldn't have been surprised that this situation would be inspiring Waller to go with that later, but it admittedly took me by surprise.

* The Joker-is-more-like-Quinn storyline remains.... variable. I guess I'll reserve my opinion on this until I see how it plays out in the final two eps. Amused myself by leaning Joker into being my sidekick, but then I kept getting flashbacks to The Incredibles.

* Troy Baker, an actor who can perform an amazing Mark-Hamill-Joker impression, playing Bruce Wayne, trying an impression of Harley Quinn, while giving the Joker dating tips. Okay, I admit, I lol'd hard.

* Still managing to walk the line (mostly, with some drunken weaves) of keeping both Gordon and Waller as my allies.

* Still my 2nd favorite Quinn performance (after Sorkin's original); now possibly my favorite Quinn characterization. Keeping in mind I'm not the biggest fan of her character to begin with, I find her legitimately interesting here. Bonus points for intentionally calling out that her goofy accent comes and goes as an affectation. (I like to do that with at least two of my own characters, too.)

* Romancing Catwoman (now without morally problematic competition in the way)... best fun of the episode. Of the season so far. Of the series so far.  :smitten:

* Selina is posing near Bruce's car (the Batmobile in disguise) as she ponders things. There's an option as Bruce rolls up to "view the car", which triggers a sequence where he remote starts it to rumble its engine near her. "It has six hundred horsepower, you know," he kind of sheepishly smiles. She rolls her eyes with an amused smirk. DUDE SHE KNOWS YOU'RE BATMAN AND IS ALREADY ULTRA-IMPRESSED WITH YOU! DON'T BE SO DESPERATE! (If you do it again, she complains, "Okay, now you're just wasting gas.") I have to regard this as a missed opportunity. The car turns into the Batmobile; he could have done that and she really would have been impressed. I legitimately thought that's where the scene was going.  ???  I guess I understand the point of the joke, that even (a young) Bruce Wayne might feel like he still needs to impress a woman this awesome, but doing it this way is out of character and weak. Amusing, but weak.

* As diverting as Bruce Wayne Secret Agent Playboy Novice Supervillain is, I had better be back to ass-kicking for the rest of the season.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!


JasonPratt

Episode 4 tonight:

* I'm kind of curious how things would have worked out down the other path, but Bruce Batmann'd himself out of the trap legitimately. No weak save.

* A reminder: don't play this with kids around that you don't want exposed to R-rated material. Two words -- in testines.

* Bruce did not spend the whole episode Batmanning the hell out of everyone -- less than a fifth of it, and all at the first. But the fight I did get into was worth tiding over.

* I am not very happy with so many people knowing Bruce's identity. I kind of regard this as weak writing and it makes for plot problems at the expense of short-term plot conveniences. No spoilers here but I am not happy, although the writers do try to justify it reasonably.

* Managed to hack off Waller but she had it coming, and I figured I couldn't really get through the whole plot on her good side.

* Gordon will be happy about that, but he's Mr. Not-appearing-in-this-ep. Including toward the end when he might seem VERY OBVIOUSLY interested in what's publicly going on. I haven't played part 3 for some months; am I forgetting some key plot? I thought he was still around?

* I've.... transformed the Joker into an anti-corruption vigilante. ... ........ so, that's a thing that can happen. Apparently. I have doubts it will stick. I appreciate, in theory, the writers' attempts at doing something 'different' with the Joker but this whole arc has been a little cringey.

* The new Robin-Batgirl character is... workable. Rather seems like Batman will need two assistants soon, not one, but maybe Catwoman will volunteer. Things are working out well there.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Ep 5, grand finalisizing!

* All things considered, I feel like the denoumont (or however the French spell it) left off a resolution to the Catwoman side of the plot. Everyone else, Batman or Bruce has a final chat with. But not her? (I understand the plot structure allowed for that, but it also allowed for a final endgame chat, too.)

* Much to my not-surprise, Vigilante Joker didn't work out so well. Much to my surprise, they kept it going farther than I thought before he snapped completely.

* Relatedly: hard R. Don't forget this if playing it.

* Also somewhat surprising, I really thought from signals in the first game and this one, that "John Doe" was conning Bruce the whole time on some master scheme, but nope! -- he really was as pathetic as he seemed (throughout season two anyway). As already noted I'm not a big fan of that. But I give the writers credit for trying anything new with him.

* Ace Chemicals shows up, and it has practically nothing to do with Joker's origin except in an ultimately specious way. No explanation for why he looks the way he does or why he lost his memory or anything like that. They could have used literally anywhere else.

* A little to my surprise, I managed to be sufficiently diplomatic to end with almost everyone happy with me (except Bane, which was never going to happen, and Harley, which was apparently an option). Even the Joker, oddly enough.

* I won't spoil the surprise ending, which I agree made some kind of sense (but not as much as where I thought they were going, with a death on duty so to speak.) Props for trying something different in a more dramatic fashion than I was expecting.

* Overall I enjoyed it, as much as Season One, maybe a tad more. But they each have different strengths and weaknesses.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Shadowy thread arise!!

Remember back when Arkham City came out, and it had those noirish, stylish art posters which seemed to be hinting that you could play the game without color except for some swatches of key color? That turned out to never happen.

Well, right as the second game for TellTale's new Batman series (which I was reviewing for a couple of years in this thread, and which has no connection to the Arkham games aside from DC characters) was releasing, TT shut down (or shut down this side of production maybe), so there was no hope of getting a third game, nor sequels to other (more-or-less) beloved TT adaptations like their amazing Guardians of the Galaxy story or their Fables adaptation ("A Wolf Among Us").


Suddenly, news drops today, or yesterday, that someone has been hiring up old TT employees to work on doing such games again, and lo and behold! -- this series gets a new combined release as "Batman: Shadows", AND the selling point is a new "shadows" graphic mode which.... drumroll... looks like exactly the noirish mostly b/w grayscale art that was teased in Arkham City's marketing! (This can be bought as DLC for the original two games in one $5 package, btw, on Steam.)

This comes on the heels of a surprising lack of information announced at a major gaming convention concerning the next one or two Arkham games, which have been heavily hinted by Rocksteady's extension company to be in production for a few years now, with news supposedly coming soon. There was no news, but now there's this: something that does in its own way connect to the Arkham games!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Rayfer


JasonPratt

I cannot reasonably disagree with that statement, or even sheerly dispute it!  >:D

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!