Batman: the Telltale Game released today -- not one of their Lego games, but one of their cinematic story-driven games, like The Walking Dead or Jurassic Park. I've only played one of those others so far (JP, which I liked a lot despite some chintziness in areas), and haven't yet played their take on Back to the Future (though I've owned it for a little while).
The Arkham games never got around to doing even the slightest Two-Face origin story -- Dent doesn't show up much really, aside from what amounts to two cameos at the beginning and end of Arkham City and an unambitious side story in Arkham Knight. (The writers tried hard to make his Knight storyline, thin as it was, to be well-grounded in his tragic relationship with Batman.) Neither did the Arkham series devote any DLC to a prequel mission set covering the two years prior to Arkham Origins where Batman takes down Falcone.
So it's nice to see the Telltale writers covering those bases, although this game definitely can't fit as an unofficial missing piece of that series -- the continuity is quite different, and basically reboots to Batman having just started to work on the organized crime and having met no supercriminals yet so far as I can tell. In this new continuity, his first super-criminal (more or less) is the Catwoman -- which isn't too spoilery since she's heavily featured in the marketing now -- and... well, a strong hint about who'll be coming up soon, plus a classic foe rather radically redesigned but not operating as such yet.
I honestly thought Adam West might be the voice actor for Batman! But it turns out the actor is Troy Baker, who has pulled some fine jobs in two of the five Arkham games (and the Arkham animated movie) doing an impersonation of Mark Hamill's Joker.
Much to my surprise, when I went to IMDB, I discovered Troy has been playing Batman quite regularly already for the Lego series (a good enough impersonation of Kevin Conroy) -- also Loki and Hawkeye on many animated and game properties. He also played Dent in both of the character's Arkham series appearances (good jobs both times), and has voiced both Tim Drake and the Arkham Knight himself (not Batman). So the guy's got a lot of experience in the property already.
I mention all this because I wasn't always sold on his voice acting here, but partly that's due to the animators choosing some odd facial expressions for the character puppets (for want of a better word), which often distracted me; but I didn't want to give the impression I'm not appreciative of his work usually.
How's the game? Pushes hard into an R-rating for language, blood, and (quite literally) guts -- not too surprising from TT studios, but maybe a little for this property. Batman asskicks reasonably well, although I'm fuzzy about the extent to which the player can mess things up or not during the action. You can also choose how much of a dark attitude to project, which as in some other TT games will make a difference in how the story runs -- although the writing seams can get a bit janky, I noticed. As advertised, Bruce Wayne gets a lot more time out of costume, which heightens the cinematic feeling in some ways but could also be regarded as boring for some players; I wasn't, but I could see others not liking the largely low-key approach. I wasn't disappointed, but I also went in with somewhat low expectations.
The game will be releasing in chapters all month (and into September a little), but they don't have to be bought separately. In effect by buying early you're getting to bug hunt before the full set release in September. My gametime of 2-ish hours for the first chapter includes 10 to 15 minutes of me trying to figure out what I was doing wrong at the Batcomputer before exiting to check Steam discussion and finding there's a game-killing bug if you look at the codex or the newsfeed (they're connected in the interface) before walking over to check the plot point... which is offscreen to the left, and the computer hotspots are immediately nearby, so it isn't clear where you should go at first to avoid the bug. Doubtless this will be patched; it's just some missing code.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the game so far, but I'm a reasonably big Batman fan, so I'm admittedly biased. Also picky. ;)
I'll probably wait until they are all out and on sale, I don't like waiting for the next chapter much.
Still I like their games, they are more interactive movie than game for the most part but they are a nice diversion when I don't have the brain power for something deeper.
I'd really recommend "The Wolf Among Us" if you haven't played it. It's based on the Fables comics but you don't really need to have read them or anything. Fairy Tale Hard Boiled Detective stuff is fun :)
I might get this eventually. I have several of Telltale's titles, all purchased on super sale when all content was available, and I've yet to finish one of them. :-\
Yeah, I've had my eye on Bigby "the Big Bad" for a while. O0
Nope, don't like waiting on the next chapter much at all. But I'd be waiting on the whole thing longer, so...
At long last, Episode Two released this week, and... it was something that definitely happened.
That sounds like a meh. I'm not really meh-ing it, but... well, it's a semi-interactive movie I guess, with all that that implies. Did I enjoy the next two hours? Sure. But I'm not a fan of how far the story seems to be deviating from source, or in some cases is definitely deviating.
I just saved Dent from becoming Two-Face I think, but I'm pretty sure the game is janking me around and he'll end up Two-Face anyway for a different reason, and the reason he could have become TF isn't all that compelling so I don't have much confidence the new reason also will be.
The Wayne Family Criminal Empire thing is a change being made for shock value that undercuts Bruce's whole rationale for being Batman; and while that may sound interesting on paper, in practice while playing as Bruce Wayne I feel shackled to a plot that I either can't trust to end in a satisfying way, or which will just be a mindscrew from the writers janking me around for ten hours, or maybe both.
Cobblepot is a whole new character in this game that I feel might be grafted from the Gotham series which annoys me in itself, but the design choice is also grating -- why would a tall skinny guy ever be known as the Penguin? Do the writers not know what a penguin even is?!? He has literally no reason to be called that in this story except Cobblepot is "the Penguin" everywhere else. Wearing a creepy penguin gas mask doesn't help; that isn't a reason for him to be known as the Penguin, that's him choosing one fashion accessory to match a prior choice to be known as the Penguin. He doesn't even do it to disguise his identity, since he explicitly wants everyone to know who he is and how his family has been brutally mistreated by Bruce's parents! Why not call him "Anarky" and have him dress and act like Anarky? -- that would be more consistent: in this story Cobblepot isn't the Penguin, he's Anarky. (Except he doesn't' much act like Anarky either, except in very superficial ways. The real Anarky as a character would hate to mess around with mobsters and supervillains, considering himself a hero like Batman. Notably the not-Penguin does have that trait like Anarky, though...)
Since this is mainly a 'story' game, it hurts when the story seems too different just for the sake of being different. 'Different' is not necessarily 'better' or even necessarily 'as good'.
Still, it's fun playing Batman and pretty fun playing as Bruce Wayne, too. We'll see how future eps go.
Episode 3 released this past week just in time for Halloween weekend. I think I mentioned earlier that the game seemed to be pointing toward Scarecrow as the main enemy, and while that might still turn out to be true somehow... well, at the risk of hinting at plot spoilers, let's say the reveal of the main enemy's true identity makes no physical sense and messes with the canon almost as much as having Lucius Fox be the mastermind!
Speaking of the mastermind, who really, really, reeeaaaalllllyyyy seems like the Scarecrow, I also got a strong Anarky vibe from his fighting style and general behavior, so the Anarky misdirections continue. OR DO THEY!? -- he could end up still being basically Anarky I guess. Anarcrowkey?
The writing seems stronger in putting the screws to Bruce Wayne in public, and while tall, thin, still-not-at-all-Penguin-ish Penguin continues to be almost-completely-un-Penguin I appreciated the angles the writers took. Also, the Harvey Dent side of the plot remains pretty original, and definitely the highlight of this episode. (The Batman action, while present, seems dialed back for this episode compared to the first two, and understandably so.)
BatWayne has hit his lowest point and clearly the next two eps will be about him fighting back out of the (figurative) pit. Kudos to the writers for doing reasonably well on this.
Weird. I completely forgot to put in an entry for Ep 4, which came out somewhere around Thanksgiving last month (iirc).
Ep 5, the finale for the 'season', dropped in a couple of days ago, but Telltale botched some of the marketing alerts -- when I saw the download going (quite annoyingly at the same time as I was trying to download Space Hulk: Deathwing), I clicked on the news alert to see if this was Ep 5 -- but all I saw were patch notes. The devs have often released large patches between eps, but I saw a slightly prior note that Ep 5 would be up in a couple of days. I happened to stumble on some information today that, yes, indeed Ep 5 was sent two days ago. Sooooo, after updating my current AAR (playing as the dwarves on a grand campaign of Battle For Middle-Earth 2), I loaded up the grand finale.
Ep 4, not too surprisingly, was more Wayne than Batman focused; or more plot and a little less action. Which was fine. Ep 5, more action as might be expected. I think all the loose ends tied up, and the canon changes stayed locked in. TT clearly intends to try for another season someday, although what I've heard is that next year's multi-episode "season" game will be about THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY instead! I have no complaints. :notworthy:
I'm debating playing the game through again, but it did clock in at ten hours (as expected), so I'll probably wait a while if so. I think it would be pretty funny to make Batman silent on all dialogue options, though maybe not Wayne. My choices ended up 50/50 on the honest/cunning metric, but heavily skewed toward compassionate overall. Also, curiously, on all prior eps I usually chose the majority or super-majority paths, but for Ep 5 most of my path choices skewed for the minority or even super-minority. Weird. I don't think I did anything less consistent, which would indicate most people did switch up their playstyle for the finale.
Anyway! It's an interactive hard-R Batman film, sort of animated as a storyboard. Quick-time events are annoying, but come with this territory, so buyer be very aware. Story feels too different for the sake of being different (e.g. why did Cobblepot even bother to call himself the Penguin?!) Recommended with those caveats.
Season two on the way. Jokercentric + Riddler this time.
I don't even slightly believe they'll release everything quickly this time. I'll just expect the full release by December, like last time.
So, with the 3rd episode of this year's TTGBatman series recently released, I've been playing the first two episodes (3rd one tonight hopefully, 2 more to go after that sometime before Jan 1 presumably).
Some thoughts, no more spoilerish (if I can help it) than the game's own marketing.
* I had to install the prior game and (I think?) connect it to a cloud save, in order to import my save to set up the new situations. That's understandable if a tad annoying for having to redownload and install.
* The Riddler turns out to be Gotham's original supervillain from a time before Batman. The first ep is devoted to his return. He's good as a dark Riddler interpretation, going hard on the lethal deathtraps.
* Relatedly, the game is still a pretty hard R rating equivalent.
* The producers finally, FINALLY found someone who can do Harley's accent in a way that doesn't make me want to shotgun her lungs out. At least as good as the original Arleen Sorkin's work, arguably better.
* This might be my favorite Harley Quinn adaptation so far, too. Not that I'm a huge fan of her, so take that qualification into account.
* Her new character adaptation fits well with the new version of Joker's character, but the writers are clearly struggling hard to Make Our Joker (and By Extension Harley) Different. They succeed well enough on their own terms, but at the expense of badly nerfing the Joker so far. Previews hint that this will be rectified by the end of this season, but we'll see. I am not much of a fan of their prior character revisions-for-revision sake, and I'm just as happy that the Penguin (as a chief example) hasn't returned yet.
* Relatedly, none of the original season's villains have returned yet. The main villain from last season is explicitly treated as Body Not Found And Might Return, which is annoying to me as this is not someone I want to return.
* As per marketing spoilers, Bane and Mr. Freeze have now shown up. Very standard characterizations, done well enough. (Although this Bane has no particular interest in hunting down Batman.)
* Much of Ep 2 focuses on a wounded Bruce Wayne working on infiltrating the Riddler's gang (or "Pact") while trying to minimize the damage they're causing. I am okay with this: it's a pretty fresh angle for his character generally and for the game specifically, and doesn't insult the fanbase in a way that breaks the character (such as for the Wayne family in the prior season).
* I can't recall if Amanda Waller (the usually-heavyset black superspy leader, usually in charge of the Suicide Squad / Task Force X, sometimes involved with the US government's superhero creation program project Cadmus) was revealed in game trailers, but at the risk of a minor spoiler she's heavily involved in the story. Not necessarily my favorite interpretation of the character, but ranking up there: she isn't easy to write, and in a game with multiple plot/dialogue paths that must have been even more difficult.
* So far I'm working at trying to keep a diplomatic balance between alliance (and friendship) with Commissioner Gordon, and alliance (though not friendship) with "the Wall". Not entirely succeeding, but that's the drama of the game.
* Batman and Gordon working on a Riddler room together was one of several highlights so far. I can't recall if there was a possibility that might have been Waller and Batman instead.
* I'm legitimately looking forward to seeing how the Wayne-infiltration plotline works out in Episode 3.
* I'm also a little curious about how the story is going to work out the (apparent) new version of Batgirl / Oracle.
* The quick-time action events are as personally annoying as ever, but I realize that's just my taste, and for the genre of the game they almost couldn't do better. Almost. Some of the prompts make intrinsic sense, but others do not. If they were always consistent in meaning, or more obviously so, I'd appreciate them better. They seem a bit better designed this season so far.
* The music continues to be relatively weak.
Despite my several criticisms, I'm impressed with the games; and even when I think they swing too far into variances for variance sake, I do give them credit for trying.
holy tl;dr someone needs a gf
however i can't help but approve of this kind of dedication tbh
Quote from: Batman on November 28, 2017, 03:49:10 PM
holy tl;dr someone needs a gf
No doubt!
Then again, I'm not pretending to be a guy whose relationships are inevitably toxic even with women he'd be well-paired with (much moreso those he should dang well stay away from). So I have that going for me. :))
It's a brave man who calls out the Bat.
JP's not entirely wrong, though...
It's a braver man who wears turquoise plaid for stealth SWAT operations.
Not that I'm judging, but I'm totally judging.
(By contrast, BC's new avatar is adorable! -- is that a composite from the "Calvinist Cat" meme?)
Quote from: JasonPratt on November 28, 2017, 04:10:22 PM
(By contrast, BC's new avatar is adorable! -- is that a composite from the "Calvinist Cat" meme?)
Nnnnnnnnot exactly.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ceiling-cat
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.)
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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.
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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.
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.
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!
This thread makes my eyes bleed.
I cannot reasonably disagree with that statement, or even sheerly dispute it! >:D