GrogHeads Forum

Anyone buying in?

I know it's early - but I'm interested in impressions

I'm not interested in getting it myself, but I've read in a few places that there are frame rate issues, and in general it's a pretty crappy port.  Common wisdom seems to be to wait for a few patches.

its broken

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06/23/arkham-knight-pc-framerate/

I love the word "kerfuffle"...

I bought it. I'll install tonight and see what happens.

Quote from: undercovergeek on June 23, 2015, 01:36:02 PM
its broken

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06/23/arkham-knight-pc-framerate/

oooh. There could be lots of reasons for that. But that wasn't enjoyable to watch.

I will get it eventually to go with my other Batman games - but I kind of made myself a lame promise I wouldn't buy it until I played the others.

The problem with that promise is pCars and The Witcher III are stealing my time.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on June 23, 2015, 01:59:27 PM

Quote from: undercovergeek on June 23, 2015, 01:36:02 PM
its broken

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/06/23/arkham-knight-pc-framerate/

oooh. There could be lots of reasons for that. But that wasn't enjoyable to watch.

I will get it eventually to go with my other Batman games - but I kind of made myself a lame promise I wouldn't buy it until I played the others.

The problem with that promise is pCars and The Witcher III are stealing my time.

And exploding my men seems quite high on the list

Oh yes - I forgot that.  :2funny:

I think you may have it at least in damage to the enemy though!

I prebought it about a month ago.

I preloaded it yesterday.

And this afternoon.

It's apparently still installing. After preloading. Or something. "Busy writing to disk."

In theory I'll hold out a week or so to get initial patching out of the way. Historically the Arkham series hasn't ported to PC very well, but I don't have any options other than buying an Xbone or a PS4. The first two games ended up sufficiently stable; I played them through on their PC ports last year. Haven't even tried Origins, despite deep sale discounts, due to its terrible reputation. (I mean on PC; I've played it at least twice on PS3, plus once for the Mr. Freeze origin story sequel DLC, and it's perfectly fine, possibly even my favorite of the three games by a slight edge.)

I NEVER preload anymore. It takes forever in the first place and then, once the game unlocks, I still end up waiting forever for it to get ready for action. I have no idea what the hell it is doing while I wait, sometimes over an hour for it to "unlock". It seems to just add an extra step while providing no discernible advantage.

Decrypting?

Some of the complaints I've seen on Steam probably come from not realizing the game has finished preloading and is now doing... whatever. It's possible the game is preloading but not actually installing. Whatever it is, it took no less than 30 minutes after it finished downloading. If possible, find a Blu or DVD or whatever hard media it might come on, is my recommendation.

Initial impressions:

1.) Spent a good hour messing around with the gfx options. I have a boss computer but I really didn't get a steady 30ps minimum framerate until I deactivated quite a few things, despite my Physx(tm) being set to one of my SLI GPUs, and not the main one either, and went down to a 900 resolution (if I recall correctly). On the other hand, the game takes place in the rain, and the gameplay looks a LOT like the prelude fight with the Arkham City security goons with which Rocksteady promoted ArkCity. This is kind of a good thing?

I will add that it's possible I'm running a bit handicapped as I usually don't upgrade my NVIDIA drivers with "3D" code, thinking that this is for 3D monitors; some recent comments I read indicate otherwise. Unfortunately I apparently can't reinstall my drivers, so I won't be able to fully upgrade those until the next release.

As other people have noted, the gfx options are only partially found in any one place, be that the in-game options, or NVIDIA's optimization screen or even in an ini file: a number of options like reflections are found there and can be turned off (or on) manually. Why these aren't graphics options in game is insane.

Early code seemed locked at 30fps, but at least one very small hotfix has already been released (not much more than 300Kb! -- and then around a 10 Meg patch), which I suspect changes the ini file to deactivate the cap or at least set it to 120fps or higher. It may also set the graphics options to all their lowest settings (aside from 720 p resolution) -- at least my game started that way! Testing the video performance at the lowest 720p settings yielded framerates around 120.


2.) Facial models are dead. Previous games used a lot of facial animations, but this game doesn't. It's hugely distracting, although the worst I've seen is on Harley Quinn during her prelude DLC mission. Her face literally never moves even when she's in a dialogue cut scene. It's like all her nerves have been severed.


3.) Also, there's some kind of game-killing bug before the second fight in that small prelude mission, where the tutorial stops you from moving her for a brief scene and then when it comes back she can't be walked around any more. Setting the joker box (per the tutorial) moves the mission along, but doesn't unlock her to move, and she gets shot every time. On the other hand, it's... inadvertently funny?... that she seems to get her gear from, well, under her skirt. ;)

Her voice actress hasn't been Sorkin now since the first Arkham game, although one of the usual Diniverse animation crew (the one who does Barbara Gordan I think) stepped up in fine fashion for the second and third (prequel) games. Whoever is doing her voicework now, for the DLC mission anyway, is JUST TERRIBLE! Painfully bad. Beyond caricature. (I can't decide if it helps or hurts that the writers seem to have decided she should think she's an anime loli, complete with pseudo kung fu language when she fights.)


3.) To the actual story and gameplay so far. The game allows you to play with any suits already unlocked, from the beginning, rather than making you wait for a New Game Plus. Since I bought the Season Pass, a version of the Batman Beyond suit was already unlocked, and looks swass as hell.  :smitten: :smitten: (Though a little low tech compared to some other versions of the suit, but that's okay -- I suspect the game is setting up for a transition to Beyond.) Since his facial animations are almost as bad as Harley's, I almost kept him in this suit which (very logically) covers the bottom of his face with black cloth (through which his jaw is still slightly visible on closeup btw.)

The standard suit starts out as a slight upgrade from the Arkham City suit, and already looks worn (though not degraded) when the game starts. Another reason I went back to this standard one, is so that it makes some kind of difference when (according to promotional footage) he upgrades later to a more armored and blacker suit.


4.) The city looks great, possibly better than previously (possibly due to the rain and wet-shiny effects, which may be why the devs hid the ability to turn that off). The game map looks small, maybe smaller than Arkham City per se, but I suspect it unlocks later.


5.) Kevin Conroy is back in fine form as Batman. "If you're lying to me, I'll break the other one." "...wh-what other owWAAH!" {crack}  :smitten: I wish the producers would settle on someone to play Gordon's voice; the previous ones have all been fine, this one is clearly going for that guy from Breaking Bad (might even be him), but something seems off with his delivery. I can't tell for sure yet if he's the narrator, which is weird (and not helped by the subtitles calling the narrator "the narrator"). I keep thinking, they should have hired Peter Cullen: if I'm going to be oddly distracted by the voice, and if this is being sold as the last Arkham game (with Batman anyway, tacitly thus as Conroy's last outing at least in a game), then I'd rather be distracted by my computer being set on fire by the sheer awesome of Optimus Prime being Commissioner Gordon. Oh well.


6.) At least some of the dev team and writers are on the ball. When a wounded policeman asks Batman what he's doing staring down at the street after an armored car attacks them and Batman whisks him to safety, he growls: "Evening the odds." He's calling the Batmobile. The visual UI cue for this reads: "Even the odds."  :smitten: :smitten: :smitten:


7.) I don't want to spoil too much of the plot [LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED PRIOR GAMES UP THROUGH AT LEAST ARKHAM CITY!!] -- I assume everyone knows from basic promotional material by now that the game starts with Scarecrow's "City of Fear" plan being teased back in ArkCity. The opening few minutes are just great, as someone (presumably Gordon? -- the "narrator" anyway) cremates the body of the Joker, which the player is expected to interact doing (without hints about what's expected), and then we step into the shoes of a beat cop taking a coffee break in Pauli's Diner (near another store named "Dini's" something -- that's maybe a little overkill on the honoring of Paul Dini as writer for the games and for the DCAU Batman series), which is wonderfully decorated like in the 50s. With Halloween approaching. Soon the city is evacuating due to a terror threat, leaving only the cops (who are somehow overworked once 6.5 million people are mostly gone??) and the gangs who don't seem too worried about the Scarecrow's threat. The Penguin (who looks a lot older for only being nine months after Arkham City -- and Harley doesn't seem at all pregnant btw, in her prelude mission) has teamed up with Two Face. Ivy is somehow connected to the threat, since the Penguin is actually working with Scarecrow and asked Harley to break Ivy out of Iron Heights (where supervillains are being kept while Arkham City is being renovated) specifically to help the Scarecrow, which makes a ton of sense. (This is mentioned in the broken prelude mission, or the first 20% of it anyway before the game breaking bug -- the mission itself is to free Ivy.) The stated goal in Harley's DLC for what's happening in the main game is specifically to kill Batman, so this is all a plot to draw him out and overwhelm him with a supervillain invasion. (The game itself calls it a supervillain invasion somewhere in its written descriptions for who various characters are and what's up with them since ArkCity.)

This leads me to expect that the developers are going to pull out all the stops and bring back pretty much everyone from prior games for a grand finale. At the end of which, according to "the narrator", "This is how it happened. This is how the Batman died." (More likely he's going to retire, even though if anything he looks younger each game as time goes on, but whatever.)

I will add that as much as I've been complaining about the dreadful lack of facial animations, some minor characters do well enough -- Barbara Gordon for one -- and now Batman sees a projected b/w video of her coming up from his arm when he's talking to her, not merely a radio signal.

This at first thought seemed stupid since it's the very reverse of stealthy; but on a closer look, the programmers/artists took the time to show little hints that it's really just being projected onto his eyes. So we, the camera, are seeing it as he's seeing it, and ALSO seeing what's really happening, at the same time.

Also, I'm sure my framerate would have been improved even more if I had turned off not only dynamic spotlights (what?) and dynamic rain (which is pretty dynamic anyway) and dynamic paper (for when people walk around, they don't just walk on 'paper' floor decals now, some of the decals peel off and flump away), but also dynamic vapor.

But the 3D dynamic vapor looks seriously cool. When people run through it, the vapor boils around and follows in their wake depending on their mass. This also happens when the Batmobile is burning rubber (or whatever it's doing), although usually the player can't see that due to how the camera works. But the performance test shows that off.  :smitten:

It's pretty unplayable for me right now. It's frustrating because when I'm on the ground, I get acceptable frame rates. It is mostly when I'm gliding or grappling through sky that the fps starts to chug. It needs to be patched for sure.

Mine apparently decided it needed to reinstall itself and started over again from 0%. Woo. F*cking woo.  :tickedoff:

That is a HUGE post Jason. Thanks.  O0

Harley Quinn pulling her kit out her skirt (which is incredibly short anyway) is funny! I only really played the first one through to (near) the end...but I thought HQ's voice in that was superb.

As for no facial animations - she's probably had Botox. All the kids are doing it!  :2funny:

I'll wait. As I said, I have the other games to complete....so it's going to be a while before I get to this one.

I was really tempted to pick this up during pre orders since many places strongly discounted but in the end it was one of the few times I held strong and did not order.  Seems at least for now that was the right decision, but I am sure they will get things reasonably worked out and I likely will pick up in some future sale.

JD, you should certainly play the other games first anyway. :)


Arctic, while I didn't have that problem (despite manually pausing the download a few times for different reasons), I've seen enough comments on Steam to think that it's sadly common and not merely the game finishing its download and then post-installing for 40 minutes. Though be prepared for that, too.


Anyone getting it from Steam (or maybe even not) should check out various threads on the forums about how to optimize the game for your system, including some light .ini file editing to turn off various things. I suspect the game is simply optimized to run on PS4 and the XBone, at best, and any settings beyond what those systems can do will be chunky. So while the publishers and/or devs have made it possible to turn off some of the bling for the PC, they haven't made it possible to do that without text editing. Which, and I don't curse like this lightly, is seriously f'ckd up.  :tickedoff: I can only guess they were required by contract to make the PC version look 'better' at all costs, even if that means running the PC version on some systems at 720p (the game can even go down to 640) with most of the whistles turned off or minimized -- just not the ones someone decided HAD TO BE THERE to make the PC version look 'better' than console.

I mean, my computer runs pretty smooth, but my computer was the fastest commercial model in the world a year or two ago. And even I can't run it on full bling without chugging. (I'm about two generations behind now on top of the line NVIDIA cards.) I feel nothing but sympathy and pity for the people who on moderate systems (no one should be playing a triple A gfx heavy title on a minimal system anyway) can't even get the game to look and play as smoothly as Arkham Asylum on a PS3 from five years ago or however long it was.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/208650/announcements/detail/145587678164818505

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/162674/batman-arkham-knight-performance-update

The Recommended Spec is intended to deliver an experience on par with the current generation of gaming platforms.

For an optimal experience, users with recommended spec hardware should not set their resolution higher than 1080p.

By default, the game may set Shadow Quality and Level of Detail to High on Recommended Spec hardware. Users should revert these to Normal.

With these settings on Rec Spec AMD GPUs, users can expect some minor texture pops, occasional loading symbols during fast-paced scenarios, and some hitches & stuttering when gliding or driving the Batmobile. To help alleviate this, AMD users using Rec Spec GPU's should turn Texture Resolution, Shadow Quality, and Level of Detail to Low. We continue to work closely with AMD to resolve these issues as soon as possible; make sure you have the most current drivers and check back here for updates on when the next driver version is available.

Additional Recommendations
We do not recommend that users change anything in the game's .ini files as this will potentially negatively impact performance, including frame rate, and stability.

At this time we do not recommend using NVIDIA's GeForce Experience or AMD's Gaming Evolved Optimization tools.

We're currently working on improving streaming performance from mechanical hard drives (HDD). Addressing this is one of our top short-term priorities.

For users that have an SSD available, we've noted increased streaming performance when the game is installed to that type of drive



Recommended Hardware Specs

    Resolution: 1920x1080
    V-Sync: On
    Anti-Aliasing: On
    Texture Resolution: Normal
    Shadow Quality: Normal
    Level of Detail: Normal
    Interactive Smoke/Fog: Off
    Interactive Paper Debris: Off
    Enhanced Rain: Off
    Enhanced Light Shafts: Off

Expected: 30fps (capped)


In short : don't play this on a PC.

I've updated my GeForce driver and no longer seem to have the framerate issue. I am running the game on ultra settings with acceptable framerates and little to no lag.

Jason, I don't see the issue you mention about facial expressions. They look detailed and fine to me.

One awesome detail I noticed was when Batman was using a holographic viewer to speak with the Oracle...I could see the reflection of the holo screen in his eyes! Now that is detail in the extreme!

JH, that reflection in his eyes is what I meant about subtle evidence provided by the visual programmers that there isn't really a giant glowy 2D hologram being projected from his wrists, it's actually shooting directly at his eyes -- but we also see it the way he 'sees' it.


Meanwhile, I'm not the only person who has complained about the hit and miss vocal acting, especially for Commissioner Gordon; but I was surprised to learn he actually is played by someone from Breaking Bad! -- but not Bryan Cranston, whom the artists are clearly modeling Gordon on (like Batman and Harley, he gets younger each game), but whom the actor sounds like he's trying to sound like.

Which might in a roundabout way explain the weird off-tone of the performance. Maybe he was pi$$ed that the director hired him for a Cranston impression!


Re: facial animations, I said they seemed fine for some side characters. To be fair, watching Jim Sterling play through about as much of the game as I've already played, I watched Gordon's face again and some parts of it are moving independently of the static parts in a parody of something like facial animation. You're supposed to move the eyebrows and parts of the jaw, right?  :P  :buck2:

But there's more than I originally thought, so I can't say his face looks completely dead, even if I can't explain why some people in the game have much better facial animations than he does. (And that may change later in the game: the same people might not have worked on that scene, and/or it might have been added late and they didn't have time to tweak it before release.)

Also, I don't want to spoil part of the plot, but... okay, anyone who is a fan of Batman: Brave and the Bold (the animated series). You know that thing he can do with the Batmobile?

He can do that thing in this game.

Obviously someone thought WHY THE HELL DO WE NEED A BATMOBILE IN THIS GAME, HE HAS THE BATWING AND IT'S CLEARLY SUPERIOR TO ANYTHING ON THE GROUND!? -- and so aggressively justified the Batmobile's inclusion in writing/designing this game.

I just realized that the other two Batmobiles, one of which is supposed to be the classic 66 model, should be able to do that, too.

I may plotz.

I dunno man...maybe you're a Batman super fan, or just have really really demanding standards when it comes to graphics fidelity. Personally, I don't really see anything to gripe about in the graphics department. The City and the characters look great to me.

While the occasional lapses in facial animation still bug me, they are but a small bug (along with the occasional hiccup from moving too fast in this rain-filled environment) compared to my joy in playing this game. Even Gordan's acting has gotten better. Though I can't decide if the Knight himself is supposed to sound like a whiny brat -- and if that's a clue to his identity. I'm guessing Damien Wayne at the moment, or anyway Talia's son. Though he seems to know Batman better than that would imply. Still, appreciated the nod in the evidence room when Batman is taking a tour of what amounts to previous games (including Origins! -- so much for Rocksteady trying to claim that game doesn't count for some reason), when he gets to Talia's sword... he pauses a moment overcome by grief.


Also, without getting into plot spoilers, the thwarting of the Ace Chemical factory explosion (sort of), was pretty great. A certain voice actor who shall not be named but whom by doing so we all will know who it is (he's busy filming a high profile sci-fi movie right now), managed to get into the game without it having leaked to the press after all.

Curiously, the game is forcing me along the main plot trail pretty quickly right now, after introducing no less than three other plot trails, one of which (rescuing firefighters) I have no idea how to prosecute farther yet; and one of which (the Riddler challenges) I have only randomly stumbled on while too busy chasing the main plot to feel like I could try dealing with it -- neither could I mark the map to come back later! Annoying. Nor have I found but one of the damn Riddler trophies yet; nor can I apparently take photos of clues or pop area tokens or other things of that sort, even though that side of the game has technically opened up already: I can go to the appropriate Waynetech screen and get area clues. Weird.

By the way, I was misinformed about what exactly the Batmobile was going to do -- or maybe I just haven't gotten there yet, though from the description I suspect I already have. It doesn't transform into a robot. (Yet. Maybe.) Still, the writers and devs have worked hard to incorporate it feasibly into the game, as the most awesomest thing evar, even better than that silly Batwing thing which is once again relegated to supporting status. As another reviewer said, it's practically a secondary character. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Batman based its AI voice on Poison Ivy! -- so what does that say...  >:D (Doubtless just the same voice actress.)

Interesting that they have suspended sales for now...I guess that is good to take the issues seriously.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/208650/

Wow. What a train wreck.

http://www.destructoid.com/batman-arkham-knight-sales-stopped-on-steam-294756.phtml

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on June 24, 2015, 09:31:59 PM
Interesting that they have suspended sales for now...I guess that is good to take the issues seriously.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/208650/

That's the first time I've EVER seen that.

GMG is also supspending sales and are offering refunds   : http://blog.playfire.com/2015/06/batman-arkham-knight-pc-guidelines.html

This is Warner Brothers desperately not wanting any bad publicity on the DC World

I had hoped such an action would spur other publishers (in the future) to do the same in the hope that they pressure developers not to release shoddy titles. But I think the formidable weight of Warner Bros is the tipping point here.

IL2-Cliffs of Dover anyone? Still selling when broke and empty! There's certainly been more cases over the years

There aren't many publishers with the potential for similar clout.

i wonder how much this has to do with all the people that surely are asking for steam refunds - rather stop access to it altogether than repay a refund minus steam's cut

miracles may yet happen - maybe this will encourage developers to finish their project before release?

Well, the project was finished, just not effectively optimized yet. I remember back when ArkAss first released, the PC version took an extra couple of months -- and that was planned and announced in advance. I don't recall if the same thing happened with ArkCity, but it definitely didn't happen with ArkOri, and that was a public relations nightmare on about the same scale as this.

They should have waited for Halloween season.


I suspect you're right, UGeek: this is a direct response to people asking for Steam refunds. But a more cynical company would have let other places keep selling it like Gamersgate -- unless GG was only a Steam pass? Amazon is still selling hard copies apparently. (http://smile.amazon.com/Batman-Arkham-Knight-Windows-Standard-Pc/dp/B00IQCRKQ6) (Or they were at 5:27am Central Daylight Whatever West Tennessee/Chicago time. ;) )

Remember when I noted that for some reason known only to God and the publishers, Warner and/or Rocksteady chose to bury some of the graphics options permanently turned on, which if turned off could have helped the framerate?

Eurogamer is reporting that the situation is actually worse than that: certain gfx features from the PS4 weren't included in the PC Master Race edition!  >:D http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-batman-arkham-knight-pc-lacks-console-visual-features

I'm kind of suspicious that the raindrop transparency isn't there. I turned off something called dynamic rain in the in-game gfx settings, which was listed under NVIDIA propriety effects. What the heck was that??

While both that and (apparently) the other dynamic rain effect are (apparently) missing, I can report that rain does show up on Batman's cape while he's gliding; the folds of the cape ripple nicely in the wind, too.

Meanwhile I forgot to report last night that the Harley prelude mission is still 100% broken, unlike (to be fair) the rest of the game which isn't really unplayable. Also, her facial animations except for very minor lip movement are also still totally not there.

I think it's sad that there are so many issues with the game. Fortunately, since upgrading my graphics driver, I am experiencing none of them. It seems to be running very smooth for the most part on ultra settings. I'm playing in small doses, but enjoying myself so far.

I really need to figure out how to reload my NVIDIA drivers, so I can update the 3D drivers and see if that helps knock off some remaining jumpiness. Though closer analysis by various sites indicates the problems are just optimization issues, not really software too awesome for hardware.

I do want to emphasize that I am thoroughly enjoying the game, however.  :smitten: :smitten: :smitten:

Quote from: JudgeDredd on June 25, 2015, 03:00:25 AM

IL2-Cliffs of Dover anyone? Still selling when broke and empty! There's certainly been more cases over the years

CLoD is a strange case.  It's very cheap and you can mod it into something pretty cool.  I don't know how true that is of other cases over the years.

Well, I've got the newest drivers installed and the game finally decided to install. I'll give it a try tonight. If it's good, awesome. If not, I'll get a refund on Green Man and pick up OOTP 16.

This morning's report.

1.) When I started playing yesterday there wasn't a new patch yet (don't know if that's still true), but as per my habit just in case, I tried continuing the small Harley prelude campaign; whereupon I discovered somewhat by accident that I was just pressing the wrong buttons to move the plot along. SIGH!

So, to be fair, that part of the game wasn't broken, I'm just more used to PS3 controller prompts and didn't interpret the equivalent XBox controller prompts properly.

Her face is still broken, but I am starting to suspect the 'problem' is more my being spoiled by much better facial animation and directions in Far Cry 3 and 4. Still, it seems a lot worse than previous Arkham games.

Her mission is completely plot pointless, since early in the main game we learn the basic details of what happened (and she hasn't shown back up in the main game yet where I got to last night); but since she's rescuing Ivy from a jail in Blüdhaven (Iron Heights?), her 'boss' for the level is Nightwing, and her inability to remember his nickname properly (shading into outright trolling him) is hilarious.

More interesting is her internal 'sane Harleen' thoughts, trying to move her past the Joker into having a 'normal' life back, mixed with the messages her psyche leaves glowing on the walls (when she's using "psycho vision", an otherwise lame attempt at justifying why she has Batman's cowl abilities to see through walls etc.). "Oh God I'm Alone Now" written on a wall, that kind of thing.

This, I suspect, explains why her voice actress was having trouble with Harley's voice: she either felt like she couldn't distinguish sharply enough between "Harley" and "Harleen", or the voice director did, so the actress works too hard pushing "Harley"'s voice to make the distinction clearer.


2.) Ahem. SQUEE! SQUEEEEEE! This is the sound I made when I realized an unexpected Bat-foe was going to be a side mission in the game. It is also the sound I made when the villain jump-scares out as Batman is climbing on to a rooftop in the mission area where she appears for the first time. It is also the sound the villain makes when doing the jump-scare, and also just generally. I shall say no more. (Except that a close look at her artwork for her side-mission selection makes it clear the writers are going to go with the second, female version of this usually male villain.)


3.) On a far more obscure Bat-foe note: really? They're going to try to squeeze in the plot of "The Cult" and Deacon Blackfire, a guy who has literally appeared in only one story ever, and whose main claim to fame is that he managed to be somewhat better at Hattering Batman than the Mad Hatter usually does? -- and whose other main claim to fame is that he's supposed to be the reason Batman once upgraded the Batmobile to the tank format eventually seen in Frank Miller's (very much previous and more importantly famous) "Dark Knight Returns"? -- when we don't need that explanation at all for this game??? What. Ev. Er. I hate that story; some jumped up Villain Sue turns Batman into a crazy hobo. I may skip that side mission, given a chance.


4.1.) Some of the Riddler trophies are opening up, but as with previous games a significant category is simply uncollectable without some tech being unlocked first. And this time the tech is Batman's cowl being unable to take photos: something Batman's cowl has been able to do in EVERY OTHER GAME, and which makes less than zero sense because, like every other game, Batman can (and does) use the cowl to collect and process crime data.

4.2.) That being said, at least there are only about 260 or 270 trophies to collect this time, and doing stunts won't apparently (?) be among them.

4.3.) Far more importantly, the trophies seem to be PURELY OPTIONAL THANK GOD ALMIGHTY! ArkOri took a much-appreciated step in that direction when it made an easy class of trophies the only things needed to collect (or break rather) to beat the Riddler; going for full completion literally added nothing except unlocking a door to show the first Riddler glowing question mark trophy. This time the trophies appear to be purely optional, only for adding a boost to experience game and for unlocking side art. The Riddler's side plot advances as fast as you want regardless of how many of the blankety-blank things you've picked up.


5.) I haven't advanced the main plot much, since the side missions have opened up more, and it seems evident that the two damsels currently in distress are in no immediate danger. Relatedly to that...


6.) I've seen some complaints online (from The Mary Sue for example) about three popular and generally competent characters being reduced to damsels needing rescue by Batman. Well, it isn't their story, so it's par for the course that he'd be instrumental in helping them, although having them all need his help is admittedly fishy. But they're also agents in solving their problems, and one of them (I've heard) dies at the end saving Batman and everyone else from the Scarecrow.

Without spoiling who that is: Ivy (whose 'rescue', or recapture rather, is the first mission in the game) was on the way to figuring out how to escape by herself and didn't want Batman's help; in fact when the Scarecrow tries to kill her, she simply shrugs off his attempt! Barbara (Oracle) is half paralyzed going up against someone kind-of on par with Batman (and far more armored), and so far as I've gotten in the game has still succeeded in a dangerous attempt at messing up his plans, all by herself. They have never yet acknowledged in-game (only in a bio) that she was once fighting as Batgirl, so in this continuity she may also just have less combat training to work with. Selina (Catwoman) got in trouble because she's a greedy thief who often works with the Riddler (something she had succeeded in keeping secret from even Batman) and didn't realize until too late what that involved this time. Nevertheless she's actively participating in her own rescue, and teaming up to kick arguably the toughest thugs in the game so far to do it!

To that could be added Harley trying to shrug off the Joker's influence, and rescuing Ivy herself, while making it clear against a misogynist Penguin that she isn't his thug and has no intentions of being one. I don't hear anyone complaining that Ivy was damseled for Harley to save! -- and again Ivy was well on her way to escaping by herself anyway. (Though that's only evident in the prelude mission which not everyone has. In the main story, we only hear that Harley rescued Ivy from the cops, the end.)

I have no idea yet where the writers are going to go with Harley, though my general bet will be that she's going to end up kind of where she is in current comics continuity (and maybe part of the Suicide Squad, though there's little indication they'll be showing up other than a reminder that Deadshot is still on the loose). The "nine months" timeline from Arkham City is suspiciously precise (though it could be explained as a shift from winter to Halloween -- oh, the Long Halloween story has been alluded to by Alfred, so something like that apparently happened after Origins, let's see that story please!) But Harley clearly wasn't pregnant when rescuing Ivy, so either she lost the baby or has already delivered it, and I expect to see some resolution on that eventually.

(I would say the fact she's acrobating kung-fuing around to rescue Ivy, points toward her having lost the baby long ago; but the writers may think that with the other comic-book factors it isn't too implausible that a regular human woman could be doing this soon after giving birth.  ::) I guess we'll see. The writers are usually on the ball about little details.)

Anyway, if I'm reading the artwork cues right, the special guest villainess from back in today's point #2 is someone who has been a lot more damsel'd than the other much more famous women in the story so far. ;)

I've been hearing rumors for a while that ArkKnight's optimization problems are due to it being merely a direct port from one of the other platforms, possibly even from the PS4 even though the system architecture on the XBone is (naturally) closer.

Saw confirmation of that today, from an article released yesterday afternoon from ComicsAlliance (possibly via Ars Technica first, whom they cite):

Quote from: CAhe port was done by Iron Galaxy Studios, known for Killer Instinct on Xbox One and the PS3 port of Destiny. Based on its history, Iron Galaxy has much more experience with console games than it does working with PC titles. The last PC game Iron Galaxy studios worked on was the port of Batman: Arkham Origins, and we all remember how many issues that game had.

Don't forget, Warner Bros. Interactive publicly stated last year that they wouldn't be solving Batman: Arkham Origins' game-breaking issues so that the studio could focus on working on paid/premium DLC.


Read More: Arkham Knight for PC Removed From Retailers and Steam | http://comicsalliance.com/batman-arkham-knight-pc-issues/?trackback=tsmclip

Let's be fair: Origins (reportedly) had many more problems than bad optimization, and I haven't seen any reports of problems (or run into them myself, the non-bug with Harley's mission notwithstanding) that actually stop the game other than that -- which doesn't really stop the game for most people, just give them unwanted hitches. Nor any other non-fatal problems on the game's engine aside from some questionable face design and lacks of animation on occasion.

Well, THAT was fun. Within ten minutes on recommended settings with the newest drivers, the game was rapidly devolving into a slideshow. I eventually quit, and sat for five minutes while Windows Explorer restarted and eventually closed the damn game...5 minutes later, my hard drive finally stopped sounding like it was having a stroke (this is apparently an issue for some lucky players like me).

Anyway, game uninstalled, refund received, Out of the Park 16 purchased.

Are you on an AMD system, AC? I've heard AMD users might as well save the time and headache and skip.

Whether you are or aren't: I've heard AMD users might as well save the time and headache and skip. So, there's that for potential buyers to keep in mind.


Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I have never once yet quit the game where the operating system DIDN'T think the game had crashed. Not a practical problem but not exactly reassuring either.


Some of the advice I've heard is that the game should be installed on an SSD chip rather than on a hard drive, if possible. I didn't know that when installing, and it might have helped my performance. I'm sure not going to go back at this point and re-install, since I'm doubtful the save-game can be ported over to the other drive afterward.

Played around on Riddler trophies and a few side missions last night while waiting for something else (not in-game), and did so with the dynamic rain effects turned on. I don't think I'm missing much without it (the most obvious difference is seeing rain patter on surfaces, I think), but neither did it add much of a hit to my performance. (Hard to tell since naturally the Batmobile in car mode chugs the system hardest, and I was navigating around a lot that way.)

^^Intel/NVidia system here. Really annoying, because this was a game I'd been looking forward to for awhile. Ah well, OOTP is fantastic.  :)

Over the weekend I completed what the game says is the next 25%, around 50% complete now -- but I strongly suspect that's weighted toward getting 'full' completion not completing the storylines. Still love the game itself, though I've read enough to know that an apparent death which is given meaningful weight in (what I suppose to be) the second third of the game, is only a bluff. So that kind of takes the wind out of some of the story sails. (Though even if I hadn't read it I would have strongly suspected it given who I was dealing with and the environmental circumstances. Why Batman doesn't immediately suspect the same thing I have no idea. The Scarecrow keeps dosing him with fear gas on occasion, which is giving him a taint-induced second personality, to borrow Wheel of Time terminology ;) , but he seems competent enough otherwise at keeping up with what known long-term supervillains are likely to do.)

When I quit for the night, Harley had just appeared for the first time in the main game. Her voice is as bad as in the prelude mission, which I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about; facial animations are a little better for the close-up cutscenes anyway.

Two-Face turns out to be the first supervillain I lock down (Ivy doesn't count since that was more of a rescue), even though his missions only started triggering at (what I expect to be) the halfway point or maybe even later. This is because he only needs four or maybe five missions to beat, and they can be played immediately in order. The missions are good -- thwarting bank robberies -- and refreshingly Dent himself can be taken down as easily as any thug (since after all he isn't a combat specialist like Batman, though then Catwoman looks worse by comparison as she had some trouble taking him down at the end of her storyline in ArkCity.) The writers do a fair job, given their limited opportunities, of fleshing out his character. (Pun not originally intended; he's missing a lot of skin on the left side of his face, duh. ;) ) I was not disappointed: it's a busy game.

Next was Firefly, who seems to be involved with two mission tracks, one of which I haven't finished yet; and now I'm wondering if the other, longer mission track will end up being some other fire-based arson villain after all. That would be clever misdirection, and I notice that despite being chatty none of the thugs on that mission track talk at all about being hired by Firefly (whereas back in Origins they talked about that constantly). His missions are much easier than in Origins, but then they're also entirely Batmobile based: running Firefly down in a rocket tank ought to be somewhat easier! For continuity purposes, it seems like he has only messed with Gotham once before, back in Origins, which in-game was about ten years ago. That's ten years to go through three Robins and a Batgirl. Which isn't quite the level of New 52 insanity (only 5 years!!?) but close. Batgirl's suit design, which is a Riddler photo prize, is so very great btw. I badly want a Batgirl game now.

The mission track I thought might be Hush turned out to be Professor Pyg, the most colorful of the handful of new supervillains introduced back when Grayson was temporarily being Batman (with Damien Wayne, Bruce's son by Talia, being Robin). Anyone familiar with him, which I wasn't, will probably figure it out quickly anyway (Batman didn't since this is his introduction into the Arkhamverse); anyone unfamiliar with him, that revelation will mean nothing so it doesn't count as a spoiler exactly. ;)

So those are the three supervillains I've locked away at this time, with more to come. (The semi-interactive police station is great, btw, with cells slowly filling up as I put down villains and their thugs. I half expect a breakout here eventually, btw.)

The surgeon serial killer NOT being Hush threw me for a bit of a loop, since I'm pretty sure I recall the devs saying Hush will certainly be in the game (he was introduced in a side-mission for Arkham City), although so far he has only been mentioned as a photo Riddle leading to a brief prose "Gotham City Story" showing him and Bruce as best friends shortly after Bruce's parents were murdered -- and Tommy getting the idea to murder his parents, too, so he can be a young billionaire! I don't think Batman figured out who Hush was in ArkCity, only that he now looks like Bruce Wayne, since his thing in that game was to recreate his face. Why he was in Arkham City at all wasn't explained, since he isn't a criminal yet, and his public persona as a rich doctor would be almost as notorious an addition as for Wayne to be arrested by Hugo Strange and thrown inside! "Almost as famous/notorious/rich/smart/whatever as Bruce Wayne," being his guiding motivation, btw. ;)

This is important because Hush is a major candidate for being the Arkham Knight, and I haven't gotten to the revelation point in the game yet. (I'm sure the identity has been spoiled on the internet somewhere already, but I haven't gone looking yet.) Personally I think that would be lame: I'm not a big fan of Hush. And I'm not sure it fits the profile, since in canon his knowledge of Batman as Batman is still pretty limited unlike the Knight's, and he isn't a Batman (or at least Robin) level combat specialist at all. Anyway, I guess we'll see later. If Hush is going to show up in-game as someone other than the Knight, there sure won't be much setup for it.

Speaking of Knight identity guesses, since the game confirmed in passing (I won't say how) that Jason Todd has been Robin in the Arkhamverse continuity, and was killed by the Joker, that confirms him as another major fan-guess for being the Knight. But it still doesn't much fit: in comics continuity Jason Todd hates criminals and guns them down, and while he resents Batman for not saving him from the Joker, he doesn't want Batman dead much less anyone else around Batman. There is also no reason why he would take a nickname based on Arkham. Jason does have all the internal knowledge the Knight seems to have, and the paramilitary/mercenary focus (including on getting control of the mobs, kind of in a Scarecrow of Romney Marsh fashion), and does technically hold a grudge, but if he turns out to be the Knight it'll be such a radical character re-interpretation I don't know why they would have bothered using Jason as a base to begin with: Jason Todd would not be working with Scarecrow and the other supervillains to be destroying Gotham and killing Batman and threatening to kill his allies. He'd be trying to pop a cap in their heads because he thinks dead supervillains don't come back to torment and murder more people. Also it'll be dramatically unsatisfying for anyone playing the game who doesn't know who Jason Todd is, because he has never been mentioned in any previous game, and has barely been mentioned in this game (though admittedly if the other Robins or Batman or Barbara or a certain character previously mentioned had been talking about how Batman lost a Robin to the Joker already, that would be either a great misdirection or an annoying game-long foreshadowing for people who already know about Jason Todd and maybe who were around back in the 90s to call a 1-900 number to vote whether he lives or dies not that I ever did that.  ;) )


Anyway, at this point I still have no clear idea who the Knight is: a reborn Ras Al'Ghul acting like a kind-of-whiny young mercdouche? That would be an amazing acting job on his part but wouldn't fit his profile well. Bane? He has the combat skilz even without Venom/Titan, and the South American merc connections, but according to ArkOrigins he lost his detailed knowledge of Batman due to brain damage. Of course, his ability to act competently got fixed later, and if he scouted Batman enough to learn what he did in Origins, he could have done it again in the ten years since (in between being captured by and working for the Suicide Squad, and being strung up for tests, etc.). But he doesn't talk like that (the mannerisms, not the way the voice sounds), and the physical build seems wrong even when he isn't on Venom. Batman himself has effectively ruled out Bane (though not in so many words) at this point based on similar evidence.


That may end up being the overall narrative problem with the story. Either the Knight turns out to be a completely new character Villain Sue'd into a major importance in the climactic final story of the game series (which could be done well if it's played as 'see you make these kinds of enemies even when you don't know it'), or he turns out to be someone important to the villain gallery who doesn't fit the villain's profile in order to be a mystery for the game and so might as well not have been that villain.

I suppose a decent third option would be to take some minor villain in the gallery and promote him up. The Knight's own militias even hinted that way by talking among themselves about how Gotham produces so many crazy theme villains there are three or four versions of the Riddler, only one of whom is famous. (I'll give the writers a lot of credit for subtly sowing solution possibilities in side conversations.)

Forgot to add, I spent an hour or so Sunday tweaking gfx again, coming to the conclusion that as awesome looking as dynamic smoke is, I'm not usually in a position to even see it, and it affects a lot more things than I realize; so with a bunch of Batmobile chasing on the way (running down 100mph armored personnel carries with my rocket tank  ::) ) I decided to turn that off. It helped ENORMOUSLY; and testing with other options at normal, max, or low (or on or off), showed no great improvements for dipping framerates. Frankly as long as the game is running above 720 resolution, it looks sufficiently awesome even without the extra bling; and by turning off practically everything I was able to put it back to 1080p and still run much more smoothly even when doing Batmobile chases.

Tonight's AAR: after performance started to clunk again, for no apparent reason, I quit ahead of finishing the Penguin missions, and decided to defrag that hard drive. I had already defragged it before installing ArkKnight, and haven't added anything to that drive since then, but it still needed major optimization and consolidation.

So my advice is make sure the drive is defragged before installing it (unless you're installing on an solid state drive for better access speed, which is a good idea but I'm constantly told it's NOT a good idea to try to defrag an SSD); and then maybe once a day before or after gameplay, just to be safe.


Meanwhile, I haven't gotten far enough to add any more supervillains to the Gotham lockup, but Harley's side of the story seems over (unless she escapes and come back at the end perhaps -- she's locked up somewhere else for no clear reason, and that makes me suspicious she'll be freed before the end). While trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with the next main Riddler mission (it was pretty obvious in hindsight), I saw the guide clearly say that in order to beat the blankety blank Riddler I'll have to collect the full suite after all. Fortunately that still doesn't involve acrobatic goals, but I don't think I'm still at 50% yet -- I only passed 100 tonight and there are 263.

Whoever designed the Riddler trophies or told the designers to just stick them anywhere, ought to be punched a few times in the arm. By everyone who ever plays this game. Origins did it right, sort of: the final completion was worthless, but once that's known it can just be avoided, and the missions to effectively beat him didn't require anything like full completion. I thought this time the trophies could be largely ignored, especially since (I wasn't paying enough attention earlier to notice) they don't add experience this time!

But assuming they have to be done: once again they often make no plot sense. At least this time their presence in various places is explained by thugs and police informants, and then by a freaking robot army the Riddler built -- but their presence is NOT explained on a couple of dirigibles, or in Barbara Gordon's Oracle/Batgirl suite, or in one of the local Batcaves of all things! VERY extensively present there, and it's the site of some emotional plot developments, too, so the mood whiplash going from actual story things to jumping through Riddler hoops is especially terrible.

I won't spoil the plot related things, except to say that all of a sudden the game's story has landed with blunt obviousness, almost out of plot nowhere, on Jason Todd as the Robin whom Joker killed sometime, apparently, before Arkham Asylum. (The game I mean, not the institution's foundation in-story. Total game time between AA and ArkKnight isn't much more than 2-1/2 years, I think, and Tim Drake is well-established as Robin when ArkCity starts.)

But then the story makes it bluntly clear that the Joker shot him in the head -- after setting up a sort of nod to Batman Beyond's Return of the Joker animated movie finale to that series. Which might give Todd some motivation to hate Batman and his allies so much. (Yet not to go after Alfred?? The fact Alfred has been left alone so far is either a glaring plot hole, or evidence Todd is the Knight after all; Nightwing/Grayson quipped once during a Penguin mission that Alfred is who made Batman barely tolerable.)

In canon, I think I recall Ra's Al Ghul being involved in Todd's return -- he was just as clearly dead, Batman found the body. That's certainly true in the animated film adaptation Under the Red Hood (which is arguably a better version of the story, btw), but I'm too lazy to verify comics canon on it tonight. Anyway it's certainly possible the Knight is Todd returned by means of a Lazarus Pit, and the changes made in his death would account for his seriously different behavior if he's the Knight.

Meanwhile it now seems likely that Hush isn't the Knight, since around the time one of the last two side-missions mysteriously opened up thugs on the street started talking about seeing Bruce Wayne running around. That almost surely means Hush just has his own sideplot trying to attack Bruce Wayne. That's fine, I never liked him anyway.

Thugs on the street started talking about Deacon Blackfire's cult more often at the same time, too, so the final slot seems increasingly likely to be a quick version of the Cult story. Since he's down in the sewers, maybe they'll not only bring in the Mad Hatter (whose mode of operation is close to the Deacon's) but also Killer Croc for a proper final showdown. That would be great, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

Finally, I've gotten far enough in the squee-ing mystery villain I mentioned above -- okay, look, it's Man-bat, okay? Stop judging me. Anyway, the writers have made it very clear this really is Professor Langstrom and not his wife, even though the art sure seemed to show... well... Woman-bat boobs, to be blunt. (In comics canon his wife was infected as a sexually transmitted disease soon after his introduction story, back in the 70s. It was that kind of time. ;) A version of that story was used in Timm and Dini's animated series, too.) I guess I understand why they didn't go straight there (and why they decided to make sure she won't be transforming later), but still the art design is weird, like maybe they originally meant to go there and the artists never got the memo about redesigning her figure. Oh well.

And now I have fiddled away enough time to get the defragmenting done. Off to finish the Penguin mission set before bed.

Last night's AAR: end of Penguin mission == sniffly moment of heartwarming. (Not for the Penguin.) I noted in passing that Grayson/Nightwing, and Drake/Robin, and the police and fire services generally (and Todd/Robin for that matter) are presented as being of dubious competency, at best, without Batman, often in need of rescuing. This is especially obvious with the end of the Penguin storyline, since he somehow captures Nightwing (a man capable of being Batman, and in comics canon acknowledged by Batman himself as being more competent for lacking certain mental hangups) not once but twice -- and the second time the pudgy bald old runt sneaks up behind Grayson and puts a gun to his head!

Granted, despite that gross incompetency (for which Nightwing rightly expects to be criticized by Batman, which leads to the crowning moment of heartwarming instead), it's somewhat implied that Grayson still doesn't need help getting out of the problem and just wants to cooperate with Batman on it out of affectionate family solidarity. But if Dick Grayson had been Distaff Grayson, I'm reasonably sure we'd never hear the end of the whining about how the game is misogynist and perpetrates women as weak incompetents who need The Strong Man to save them.

Whereas, the pretty blatantly obvious point is that everyone needs Batman to help save them. Because it's a Batman game. A legitimate argument might be made that the game tries too hard to make the player feel specially special as Batman, but that isn't a problem against depicting women in the game per se.


Anyway. Last night I only did Riddler trophies and the occasional anti-occupation mission along the way. (Just the side trophies, not the actual Riddler missions for saving Catwoman.) I only had to get internet help for one of them (though on another I came close to looking for a solution again before figuring out from a comparison with a previous puzzle what the game was looking for.) I cleared out one 'island' except for a photo riddle that apparently hasn't plot-generated yet; and between that and what I've done on the other two islands, I'm now a little over 50% done with the Riddles, and almost 2/3 done completing the story.

I wouldn't even bother, since I don't trust the writers to provide a satisfying extra complete conclusion to the Riddler story for getting all the trophies, and I don't much care about the art unlocks, and they don't even provide experience boosts anymore -- but while looking for help on one of the trophies, I saw evidence to the effect that there are two final endings, each called "The Knightfall Protocol", one if the side stories are 100% complete, and one not. I didn't see what the endings involved, although the name suggests Azrael and possibly even Bane will be involved after all.

At least I've gotten to the point now where instead of giving smarmy condescension, the Riddler has entered the stage of annoyance and disbelief.  8) Every time I take control of one of his robots to solve a puzzle, his comments are delicious. But the best comment so far happened to be for the puzzle I had been trying to beat for days and needed outside advice on (and which I had always been close to beating -- I had always had the equipment, just not quite using it where I should):

(Paraphrase from memory): "Awww, congratulations, detective, I see you have finally manged to complete a mere... wait, fifty percent? That can't be right... uh... I mean... I see you have finally managed to complete a mere fifty percent of my riddles!"  :knuppel2:


Meanwhile, I have noticed that the optimization problems seem to be creeping up harder. Despite religiously defragmenting my drive before playing, the game has started chugging after only a few hours of play. Reducing the resolution helps briefly but not for long. It got so bad last night, that the game outright crashed on me for the first time ever!  :o I don't know what has changed. There doesn't seem to have been any updates since Monday (or earlier than that rather), and if anything there should be less potential performance distractions in the open world as I steadily remove trophies and militia occupation forces.  :-\

(This part of the game reminds me a little of The Saboteur by the way, which is not a compliment I give lightly: I love that game like steak.)

Last night's AAR: the game for the past three or four nights has developed a weird lighting effect (despite my gfx being turned down including the enhanced floodlights) where... well, I think lightning is blinding me. But only if I look in a particular direction. When lightning 'strikes', this includes both a graphic of the lightning bolt, and also a quick directional strobe or perhaps two or three for different colors. I think what's happening is that one of the strobes is staying turned on sometimes after the strike, so that if I happen to turn back in that direction it blinds me (yet doesn't at all affect how an area is lit, only the reaction of my virtual eyes to 'looking' in that 'direction'.)

Quitting to the game menu and reloading the game fixes the problem, except that I have to make sure the game has autosaved progress recently so I don't have to go back and do something annoying again.


Meanwhile, speaking of annoying, I now have significantly less than 100 Riddler trophies remaining, a few of which won't activate until later in the main game (as far as I can tell). I have also finished most of the militia occupation missions, except for a couple which won't spawn until later. And I have finished all the non-Riddler side missions except for one which hasn't activated yet, but which (as previously noted), I expect to be a quick version of the Cult storyline. Oh, and I still haven't found the fire chief, whoever that will turn out to be, though I've rescued all the other firefighters. I captured and cured Man-bat (which was simply a matter of following him around when he shows up in different thirds of the city and gliding down on top of him; but the writers did as much as they could to make what little story he gets tragically sad, I'll give them credit for that if not for the mission design itself). So he's in the isolation tank at GCPD. Penguin, Pyg, Firefly, and Two-Face are in the temporary high security cell nearby; the in-game capture score is reflected on a couple of chalkboards, which is a nice (if impossibly predictive) touch, and whether Batman survives after all or someone else becomes Batman (which seems more likely, and more likely Nightwing/Grayson, the original Robin), I expect the aftergame to involve the following further captures if I haven't completed the story 100% first (though I'm going for that): Harley (currently imprisoned in one of the local Batcaves, but for no good reason, so I expect her to be rescued or to escape later for the finale, perhaps with Ivy's help); Blackfire (whose side mission has yet to trigger); Riddler (duh); Scarecrow; and whichever villain is also behind the firefighter hostages, if any. (Firefly seems involved but his side mission finishes independently so there may be someone else.)

Ivy could theoretically, but I heard in passing that she'll end the game either dead or presumed dead.

Hush, Tommy Elliot, I've captured already and since Batman very very stupidly revealed his identity when he had literally no good reason to do so except for a few seconds of worthless drama which made no difference to the plot {inhale}, he's being held in a special cell down in a different Batcave area. (I wonder if I can get there and visit him like I can visit the others...?) His ultimate plan was also stupid, and nearly fails outright without interference from Batman due to stupidity, but he has the excuse of being insane. If I heard someday that the writers for his single mission were intentionally mocking him as a villain, because Hush's canon story actively annoys a lot of fans, I wouldn't be at all surprised. I was legitimately surprised he was introduced back in Arkham City at all; and then I was curious to see if the writers would do something interesting with him since I'll give them credit his first appearances in the Arkhamverse continuity are quite chilling. This feels like a pre-emptory toss, or toss off, to the fans: we promised Hush would be in the finale, but mainly as an out-of-game tease about whether he's the Knight, so here he is, ha ha.  ::) Whatever.

Since the game is ever-more-strongly pointing toward Todd being the Knight, unless it's a major curveball (Prometheus maybe?? -- but he only patterned his life in a somewhat accidental reverse image of Batman, he doesn't know Batman that personally), he won't be in any normal high security lockup: he knows Batman's secret identity, so he'll be sequestered somehow (or die). That'll be true whether it's Jason Todd after all or not, come to think of it.

I've finished the Azrael origin sideplot, and all things considered it was pretty decently handled, except that Barbara Gordon randomly collected the Sword of Sinners (or whatever it's called) for her office because that's where the final meeting happens. I recall seeing it there earlier and wondering what the hell, especially since I had already met Azrael and BATMAN HAD TAKEN HIS SWORD since Az had sworn not to kill in order to be Batman's successor. Did Batman put it on a stand in Barbara's office after... never mind, it's only going to be stupid however I look at it. I took the option of breaking the sword instead of trying to kill Batman with it, but I don't know what difference that'll make if any. There are only two endings I know of, one for completing the other for not yet completing the stories, and I suspect the difference will end up being minimal (along the lines of "I still have work to do").

I still have some hope that Croc and/or the Hatter will show up in connection with the Blackfire plot, though I have no positive reason to expect it yet. A Riddler trophy shows Croc is still around, though I haven't seen anything about the Hatter other than confirmation he was released when Arkham City was disbanded. (Maybe the Hatter is the fire chief?? -- he would wear a big hat, right?  :P ) Zazzaz (or however his name is spelled) was shown by a Riddler trophy to be in the city somewhere killing people, but it seems unlikely he'll directly plot in, although it's weird that they would confirm he's in the area and not use him somewhere. Bane already had a great story in Arkham Origins, and there is no evidence he's in Gotham City, so despite the South American mercenary connection I doubt he'll be involved with the Knight storyline after all.

Oh well. That ends my catchup from last night. I expect I'll be spending my next few real-life nights finishing up the Riddler sidequest(s) as far as the game will let me up to this point in the main story, so there won't be much reason to do another progress report for a while.

Brief AAR of yesterday's gaming: finished off everything currently possible on the Riddler storyline, rescuing Catwoman and picking up all currently available trophies. Nothing especially surprising.

My unremitting hatred for whoever in Rocksteady decided on the trophy protocols, continues unabated, and with ever-renewing intensity. They don't only break up the flow of whatever other stories are going on, and aren't only jarringly out-of-place (not complaining about their occasional difficulty, but about trophies being where they have no in-game business being), but the conceit of trophies which cannot be attained without tech that hasn't unlocked yet continues. Worse, many trophies are locked behind plotwalls, even though I can see where they ought to be. I spent at least an hour and a half last night trying everything I could think of to get to several such trophies -- seeing as how they were visible on the map now (not in an area of the map not yet visible like the Knight's HQ, though God help me a large remaining number will show up there to spit on the plot, too), and seeing as how I had unlocked all possibly relevant techs already (though even then I had to spend a precious few upgrade points to  disable mines, for ONE TROPHY). Eventually in disgust and despair I went to the internet, which gave perfectly clear instructions on how to get trophies that on returning to the game simply weren't there to get. Sometimes the trophies and their machinery were even visible, but utterly unresponsive to input. I finally reasoned that the trophies wouldn't be available for retrieval until more main plot had passed, and so I cursed the very blood of whoever had first thought this kind of nonsense was a great idea, and of whomever had authoritatively decided to continue doing it in every game, caustically eroding whatever goodwill the designers had otherwise engendered from other parts of the game design, and moved along.

Amusingly, the writers themselves lampshaded this when Catwoman advised just leaving Eddie to stew in his own high dudgeon waiting for them to never come back. Though I half-suspect she'll be back to claw him up good when I finally beat him, since the writers keep foreshadowing that he'll regret using her as bait.

Anyway. On to the rest of the main story now.

Haven't played yet today (due to extended ID4 family time); played most of yesterday afternoon until around 9 pm. Got a lot farther in the main missions.

1.) Got far enough to unlock the final side mission, with Deacon Blackfire (and maybe some surprise guest stars). Will be doing that as soon as the daily defrag is done.

2.) Got far enough to unlock three of the four final areas with Riddler trophies, and nicked all those. The fourth (and possibly very final) trophy area plot-locked back down after I left it, and I can't get back in yet. I wish I felt confident the designers will open that area again before the end of the game so I can get the completed ending.

3.) Upthread I mentioned I had read that Pamela Isley / Poison Ivy dies saving Gotham from Scarecrow; and that happened. A trophy unlocked in the area shortly afterward, but didn't really unlock until some time after that.  ::)  :buck2: :tickedoff: I've said before I hate the trophy mission designs, right?

4.) Got far enough to have my (apparently first) final fight with the Arkham Knight, the identity of whom I won't spoil for discussion until I've beaten the game. I will however say that I cheered pretty hard when, after the ArkKnight goes off to cry for a while (literally, that's said in-game), !!DEATHSTROKE!! arrives as a special secret guest star to run the militia in the final cleanup phase. This also gives me hope a few more characters introduced in previous games will pop in before the end unexpectedly. (The voice actor doesn't seem to be the usual guy who voices him in video games and animated features, which is too bad, but still.)

5.) Scarecrow's full "City Of Fear" plan blossomed, and it was suitably apocalyptic looking. It didn't last long before being thwarted, but as a spectacle I was not disappointed.

Odds seem reasonably good I'll be finishing the game tonight; so {checking} with the daily defrag done, off I go!

As expected, I finished the game last night; then promptly took two aspirin and a Benedryl. Which should not be regarded as a comment on the quality of the game, but on the other hand I felt I should mention it, so... ;)

I'll save the major spoilers for the next comment, though obviously I've been dealing out minor spoilers along the way and that will continue here.


1.) I'm not sure if the final trophy area was already unlocked and accessible after my showdown with the Knight, or if it only opened up after the Riddler radios that trophies can be found there; but I found its entrance on the map kind-of-by-accident either way -- which also happened to be one of the final four Watchtower forts. I only needed internet help to locate how to get to two of the trophies, otherwise I had no problem finishing out the list. Once you get to the final ten, the Riddler comments on most of them, and that was entertaining though not enough for me to go through all that hassle again.

2.) Then I did the final battle with the Riddler, and as I expected Catwoman voluntarily arrived to help. The battle itself was reasonably fun, though not appreciably different from previous team-battles with Selena. There was a heartwarming scene of pathos afterward between Bruce and Selena, the end, and then perp-walking the Riddler into the maximum security cell back at GCPD.

3.) In a typical discontinuity between various writers on the game, even though no one but Batman (and Drake/Robin) knows where Harley is imprisoned (she stays in a local Batcave for the rest of the game), Officer Cash still devotes a spot for her in the evidence museum.  ::) Really, that should have been dealt with. There is literally no reason I can see why she was even imprisoned at that Batcave rather than GCPD -- I thought for sure she'd be rescued or would escape for part of the finale, simply because there was no good reason to imprison her there. But that didn't happen, even though I did complete all the storylines before finishing the game.

4.) There was not a riot at the police station for Batman to put down with the help of the cops; but instead a fight with vehicles of the militia army plus three rounds of melee combat on the roof. It was a fine fight (with a special failure animation very different from villains gloating or occasionally helpers mourning over the body of Batman, as elsewhere in the games), just not what I was expecting. But in this case that's okay.

5.) I needed a bit of internet help to find the last three planted road mines, which never served any tactical purpose for the villains during the game by the way; and once all the militia forces had been taken down (I did the mines last), Deathstroke arrived in a slightly less 'boss' version of the tank with which the Knight guarded Scarecrow's Cloudburst system. Much like what happened with the Knight, once I pummeled his tank (which was a lot easier to do), he tried to get out to fight and Batman one-shots him in a cinematic.

This, I have to say, was very disappointing. (Though in passing I decided that, despite how odd his voice sounded in his radio reveal, he was in fact being played by the usual voice actor.) ArkOrigins built up the Batman/Deathstroke battle, and although it happened very early in that game it was still quite decent. Maybe the designers couldn't figure out how to do another fight without it seeming too similar. At any rate, having Deathstroke, of all villains, simply taunt Batman on the radio while sending out minions, and then arrive for a tank fight, and then be one-shotted in a cinematic... well, even some of the writers lampshaded afterward how lame that seemed.

4.) Relatedly, the totally schizophrenic attitude of the writers about this being a trilogy or not, continued out through the end of the game. The writers often reference the events of Arkham Origins, including for example during the Deathstroke final militia missions (even establishing that Deathstroke hasn't fought Batman again since then -- and somewhat-cleverly trying to explain this and the lame way his side of the story ends by implying he's really too afraid to fight Batman again); but then in the final credits, only screenshots from Asylum, City, and Knight are shown, none from Origins. And yet, by the end of the game, even though got the 'full' ending, nowhere did I see even the slightest reason why Origins is being disavowed by the developers and publishers. Nothing contradicts anything in Origin's plot; and several things call back to it.

5.) Let's see, what else... oh, the Blackfire story, as I probably should have expected this late in the game, turned out to be only one combat mission (and a pretty easy one by now), with so little connection to "The Cult" story that I thought at first I was simply mis-remembering and this was some other supervillain. But then the biography and an offhanded comment by another character at the conclusion referenced the title of the story directly, so...? Whatever. They did this, the only justification for it being that it's where Batman first develops a combat-tank version of the Batmobile, which expressly does not and cannot be involved in the mission after all, instead of bringing back one of the previous supervillains from the Arkhamverse continuity. They didn't even bother having him team up with the Hatter or Killer Croc, both of which I guessed might have different thematic connections to the story.

6.) Relatedly, Croc does show up (a little more mutated than in Asylum), but for one cameo scene where he stands around in the background doing nothing until he's hit by a flying Batmobile. Sigh. No great final fight there. The Hatter never shows up at all, though a prose side-story suggests he's still around the city somewhere. I guess maybe that's just as well, but I'm sure the writers could have worked a way to include him had they tried. (Like in the Blackfire plot for example, cough cough hack.)

7.) I was more than a little surprised that the Knight barely shows up again after the previously mentioned showdown, and barely influences the plot when he does. I guess it sort of kind of makes sense, in a way... but to talk about that I'll have to shift over into the major plot spoilers.

Be warned that after this comment, I will just assume that anyone reading this far in the thread has played the game to the end, or otherwise had the plot spoiled for them!

If you don't want the main secrets of the main plot spoiled for discussion (or otherwise), look away now!

I have to admit, I thought it was ballsy of the writers to have Darkseid turn out to be the big bad behind everything, and for Batman to defeat him by shooting him in the head with a bullet after snapping the Joker's neck, just as Darkseid's Omega beams hit Batman. This difference no doubt explains why the beams don't kill him, but rather send him back into time where you spend several more missions in a kind-of nod to the Assassin's Creed games working your way through history back into modern Gotham times -- except when you return, you're only a ghost, but that turns out to be a good thing because once all the criminals learn you're Bruce Wayne this allows you to go back to being a numinous frightening presence which strikes fear into the superstitious and cowardly criminal mind. This may also give a strong hint that the developers intend to take on the challenge of writing and producing a decent Superman game at last, and almost everything I've written in this paragraph is a lie, to help protect thread readers from being spoiled about the actual main plot and end of the game in case they accidentally scroll far enough down to read the start of this comment.

Almost everything. You'll see which parts were the truth, soon. ;)
.
.
.
Last chance. Look away now!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A surprising amount of the main storyline -- though I probably shouldn't have been surprised -- is about the death and final defeat of the Joker. The writers even poke at this when the player starts a New Game +, because the game starts with the player cooperating in cremating his body, but with the NG+ he jumps back to life briefly with a shock-surprise laugh, before settling back to burn. And then Mark Hamill, reprising his second-most-famous (and far more prevalent) role after Luke Skywalker, grumbles, "This... is how it happened. This is how the Joker died."

Even the version which starts a 'normal' game, features a clever spoiler in the song which is playing in the background while he's being wheeled into the crematorium: it basically spells out that the Joker's ghost will be returning to affect the plot in Batman's body.

This by the way is not a cute anti-spoiler paragraph for people who have accidentally read down this far. The Joker's ghost is haunting Batman's mind, slowly turning him into the Joker. This is made manifest by a dose of Scarecrow's fear toxin, and afterward the Joker pops up to offer sardonic faux-affably evil commentary on everything that's going on. Which sometimes kills the mood of whatever part of the story has happened, to be honest.

I won't go into how this has come about, since it boils down to comic-book science-fantasy (and not even intended as such, only an accidental side-effect of the plot of the previous game). Batman eventually beats it by the power of wishful thinking, or pure force of will, because he's the blankety-blank Batman; but that fits the long-established idea well enough that Batman's super-power is force of will. It culminates in an interesting 'battle in the mind' sequence where, after the threatened switch occurs and Batman is the one riding along (though in a restrained hallucination), he finds a way to scare the Joker, and then instead of 'killing' him locks him away permanently where he'll never get out again.

Batman's mind becomes the Joker's final and inescapable asylum. I think that's a neat idea, worthy of the end of this series of games, or worthy of the end of canon Batman stories for that matter. There's even a hint that this might finally lead to the Joker's redemption, eventually.

And then Batman and the Joker both die in an explosion. Maybe.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'd be curious to read or hear from the writers how much of this story they had in mind from the beginning, since it turns out that the little roaches occasionally seen scuttling around various areas of Gotham, especially when Batman is being fear-gassed or fear-juiced, and even seen in a breeding box in the hold of a small boat in one of Arkham City's little harbors, are the source of Jonathan Crane's fear toxin. In the two zeppelin areas, the 'smash' collectables are sets of similar boxes, which I did not understand at all until later in the game. The writers go the distance in having Scarecrow (of all people) be the master villain of the game (even moreso than the Joker really, since he can only affect what's going on in Batman's mind, and actually relies on the fear gas to accidentally release him -- also the fear toxin plays a major role in finally defeating the Joker, because Batman is the blankety-blank Batman. ;) ) He's the one who keeps playing Xanatos Chess throughout the story, adjusting for various defeats. He's the one who convinces many of the other villains to fund the militia and bring them into the city under the Knight's command; and when the Knight goes down, he's the one who keeps the plot going by providing Deathstroke as the backup militia commander. The strong implication is that, rather like Hugo Strange in the Arkham City game, he'll springboard from defeating Gotham as a city here, into going after other DC Comic cities, using similar militia tactics.

Frankly, I strongly expected that Ra's Al Ghul would turn up behind the Scarecrow as a superior version of Dr. Strange's plan, due to the similarities; but the Ghuls (whether Ra's or Talia, or I guess Nyssa though she isn't mentioned) never show up in the game. Maybe that's just as well since then the plot would be too similar to that of Arkham City. Though it still seems like a missed opportunity. (So is a real lack of Killer Croc, who only appears in the final battle between Joker and Batman briefly in Batman's mind: the writers continually remind the player that Scarecrow's new more organic look is thanks to having been mauled by Croc. You'd think the psychologist would be looking for revenge there! -- since Croc is pretty damn fearsome and inversely hard to scare!)

Scarecrow is also responsible for a main theme leading to how the game ends: Batman started out as a scary idea that would manifest to wreck havoc on criminals (something the Scarecrow specifically says he used to admire Batman for); but over the years (apparently only ten or fifteen -- I've seen out-game things indicating Asylum happens only five years after Origins, which starts two years after Batman begins his war on crime, and Knight happens only one-or-two years and nine months after Asylum), Batman was simply too active. The thugs and various supercriminals got to know him too well. The Robins, presumably, didn't help with that, nor did "Batgirl": they humanized Batman, but made him less numinously frightening. Criminals were only scared he'd break their bones, not really truly scared of him. Scarecrow sees himself as finishing this process, as revenge against Batman, by reducing "the Bat" to a defeated, broken, mere man. Crane thinks this will crush the hope of good people, too, not understanding (because Evil Does Not Understand Good) that seeing Batman as only a man gives hope that anyone can do what he does, that everyone can be a hero without super powers if they only try hard enough and Dare To Be Awesome. (The game's story doesn't actually follow through on this idea, or not very much, but its respect for firefighters reflects this somewhat.)

Crane rightly, however, sees that what little awe the criminals have of Batman will thus vanish, and so even if Batman somehow wins through anyway his war on crime will be fatally crippled. No one is really scared of Nightwing or Robin; and they'll only see a rich guy who dresses up in a silly costume because his mommy and daddy died when he was a boy. Crane doesn't actually know who Batman is, until the end, but he does maneuver Batman into surrendering and being unmasked on national television; and any cleanup missions Batman takes on after the finale before instigating the Knightfall protocol, are... well, the missions aren't handicapped exactly, on this point the game inadvertently proves Crane wrong because all that happens is the thugs mock Batman while he's still just as ably thwapping them down. He can still (I presume) scare people during Predator missions, too.

Knightfall turns out to have nothing at all, despite the name, to do with the canon comics story arc -- certainly nothing to do with Bane (despite the Knight's South American mercenary and cult-of-personality traits, reminiscent of Bane). It simply involves Batman walking into Wayne manor in front of a sea of reporters and detonating it immediately, killing himself and Alfred.

At first I thought this was stupid writing, because Wayne thinks this is the only way to protect those he loves from retaliation -- as though various super criminals wouldn't go after the obvious Robins (Tim Drake and Dick Grayson) anyway, even if one of them (Tim) retires to marry Barbara. (For no good reason she wasn't killed by the Scarecrow after all; it's weakly written off as an effect of fear gas, which to be fair can be seen pumping into the room where Batman is standing when it happens. But it makes no sense in-story for her not to be killed. There's a hint in an audio unlock that the Knight protected her, but this is never spelled out anywhere so it leaves a weird hole in the plot, like the writers painting themselves out of too dark a corner.)

Then, in the after-credit epilogue, a rich couple and their young boy (passing by the church where Tim is about to marry Barbara, as far as I can tell, apparently just out for a walk that night!) foolishly saunter into a dark alleyway and are being mugged when the thugs see Batman on a nearby roof. They yell out, "Didn't you hear? Batman's dead! That don't scare us anymore anyway!" -- then they freak out as the figure morphs into a Bat-ghost-demon and swoops down on them.

The implication seems to be that Wayne, who has been telling people for a while that this is the end, and who told Selena that Gotham will need something worse than Batman, has faked his death and borrowed Scarecrow's fear technology to go underground as the ghost of Batman, restoring the numinous fear. If you go after Wayne's loved ones, you risk being zorched by Batman's ghost. (And by his loved ones, since many of them are still trained asskickers. ;)  Nightwing, by the way, simply vanishes from the plot once the Penguin missions are done, sent back to watch over Bludhaven.)

I can get behind that idea. Like Batman himself being the Joker's final inescapable asylum, it's a good retirement option for his story: he hands the main crimefighting off to his Robins, and only acts occasionally to keep up a numinous fear of being caught doing evil.

The main crimefighting duties may or may not include Jason Todd, who somewhat expectedly turns out to be the Arkham Knight. In the final showdown with Batman (about 75% of the way through the game!) he reveals his identity, then converts his semi-translucent blue ghosty-skull helmet into a red eyeless skull with somewhat hilarious grinding teeth. A Red Hood.

I had originally been going to be annoyed about this interpretation of his character, but they eventually established enough differences in what the Joker did to him -- keeping him terrorized and captive for months, hidden where Batman never manged to find them (in an abandoned wing of Arkham Asylum, though I think we actually visited that place in the game a couple of years previously, but thus his chosen name). In effect the Joker tried to do to him what the Joker does to Tim Drake in the Timm/Dini animated DC universe stories, and succeeds far enough to shatter Todd's belief in Batman replacing it with hatred for apparently abandoning him to the Joker. Although the writers don't spell this out, it explains why the Knight never goes after Alfred (all the Robins love Alfred), and why the Scarecrow doesn't in fact kill Barbara (because Todd protects her) -- until after the Red Hood runs away crying. Five minutes later Scarecrow is wheeling Barbara off a rooftop.  ::)

I was somewhat surprised the Hood doesn't factor more into the plot at the end: Batman clearly, at one point, expects Jason to save him (if only for his own vengeance), but instead the Hood only snipes one of Batman's manacles off at the end and then leaves. In the end, he didn't amount to as much as I was expecting. The writers don't even use him to establish that the Joker was working on identity transference tech (as in the "Return of the Joker" Batman Beyond storyline), or even to observe that this new murderous identity is how he defeated an earlier takeover attempt (although there are a few hints which could be read along that line).

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Overall, was I satisfied with the main story? Yes, overall, and with some of the side stories, maybe even most of those. The gameplay, when the engine isn't stuttering over the larger play area (perhaps), is just as brilliant as always, too. I kind of wish whoever has been in charge of keeping the Riddler trophy puzzle designs throughout the series, would lose use of both hands for a few years. ;)

The most recent news is that there will be no news for a while: the PC version will remain off-sale, including none of the coming DLC, until late in the year. (Console owners will get their DLC on time.)

In related news, strong rumor on the internet (I've heard Destructoid mentioned) is that the first DLC mission set, Batgirl's "A Matter of Family", will only last about an hour.  :tickedoff:

Some news on upcoming patch....looks like still a few weeks away...I ended up purchasing a little while ago since I got fairly cheap...played it a bit but will wait to really get into it until some of the patching takes place.

Batman: Arkham Knight PC Update, 8/20
August 20 - Yorick
Dear Batman: Arkham Knight PC community,

The teams have been working hard to address the issues with the PC version of the game. We are happy to confirm that we are now putting the first interim patch into testing. If all goes well, we expect to issue the patch in the next few weeks. We'll be sure to report back in the next two weeks on how the testing is coming along.

Below are some of the major fixes and improvements you can expect in the upcoming patch:

• Reduced frame rate hitches
• Optimized system memory and VRAM usage
• Improved performance on all GPUs (requires the latest drivers)
o Min Spec AMD GPU is once again the Radeon HD 7870 2GB

• More Robust In-Game Settings, including:
o Added the ability to change settings for Max FPS to 30/60/90
o Added toggles for Motion Blur, Chromatic Aberration, and Film Grain
o Added a "High" Texture Resolution value
o Added Texture Filtering option
o Added an Adaptive V-Sync option (NVIDIA only)
o Added VRAM Usage Meter
o Added Mouse Sensitivity Slider & Mouse Smoothing Option

• Fixed low resolution texture bugs
• Fixed hitches when running on mechanical hard drives (HDD)

While our first priority is fixing the issues listed above, the team is continuing to work on the following:

• Skipping the boot up splash screens
• DLC/Season Pass content
• Additional updates such as Photo Mode

We again thank you for your continued patience as we work on these issues. As always, we are continuing to monitor and listen for any additional issues.

- Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Well, that's sooner than October anyway. :)

Quote from: JasonPratt on August 21, 2015, 08:56:00 PM
Well, that's sooner than October anyway. :)

Although I believe there was supposed to be an August patch originally as well....

Looks like first patch live....

Good news - testing for the interim patch has been completed and it is now available for those who already have Batman: Arkham Knight for PC. As a reminder, below are some of the major fixes and improvements that will be addressed with this patch:

Reduced frame rate hitches
Optimizations for system memory and VRAM usage
Improved performance on all GPUs (requires the latest drivers)
More Comprehensive In-Game Settings
Fixed low resolution texture bugs
Fixed hitches when running on mechanical hard drives (HDD)

In addition to the above, we're continuing to work on the following for future updates:
Adding support for SLI and Crossfire
Adding support for the latest DLC & Season Pass content
Adding support for additional updates such as Photo Mode
Continued improvements and bug fixing for a Windows 7 specific memory issue that occurs on configurations with 8GB of system RAM and some NVIDIA GPUs during extended game play
Continued improvements for Windows 10 specific issues on systems with some AMD GPUs

As always, we will monitor for any additional issues that come up and will provide further optimizations and bug fixes along the way.

We would like to thank everyone for their patience and invaluable feedback. We'll provide ongoing updates here as they are made available. In the meantime, please enjoy the game with the latest patch.

- Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

With it improving and you haven't bought yet, noticed pretty cheap prices at cdkeys.com....might be worth a shot.

Regular - $12
http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/batman-arkham-knight-pc-cd-key-steam

Premiere - $19 (includes season pass)
http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/batman-arkham-knight-premium-edition-pc-cd-key-steam

I'll try to remember to re-install it again this weekend and report on any improvements. (It's a huge re-install, and I already beat the game once so I'm in no giant hurry to play it again.)

I think I reported this in the Friday thread for Labor Day weekend, but it'll be more officially useful here. ;)

Re-installed it on my SSD this time -- in hindsight I should have put it back on my normal drive to compare experiences better after the early September megapatch.

Unsure what bugs per se were fixed; I don't recall there being any real bugs in my original playthrough (clocking over 60 hours). I am reading reports that some players are finding new bugs with the patch, such as the game refusing to launch, or refusing to launch after the initial post-patch launch. I never had those problems; but I launched the first time (and some subsequent times) through NVIDIA's Geforce experience. Be wary, though, be very aware.

Performance improvement? I didn't personally see any. The patch does make some more gfx options available, not many but some; and gives a much clearer idea of how shifting between various options will affect performance by reporting the memory hit on your GPU (at least for NVIDIA cards). I can report that turning off all options except volumetric smoke and running the game on 480 resolution is still a bit janky.  ::) I don't have a completely sorry card, it's a high 600 series SLI, top of the line a few years ago. I'm reading that people with current gen NVIDIA cards are still getting "yellow bars" with all the bling turned on, and so some performance blips at high speed.

One thing the new gfx tracking doesn't track, is how some of the options affect your CPU usage (since that's how they're run, not through the GPU). I still have a monster CPU, those things having not ticced up much since buying the Presence almost two Christmases ago now (I think? Surely it wasn't last Christmas?), so they made no difference in performance, but neither did they make any obvious difference in how the game looked better. Turning off some of the goofier gfx options did make the game look better (like the God-accursed lens flare), and I found out by accident (by adjusting in the middle of a paused Batmobile chase) that turning on anti-aliasing made things muddier, not crisper, so I turned that off.

Frankly, the game worked best turning everything off and the resolution down to 1050 from 1080 -- the latter was still okay, very high yellow bar, but still a tad choppy in the Batmobile highspeeds. Green bar is so smooth it's a little weird back in the other direction!  :crazy2: Can't win for losing there I guess, sorry WB. But I'd rather have too smooth than not enough.

Let me be clear though: even with all the glitter turned off, the game looks splendiferous at any resolution 720 (minimum high def) or better. I'm not convinced the game was EVER adding significant fx improvements in any way, even for the volumetric smoke, which sure when you could see it looked amazing, but rarely ever showed up in circumstances visible on the screen. So you'd always be taking a huge performance hit for having it on while racing around on the Batmobile, but rarely ever see it (since if the camera was ever back that far THE SMOKE WOULD OBSCURE THE VIEW!) Some of the glitter being turned off makes the game look better anyway.

My recommendation is, play it for the game itself, the gameplay itself, the story itself, and turn all the gfx off in the appropriate option menu; tick it up as high on the resolution as you can get and still have a green bar, and you'll have no worries and it'll look practically no different in any casually noticable way.