Batman Arkham Knight

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[Jarhead0331]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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. 

[MengJiao]

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.

[Arctic Blast]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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. ;)

[JasonPratt]

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):

he 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.

[Arctic Blast]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.)

[Arctic Blast]

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

[JasonPratt]

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.)

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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.

[JasonPratt]

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!" 


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.)