As Ed detailed in his review earlier this week, Gotham Knights is a bit of a disappointing dud. I've also been picking my way through Gotham City as various members of the bat family, weightlessly punching dudes in alleys before crafting new sticks that hit 2% harder than the one I was using before. Despite a relatively good looking rendition of the iconic gothic metropolis and a pretty engaging story, Gotham Knights ultimately failed to capture my imagination.
It didn't help that throughout my time with Gotham Knights, I was thinking about the Arkham series. Rocksteady's trio of Batman-em-ups are essential superhero games, titles that redefined the genre and provided a template that still feels contemporary to this day. Aslyum, City and Knight fully immerse you in the Batman fantasy, successfully crafting a depiction of the caped crusader that was deadly, capable and - perhaps best of all - human.
]]>I'm a big fan of shared, collective funtimes, so I must lay flowers at the feet of posters on the Batman Arkham subreddit (maybe not flowers; like, bat-themed knives and big stompy boots. I don't know, what does Batman like?). A couple of weeks ago, with no new mainline Arkham game since 2015's Arkham Knight, they started discussing Batman: Arkham World, a fourth game in the series that came out in 2021. Except, of course, it does not exist.
]]>Rocksteady Studios, the creators the Batman: Arkham games and the newly-announced Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, on Friday night issued a response to the week's reports of sexual harrassment and discrimination. These allegations stemmed from a 2018 letter of complaint written to management by most of their female employees, one of whom felt the company hadn't done enough since then and shared the letter with a newspaper. Rocksteady say they investigated all formal complaints and disciplined or terminated some staff back then, and now have called in a independent third-party to help investigate any potential further complaints.
]]>Update: Rocksteady issued a full, proper response on Friday.
Follow recent reports that Rocksteady Studios failed to sufficiently address sexual harrassment, the Batman: Arkham developers have responded in a most curious way. While they have yet to issue a public statement themselves, they have posted an "unsolicited letter" from some of the employees behind the 2018 letter which first raised the issues. The new letter's writers say they think Rocksteady have been better than was alleged. But without meaningfully addressing the allegations themselves, Rocksteady just casually posted that letter on Twitter. That makes it their first public response and defence, a purpose for which the letter is woefully inappropriate and inadequate. This is: mystifying.
]]>Update: Many of the women who signed the original letter have now said that Rocksteady have improved more than The Guardian's account suggested, though the company have handled this in a weird and inappropriate way. Thennn on Friday Rocksteady finally posted a proper response.
In November 2018, the majority of the female employees at Batman: Arkham studio Rocksteady reportedly signed a letter raising issues of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Since then, a Guardian report says, things haven't changed enough. In light of this, the former senior writer of Rocksteady's upcoming Suicide Squad game - who was behind that 2018 letter - has asked Rocksteady to take her name off it.
]]>For years, there have been rumours that the Batman: Arkham City developers Rocksteady Studios were working on a Suicide Squad game. We dispatched our own squads to check out those rumours, but each time they vanished forever. Turns out we needn't have bothered with the one we sent out last week, because now the game has been confirmed in a tweet from the studio that shows a miserable looking Superman with a Suicide Squad target on his head. We’ll find out more on August 22.
]]>Everyone loves a good action game. It's the driving force behind so many of our favourite PC games, but only a few can lay claim to being the best action games of all time. That's why we've compiled this list - to sort the pulled punches from the bestest biffs that PC has to offer. Whether it's the joy of pulling off a perfect combo, riding the wave of an explosive set-piece or the hair-raising thrill of dodging enemy attacks in slow-motion that gets you going, there's an action game here for you.
]]>The last ten years have brought us many joys. We've already celebrated the best games of the past decade, but with such scattergun nomination comes neglect. Only three of the fifty games we picked had grappling hooks, so clearly the entire endeavour was pointless and you will need an alternative resource.
Here's my definitive guide to the swinging tenties. I haven't mentioned Worms, because they get everywhere and I don't want to spend my whole day talking about helminths.
]]>Light the candles, roast the goose, Father Epic has come to town. Bearing gifts of cost-free games, he's telling tale of a masked menace from a far-off metropolis. Clad in black and the cowl of a bat - what delightful nonsense! For the younger children, a toy-like series of marvels await in the Lego Batman trilogy. Ah, and for you older rascals, the Arkham series awaits with a devilish tale of detectives, criminals and fast-flying fists. But make up your mind quick, there's only a week to spare.
]]>If it wasn’t obvious by one of my first Have You Playeds, I am a big Batfan. I was so so so excited about the new series of dark Batman games that started way back in 2009. Yikes, that was ten years ago. I was 15. What the f--
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Maybe it's the E3 scent in the air or maybe it's just that I'm craving some big budget biffing, but I'm missing my favourite Multiple-A franchises right now. The Arkham games in particular. Oh, to be the bat-like man once more.
]]>A few hours into Arkham Asylum [official site], I thought Batman's cape was glitching. It does occasionally catch on railings if you brood-squat at an odd angle, but this was different; an occasional flash of colour in the gloom of the garment* caught my eye and I thought Bats' big old utility belt was glitching through the cape. But, no, the cape had been torn and as the long night in Arkham continued, Batman's beatings would make marks all over his suit.
More importantly, he gets a heck of a five o'clock shadow.
]]>What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 8 of the sale.
]]>Update: official trailer released, and below, right at the very bottom of the post.
First there was Batman: Arkham Macguyver, then there was Batman: Arkham A Bit Of City, then Batman: Arkham Oranges, and now there is Batman: Arkham Nighty-Night. Oh, alright, just Arkham Knight. But I'm only calling it that this once.
And it has a driveable Batmobile! Jeez guys, why'd it take you four games to come up with that idea? But all jolly exciting - a car, and Rocksteady back at the helm, should mean a mite more sense of advancement than the solid but rinse'n'repeaty Arkham Oranges. (Though hopefully the returning dev has learned a thing or two about thug dialogue.)
]]>Bruce Wayne, billion dollar playboy who was recently declared Least Likely Man On Earth To Be Batman (Of The Year) by Time magazine, is at it again. He's teamed with a gaming storefront known as the Humble Bundle to sell games largely focused on Batman for no specific reason. The proceeds of a pay-what-you-want bundle that includes that likes of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City will go toward a sprawling tunnel-based weapons facility beneath Gotham charities and game developers.
]]>Even when villains are given a good, hard KAPOWTHWACKBIFFZOTT-ing and the day is saved, Batman stories rarely end on entirely happy notes. Thus, it's almost sort of fitting that Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City haven't escaped Games For Windows Live's years-long countdown to self-destruction entirely unscathed. Yes, they're finally free of Microsoft's arbitrary, ages-behind-the-times shackles, but your save files, amazingly, won't be making the jump to Steam. Kinda justifies some of those fears we've had about these DRM systems for all this time, huh? You know, the ones companies like Microsoft tried to reassure us about by promising that they'd never leave us without the things we worked so hard to buy and earn?
]]>Small victories are important. Games For Windows Live has been minced into a fine paste and sent off to a major supermarket chain as a horse meat substitute, but the effects of it are still being felt. Most games are still saddled with the client, and it takes an act of will on the part of the publishers to swab that canker sore. 2K did that to BioShock 2 last night. All traces of the client have been yanked out of the Steam version, with the publisher adding joypad and Big Picture support in, as well as bringing the DLC to Steam for you to buy (so it's not totally altruistic). It's the first time Minerva's Den can be bought anywhere but the GFWL marketplace.
]]>Batlike Man, Batlike Man, does slightly similar things to what a bat can. Hits a guy, in the face, catches thieves just like slightly less proficient fighters. Look out! Here comes another origin story for the Batlike Man!
]]>Dammitall! Here we were, hoping the next Batman game would be a gloriously silly, super-colourful Silver Age tale, but instead it looks to be more grimdark Nolanism. I mean, that's fine, but we've done it twice already. Don't wear it out, as Michelle Pfeiffer once said about her name to Michael Keaton. 'Tis not to be - Batman: Arkham Origins is the next game, Rocksteady are no longer at the helm and the calendar has rewound to Bruce Wayne in his youth. Despite my arrogant suppositions a couple of sentences ago, that's all we really know and it could yet turn out to be anything. Doesn't seem like they're avoiding evoking the style and tone of the earlier Arkhams, mind, and they'll also be using the same engine. It's "current-gen" so that may mean we don't get the shiniest of all possible shines, but more positively they're hinting at depicting Gotham City as a "functional city", not a mere puzzleplace.
]]>We may be in for a third Batscapade from the Arkhamverse, according to Warner suits in the company's latest earnings call, and it'll probably be this year too.
There's almost nothing to go on, other than Warner's Chief Financial Officer John K. Martin letting slip that "and we also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise." This means it's up to us to let slip the dogs of speculation.
]]>Variety are reporting that the next Batman game will be a prequel to Arkham City set in the 1950s "Silver Era" of DC Comics. They report that a "New, highly stylized title is being developed as a prequel that revolves around Batman's first meeting with the Joker. It's based on the Silver Age of DC's comicbooks from the 1950s when the Caped Crusader teamed with other heroes like Superman and founded the Justice League of America." I can't imagine it will be quite like the Silver Era comics, as it seems unlikely that they'll want to discard contemporary grit for hapless 1950s camp. It could, however, see the game visited with a new visual style, even if the tone remains much the same. It'll be interesting to see. Man, I need to go back to Gotham, now.
]]>With everything else that went on last year I felt like we skipped over Arkham City a bit, which is a shame because it was a great game, with ideas aplenty. Also: Batman. Anyway, consider this your reminder to take a look if you haven't, because there's a demo gone up on Steam, giving you limited access to Arkham's open-world Batman 'em up. Perhaps them compare those experiences with Adam's verdict.
]]>Sometimes, it's easy to forget that sidekicks have a purpose. They are, after all, easily kidnapped by arch-nemeses, generally ineffective unless dwelling in their natural habitat of the hero's shadow, and rarely capable of putting together a costume that doesn't implicitly beg for a super-powered swirly. I have to say, though, that Batman: Arkham City's Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC looks pretty promising. Robin's doing his best Ezio impression while searching for his missing Batmentor, and Harley Quinn seems to have completely lost it, which has apparently put her in a bit more of a murdering mood than usual. Admittedly, the "Payback's a bitch" tagline seems a bit ill-advised given Arkham City's less-than-savory history with the word, but the rest looks rather impressive. Grapple past the break for the full trailer.
]]>Revenge is a dish best served cold - or at least lukewarm, in this case. On the upside, Batman: Arkham City's story-concluding DLC-based chapter is en route to PC, Warner told Eurogamer. That, however, is where things take an almost amusingly convoluted turn into asylum-worthy madness. So, first off, the PC version of Arkham City: Game of the Year Edition - to which the DLC's launch is tethered - has no release date beyond "TBC." The console versions, meanwhile, appear to have had their releases scheduled by Warner's executive VP of wearing a blindfold and throwing darts at things. In the US? May 29. Fair enough. Everywhere else, though? September 7 - just in time to get totally buried in the holiday game avalanche. If the PC version follows release tradition, that could see it swinging in to save the day well after the nick of time in October. Catch an incredibly brief glimpse of the DLC in action after the break.
]]>As roughly 50% of the emails to the wheezing RPS inboxotron over the last week will attest to, Rocksteady and Warner have not exactly displayed willing enthusiasm when it comes to the PC edition of Batman: Arkham City. A long- and mysteriously-delayed launch followed by DirectX 11 performance that was about as smooth as stinging nettle moonshine, then the final insult of the eventual patch screwing up many folks' savegames despite leaving many of the initial problems unresolved. And then, silence. Months-long silence.
Our own attempts at establishing just what the flipping fudge was going on came to naught, which made the torrent of increasingly florid complaint emails we were copied in on all the more distressing. Now, finally, Rocksteady have put out a patch. It claims to fix all the right things, which you can find below. Let us know here if it has or hasn't worked. Also, whether or not you're wearing any manner of headgear right now. We're always interested in that.
]]>The British Academy Video Game Awards took place on Friday night and Portal 2 was awarded highest honours, taking home little gold faces not only for Best Game, but also for Story and Design. Congratulations to Valve, who by this point must be making plans to put up some new shelves of award-bearing load strength. The popular vote went to Battlefield 3, which also won awards for Online Multiplayer and Audio Achievement.
The full list is celebrating after the jump.
]]>Gotham by Gaslight - aka Victorian Batman vs Jack the Ripper - was a big deal for comics back in the early 1990s, what with it both transplanting Bats into a new setting and being a self-contained tale rather than the usual unending episodic fare. Sadly it's been largely ignored in this modern age of ultra high-tech Batmen and Grant Morrison miring poor ol' Bruce in endless, obtuse fantasy stories about nothing, but a few years ago Day 1 Studios were set to make a videogame based upon this 19th Century superhero. You'll know Day 1 from FEThreeR, the Xbox MechAssault games and the upcoming PC multiplayer mech title Reign of Thunder, so their heritage perhaps isn't really in the vein of the quiet, thoughtful oddness of GbG.
Whether or not they'd have pulled it off is something we'll never know, as it was canned before development started in earnest - but a leaked proof-of-concept animation trailer does suggest it could have been an especially atmospheric steampunk odyssey.
]]>The UK Writers' Guild Awards took place at the end of 2011 but the American guild like to time their ceremonies a little closer to the Oscars so that they can fall into Awards Season, which isn't actually a season at all. You may remember that a man named Gillen was nominated for the UK award, along with Ed Stern whose script for Brink received a nod. The winners were the writers of Enslaved though and that doesn't exist on PC so we neglected to mention its victory. A belated round of applause to Alex Garland and Tameem Antoniades. So, who has received a nomination from the American guild? Read on.
]]>Phew. I was just about to scribble some rot about the release of free challenge maps for Arkham City, which are only downloadable through Games For Windows Live. As I was staring at the error message that greeted my attempt to install them, a tweet landed 'pon my shoulder and whispered in my ear: "Why all this effort to clobber villains at the Jokers Carnival, and in the Iceberg VIP Lounge and Batcave? Even if you were doing it using the free Batman Incorporated skin it'd just be fisticuffs. Better to take a top-hatted stroll in the snow."
]]>Did you know that when he's not delivering presents or selling Coca-Cola, Father Christmas actually spends his days in cocktail bars enjoying the good life, the old rapscallion? Why, he's even been known to frequent the racetracks and beaches of Monaco in the company of young starlets. That's his reward for picking a job where he only has to pull on the costume once a year. But not everyone has it so easy. Let's take a peek inside door number thirteen.
]]>Batman: Arkham City arrived on PC crazily late, and launched with a pretty much borked DirectX 11 mode. Which didn't make a lot of sense, given what a song and dance NVIDIA and Warner were making about its graphics, and if forum-hounds' apparent discovery that the release build was compiled back in September is to be believed. Finally, though, a patch has arrived which purports to fix it, for the price of 190MB. Unless you're running 32-bit Vista or 7, in which case it makes DX11 performance even worse. To the point that you're advised to only run the game in DX9 mode. Sigh. Another patch is apparently due, though.
A few other wotsits have been rejiggered too - full details below. No, they haven't removed any of the preposterous levels of DRM, sadly enough.
]]>"You're going to bleed like a dead cat."
At first, I thought this was just clunky dialogue, some poor writer struggling to come up with yet another cat-based reference for Batman: Arkham City's thugs to bellow at Catwoman, as a break from the rather more disturbing threats and insults they so frequently offer. Many have commented that the game's dialogue, especially incidental comments from thugs, is unimpressive. And sometimes troubling too. Puzzling, given how lavish and polished the game is in almost all other respects. Then I sat down and thought about it properly. What if there was something I was missing? What if that line, "you're going to bleed like a dead cat" was rich in subtext and nuance I was just too ignorant and lazy to pick up on? And what if, in turn, that meant all the apparently wretched incidental dialogue in the game had been misinterpreted? What if we'd made a terrible mistake? There was only one thing I could do - a careful, stage by stage analysis of the sentence in question. Only then could I truly uncover its mysteries. Some might ask why this game, of all games, should be subjected to such painstaking analysis. I have one word that perfectly addresses all such queries: "because."
]]>Bruce Wayne has finally returned to my PC, ready to swoop and scuffle his way through the prison-district that is Arkham City. It’s no secret that I used to wear Batman pajamas when I was a youngster, nor that I have been known to shed manly tears when thinking of the Caped Crusader’s tragic origins in Crime Alley. These facts make me the ideal person to tell you Wot I Think of this new crimefighting caper.
]]>Batman: Arkham City is now playable on Steam, after a week of mild confusion over its availability in various regions. However, more pressing concerns have arisen now that it's been properly released: the DX11 support seems to be as broken as the bat after a few rounds with Bane, rendering Brucie's latest adventure unplayable with the current DirectX package.
]]>Cloud gaming service OnLive is banging its drum for new members in the UK again, so they're reactivated their remarkable £1 offer (which they're surely making a massive loss on - they must have ton of marketing money stored up). Your first purchase after joining currently costs just 100 pennies, and that includes the likes of Batman: Arkham City, Saints Row 3, LA Noire, Lord of the Rings: War In The North and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. All PC versions, but tweaked for OnLive - which in Arkham's case means no GFWL. Woo! OnLive has its issues, but I really rather like it - I've played quite a lot through it now, and while the experience differs from game to game for a lot of titles on a decent ISP the experience is pretty incredible. Especially if you have the microconsole thingy and are sat back on a sofa - with your face stuffed directly into a monitor the cracks are that much more visible.
]]>This year has been unusually rich in the kind of game that I most enjoy: those that are open-ended, or provide a sandbox world for me to mess about in. We usually get a couple of these every year, but in 2011 we seem to have run into a minor bounty of the open stuff, which is good news for explorers and meanderers alike. I've gone into a bit more detail about why this pleases me below.
]]>It was rumoured, and then it was confirmed, and then we were all like :(
For it is true: the man of bats will not strike back on PC in 10 days' time, but instead in 17 days' time. A small wait, perhaps, but we've already had to hang on for almost a month later than the console-folk. Yes, the already-delayed Batman: Arkham City PC port, mooted to be the very bestest version of Brucie-boy's semi-open-world swinging adventures thanks to various technical jiggery-pokery done with the help of NVIDIA, has been delayed anew. November 25 is the new date, which at least is safely after all Big Three of November's remaining new releases - MW3, Skyrim, Saints Row 3 - are all done and dusted and we'll have time to think about something else/sleep.
There's no word on why the PC version was delayed, and what the state of play will be for the various DLC by then. Oh well. Here's a Nightwing DLC trailer to tide you over.
]]>Batman! A game so good that Yahoo awarded it 6/5, thus unwittingly demonstrating that review scores are little more than a media pissing contest whose only real beneficiary is publishers’ marketing departments and people who like to shout at other people on forums. Which is exactly why we don't give scores here. Can Arkham City possibly live up to such drooling superlatives? Well, I can’t yet speak for the PC version - which isn’t out until November 18, though we’re hoping to have code before then - but I did spend far too much of my week off playing the console version (I'm sorry, I just fancied getting a different sort of RSI on top of the one I already have from my mouse and keyboard), thus have a very good sense of the game itself if not its technical aspects and improvements on PC. So, if you must, consider this not a Wot I Think, but an extended preview offering some idea of what to expect in a few weeks.
]]>I'm so sorry. There's going to be a proper scandal about that. GamesIndustry.biz or Gamasutra or someone will probably run an expose about the awful corruption at RPS. Last week, I brazenly claimed, to your face, that this would be the last Batman: Arkham City trailer we'd post before the pointlessly-delayed PC release next month.
I LIED TO YOU.
Because here's the first proper PC footage of Arkham City.
]]>The nebulous "November" date for Batman on PC has been confirmed for the UK as the 18th, and VG247 note that Amazon has the US one date (predictably) for the 15th. The PC version is going to support 3D, DX11, and a bunch of the other in-vogue technologies, making it one of this years most graphical games, or something.
]]>Well, maybe. Suppose it depends on whether they squeak out any particularly tasty DLC. With the game due for release on the unantialiased darklands of console next week and currently drawing huge review scores - but sadly delayed on PC - its constant torrent of promotional videos is now capped off by this launch-ish trailer. It's very dramatic! It implies Batman facing his darkest challenge since all the other dark challenges he's faced and will no doubt continue to face! It features some slightly troubling voice acting!
It also looks rather cracking, which makes me only grumpier that we'll have to wait a few weeks to play it on our faithful game-towers.
]]>The seemingly endless drip-feed of character announcements for Batman: Arkham City is starting to get on my wick. Yes, we know there will be supervillains in the game. Can we not just play it now? Please? Also in there, Mr Marketing has slowly told us, are a raft of playable Bat-Chums, including Batman's diminutive protege Robin, who's been redesigned as a sort of scrappy thug. Why would anyone want to play as Robin instead of Batman? I mean, Robin. But you can see the speedy wee fellow in action below.
]]>Arkham City is going to be packed full of villains but the place wouldn’t be complete without the Joker. We knew he was going to be there, of course, but this trailer tells us a little bit more about what he’ll be doing. Referring to deadly plans while holding up a twisted carnival mirror to Batman’s unsmiling granite face and cackling like Luke Skywalker’s demented uncle, that’s what he’ll be doing. Nothing much new then, although he is looking more horrible than ever and hopefully now he's not pulling all the strings (unless he is), he'll be more chaotic and frightening. Just when I’m feeling extremely happy at the idea of beating up goons and twirling my cape in their faces, the trailer ends with a release date. It’s not the right one though.
]]>Sigh, the disease is spreading. Batman: Arkham City on PC, formerly set to be released alongside the consoles, has been pushed back a month. The 360 and PS3 versions of Warner's game are still coming out on the 21st October, but our version has been given the ambiguous and extremely unhelpful date of "November". Absolutely no reason is given, so we've contacted Warner to find out what's up.
Meanwhile, four new colourful screenshots don't exactly make us feel much better about it. They're below.
]]>More Arkham City footage this morning, which makes me very happy indeed. It’s the reveal of a new villain, and we all know villains are one of the best things about comic book games. The footage comes courtesy of Gametrailers and as well as showing some footage of the game, it has excitable fellow Sefton Hill giving some background on another villain out to cause mischief and mayhem. This time it's Deadshot, the world’s greatest assassin. That’s right, all those historical wrist-bladed assassins can step aside, because Deadshot has wrist-mounted cannons. BOOM. Take a look.
]]>There was some talk over the weekend that Batman: Arkham City would not be using GFWL. That turned out to not be true, according to this article on VG247, who contacted Warner for comment. A Warner rep said: “Arkham City is indeed a G4WL [sic] title.” Did he say [sic] of his own esoteric spelling? I just don't know.
]]>I have nothing but sympathy for poor old Mr Freeze and the comics writer who created him, Ian Cold. From Batman's already ludicrous rogue's gallery (Man-Bat! Calendar Man!), his star is surely the most fallen, thanks to the governor of California's chilling portrayal in the most nippletastic of all the Batman movies. How to make this pun-spewing pastiche remotely fearsome again? Well, give him a massive helmet, Terminator-esque body language, all manner of complicated-looking technology including some natty robot goggles and the sum total of zero one-liners: that's the Arkham City approach.
]]>Word flies in from all directions that the PC version of the forthcoming Batman: Arkham City is to be by far the definitive one. Details scavenged from October's PC Gamer (oh, magazines) reveal that it has been super-enhanced for various bits and bobs of tech that the consoles don't support. So of course there's 3D, for anyone mad enough to have bought a 3D monitor. But more excitingly, it's supporting DirectX 11 and PhysX. And other stuff too!
]]>The chaps from Gamespot have been in the first to get Arkham City Penguin reveal, but you can see it right here, below, thanks to the magic of sharing. To be honest, I like my Penguin in a top hat, but what do I know, eh? No matter, this is more than made up for by the fact that the trailer looks VERY EXCITING, with Batman punching dudes and, possibly, getting punched himself. Batman is just a man, and Arkham City is just a game, but what a game it looks to be.
]]>"How do you feel about special editions of games, John?" the entire internet asks me at once. Well, let me answer. They're alright, aren't they? While I take issue with any inclusion of exclusive DLC - because that's just so stupid it makes my ears bleed - any old guff they want to stick in an over-sized box is okay by me. And so it is that Batman: Arkham City has revealed what will be inside its bonus box. Although somewhat unofficially, as these details - as Joystiq reveal - have appeared on Gamestop and Best Buy's sites before any proper announcement or press release was put out. Which may also explain why no spec ed has been announced for the PC, which is obviously just an oversight by the online stores, and not Warner being stupid beyond belief.
]]>The videogames promotional cycle can be so exhausting - take Batman: Arkham City, for example. It's still three and half months away but already we're at a sort of hype crescendo. Yes, I want it. Do you hear me, Warner Brothers? I am prepared, right now, to say that I want to play it and I am prepared to hand over in the region of £30 to make this happen. Do I still have to watch tons of videos that tease and torture me with the fact that it's probably going to be very really good but I'm not allowed to have it yet? Do you want me to beg? Alright, I'll do it.
Please, Mr Warner and your delightful brothers, can I have this game now? If I promise to watch another video, can I have it? Please? Please?
]]>Batman: Arkham City gets closer and closer, and we get exciteder and excitider, and in the heat of our anticipation become less gramatickly accurate. After what feels like years of teasing, concept art and pre-order incentives, finally we get to take a long, lingering look at what it's really like in action. Below: 12 minutes of the game, including playable funtimes from both Batman and Catwoman, good acting, awful acting, Two-Face's disgusting head and many many many goons and hi-tech shenanigans.
]]>And here was I thinking that all the non-comics Batman spin-offs were doing their damndest to pretend that the dark knight detective wasn't in the habit of dragging a boy along to his late-night soirees with angry street thugs. Robin has been resolutely absent from Christopher Nolan's Batman movies and went without mention in the solid, tight Arkham Asylum. But the Boy Wonder has found his way into upcoming sequel Batman: Arkham City after all. How're they going to reconcile the wee lad's bright costume and cheery demeanour with something so grim? Let's take a look...
]]>It's been confirmed. Yesterday Warner Bros released the box art for Batman: Arkham City (due this October), which turned out to be an amusingly back-handed way of announcing that the game would use Microsoft's less-than-perfect PC gaming frontend, Games For Windows Live, seeing as the GFWL logo is stuck there right at the top of the box like some kind of barnacle of bad taste. (Edit: Arkham Asylum also used GFWL, of course.)
Never mind. At least the box art is nice. Which means nothing in this day and age of digital downloads. NEVER MIND.
]]>The three most exciting words in the English language today are "Batman: Arkham City". It's a fact. So you should be very interested to know that US game retailer Best Buy yesterday published a listing for Batman: Arkham City touting Robin as an exclusive, downloadable playable character for two challenge maps if you pre-order from them. See the listing for yourself and read my hasty conclusions after the jump.
]]>I'm too good to you lot. First of all I ease your aching need for a $200 Star Wars keyboard, and now I point you towards a promotional Batman: Arkham City controller designed like a batarang and lit up like some kind of high-tech bat... controller.
]]>Ah, these beers are working a treat, which is great because I beginning to get brain qualms from all the game footage. Next: Batman: Arkham City. The first game was rather special in the RIGHT nature of its action, but the open world of this game is what is selling it to me. I mean just look at it. Rocksteady were saying earlier today that they are aiming for the open-world here to be detail over size, and that's paying off. I can't wait to do some fancy swooping.
]]>It's true. Looks like the chaps and chaplets of Gamespot got their hands on Batman: Arkham City for some caped fun times, because there's a trailer doing the rounds. It's new. It's below. It shows Catwoman.
She's playable, apparently. I want to come up with some kind of ultimate innuendo, but it's late. I'm sorry.
]]>Gosh, Batman, this interview about Arkham City makes me a bit more excited about the game. It sounds like Rocksteady aren't resting on their laurels, and are really reaching with the new game. Speaking about the open nature of the city Rocksteady's Dax Ginn said: "Everywhere that's open to the sky is available to the player from the off. So they can go anywhere they want and that was the emotional feeling that we wanted to convey; you're Batman, you can do what you want... there's loads of content out there in the streets and you can engage with in any order you want right from the beginning."
]]>This made a wobbly appearance a bit earlier today, but I didn't post it up because the embed had audio problems. Seems to be all fixed now, and the new trailer for Arkham City is quite the thing, with all the big villains showing their meticulously-modelled faces, to a fancy soundtrack. There is also swooping, and some mild face-punching. Don't be alarmed, that's quite normal. Better: the glimpses we get of the city itself! That sure looks like the kind of place I would like to defeat muscular men in hand-to-hand combat, yes sir!
Also, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that Batman is just a man. And finally, that the game is out in the week of the 18th of October. What a week that will be.
]]>Last December I told Rocksteady that I wouldn't be using correct grammar in my Arkham City posts until they released some in-game footage (see here, and here). Today Gamespot published an interview with Sefton Hill, game director at Rocksteady, containing a few new details on Arkham City. But do we have any footage? Do we heck. So, here we go.
Batamn! He moves though the night, like a fart or other invisible thing. But how will you and I be moving down the meanie streets of arkham city? How big will it be? As big as a REAL CITY? Why will we do it? Only batman knows, and hes not telling. But also Sefton Hill knows, and he says.,.
]]>Quickly, Batchildren! A mysterious French internet online websitepage has a frustratingly unembeddable new trailer from Batman: Arkham City, which will almost certainly be dragged off into a dark alley and given a sound kicking by the dastardly Mr Embargo any minute now. It features Batman and the Joker working together (whaaaaaaaaat), in a "punching hulking goons in the teeth" sort of way. It looks, to coin a phrase, "tight."
]]>Last week was a week where I posted a very short Batman: Arkham City footage and said I would not use right grammar until we got in-game footage. Like Batman, I cannot back down. So here it is! The same trailer, but enlongened. See Batman fight his enemys in the rain. He gets wet. Poor soggy Batamn. Have a towl, soggy Batman. There there.
]]>Batman! He fights badguys, not police. Not unless he has to! But when he has to, he will fight a police as hard as it takes. That is what this trailer lets us know. Rocksteady Studios! If you would like me to start using correct grammar in future posts on Arkham City, please release some in-game footage. Thanks.
]]>The Batman and his friends are looking rather handsome indeed. First there was this batch of loveliness, and now there's a bit more, which I've posted below in a gallery fashion. If you're a fan of wearing leather and punching men in the face, then you scare me. Also, this game is probably going to be a big deal.
Click images for gigantism!
]]>The sequel to Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City is due in Autumn 2011, but so far we've not seen a screenshot. Until today, when it seems a bundle were leaked onto Flickr. We've got almost all of them below for you to take a look at. And it's looking pretty damned great. Click on them to see a larger version.
]]>News reaches us via a bat-signal link from Eurogamer that the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum will be out autumn 2011. Hurrah for fans of Tightness. Except, from the scant details released, it may be less Quinns-delightingly Tight, as it's set in a single sprawling walled city block in the heart of Gotham which is now home of all the city's criminally insane folk (Which is the sort of ill-advised city planning the residents of that fair city have got used to). That suggest more open-worldy to me. However, tightness will remain in the form of the flesh-clinging costume, as shown on the three teased Game Informer covers. It seems it will feature prominently Catwoman's prominent features. Press release follows for those who like to pick over the details...
Yes, that Spike TV VGA event also revealed the sequel to Arkham Asylum. The trailer, which does feature The Joker once again, is below. Can they possibly do it a second time? Or was one visit to Arkham enough?
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