Batman: Arkham City Catch-All

Jayhawker wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:

Doesn't speak terribly well about PC gaming how this thread went from discussing a game on a console to tech support for a game on the PC.

FTFY

I really do not get any pleasure from seeing fellow gamers having to deal with these issues, but seeing them really does make me appreciate the ease of console gaming.

SallyNasty wrote:

I really do not get any pleasure from seeing fellow gamers having to deal with these issues, but seeing them really does make me appreciate the ease of console gaming.

The problem with a broken console game is that you can't even do many real work arounds. So when a dev really borks a game (Skyrim), you're kind of stuck.

I like having both options, but lately have been defaulting more and more to PC on multiplatform titles.

MannishBoy wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I really do not get any pleasure from seeing fellow gamers having to deal with these issues, but seeing them really does make me appreciate the ease of console gaming.

The problem with a broken console game is that you can't even do many real work arounds. So when a dev really borks a game (Skyrim), you're kind of stuck.

I like having both options, but lately have been defaulting more and more to PC on multiplatform titles.

Thinking about it like that, it's a little bit annoying. B:AA being really well done (besides the whole ATI feature disabling) kind of gives the expectation that the sequel is going to be well done too. For Bethesda you can be pretty sure their game is going to be buggy and plan accordingly, but with Rocksteady you can't be certain what kind of quality they're going to put out.

I can't think of a broken or unplayable console game that I have come across. I have had some issues with a few games (notably B:AC, but luckily that issue was patched), but certainly not enough issues that I have come to expect them.

SallyNasty wrote:

I can't think of a broken or unplayable console game that I have come across. I have had some issues with a few games (notably B:AC, but luckily that issue was patched), but certainly not enough issues that I have come to expect them.

Well, Skyrim's pretty borked on PS3 once the save file gets large from what I understand.

And Ninja Gaiden 2 got patched to where you couldn't proceed into the final boss for months, to the point of I never finished my higher difficulty play through because by the time they fixed it, I'd lost my ability to play at that skill level.

The trade offs to me are well worth it most of the time. The bad ports for PC you normally hear about early enough to avoid them.

That said, back to Batman talk for me.

I have been playing through on new game plus - and for whatever reason (maybe the lack of collectibles?) I have been enjoying it a lot more on the replay. Going through the combat challenges, also, really prepared me for no counter notifications.

My in-laws are out right now, and my father-in-law has really been enjoying watching me play it in the evening, so there is some added value right there!

Jayhawker wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:

Doesn't speak terribly well about PC gaming how this thread went from discussing a game on a console to tech support for a game on the PC.

FTFY

Did you forget that the 360 had about a 50% failure rate at one time? There's a really long thread on it here somewhere. I had two die. My PS3 is currently sitting in my closet floor, having suffered YLOD death.

And there's a reason I wait for PC versions over console.

1920x1080 vs 1280x720

High degrees of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering

far better textures

60 frames per second

mods

far better community and voice support (via Steam)

no discs to insert

very fast load times

cheaper game prices

So yeah, there's occasionally issues, but it's not like we're doing it because we enjoy pain. There's a helluva payoff.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/x7oa3.gif)

SallyNasty wrote:

I really do not get any pleasure from seeing fellow gamers having to deal with these issues, but seeing them really does make me appreciate the ease of console gaming.

Things that needs to be considered when making this assertion are the frustration threshold of the gamer and the amount they enjoy the meta game of tinkering with hardware, settings and modding. If you don't want to deal with any troubleshooting and you don't need to have the best version of the game you should stick with the consoles.

Personally, I enjoy upgrading hardware, messing with ini files and troubleshooting to some extent. The payoff on the PC (assuming your tinkering is successful) is an objectively superior experience from a technical perspective as Jeff-66 points out and for some people there is a subjective feeling of satisfaction when you get a game running well.

SallyNasty wrote:

My in-laws are out right now, and my father-in-law has really been enjoying watching me play it in the evening, so there is some added value right there!

No one else noted this strange sentence?

Atomicvideohead wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

My in-laws are out right now, and my father-in-law has really been enjoying watching me play it in the evening, so there is some added value right there!

No one else noted this strange sentence?

Well, he's not called SallyNasty for nothing.

SallyNasty wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
Hobbes2099 wrote:

Doesn't speak terribly well about PC gaming how this thread went from discussing a game on a console to tech support for a game on the PC.

FTFY

I really do not get any pleasure from seeing fellow gamers having to deal with these issues, but seeing them really does make me appreciate the ease of console gaming.

PC Tech Comparison: Batman: Arkham City

So, GMG finally issued a patch so I could get this damn thing installed, but I had forgotten that it uses GFWL. It prompts me to log in, and I don't really remember what my GFWL id is, but I take a guess and it sits and thinks for 10 seconds and then asks me to enter my CD key. I do that too, it thinks some more and THEN it tells me my login was invalid. Why didn't it tell me that up front? So I try a few different things, none of which work which I found strange, so I went to the XBL website and tried to log in there and it actually worked. Apparently the ingame version of GFWL won't let me log in even though I have the right login details. And there's bloody securom too.

So much **** crap with this game.

kyrieee wrote:

So, GMG finally issued a patch so I could get this damn thing installed, but I had forgotten that it uses GFWL. It prompts me to log in, and I don't really remember what my GFWL id is, but I take a guess and it sits and thinks for 10 seconds and then asks me to enter my CD key. I do that too, it thinks some more and THEN it tells me my login was invalid. Why didn't it tell me that up front? So I try a few different things, none of which work which I found strange, so I went to the XBL website and tried to log in there and it actually worked. Apparently the ingame version of GFWL won't let me log in even though I have the right login details. And there's bloody securom too.

So much **** crap with this game.

I had that problem too. What happened is that MS changed something in the T&C, so you need to log into the web version. Once you've agreed to the T&C you can try again in the GFWL app and it should work fine. Stupid design, but there you go.

Finally fired this up this week and having a blast.

Read the last 20 pages of thread on and off. See a lot of things I agree/disagree with.

First, Hyetal's right (ugh), Catwoman stuff is awesome. Fresh change of pace combat and didn't take away from the story for me, but added to it. Granted I still haven't go to her 3rd appearance yet, but had a blast with the first couple. And with the bit of challenge maps I've tried.

The boss fight with

Spoiler:

Mr Freeze

was definitely my favorite so far.

Agree with some comments a while back about the learning to dive/fly, and only actually picking up how to do it in the trial that you had to do it in. But since then I've used it all over the city and it's quite fun. Reminds me of SMW cape on SNES.

I have also noticed the increasing number of armed thugs outside as I progress through the game. I guess that's realistic as things escalate, but man it's going to make hunting some Riddler stuff down a pain. I'm tempted to just veer off the main game for a while and do a collect-athon.

Really enjoying the sidequests. I've completed a few already and closing in on others. It does seem like many of the objectives are near main story things and flow along nicely.

Someone mentioned dying to mobs outside the beginning courthouse several times on hard. That was totally my experience as well. I 100%-ed Batman:AA on PC, GotY on PS3, and again on PC. So I really felt like I should have been up to snuff and ready to play on hard. Then the first big group of guys kicked my ass about 8 times. Have only had a couple more spots like that where I've been stuck for a few attempts. But mostly it's smoothed out. I went very quickly for the "do special moves at x5 instead of x8" upgrade and got a lot better. There are also some great new crowd control moves for big groups. And lots more quick fire gadgets. I love quick-firing some explosive gel in the middle of a brawl.

I did have one of the black-screen loads mentioned by others. But I was able to Home button and just quit out of the game. It didn't lock up the PS3 or anything. So far, only the one. Don't think PS3 has an uninstall option.

And finally... I punched a shark! I am Batman. :p

Stele wrote:

And finally... I punched a shark! I am Batman. :p

Haha. I told my buddy that "Batman really jumped the shark last night". He hadn't got to that part yet, and thought I was deriding the game

P.S. I finished up the main story last night, and thought it was just awesome. GOTY for me.

I'll be going back in for riddler stuff and getting catwoman her riddler trophies, and of course the challenge rooms, which i love.

And also I'll agree that some of the gadgets and moves aren't really introduced well in game. But going into the Waynetech menu and looking at each gadget or move gives you a description of how to do it, when to do it, and any options. And for most moves it seems to give you the option to enable a tutorial for it the next time you have the opportunity to do it.

For instance, the electric charge thing that stumped several people... if you go in and read about the gadget it tells you there are two ways to fire it using either trigger, and it also tells you how to quickfire it in combat.

So if you know what you're doing, just play. If you're not sure, go into the menu and read and/or enable the tutorial.

Granted, even with that I'm still having trouble with the knife dodge/disarm move. I understand what I'm supposed to do, just can't seem to execute it. Although some of the tips I saw a few pages back might help. Looking forward to trying again later tonight or tomorrow.

Aside from that one move, everything else has been pretty fun.

I've progressed I think up to the half part of the plot and it still feels shallow to me. More fairly, it's just not lighting up the same satisfaction centers I ping when I'm playing Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, Double Dragon, or Muramasa. It feels a bit more like DMC where the point of technique is primarily the score chase.

It doesn't help that I still find the graphic design an eye-gougingly bad experience.

Combat in the main story is designed to be pretty easy for anyone to play through to the end. Actually the combat system in the Batman games does work best as a score chase, you have to play the challenge modes. The fun is trying to coordinate it so that you can fit as many different moves as possible in a single combo.

LarryC wrote:

I've progressed I think up to the half part of the plot and it still feels shallow to me. More fairly, it's just not lighting up the same satisfaction centers I ping when I'm playing Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, Double Dragon, or Muramasa. It feels a bit more like DMC where the point of technique is primarily the score chase.

It doesn't help that I still find the graphic design an eye-gougingly bad experience.

To be fair, half of those games you cite are player-versus-player, which tend to be inherently more deep than a player-versus-computer combat system.

But you're not wrong: the depth of the combat IS in its score chasing in the challenge rooms.

Also: Double Dragon? What? One of these things is not like the others....

Spoilers right before the 3rd Catwoman segment:

Spoiler:

Damn that Joker/One-Arm/Titan fight was tough! Probably my new most-repeated fight. So many knife guys, and Joker picks up the knife too.

What finally worked for me was attack/counter regular guys, attack knife guys to get the combo up, then do the X+O finisher move for anyone on the ground. I would clear out 3-4 guys every quick burst of that, and managed to get the fight down to just the 3 tough enemies. Then ride the titan to knock out the one-arm.

Also, future story speculation...

Spoiler:

Is that really Joker? Maybe Clayface or something? All of the thugs side conversations are talking about how the Joker is totally different. Which might be chalked up to the cure. But then why is Harley tied up when I'm in the warehouse there after she supposedly brought him the cure? And then I thought I heard some other thugs on the side mission to get the freeze bombs, that Harley had left the warehouse?

Something fishy is going on...

And finally a quick question about that 3rd Catwoman story part:

Spoiler:

Can you choose to leave? I of course took the left path and went back for Batman. Just wondering how it works out or if it lets you leave?

Stele wrote:

Spoilers right before the 3rd Catwoman segment:

Spoiler:

Damn that Joker/One-Arm/Titan fight was tough! Probably my new most-repeated fight. So many knife guys, and Joker picks up the knife too.

What finally worked for me was attack/counter regular guys, attack knife guys to get the combo up, then do the X+O finisher move for anyone on the ground. I would clear out 3-4 guys every quick burst of that, and managed to get the fight down to just the 3 tough enemies. Then ride the titan to knock out the one-arm.

Yes, that was a very tough fight, it might be the toughest in the game. I'm only adequate at combat in Batman, and tend to get flustered when having several different mob types that you have to do specific things with. I have almost no trouble with knifers, but shield guys give me fits.

What works for me usually is I'll try and just stay away from shields until the end of the fight, then deal with them. I'll try and take out the basic unarmed guys first, then work on tougher ones. And you have to concentrate on things going on around the perimeter of the fight, like guys picking up guns or explosive canisters.

Also, future story speculation...
Spoiler:

Is that really Joker? Maybe Clayface or something? All of the thugs side conversations are talking about how the Joker is totally different. Which might be chalked up to the cure. But then why is Harley tied up when I'm in the warehouse there after she supposedly brought him the cure? And then I thought I heard some other thugs on the side mission to get the freeze bombs, that Harley had left the warehouse?

Something fishy is going on...

Well I can't really comment on that without being too spoilery. All I'll say is that the end of the game surprised me ... a lot.

And finally a quick question about that 3rd Catwoman story part:
Spoiler:

Can you choose to leave? I of course took the left path and went back for Batman. Just wondering how it works out or if it lets you leave?

Good question, I did what you did.

Stele wrote:

And finally a quick question about that 3rd Catwoman story part:

Spoiler:

Can you choose to leave? I of course took the left path and went back for Batman. Just wondering how it works out or if it lets you leave?

Spoiler:

You can, but Batman dies, and the game rewinds you back to the decision. It's pretty cool, actually.

Jeff-66 wrote:
Stele wrote:

Spoilers right before the 3rd Catwoman segment:

Spoiler:

Damn that Joker/One-Arm/Titan fight was tough! Probably my new most-repeated fight. So many knife guys, and Joker picks up the knife too.

What finally worked for me was attack/counter regular guys, attack knife guys to get the combo up, then do the X+O finisher move for anyone on the ground. I would clear out 3-4 guys every quick burst of that, and managed to get the fight down to just the 3 tough enemies. Then ride the titan to knock out the one-arm.

Spoiler:

Yes, that was a very tough fight, it might be the toughest in the game. I'm only adequate at combat in Batman, and tend to get flustered when having several different mob types that you have to do specific things with. I have almost no trouble with knifers, but shield guys give me fits.

What works for me usually is I'll try and just stay away from shields until the end of the fight, then deal with them. I'll try and take out the basic unarmed guys first, then worker on tougher ones. And you have to concentrate on things going on around the perimeter of the fight, like guys picking up guns or explosive canisters.

Spoiler:

I find that you need to move around a lot and keep combos going by jumping out to evade and only attacking the normal weaker guys in ones and twos to thin the herds. Then once you get combos built up, start using your disarm/destroy weapon take down move on the armed or shielded guys to take the weapons out of the fight. Then worry about the heavies once you've not got any of the weak guys hitting you.

But the good thing about this game is there are a lot of ways for Batman to do Batman things effectively.

MannishBoy wrote:
Spoiler:

I find that you need to move around a lot and keep combos going by jumping out to evade and only attacking the normal weaker guys in ones and twos to thin the herds. Then once you get combos built up, start using your disarm/destroy weapon take down move on the armed or shielded guys to take the weapons out of the fight. Then worry about the heavies once you've not got any of the weak guys hitting you.

But the good thing about this game is there are a lot of ways for Batman to do Batman things effectively.

What is the skill choice that destroys weapons? I could really use that, to prevent them from picking guns and shields up again.

Also is Hobbes the only one who has this on PS3 besides me?!

Friend leaderboards are pretty bare on combat challenges. If someone else has it please friend me!

Stele wrote:

Also is Hobbes the only one who has this on PS3 besides me?!

Friend leaderboards are pretty bare on combat challenges. If someone else has it please friend me!

I have it on PS3... but haven't played the challenges.

Thanks again to my Secret Stan, sometime this week, probably tonight, the One True Batman will return.

Jeff-66 wrote:

What is the skill choice that destroys weapons? I could really use that, to prevent them from picking guns and shields up again.

It's the combo "Disarm and Destroy". X+Y on Xbox or PC Xbox controller.

MannishBoy wrote:
Jeff-66 wrote:

What is the skill choice that destroys weapons? I could really use that, to prevent them from picking guns and shields up again.

It's the combo "Disarm and Destroy". X+Y on Xbox.

Thanks. For whatever reason, I've not seen that one introduced. I do use the B+Y instant-takedown, but haven't tried X+Y yet. I also picked up the bat-swarm stun, which is A+X I think. I'm not sure how useful it is, other than something to add to the variation bonus.