Batman: Arkham Asylum Catch-All

...and the PC version is delayed. Great. -_-

bluesnews wrote:

Eidos and NVIDIA announce PhysX support will be included in the PC edition of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which will delay the release of the game until September 15 in North America and September 18 in Europe. The console editions are still expected on August 25th in North America and August 28th in Europe and Australia. Here's word on PhysX support: "Hardware accelerated by supported NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, PhysX technology provides an even deeper level of engagement for players of Batman: Arkham Asylum by utilizing the processing power of the NVIDIA GPU to render stunning in-game physics objects in the environment that not only add to the overall look of the game, but create an immersive and believable world."

Sounds a little fishy to me...this is normally the sort of thing they'd quite easily add in a patch - especially since it's an EXTREMELY optional component of any game.

/puts on the conspiracy bonnet
Sounds more like they want to sell a few console versions before letting us PC users get a hold of it...what with our dirty pirating ways

Or it's an absolutely horrid port.

JoeBedurndurn wrote:

Or it's an absolutely horrid port.

Since when has that ever delayed a publisher releasing a PC version of a game

If it's that bad another couple of weeks will hardly make any difference, other than to highlight the fact that they knew there was problems with it.

I was thinking that maybe it was completely unplayable and they were hoping desperately that PhysX support would alleviate that, but I suppose you're right. Horrid, unplayable ports never stopped anyone before, why would it start now.

Well, you'll find out tomorrow, won't you?

Just so you know: the demo's now available for the PS3.

Downloading now. I don't think I've ever been this excited about a demo before.

I just finished the demo. Parts feel like a version of Manhunt my family can watch me play. I mean that as a compliment.

My only issue is Gordon's voice. As a huge fan of the cartoon, it was very jarring to hear Batman, Joker, and Harley all sounding right, and Gordon...very much not right.

I just played trough the demo and I'm not impressed. I really like the graphical design, animations seem a little stiff to me though, and the voice over, music, and story setup are superb especially if your a fan of the animated series from the 90s.
But the gameplay just feels mediocre to me, the close combat is not very engaging, it seems that it consists of just hitting square button for combos with occasional evading of their punches, the stealth involves using the grappling hook, to jump between conveniently placed and identical looking gargoyles, to get behind the enemies.
Hopefully the full game will turn out better, but the demos gameplay did not give me that good of an impression, reminds me of Force Unleashed, good concept, story, graphics and sound, but lacking in engaging gameplay. Just like Force unleashed could have used a touch of Jedi Knight 2, this in my opinion could have used a touch of Splinter cell or Thief.

PC DEMO - 2.03 GB

JoeBedurndurn wrote:

Or it's an absolutely horrid port.

Or they don't want douche bags pirating it before the consoles have a chance to do well.

Or maybe download the demo and see for yourself.

Alright just played through the PC Demo.

First off obligatory PC specs:

Core2Quad 2.66 GHz
3 GB RAM
Geforce GTS250 1GB

Ran at 1680x1050, 2x AA, 8x AF, all details at max and full PhysX features.

Performance: Ran flawlessly, no hitches, no texture pop in, no tearing, framerate was rocksolid start to finish.

Controls: Played with mouse & keyboard (though it has full X360 wired pad support as well) and it played fine. The controls are completely remappable, all the view axises are invertable and it doesn't at all feel like a case of console portitis.

Gameplay: Very impressed. I hadn't really been following this that closely so I didn't really know what kind of game it was. Turns out it's a kind of hybrid beat em up/stealth game. The combat kinda reminds me of assassin's creed in that you generally are outnumbered and instead of just going all out with attacks it's more productive to focus on powerful counter attacks. You get a little icon above the enemies head when they are going to strike you where a quick click of the RMB has batman lay some smackdown on the guy. It's flashy and it works well. Everybody you kill nets you experience points, I couldn't find any kind of skill screen but if there is XP I assume there is some kind of upgrade mechanic.

The other half is the stealth. It's definitely tuned towards "fun" stealth and not "hardcore" stealth. This is definitely not Thief 4. Basically you swing around between ledges and gargoyles watching the guys move around and when they are alone you have a variety of take downs you can do like gliding kicks, grappling them off ledges and so forth. Again it's flashy and works well, though doesn't feel overly deep. There does seem to be some kind of fear mechanic, you have "detective vision" which highlights all the interactive elements in the area as well as the badguys. It gives a status update on them with what they have for weapons and what their mental state is. By screwing around with them (taking out their friends, bataranging them, breaking stuff) you cause them to get more afraid, and when they panic they seem to have a greater tendency to put themselves into vulnerable positions which gives you the openings you need for takedowns.

All in all it was pretty damn cool. I am a bit worried about how easy it was, there wasn't any difficulty options in the demo but hopefully the full game has a hard mode. It's also completely awesome that almost all the voice actors from the amazing Batman TAS have returned to reprise their roles. I say almost because for some reason they got someone else to do Commissioner Gordon and he sounds pretty awful.

I played on the PC as well and if I agreed with Sinatar more, I'd steal his identity. I will say that Commissioner Gordon seems fine to me, but I don't have a strong memory of his voice in the cartoon.

Definitely a cool game with very slick presentation and style. A little worried that we're seeing a strong demo with a potentially repetitive full game (ala Star Wars: Force Unleashed) but all in all very promising. I'll be renting this day one.

Rat Boy wrote:

Just so you know: the demo's now available for the PS3.

Just played the demo. Not terribly impressed. It reminds me too much of a traditional beat em up (what they always do with superhero games). I don't see him doing anything particularly "Batman-y". I'll play Force Unleashed before this.

Sinatar wrote:

stuff


But is it like Bioshock?
Thats clearly what we're all hinging out opinions on.

I am disappointed that they weren't able to improve their cinematics/cinematic animation. The excellent voice acting just feels awkward on those poorly animated characters. Other than that, it looks like the game has been continually refined. The UI, controls and audio are top notch.

Don't let the demo fool you, the game has a lot of depth. Skill unlocks, 40 hit combos and great boss fights are just a few things to look forward to.

Yea I'm not going to judge the depth of the game based purely on the demo as it seems to basically be the tutorial for the game, which you'd expect to be easy.

Man I just checked the IMDB page for this game and they literally got every single actor from the show except for Gordon. Ron Perlman, Clancy Brown, David Warner, everyone. Then again Bob Hastings (the original voice of Gordon) is 84 now, so he's either retired or in no condition to do the role. Still, too bad.

I enjoyed the hell out of that demo.

d3p0 wrote:

I am disappointed that they weren't able to improve their cinematics/cinematic animation. The excellent voice acting just feels awkward on those poorly animated characters.

This is honestly the only complaint I have. The animations are so unnatural. It's like their elbows are locked in an outward position. I also noticed some lip-syncing issues and I'm not fond of the facial expressions either.

Other than that, I am impressed. Hopefully the full game will be just as fun. I was able to pull off a Max Combo during the second wave of henchmen. It felt very rewarding.

CRAP. PC demo won't run for me

Just getting it freezing the PC at the intro video. It *did* work when I booted it up to test it earlier (although there was some sort of graphical issue where the polygons were getting all squished up, blocking the screen) Figured it might be my out-dated nvidia drivers...only now I've updated them the damned thing wont run at all.

I'm really going to have to think about getting some new bits for my PC soon I think. Maybe when I grab Windows 7 that'll be a good excuse to get some new hardware too.

Screw it...i'll figure out what's up with the PC demo later. Downloading the demo again on 360 for now.

***

ok played the 360 demo - loved it.

Day 1 purchase for me now (whether that's the ACTUAL day one for the 360 version or whether I'll wait and grab the PC one i'm not sure...I think it might just as well be the 360 version in this case as I doubt there would be a huge difference either way - not on my current PC at least. Have to get the bloody PC version working first though, to compare and contrast, before I'm sure).

Played through the 360 version and I'll echo the comments. It's very, very pretty but there's no real "meat" in the demo. That may have been a conscious decision they made to prevent giving away all the good stuff but I would have liked to be able to see some more of the options that the game offers even if it they just locked all of them. I'm hopeful that they don't end up making every room "perfect" in terms of the stealth options available. If every room has gargoyles that I can use it's not going to be very challenging. Hard to judge the combat system as well because the demo is so short.

I do like how the health bar only recovers once you've cleared a room. That adds a certain level of tension as well as the need to approach things carefully when there are weapons involved.

All that being said I've just pre-ordered the thing on Amazon. It's been a while since I've been able to quote the snickers commercial.

I notice that the trailer that plays at the end looks like it has a whole lot of other scenes from the opening area (with the joker getting wheeled in, etc) so I would guess that the demo is a truncated version of the opening area. Also the 'detective' stuff looks pretty cool too - *hopefully* this is integrated better than it was in, say, Condemned and breaks up the combat nicely.

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It's good to hear the PC version doesn't seem to have portitis, and that the game is playable M&K style. I'll make my decision after I play the demo.

Sinatar wrote:

Man I just checked the IMDB page for this game and they literally got every single actor from the show except for Gordon. Ron Perlman, Clancy Brown, David Warner, everyone. Then again Bob Hastings (the original voice of Gordon) is 84 now, so he's either retired or in no condition to do the role. Still, too bad.

I'll believe them when I hear them, but who's brilliant idea was it to put Ra's in Arkham? Activist Judges, I expect.

I've tried both the PC and PS3 versions of the demo, and they're indistinguishable in terms of gameplay content. Both mouse+keyboard and gamepad seem to be viable control schemes to me.

I had some fun, and I'll probably buy it, but I don't think that the developer put its best foot forward with the demo. An entire game--even a short 5-6 hour one--of nothing beyond what I saw in the demo would get boring fairly quickly. Sounds like there will be more to the full game.

I'm not sure which version I'll pick up, though. Decisions, decisions.

All right, I'm in. The freeflow combat could easily get as repetitive as sword fights in Assassin's Creed, but I enjoyed it. The real fun came in the predator section, picking off the armed guards one by one from above. If the game builds on what I saw for the better, then we'll be asking ourselves, "Who's Christopher Nolan?"

Dammit, why did my system have to die now? Maybe my PC will run it.

Finally got the PC version working to compare them...had to run it with some stuff turned of for it to run well though (my PC's fault in this case not the games). I suspect I'll grab the 360 version now and then maybe trade it in for the PC version once I get my rig updated a bit later in the year.

That said, even running on "Low settings" at 1024x768 it looked pretty damned good.

Can't really see the point in the extra physics stuff though - on Normal, as far as I could tell the only difference was a slightly more fluid cape (which may have been my imagination) and a lot more litter swirling around your feet.

stevenmack wrote:

Can't really see the point in the extra physics stuff though - on Normal, as far as I could tell the only difference was a slightly more fluid cape (which may have been my imagination) and a lot more litter swirling around your feet.

Problem is, they can't do anything more then that, since making it a more prominent feature would require making significant changes compared to the console code, and would limit the PC audience.