Tag Archives: Batman

IDL NEWS – E3 Recovery

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So with E3 2015 over and done, it’s time to sit back, relax, and dissect all the news. What happened? What’s coming out? Aside from all the notable news, what about the notable omissions from the show? Keep an eye on the E3 page, as I’ll still be posting opinions and thoughts there. At least until PAX Prime 2015 and Gamescon in September.

So, onward and upwards unto the news, as it never slows down.

Red Dead Redemption Leads Xbox Backwards Compatibility
Hot off the news that come holiday season, Xbox One will support Xbox 360 backwards compatibility, Xbox.com currently has a vote for the most requested games to be ported first:

https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/298503-backwards-compatibility

Currently Red Dead Redemption tops the list, followed by Call of Dutys, Skyrim, Halo Reach and Gears of War 3.

Evolve’s Second Season Pass
Evolve is getting a second season pass, titled Hunting Pass 2, will be available June 23. The latest pass will introduce four new hunters and new monster, and some exclusive skins.

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Batman Arkham Knight Day One Patch
The release game will be a whopping 45GB install and the day one patch size has been revealed to be an additional 3.5GB. By the time the 1TB PS4 and Xbox One consoles hit the market it’ll already be too late. 2TB will be needed.

Arkham-Knight

Tales From The Borderlands: Ep 3 – Catch a Ride
TellTale Games has announced that episode 3 of Tales from the Borderlands, titled Catch a Ride will be released this week on its respected platforms. Means I should get on that Ep 2.

GameStop Retro
GameStop will be increasing its product lineup to include more used copies of retro games and refurbished game consoles. This will include more NES, N64, SNES, Sega Dreamcast, PS1, and Sega Genesis games.

Batman Arkham Knight

‘Nuff Said.

Looking ahead, I’ll be posting some more E3 stuff regarding Rise of the Tomb Raider and Dues Ex (among others) as these are two of the games I am looking forward to the most.

I recently started playing the indie hit BADLAND, and I’ll be posting some impressions of that soon.

What doesn't kill us, definitely reduces our numbers.

What doesn’t kill us, definitely reduces our numbers.

I’m still playing through The Crew and Splinter Cell The Blacklist. So, new games tomorrow, and then more news and further impressions on Crew, SplinterCell, and Badland to round off the week.

It’s summer . . . go outside!

-iRogan

Everything is Teetering on the Edge of Everything

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Where have you been all my life?

This weekend, you may have noticed a short story, written from the perspective of the main character in Sniper Elite III (me) and my Co-op buddy in life, Illestrader. It was fun to write, but factually disproved as apparently snipers don’t hold their breath between shots. Who knew. I’m over it though. This example of a short story is something that I’ve wanted to do, and will continue to do, as it was a lot of fun to write. I’ve played plenty of games, single player and co-op, that can lend themselves to this hybrid personal-reflection/still-in-a-game format, so keep an eye out for more. Weekly or monthly, who knows.

Last week I mentioned an idea about some achievement hunting segments. Still working on the logistics, but I think it it’ll focus around a weekly segment towards a solitary achievement challenge, and my progress towards it. Maybe aiming for a specific achievement that week, or a gamerscore amount. New challenges every week. We’ll see.

Last week, in review: I spoke more about Cities: Skylines, the new games of the week, current games I’m playing, a Review for Never Alone, and a short story. I also discussed the purchase of an external HDD for my Xbox One to allow more games to be installed (this I will talk about today). And of course, the daily news. This week I expect more of the same.

As mentioned, I purchased an external HDD for my Xbox One. a Western Digital 3TB USB3 drive. Setup was extremely simple as it’s fully supported, and I transferred all the games off of the internal drive over to the external, hopefully relieving some of the stress to improve overall console performance. Including the Telltale Games Collection, I now have 44 games installed, with 2.3TB remaining, so this drive will keep me going for a while. The games load just fine, and I have yet to experience any problems playing a game off the hard-drive. As a result, I’ve also had the opportunity to try out some of the games I’ve been sitting on, due to space shortages. I’ve started playing Grand Theft Auto V and Far Cry 4. I’ll discuss those more in detail on Wednesday for the What I’m Playing segment.

I’m also continuing to optimize the site as I get used to WordPress. One section is the page functionality. A page I’ll be adding soon, is my screenshots page. I already have quite the collection of Forza Horizons 1 and 2 photos. Coming soon is Far Cry 4, and shortly after, Shadow of Mordor photos. Xbox One has a screen shot functionality, but currently no way of exporting them. But soon, I’ll be able to flesh out this idea further.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the new games, Wednesday we’ll discuss what I’m playing in more detail (Tales from the Borderlands ❤ *wink*), Thursday I’ll have a review for #IDARB, and then we’ll talk about the week in review, and the joyful weekend.

Executive Vice Janitor

Executive Vice Janitor

But, I have some news to catch up on, so on-wards.

Oldies first:

Star Wars: Battlefront News and Views

EA has confirmed that the highly anticipated Star Wars: Battlefront will be shown off next month, between April 16th and 19th.

Remastered Wake?

Microsoft may be looking to release a remastered version of Alan Wake on the Xbox One. I really enjoyed the 360 version, but neglected to play any of the DLC, so if this pack includes it (which I’m sure it will) might be worth playing through again. We’ll have to see what the offer includes.

Hideo Kojima Leaving Konami 😥

Late last week, news starting breaking that Hideo Kojima was planning to leave Konami after Metal Gear Solid V was completed. Unfortunately not a lot of information was released besides the fact that Kojima confirmed that MGS V will be complete come September, and that this will be the last MGS game in the Snake story ark. Konami indicated that there will be more Metal Gear games in the future without Kojima’s involvement, and Metal gear Reveangence 2 was hinted. This is upsetting to me. I’ve always been a fan of Kojima and his MGS games. They are not, and will not be the same without him.

Kojima offered a few words, saying, “I am 100% involved and will continue working on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; I’m determined to make it the greatest game I’ve directed to date.” – Somewhat reassuring.

Konami has begun hiring developer to start work on a brand new Metal Gear series. No news on the Silent Hill game. Less reassuring.

Physical Wolfenstein

Back on March 4th, it was announced that a digital stand-alone sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order was being released this May, titled The Old Blood. It has since been reiterated that a physical edition will be available on PS4 and PC, but will remain “digital only” on the Xbox One.

God of War 3 Remastered

One of the best looking games to be released on the PS3 is being re-released on the PS4 with the HD treatment and other improvements. Its a shame that it’s not a remastered trilogy. Maybe they couldn’t do it for technical reasons. Who knows. God of War III already looked beyond good when originally released, it’ll be interesting to see a comparison.

Batman and Arkham Knight News

Two playable DLC packs have been announced for Batman: Arkham Knight, Rocksteady’s epic conclusion to the Arkham trilogy. Red Hood has been announced as a playable character, likely for the challenge mode, and now Harley Quinn has been announced as the second DLC pack, which includes stand-alone story.

“With this exclusive Story Pack experience events in the lead-up to Arkham Knight as you infiltrate Blüdhaven to rescue your partner in crime: Poison Ivy. Delve deep into Harley’s demented nature and utilize her devastating baseball bat to smash, crash and bash your way to a friend very much in need.”

Also announced was that Arkham Knight has received a slight delay. The game is now scheduled for release on June 23rd.

How Dare You Make The Bat Wait

How Dare You Make The Bat Wait

In other remastered news (enough already), Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are reportedly being remastered for the Xbox One and PS4.

Raven Software Tweet/Teases More Singularity

Singularity came out in 2010 and dealt with time travel, as one of the abilities of the player was to rewind the effect of time on objects. Neat concept and a really cool game to play. Raven Software has hinted that maybe they’re making a sequel, or is this another remastered edition?

The tweet reads “We’re going back,” followed by the hashtag #Katorga12 — a reference to the Russian island that served as the setting of Singularity.

Phew, lots of news to get caught up on.

See you tomorrow.

-iRogan

Day 1 – iReview: Batman Arkham Origins

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After deciding to review 12 games before Christmas, I started listing off the games I actually played this year, and then narrowing it down to 12 worth mentioning. Do I start off with a negative review or a positive review? How do I pace these out.

Sooner or later I decided on Batman: Arkham Origins, which actually came out last year, but it’s the freshest game on my mind, as I’ve just wrapped it up. Plus it’s Christmas themed, coincidentally.

You should've known trying to kill me was a waste of your time.

You should’ve known trying to kill me was a waste of your time.

Batman Arkham Origin is a unique beast of a game. It’s part of a very successful and well-reviewed Arkham universe but it’s also more of an origin story. Warner Bros has a lot of expectations riding on this title. Warner Bros is the publisher and they handed the reins to their internal team while Rocksteady is hard at work on their next gen Batman sequel. Origin is built off what Rocksteady had already established, and using the engine and gameplay that’s already been perfected.

The story is Christmas Eve, Batman intervenes during a jailbreak led by Black Mask and we learn that Black Mask has hired a group of 8 assassins to compete for a $50 million bounty. That bounty is Batman’s head. Killer Croc is our first assassin, who actually spills the beans.

Continuing along the Black Mask trail, next up is Deathstroke and Electrocutioner.

As we start investigating more into Black Mask, it turns out to be Joker, who has captured Black Mask and assumed his identity and initiated this bounty. We’re introduced to and quickly dispose of Copperhead.

At this point the Joker is getting quite upset with his useless assassins, kills Electrocutioner and disbands the rest. Save for Bane. Knowing Batman will track down Joker in the near future, he decides to wait patiently.

The remaining assassins take it upon themselves to wreak havoc around the city. Firefly trying to blow up the bridge is really the only one of note. Shiva and Deadshot and Anarchy relegated to side missions and quests.

In the finale, we fight Bane. At this point we discover Joker’s devious plan. Bane is wired up to heart monitors, and Joker is sitting in an electric chair. Either we choose to kill Bane, or let him work on us enough that his heart rate monitor activates the electric chair, killing Joker. Will Batman make the sacrifice and kill someone?

The gameplay is identical to the previous games, the Batclaw and Batarang, all the Bat-tools return. The combat is near identical as well, if but a little dumbed down for the counter attacks, and limiting in the animations. I seem to recall the ability to counter gun wielding and shield wielding enemies in awesome ways, in Arkham City.

The grappling hook traversal also seems more constrained this time around, with less attainable buildings and fewer objects to swing to. Otherwise the city is very pretty, less dense, and the Christmas Eve theme is very pleasant, with the music and snowfall.

Technically the game is sound. The city’s vistas are stark and gloomy, in all the way’s Gotham is known for. Batman wears a very similar suit, with some additional padding. His suit does have an origin feel, bulkier, probably more cumbersome. But does it protect us against dogs?

Graphically the game is very good looking, utilizing the Unreal 3 engine to its full potential, on aging hardware. Again, it feels like Rocksteady handed over all the assets from Arkham City and told the team at Warner Bros to just add some polish and snow. Now into their 3rd generation, the Arkham titles have continued to outdo their predecessors. That being said, in my case, I was constantly on the look-out for Riddler (Enigma this time around) packages, and upcoming brawlers, so the majority of the game gets viewed through the detective vision, which is a shame. I am appreciative that certain sequences force you out of the detective view so that the game world can be appreciated.

I did come across a few clipping issues, and holes in the game world. I walked through a door at one point, three-quarters through the campaign. When crossing the threshold, the floor didn’t load and I fell through into the abyss. Normally not a huge issue, but in this case, it also instigated a checkpoint save. Attempting a restart from the last save point would spawn me under the world, only to fall endlessly or float around. Not to be deterred, I continually kept trying to reload the save, restart my Xbox, etcetera, until finally after about 10 minutes of futility, all of a sudden everything worked fine. Crisis averted.

I came upon a 2nd instance as well, in the final battle with Bane. He punched me clear across the room, clipping through the wall and game world, to find myself in the darkness once again. Good thing Batman prefers the night.

Granted, the feat itself was impressive and I applauded Bane, but I feared another checkpoint glitch happening, potentially ruining any chance of actually completing the campaign. Luckily my fears were unwarranted and I was able to continue the fight as normal.

Clipping aside, my only real complaint about the game was the story itself. It had its highs with the relationships between Batman and Alfred, where we see Batman’s eagerness to fix Gotham’s problems, his willingness to sacrifice everything, and Alfred’s hesitation and concerns for Bruce Wayne. He’d plead throughout the night for Bruce to come home, and let the GCPD do its job. Additionally, the conflicting relationship between Gotham’s Dark Knight and Captain James Gordon is unique to the series. It shows Gordon’s fears and lack of trust in this unwanted hero in his city.

The lows were in the whole assassins’ concept. Touted as this one long night where Batman would have 8 master assassins all fighting for a 50 million bounty and the seemingly impossible task of Batman surviving this evening soon becomes a non-issue. Luckily each boss fight in itself was unique, and a blast to play. Nevertheless, what is supposed to be 8 assassins turn out to be 5 during the campaign: Croc, Deathstroke, Copperhead, Firefly, and Bane. Electrocutioner is a non-fight, and the other baddies, Shiva, and Deadshot are relegated to side quests, along with some other additions, in Anarchy, Penguin, and Mad-Hatter.

It's not what I'm doing... It's what I've done.

It’s not what I’m doing… It’s what I’ve done.

For a lofty concept of 8 assassins vying for one prize, I was hoping for a little more anarchy in the city. More spontaneous clashes! Or even some team work among the assassins or internal conflict. Instead, other than the initial fight with Croc, Batman is actually the one tracking down the assassins. Comparatively, the epic trailer showcasing Batman and Deathstroke’s fight only lead to in-game disappointment when the advertised battle couldn’t match expectation. It was early in the campaign, and wasn’t even multi-tiered.

Overall, the game is a nice addition to the Arkham series, provided that it’s a placeholder while you wait for Rocksteady to complete the trilogy they started. The addition of more investigative case files, and playing Detective Batman was fun, but the disappointing realization that The Joker is, again, instigator of all headaches, was disheartening.

For gamers who like Batman, bats, fluid combat combos, and more Batman.

Also, unmentioned was the multiplayer element. This was intentional. I didn’t try it.

Notable Achievements:

Point Counter-Point (Defeat Deathstroke without failing a single counter) 10G
Thanks, old friend (Hear everything Alfred has to say) 10G

E3 2014 – Sony Press Conference

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Well, its finally time. The final conference of the night. Hopefully trying to end big, Sony Computer Entertainment’s Press Conference is up.

sonypress

Predictions: Uncharted 4, The Last Guardian (finally), Maybe something from The Order 1886.

Sony opened big with Destiny, revealing The Traveler, stating we’re Earth’s last hope. This game has everything: its big, its a FPS, it’s an RPG, it’s got a MMO style campaign. It’s gonna be huge. Bungie’s new world is going to be a big investment, and it’s obvious that PlayStation is backing them pretty hard.

Andrew House – President and Group CEO of SCE comes out and describes how the PlayStation brand caters to gamers, releasing the best games on the best console. July 17th will be the Destiny Playstation beta, and PS4 owners will get a first-look alpha on Thursday, June 12th, 2014. They also announced an exclusive Destiny White PS4 Bundle on September 9th, 2014 for the full launch of the game.

The Order 1886 is up next, and we get a nice reveal trailer/ gameplay blend. PS4 exclusive. Dark setting with our hero getting attacked by a zombie-like man who transforms into a werewolf. Very cinematic, very dark, very cool setting.

Indy IP up next – Entwined. Shows two very vibrant origami like creatures. Brought to us by the dev Pixel Opus, their first game. You control both characters at once, using both joysticks, in a tunnel-like obstacle based game. Available now on PS4.

SuckerPunch’s Infamous: Second Son announced stand-alone DLC featuring a female lead. Doesn’t require the original copy of the game. Infamous Second Son: First Light. August 2014.

Blazing along with new exclusives, Little Big Planet 3 announced. 4 player co-op with 3 new character: Oddsock, a dog which can jump off walls, Toggle, a fat guy who’s strong enough to push object or weigh them down, but can shrink to fit through tight spaces, and Swoop, a parrot that can fly, and carry other players. November release.

Shuehei Yoshida announced that LBP1 and LBP 2 user created levels will be transferable to LBP 3 which enhanced graphics.

From Software announced Bloodborne, a new gruesome creepy title. Gory fighting, zombie dogs. Coming 2015.

Next up is the big Far Cry 4 gameplay reveal. Ubisoft’s conference gave us the opening introductory sequence, now we get to explore. Location is Kyrat, high in the mountains. Very much a Far Cry game, and it looks gorgeous. much improved engine. You’re fitted with a wingsuit and grappling hook, which allows you to swing over gaps or scale the side of cliffs. You can shoot and drive, hi-jack other cars while driving, and wing-suit out of the vehicle if you happen to plummet off a cliff. Very bright and colourful locale. Looks like there’s 2 player co-op options as well. Second player is introduced and arrives on a little helicopter to pick you up. Definitely new uses for the wildlife and an elephant helps you attack a secured fortress. Tagline “every second is a story” November 2014. Exclusive to the PS4, a friend can join your game even if they don’t own a copy.

Adam Boyes – Publisher and Developer Relations comes out and talks about letters from the fans and what they want:

Zombies: a very fun, colourful trailer is before us showing a zombie outbreak, as a runner with headphones misses all the events behind him, as he slowly turns himself. Very cool. Pretty gross. Dead Island 2. Deep Silver does cool trailers.

Diablo 3 PS4 edition announced, gets bundled with exclusive The Last Of Us enemies and themed dungeon, and exclusive character class.

We get another montage trailer for Battlefield: Hardline, basically summarizing the gameplay heist reveal we got from EA earlier today. Highlights on the zipline and grapple gameplay mechanics.

Fans want exclusives: Disney Infinity 2.0 will have Hulk on Playstation. Destiny will have lots of PlayStation exclusive maps and guns.

Jumping into more from the indy developer section of the conference. Paradox Interactive announces Magicka 2 – Learn to Spell, again. Should probably learn to spell magic first. Tim Schafer and Double Fine remastering Grim Fandango, exclusive to PS4 and Vita. Devolver announced some indy games coming exclusively to PlayStation console: Broforce, Not a Hero, Hotline Miami 2, Titan Souls, The TALOS Principal, and others. Journey’s dev, Giant Squid announced their new game too: an underwater setting with a scuba guy: ABZU. Looks incredible.

Last but not least from the indies – No Man’s Sky from Hello Games, an infinite space and planet procedure game. Every player starts on their own unique plants. Vast and boundless. Planets have wildlife, and water habitats, players get an X-Wing to fly around, there’s space ships and dinosaurs, and then you can leave the planet’s atmosphere and there’s space battles, and you can fly right into another generated planet’s atmosphere. Pretty incredible showing from this tiny team. #mind_blown. Colourful and vibrant, no two planets alike.

Hardware time: Sony’s PS Camera solo sales exceed their expectation, announced their VR, Project Morpheus. And then outcome the sales and social numbers. Later this year, utilizing the sharing functionality, PS4 users will be able to publish videos right to Youtube.

A quick sizzle reel is shown advertising all the free to play titles coming to the Playstation consoles, and Vita. 25 titles coming. Truly free to play, doesn’t require PS+.

Playstation Now: open Beta starts July 31st for PS4 in Canada and US. PS3 and Vita shortly after, later to Sony TVs. 100 titles during the beta to test rental duration and pricing.

Sony still showing strong support for Vita, with 100 titles in development, and the ability for remote play a huge selling point, and cross title purchases. Playstation TV, their little peripheral, that allows sharing over 2 TVs, and streaming Playstation Now, remote play, $99.

The conference is getting a little stale at this point. Sony, as a company, is more than just the games, so they have to sell us on their other hardware endeavors, and services. But wrap it up.

We get a gameplay reveal of Mortal Kombat X. Looks great. Sub and Scorpion of course, and two new characters. Not as smooth as the rendered reveal, but looks real good. More brutal x-ray moves, smooth fluid, BRUTAL animations and effects, and new environmental interactions, and weapons.

Back to Sony Services to wrap up the hardware side of the company. Brian Michael Bendis comes out to reveal Powers TV show, 2 seasons green lit. Sony original, only on Playstation. Rachet and Clank the movie, 2015 and a remastering of the original game, for PS4.

Alright, moving on, time to bring out the heavy hitters, Sony, to wrap the show.

Last of Us Remastered, included Left Behind DLC, July 29th, 2014.

Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain trailer. The game looks incredible. The story, as always is confusing and convoluted, and jumps around. Hard to follow, but I’m stoked. Kojima was right a couple weeks ago when he said the trailer was a little hard to watch. There’s some gruesome looking parts. No announce date of course.

Rockstar, an E3 rarity, announced GTA V for PS4 this fall. Online profile will carry over from 360 and PS3. I’m sure this will be available on Xbox 1 too, but Sony got the right to announce it.

Finally closing in on the end of the show now: Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham Knight. Recently delayed, and thank god for that. Extra time is a blessing well deserved to polish this masterpiece. Visuals – incredible. Gameplay with the Batmobile – amazing. Scope of the city – Daunting. Batman’s new suit is ridiculously high-tech. Armored batmobile that goes into a tank-like mode, and can strafe. Batman wrecks this city. Rocksteady said this game would be faster paced, no more climbing through vents, you shoot through vents, and you can launch yourself out of the car, and it’s AI will patrol the city while you fly around. Fast maneuverability is key in this show-case. Next gen only – Playstation gets exclusive Scarecrow nightmare missions. Can’t wait.

Alright, the time has come, what will Sony close the show on?

You guess it, Uncharted 4. Nathan Drake and Sulley, one last time. Back to the jungle, and Drake’s model and face looks damn near real. A very dark and ominous feeling to the trailer, but he’s still wearing that wedding ring. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. 2015.

Sizzle reel to close the show. Thanks for coming everyone. 19 games shown.

No The Last Guardian from Team ICO. There’s always E3 2015.

Thanks for hanging with my today, it’s been tiring.
Stick around for new reviews and previews coming soon.

iRogan signing off.