Batman - The Telltale Series Launching Digitally in August, in Stores in September

[Frankster]

Batman's personality varies quite a bit, sometimes he's tough guy on the outside and a big ole' softy on the inside, sometimes he's a paranoid nut, sometimes he's a ruthless soldier, sometimes he's a Vulcan.

And that's just the comics.

True.

This makes me wonder if this how they are going to do it.. Like you'll be able to pick grumpy tough guy responses a la Miller Batman or be more focused yet a gold hearted softie like Animated Series Batman.

 

[SirSullymore]

Batman's personality varies quite a bit, sometimes he's tough guy on the outside and a big ole' softy on the inside, sometimes he's a paranoid nut, sometimes he's a ruthless soldier, sometimes he's a Vulcan.

And that's just the comics.

True.

This makes me wonder if this how they are going to do it.. Like you'll be able to pick grumpy tough guy responses a la Miller Batman or be more focused yet a gold hearted softie like Animated Series Batman.

Yeah, that makes the most sense. Like Batman's not going to fail or die, but alienating his friends and family could be the consequences of our choices.

 

[The Harkinator]

Batman's personality varies quite a bit, sometimes he's tough guy on the outside and a big ole' softy on the inside, sometimes he's a paranoid nut, sometimes he's a ruthless soldier, sometimes he's a Vulcan.

And that's just the comics.

True.

This makes me wonder if this how they are going to do it.. Like you'll be able to pick grumpy tough guy responses a la Miller Batman or be more focused yet a gold hearted softie like Animated Series Batman.

Yeah, that makes the most sense. Like Batman's not going to fail or die, but alienating his friends and family could be the consequences of our choices.

I really hope you're right. Batman Beyond showed a logical endpoint of Batman taking a hardline dedication to the mission above everything else, with him shutting out his friends and allies until he was a complete recluse. I was impressed that they explored the self-destructive side of Batman in an animated series, but that DC animated continuity always did treat it's audience well and deal with intelligent concepts.

Telltale talked up the potential to approach a situation as Bruce Wayne or Batman. Hopefully they'll strike a good balance with the player having to walk the line of Batman being a necessary approach sometimes, but where donning the cape and cowl all the time is an unhealthy pursuit.

If done well it should create a more engaging experience than some of Telltale's more recent offerings. I just finished The Walking Dead Michonne and didn't enjoy it very much, a big part of that was because I never felt like the choices I made were particularly risky or shaped Michonne as a character, whose just a bit too established (and guaranteed to survive canonically) to make my choices seem like they matter.

Batman and the characters in his universe have enough different versions of themselves and malleability that choices in the game involving them should feel impactful. I reckon they'll get a good idea of conveying that the characters probably won't be the same by the end of the game depending on your choices.

It would be nice if episodes could get back closer to a couple of hours length, it's been getting a bit streamlined to the point I'm clearing episodes in just over an hour. Much of that time could be made up of exploring the various environments and interacting with characters in downtime. Both are ways of storytelling without too much exposition, and have been showing up less in games. I'd like the characters to have a chance to develop.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Yeah, you must really hate those completely non-interactive comic books he originated from?how dare they

Not sure why you'd make that comparison. Comic books follow a different set of rules to video games.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

...Says you.

And literally a lot of people who literally left bad reviews of Telltale games.

And if Batman is all about investigation, why make it a linear interactive novel? Why not make it a hidden object game?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Again... Says you. A statement specific solely to you. No one else is saying this. Just you.

You are effectively stating that a Batman comic has the same level of intractability as Batman: Arkham City. I was not aware that printed comic books featured controller support.

You've evidently never played a Telltale title.

As a matter of fact, I have played some of Telltale's games; Walking Dead 1 and 2 fyi. I was intrigued by the promise that your choices affected the outcome of the story. They don't. Not in the slightest. No matter your choice, one person is scripted to die at certain points in the game, nothing can change that.

They've already proven how they can get the gameplay to work, so I don't need to spoonfeed this information to you, you can research it yourself.

I said the gameplay was lazy, not that it didn't work.

And regardless of however many possible endings the game may or may not have, there is literally no issue in the Batman Telltale game being a linear story based game. Considering that there's no basis for the claim that comics, movies and games need to follow different sets of rules, then it's entirely acceptable for the game to feature a linear in the story, similar to the countless other Batman comic books, games and movies which you are neglecting to whine about.

Different mediums have different rules. Movies and television have to be linear with a predetermined outcome. Books and comics can, through the 'choose your own adventure' style dictate how the story unfolds. Computer games can be either.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

But again, NO ONE is saying that Telltale aren't allowed to create this game because of some ridiculous rules. That's literally something that ONLY you personally are stating.

I never said they aren't allowed, I said they shouldn't. And while not every Batman game should be like Arkham, in the very long line of Batman games, it is the most successful and the best received. Why mess with a winning formula?

 

[Areloch]

Anyone else hoping that Telltale have figured out how to actually animate characters and do lip syncing and stuff? Because I gotta say, if you're going for a character-driven storytelling experience, making it possible for them to emote more than plank from Ed, Edd and Eddy is kinda helpful.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Because Telltale games are also a winning formula.

Besides, the quality of a game is HEAVILY dependent on the company developing them. Rocksteady and Telltale are two extremely different companies who both excel in two extremely different genres of games. Not to mention that Rocksteady have a much higher budget and team size for their games, while Telltale have a smaller budget and team sizes split across developing various titles.

This is essentially a complete case of you being closed minded when looking at the game. You enjoyed Arkham, so now you've created a fictitious set of rules that you think ALL Batman games should follow for no decent reason.

It is a Telltale game. That means a few things;

1- The "whenever we want" release schedule.
2- A good story.
3- Meaningless choices.
4- Interesting characters.
5- Given recent history (re: Game of Thrones), a less than stable game.

You want a decent reason? How's this; Batman is an action hero.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Again... Says you.

He's a comic book hero.*

He's definitely not an *action* hero. He's the world's greatest detective. Have you watched The Dark Knight or BvS? Action scenes were relatively sparce in those movies, especially when compared to movies like Civil War. Even in a lot of the comics, the action is there, but plot usually plays a much bigger role. I can only think of the Batman Animated series as the one medium (outside Arkham games), where the plot is major. And that's because the show was primarily aimed at kids and young teens.

If you're going to make statements about why Batman would not/could not work in a Telltale game, then try showing at least a little understanding of the hero, outside of the Arkham series.

Besides. You still haven't provided a reason as to why quicktime events are lazy in Telltale games, but not in the Arkham games. Even if fight scenes are scripted, quicktime combat is more engaging and fluid than 9/10ths of other combat systems, and for the team sizes of Telltale, they're a lot easier to develop. But I don't see you whining about those. Only in this game in particular.

Batman has been in publication since 1939, since that time, he has beaten up (and even killed) numerous villains and criminals. He is a man of action. The animated series was aimed at kids, so of course it had to be light on violence. With the movies, action sequences are more expensive, dialing it back was a good way to save on costs. They were able to write themselves around the lack of action fairly well. As for BvS, Warner Bros. were (still are) trying to play catch up to Marvel. They had to cram in all that story and exposition because they (seemingly) didn't want to take their time to set everything up properly.

Quicktime in Telltale titles is lazy because it's the only "action" in their interactive novels.

And what's to understand about Batman? Billionaire knows lowly scum are responsible for his parents death, so he beats the crap out of the cities criminal element. So unless the game, sorry, interactive novel shows Bruce reinforcing the cities infrastructure and getting criminals decent paying jobs (instead of beating them in to a medically burdening coma), an action hero like Batman is wasted in a Telltale interactive novel.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

And you definitely shouldn't be assuming your opinions are shared by others.

Read some of the negative posts in the general discussions for this title, on it's Steam page. I am not the only one with this opinion.