Zero Punctuation: Batman: Arkham Knight - Being Rich Is a Super Power

[Barbas]

I can't even watch the bloody episode. If I have ABP on, I get an advert for the Escapist (that still has MovieBob and Jim in it). If I turn it off, I get that advert and one for Batman DLC. No episode.

Weird. You can try the Tech Team group chat for help or see the video help page for more. I can sympathize; a lot of the new video player content will buffer very slowly compared to the last one and pause every few moments. Hopefully they'll get it under control soon.

 

[Buizel91]

It makes sense that Scarecrow isn't how he was in Asylum tbh, he did get mauled by Croc, apparently under his hood you can see the damage croc has done, hell it looks like his bottom jaw is about to fall off.

His voice in this is absolutely perfect in my opinion and i cant wait to finally play it....

...........

HURRY UP PC VERSION!

 

[maninahat]

"you know what forget I said anything"

Then why bring it up? Perhaps it's because I've never played an Arkham game but that just seemed like a wishy washy point.

Because even he's getting a bit tired of it. A fear years late compared to the rest of us, but hey.

Just a question, an honest question. What games have recently been accused of being sexist to any major degree recently? And my to any major degree I mean more than a couple of youtubers/bloggers/forum commenters. Because I'm drawing a blank. I just have the nagging feeling that despite people still shouting about it, the arguments have gone kinda meta and are about the concept more than any actual solid examples.

Witcher 3.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/

Oddly, haven't seen the same whining about Batman. Kind of odd, isn't it?

People have been positive and negative of both Witcher and Batman. Rock Paper Shotgun, often moaned about because it has an opinion on females in games, actually praised the Witcher for the most part, in that whilst its women were wearing what amounted to boob hammocks, they had considerably better writing than previous outings. You can find negative criticism of Arkham Knight's portrayal of women in The Mary Sue (criticizing both the depiction of women, and their role in the story).

 

[Transdude1996]

OT: Pretty funny, though I was reminded to a certain degree of a recent Critical Miss. Also, the entire city is overrun now? I'm surprised America doesn't just give up on Gotham. I mean they did it in one of the comics didn't they?

I haven't read the comics, but I was wondering the same thing. Since Gotham has become overrun with criminals and all the civies left already, why not just pull an Escape From New York and section off the city, or send in a nuke?

The impression I got from the gameplay when it was originally shown was that Gotham was put into the same position that happened in Dark Knight Rises (City is still inhabited by civies, but is overrun with criminals).

Also what is it with bad Batman writers and thinking that if a game is darker, it is more Batman? Batman is allowed to have unqualified victories you know. This isn't Sin City and he isn't Marv! You can have a perfectly good Batman story without dying a very unnecessary "Oh SO Batman!" style death.

Because he's a vigilante runs around dressed like a bat, so something must be wrong with him. *End sarcasm*

That's the same problem my dad pointed out when watching the Batman films (Excluding Adam West Batman) up to the Nolan trilogy. The films spent so much time psychoanalyzing Batman as if he's a guy about to go over the edge and how he's a worse person for Gotham than any of the villains he faces are.

 

[Erttheking]

"you know what forget I said anything"

Then why bring it up? Perhaps it's because I've never played an Arkham game but that just seemed like a wishy washy point.

Because even he's getting a bit tired of it. A fear years late compared to the rest of us, but hey.

Just a question, an honest question. What games have recently been accused of being sexist to any major degree recently? And my to any major degree I mean more than a couple of youtubers/bloggers/forum commenters. Because I'm drawing a blank. I just have the nagging feeling that despite people still shouting about it, the arguments have gone kinda meta and are about the concept more than any actual solid examples.

Witcher 3.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/

Oddly, haven't seen the same whining about Batman. Kind of odd, isn't it?

I said "And to any major degree I mean more than a couple of youtubers/bloggers/forum commenters." I don't consider it a major amount criticism if it's just Anita and her posse. Sorry if I didn't make it that clear.

 

[Erttheking]

OT: Pretty funny, though I was reminded to a certain degree of a recent Critical Miss. Also, the entire city is overrun now? I'm surprised America doesn't just give up on Gotham. I mean they did it in one of the comics didn't they?

I haven't read the comics, but I was wondering the same thing. Since Gotham has become overrun with criminals and all the civies left already, why not just pull an Escape From New York and section off the city, or send in a nuke?

The impression I got from the gameplay when it was originally shown was that Gotham was put into the same position that happened in Dark Knight Rises (City is still inhabited by civies, but is overrun with criminals).

The sad thing is, with all the shit that goes down in that city, you could nuke it while it was still inhabited and I get the feeling the death toll would be brought down in the long run.

 

[TheBigOne0305]

"you know what forget I said anything"

Then why bring it up? Perhaps it's because I've never played an Arkham game but that just seemed like a wishy washy point.

Because even he's getting a bit tired of it. A fear years late compared to the rest of us, but hey.

Just a question, an honest question. What games have recently been accused of being sexist to any major degree recently? And my to any major degree I mean more than a couple of youtubers/bloggers/forum commenters. Because I'm drawing a blank. I just have the nagging feeling that despite people still shouting about it, the arguments have gone kinda meta and are about the concept more than any actual solid examples.

Witcher 3.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/05/31/why-feminist-frequency-is-dead-wrong-about-the-witcher-3/

Oddly, haven't seen the same whining about Batman. Kind of odd, isn't it?

Kotaku did it: https://archive.is/w2idQ (spoilers inside!)
And the writer (I refuse to call this journalism) didn't even finish the game before complaining about a story arc he didn't even see the end of (including some twists apparently).
KiA discussion on the piece (including a list of all the errors/false assumptions the writer made): http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3bnf5p/spoilers_in_link_kotaku_writer_jumps_the_gun_to/

 

[Erttheking]

Just a question, an honest question. What games have recently been accused of being sexist to any major degree recently? And my to any major degree I mean more than a couple of youtubers/bloggers/forum commenters. Because I'm drawing a blank. I just have the nagging feeling that despite people still shouting about it, the arguments have gone kinda meta and are about the concept more than any actual solid examples.

From recent memory?

The witcher 3

Hotline Miami 2

Smash Bros for Wii U (Yes, people are still going on about this one, really)

And there's people trying to stirr controversy about Mother Russia Bleeds before it's even released

Other than that I think that's it, for some reason the narrative is once again changing to violence in video games.

Edit: Cleaned a little bit.

Hm. Doesn't really seem like that much. The only one I can really remember is the Hotline Miami 2 backlash (And having played the game, it really does feel like the rape was there for the sake of being there, so I have a hard time blaming the people who lashed out against it. The devs said it was crucial to the characters...well that was a goddamn lie. The character in question had two missions then died with me barely knowing anything about him.) I haven't seen much of a backlash against the Witcher 3 and the only thing I can think of for Smash Bros is those FUCKING STUPID shoes they gave Samus (Even if you don't want to call it sexist can we at least agree it completely clashes with her design?). Hell if anything I remember there actually being a backlash for smash bros being the other way around, people complaining "Might as well call it smash sisters"...when the gender ratio was still in the favor of men. And I've never heard of Mother Russia Bleeds before now.

As for violence, I think gamers can universally agree that there's nothing really wrong with violence, though some people can misuse it in an attempt to be edgy (Hello Hatred...come to think of it I think hatred is the only example of this. And frankly the sooner people forgets that Hatred exists the better.)

 

[Silvershock]

I can't even watch the bloody episode. If I have ABP on, I get an advert for the Escapist (that still has MovieBob and Jim in it). If I turn it off, I get that advert and one for Batman DLC. No episode.

Weird. You can try the Tech Team group chat for help or see the video help page for more. I can sympathize; a lot of the new video player content will buffer very slowly compared to the last one and pause every few moments. Hopefully they'll get it under control soon.

Actually it runs rather nicely for me, especially on Linux. For those of us in FOSSland, it's a welcome upgrade. It's rather a pity that the adverts have started blocking content, but I think priorities on this site are becoming pretty clear.

 

[Barbas]

I can't even watch the bloody episode. If I have ABP on, I get an advert for the Escapist (that still has MovieBob and Jim in it). If I turn it off, I get that advert and one for Batman DLC. No episode.

Weird. You can try the Tech Team group chat for help or see the video help page for more. I can sympathize; a lot of the new video player content will buffer very slowly compared to the last one and pause every few moments. Hopefully they'll get it under control soon.

Actually it runs rather nicely for me, especially on Linux. For those of us in FOSSland, it's a welcome upgrade. It's rather a pity that the adverts have started blocking content, but I think priorities on this site are becoming pretty clear.

That's a rule that I get the feeling the staff don't like much, since it's caused contention and it annoys a lot of people to get warnings for something that appears pretty innocuous. Still, it's ads that earn the site the money to keep running. The rule can't really stop people, but I think it's an attempt to stop a leak from spreading. A larger annoyance for the tech team is in trying to get advertisers not to put dodgy stuff in their ads, use those annoying expanding ads or trackers, or use ones that, as was the case here, have some sort of weird compatibility issue with the video player and stop everything from working. I'll drop them a line and I'm sure they'll get it sorted out before long. If it occurs again, take a screenshot and post it in the tech team chat for 'em.

OT: Uh...this was plugging ZP's game pretty hard; the snippet at the end seemed superfluous.

 

[Logience]

For Christ's sake, what is the Escapist paying Yahtzee that they had to fire literally everyone else? And whose idea was this mobile phone app? Nobody plays video games on phones besides complete idiots.

 

[cleric of the order]

Just a question, an honest question. What games have recently been accused of being sexist to any major degree recently? And my to any major degree I mean more than a couple of youtubers/bloggers/forum commenters. Because I'm drawing a blank. I just have the nagging feeling that despite people still shouting about it, the arguments have gone kinda meta and are about the concept more than any actual solid examples.

Im sure of that old assassin's creed one but I'm not the best to ask all that controversy blends into the background.
Maybe if you count gta 5.
But then again, there are very few parts of the games media that might as well have been bloggers, that's why I don't tend to listen to it.
There's steam reviews for a reason, also I just don't tend to over lap with people that give a shit about sociology.

 

[RJ 17]

To be fair with regards to the story: Scarecrow's plan isn't to gas an abandoned Gotham (which is only mostly abandoned...you can clearly see the rest of the city beyond the borders of the three islands you get to play around on), but rather to gas the entire eastern sea board.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

This needed more plugs for Hatfall, I had to find out about it via word of mouth.

 

[Logience]

Okay, did someone just report Silvershock for saying advertisements are annoying? WTF.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

Okay, did someone just report Silvershock for saying advertisements are annoying? WTF.

No, Silvershock was reported for mentioning a program for the blocking of ads, specifically that they were using it.

 

[jamail77]

And yes, Scarecrow was ruined in Knight for reasons that completely escape me, when they nailed him so perfectly in Asylum.

Eh. His voice nails his new role and he is still very much Scarecrow, scarier sometimes even.

Pretty much how I feel about it. Scarecrow segments in Asylum were excellent. But very brief.

But in hindsight, Scarecrow himself was closer to a jibbering circus sideshow annoyance than a capable supervillain. Much closer to 'camp' than 'menacing'. He giggled, he cackled, his over exaggerated mannerisms made his brief appearances quite entertaining. He sure 'acted'.


But personally, I don't think that kind of behavior would have made him an effective villain. Scarecrow as he is in Arkham Knight is actually menacing and genuinely scary. His personality in Knight, coupled with his plans, work incredibly well. And given the gallery of villains that exist in Knight, he fits in very well among them.

OT: This ZP episode leaves a lot out for the sake of the story. Which is understandable, since speaking from the basis of narrative, I found this to be the strongest Arkham game to date. The game has it's problems, but I found the story to be addicting from almost the beginning, all the way to the very end.

Not that I don't have my gripes with it (Seriously, the fucking tank wars), but I think Rocksteady did their finest job with this game's story.

Now, Rocksteady, how about that Superman game?

Exactly. He was too camp before but now Casual Shinji he's too unmemorable. Those either contradict or you have a serious nostalgic kick for the original voice and role, which is fine frankly.

I would love a Superman game from Rocksteady honestly. Probably would improve his character too.

 

[leahy5]

Okay, did someone just report Silvershock for saying advertisements are annoying? WTF.

No, Silvershock was reported for mentioning a program for the blocking of ads, specifically that they were using it.

I'm not sure I understand though. He wasn't recommending that anyone else use it.
He was saying that whether he had it turned on or off he still couldn't play the video.
He wasn't saying that anyone should use it or that he even wants to use it on this site.

I would be in the same boat had I not figured out that I could right click on the immense black square that appears where the video should initially be and then press play, though he seems to be having a different issue.

Why would someone report him for explaining the issue he's having with the video player?

It seems odd to me that The Escapist still hasn't got their video player working 100% smoothly at this point.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

Okay, did someone just report Silvershock for saying advertisements are annoying? WTF.

No, Silvershock was reported for mentioning a program for the blocking of ads, specifically that they were using it.

I'm not sure I understand though. He wasn't recommending that anyone else use it.
He was saying that whether he had it turned on or off he still couldn't play the video.
He wasn't saying that anyone should use it or that he even wants to use it on this site.

I would be in the same boat had I not figured out that I could right click on the immense black square that appears where the video should initially be and then press play, though he seems to be having a different issue.

Why would someone report him for explaining the issue he's having with the video player?

It seems odd to me that The Escapist still hasn't got their video player working 100% smoothly at this point.

Ok, I'm going to explain this a second time.

The Escapist, in its Code of Conduct, has the following rule:

"Ad Blockers - Do not link to, advocate, or admit to using ad blockers."

Silvershock did the last one by saying "If I have ABP on, I get an advert for the Escapist (that still has MovieBob and Jim in it)."

Thus, they were reported.