These two Batman games felt especially egregious to me. I cannot stand the presentation - the character designs, animations and cutscenes all just hit the sour spot. Apparently this is an outrageous opinion or something.

I wish we could have had sprites. The "animated" costumes and designs for the characters looked better than the ones used in the games.

I enjoyed these two games more than anything else in the Batman franchise. Except maybe that scene where Batman can't get rid of that bomb.

Seriously, though, I really enjoyed it, even though it seems to be based on the comics and retains elements that feel really dated.

I thought they were pretty fun. Combat was pretty dumb, but hey.

I'm not saying anything about these games; I haven't played either of them. I'm talking specifically about the weird marionette-quality of video game cut-scenes when things, especially clothing, are rigid and don't react with the environment. I haven't played a game like this in so long that seeing it again is pretty profound (and totally unappealing).

I really liked the combat, but I played through the whole game twice thinking it was crap. But then I played the DLC and it didn't have an "easy" setting and I kept getting killed. That's the only reason I actually got into the combat, I had to play the game on the medium difficulty setting.

If you're not stringing together really long combos, slowing down time, and breaking people's weapons, you're missing out. Every strike should be a calculated, deliberate move and you should be keeping a rhythm, not button mashing. You should be spending the majority of your time in the flow and typically only popping out of it when you want to. I don't say that lightly, either. This is the only game I've ever played on anything but the easiest setting (except maybe Max Payne). It's pretty easy once you figure out that the amount of time you have to make the next strike is a lot longer than you'd think.

Of course, if you've been playing it correctly you're perfectly entitled to your opinion but if you don't know what I'm talking about, play Arkham Asylum or Arkham City (preferably Arkham City, because there's a large crowd right in front of the courthouse) this weekend and bump the difficulty up to where you start getting your ass kicked by large crowds. It will be a very different game from the one you played before.

The two games are more Batman to me than the 60's TV show or the Burton/Schumacher/Nolan movies. My anticipation over "Arkham: Origins" has given me a perpetual nerd-boner that I need to seek immediate medical attention for.

I don't know of any good superhero games besides this one, and Arkham Asylum. Everything else I've played has been rated on good for a licensed game. Maybe I'm too big a comic nerd to depreciate the presentation and story and gameplay, but I was thoroughly impressed with this on pretty much all levels. I admit, I was hoping that they would have a TAS mode since they had all those character models, but besides that and some vehicle mode, I really don't know what they could have done to make it better. I'm not expecting Origins to live up to, or surpass this by any measure, but Rocksteady will have theirs out next year anyway.

it has to be photorealistic to be a real narritive? I view video games as more to cartoons, rather than puppet shows.

The one thing that always bothered me about these death scenes was the lack of realism. The human body undergoes a pretty complicated chemical process upon brain-death, and for some reason the graphic design teams never focus on incorporating realistic muscle spasms, cyanosis, or full bowel-release.
Get back to me when this medium becomes less uncanny.

The only thing I don't get is why Batman keeps calling her stupid. How is she stupid? She's the only character in the games that consistently succeeds in her schemes, largely because she's the only one that's ever tried not challenging Batman to a fist fight.

If she's stupid, why are you at the bottom of an elevator shaft while Joker takes over the island? Why are you staring at an empty safe, Batman? Apparently when Batman can't use his fists, he resorts to being really dismissive and saying hurtful things about villains behind their backs to Oracle on an encrypted channel.

Check your privilege, Bats!

I guess Batman is a lot like... you and me.

She's loud, boisterous, and annoying. Completely subservient and devoted to a homicidal madman. Always acts surprised when Batman finds an air vent or a fragile wall out of her traps. It's easy to see her as brain damaged.

But people forget that she was once a licensed psychiatrist.

JESUS FUCK, THIS is her in New 52!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harley_Quinn_(The_New_52).jp g

Oh what the hell, so Harley Quinn is now a Suicide Girl or something

Like I said, better in every iteration.

My dream is to see Harley form a duo with Lobo. I don't have any stories written, or even a reason for why they'd team up, but just have Harley in some fishnets and Lobo with a nuclear-missile tipped katana or something and I'll be happy.

You should see what they've done to Lobo.

"... the only death he seems to be sad about is Joker's."

I'd make a comment about the homoerotic subtext in Batman, but I think it goes without saying at this point.

http://superdickery.com/images/stories/oneshot/batman02.jpg

That Bruce's rage at his closeted bisexuality will be even worse?

Batman's killed a bunch, actually. At this point, there are so many variations of "Batman finally gets sick of the Joker's shit and kills him or purposefully lets him die" that it feels like there's more instances of that story than any alternative.