Batman: Arkham Origins

[Pauly]

Yeah the fools, wanting the animation to look good. What fucking idiots. Next they'll be saying they want the graphics to be good.

FFS people.

[GONNAFISTYA]

You obviously did not read what I said, Mr.PostTwiceAYearCuntrag.

[Captain]

I got a free Steam download for this with my GTX 770...scared?..

[Eraser]

People who truly get upset about animations piss me off because - without fail - they're the same idiots who'd prefer the animation plays correctly over the gameplay "playing" correctly. And alot of those fools actually work in the games industry and have management positions.

That's a bit of a stretch there sparky. I think pretty animations can add a lot to a game. The animations shown in Arkham Origins are in some cases absolutely abysmal. They detract from the overall gameplay experience. Considering that the gameplay in both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were top notch, I think it's only fair to complain about the quality of the animation in Origins. Besides, the animations in Asylum/City were pretty good. The difference between old and new animations is quite stark to be honest.

As another example, if you look at Rage, while it was slammed for it's gameplay by many people, I seriously enjoyed the game. But one thing that, to this day, really stood out in there was the absolutely phenomenal work done on the animation of the monsters. It really did add something to the quality of the enemies. Made them more lifelike, more impressive. And that does add to the overall experience.

[Mat Linnett]

There's also an argument to be made that in a lot of top-end fighting games or spectacle fighters, animation IS the gameplay.
Animation cancelling has become a feature in games such as the Street Fighter series.
And timing attacks in Platinum games is incredibly reliant on smooth, accurate animation.

[Pauly]

You obviously did not read what I said, Mr.PostTwiceAYearCuntrag.

I always ride what you bicycle.

[DTS]

You obviously did not read what I said, Mr.PostTwiceAYearCuntrag.

I always ride what you bicycle.

There's also an argument to be made that in a lot of top-end fighting games or spectacle fighters, animation IS the gameplay.
Animation cancelling has become a feature in games such as the Street Fighter series.
And timing attacks in Platinum games is incredibly reliant on smooth, accurate animation.

You make a great point.

[GONNAFISTYA]

People who truly get upset about animations piss me off because - without fail - they're the same idiots who'd prefer the animation plays correctly over the gameplay "playing" correctly. And alot of those fools actually work in the games industry and have management positions.

That's a bit of a stretch there sparky. I think pretty animations can add a lot to a game. The animations shown in Arkham Origins are in some cases absolutely abysmal. They detract from the overall gameplay experience. Considering that the gameplay in both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were top notch, I think it's only fair to complain about the quality of the animation in Origins. Besides, the animations in Asylum/City were pretty good. The difference between old and new animations is quite stark to be honest.

As another example, if you look at Rage, while it was slammed for it's gameplay by many people, I seriously enjoyed the game. But one thing that, to this day, really stood out in there was the absolutely phenomenal work done on the animation of the monsters. It really did add something to the quality of the enemies. Made them more lifelike, more impressive. And that does add to the overall experience.

Ok, obviously I'll have to explain what I mean:

A game avatar has several rules it must follow as it moves through the game world. Objects must be within a certain range of size (metrics) to be usable by the avatar for gameplay. This means a crate must be at least a metre high for the avatar to take cover behind it, jump over it, butt-slide over it or use it as a launch pad to reach a higher elevation. The engine does measurements of the environment all the time (with the avatar shooting rays and measuring distances) to figure out how much room the avatar has to move, where obstacles are, etc. In short: the environment must be correct for the avatar to move.

In some studios, it's not the environment that dictates the avatar movement, but the animations...especially with 3rd person games. This focus on the animations is a recent thing in the industry because devs (but mostly marketing teams) want the avatar to look "correct" as it's jumping around. Similar to graphics, smooth, life-like animations are now a "tick box item" that marketing teams put on the packaging as a "next gen feature". In Assassin's Creed, this is one of the most important things the bigwigs at Ubisoft wanted to focus on and they have loads of promotional videos telling their customers how much effort they put into making the animations much nicer. Again, this is simply about marketing focus and has as much to do with gameplay as occlusion culling or bump-mapping, but it can completely change the approach to game design.

And that creates a huge problem with a stark "yes" or "no" answer as it relates to gamer satisfaction and keeping them in "the flow". Even if the environment is setup perfectly for the avatar to move around and jump over that park bench over there, the avatar will NOT move and jump over the park bench if there's no supporting animation. The avatar will most likely bump into the park bench and run on the spot for a time before the gamer gives new movement direction inputs to the avatar. This can cause frustration because the avatar is not doing what the gamer expects it to when things look like they should be climbable. In short: with this approach, the animation must be correct for the avatar to move...the environment doesn't matter. The level designers could have spent loads of time and effort to get the environment usable and within metrics, but if the animation team doesn't do it's job, you get this scenario:


"I PRESSED THE FUCKING BUTTON!!!"





Like I said, some people think the animation is more important than the actual gameplay satisfaction...and that's fucking retarded.

[Don Carlos]

Yeah my copy came yesterday...

[Don Carlos]

http://www.videogamer.com/reviews/batma ... eview.html

Batman: Arkham Origins is a wonderful version of somebody else's game. While a return to the Arkham series is welcome – and if you take only one thing away from this review, it should be that Origins is a worthy entry – there's no denying that Warner Bros. Montreal has taken Rocksteady's tremendous template and crafted a similar experience.

[Plan B]

So that's perfect then.
Isn't that all we wanted? More of the same, more of something we liked the first time around?
Call it a new game or call it a lot of stand alone DLC. What's the difference?

[GONNAFISTYA]

The price.

[losCHUNK]

Youd hope that the content in the game equates to equal or better value for money than if purchased as separate DLC. Unless its horse armour.

[Eraser]

So that's perfect then.
Isn't that all we wanted? More of the same, more of something we liked the first time around?
Call it a new game or call it a lot of stand alone DLC. What's the difference?

It's not the expectation curve though. Arkham City really brought something New after Arkham Asylum. Origins looks like it's more of an Arkham City 2.0, or perhaps even just 1.5. I'd have hoped for the next Arkham game to be just another big leap like the last one.

[GONNAFISTYA]

I'd have hoped for the next Arkham game to be just another big leap like the last one.

How exactly? Besides making a larger city, what would be "another big leap" in your opinion?

I'm not trolling, but geniunely interested.

I thought Arkham Asylum was a fantastic game and actually better than Arkham City because it was more focused, as non-open world games tend to be. I felt Arkham City was a natural progression in terms of game design, but not necessarily an overall better game.

[Eraser]

Well yea, I agree in that I preferred the focus of Asylum as well. Arkham City did give the concept a twist though, and really presented the game in a different way, both aesthetically as well as how the game played. Whether it was an improvement is up for debate and ultimately boils down to preference.

I had hoped for Origins to mix things up again rather than copy the Arkham City template and rearrange its components. I can't give tangible examples of how I'd like to see things mixed up, I'm no creative game design wizard like that. I just think it's telling that Origins looks like a carbon copy of City while City itself really dared to take the game in another direction.

[Don Carlos]

Not bad so far - just more of the same really, which is a good thing given I only managed 1/3 of Arkham City before my save corrupted just after I finished my first play through

[MKJ]

more of the same indeed, but not in a good way IMO.
boasting about how this game is x times bigger than City, but then copy & paste about 80% of the map is just failure.
reskinning riddler trophies is failure. In Asylum, the Riddler left visual riddles, in City he left physical riddles. Surely they couldve thought of something different he could do than just change the color of the buttons to a slightly different green.
crimes in progress? you mean City's political prisoners? k.

underwhelmed so far.

[Don Carlos]

I'm just about to dance with Deadshot...not mega impressed but it's a solid game.

Also it sort of stands that city was going to be the same, so I don't understand the issue with that?

[MKJ]

Not really. Do you know how big Gotham is in the comics?
Also Arkham City takes place in an old part of Gotham converted into a prison. Everything around there is civilian territory.
Arkham isnt built yet in this game so they had plenty to work with. Also seeing how this game takes place a long time ago, they could've at least tried to make it into an earlier version of City instead of just the same map - right down to the locations of trashcans - with working street lights.

[Eraser]

The map of Origins is the same as in City? Seriously?

[MKJ]

And another thing; if they say the map is double the size of City, that loosely implies a new map. If the reality is that it's 80% the same, 40% new (a large chunk of that a featureless bridge) and the rest *sea*.. I can't help feel but gypped.

[GONNAFISTYA]

My only guess at the reasoning for the "limited map" in Origins is probably because Warner was testing out Warner Montreal (and playing it safe) and probably - right from the get-go - wanted Rocksteady Studios to be the lead to expand the franchise and "set the tone" for the other sections of Gotham that will no doubt be opened in future games, supported by other studios such as Warner Montreal.

But that's just a guess.

You can set it anywhere as long as "Batman:" is the first part of the title.

[Eraser]

You can set it anywhere as long as "Batman:" is the first part of the title.

Yeah like

Batman: Big Red One
Batman: Modern Warfare
Batman: World at War
Batman: Black Ops
Batman: Ghost

[GONNAFISTYA]

zacktly