No spoilers: Arkham City

[trinityvixen]

I am roughly three hours of game play into Batman: Arkham City (which you shouldn't read as me actually getting far, since I'm reeeeally bad at video games), and I have some thoughts.

-I wish I could play as Bruce Wayne. But Bruce Wayne doing Batman-esque things. You get to start the game as Bruce. (This is not a spoiler as it is literally the first thing you see in the game.) Not only does that mean I get to spend time with Kevin Conroy's nuanced and underpraised performance of Bruce Wayne versus his equally good but widely celebrated (and thus not in need of further fluffing) Batman, but you also get to see Bruce Wayne be awesome. Something happened at the end of the first part as Bruce Wayne that I will not spoil, but I did it and cried out, unironically, "LIKE A BOSS." It was so awesome that moonlightalice and I both roared with laughter and approval. Bruce Wayne kicks wholesale ass, and it would be really fucking funny--and fun!--to play the whole game as him.

-The sexism thing? Really sucks. Every two-bit hood in the game that I've run into so far has been talking about a) how hot Harley Quinn is and b) how she's hot enough to want to fuck despite being crazy as a shithouse rat. It's really gross. And Catwoman...sigh. Folks, can we not agree that Catwoman is sexy? We agree on that, right? She's a smart and sexy woman who saunters around purring in a skin-tight catsuit. We get that she is sexy. Does she have to have said catsuit open to her solar plexus? Does she have to walk like she's got some degenerative hip disease that forces her gait one meter sideways with each step so that we can see she has a badonk-a-donk ass? Do we? Really?

-I have no idea what's going on. I don't get the Arkham City thing, period. I heard the game was going to be called Arkham City and I got confused because isn't it just Gotham City? They explain it--sort of--but not really and GAAAH I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON OR WHY.

Comments

[fairest.livejournal.com]

WHEN WILL OUR COPY ARRIVE. I WANT TO PLAY IN THE ALLCAPS-EST WAY.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Like you don't have enough things to be doing as is, missy? I just read your post and my overwhelming impression is that I am a homebound shut-in and totally slacking since you seem to be able to do everything and medical school and WHOA. Seriously, you can do ALL THE THINGS and get the video games in, too. That's just unfair!

Arkham City is fun, though. You know you'll lose a lot of time to it, time you shouldn't, by any rights, have.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

I spent pretty much all of Saturday night and Sunday on it...supposedly I'm getting close to the end of the main story, I think.

Some brilliant person in Gotham got the idea to wall of a section of the city, stick all of their criminals in it (in a universe with over a dozen supervillains as well!), wall it off with hundred foot high steel walls and military helicopters patrolling the border, put Dr. Strange in charge of security, and othwise let the criminal run wild inside of it. This walled off prison section of town is "Arkham City." That enough Gothamites supported this plan to make it happen proves that Gotham has the stupidest citizenry of any nation in any place, fictional or historical, and I'm shocked they haven't just sold the entire city to Nigerian spammers at this point.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I mean, they continue to live in a city where there are not only supervillains, there are a plethora of supervillains, all of whom are not only disruptive but violently so. I'd say "stupidest citizenry" is probably a given. At least in Metropolis, you know Superman will rebuild the stuff he breaks, or that he could. I just didn't know they were this desperately dumb.

All the snark aside, the game delivers this news extremely disjointedly by showing Bruce Wayne being dragged off. First of all, stupid citizens or no, you cannot kidnap a billionaire and declare him insane for participating in politics. (Would that you could with some people...) There is no way in hell this Strange person wouldn't have, like, the federal government shut down his experiment in the first place, but kidnapping prominent citizens and journalists and locking them up in a place that makes Gitmo look like sunny Florida? Nuh-uh. Never happen. It might if it were just the journalists, but not Bruce Wayne. Would NEVER happen. But it does happen and I'm sitting there going, "WHAAAAAT?"

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you're talking about. I walk like that all the time! :-P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Catwoman has the ability to hang from above if the ceiling is a grated one. Meaning she crawls around, upside-down, with her tushie hanging out as is. Was the walk really necessary? You be the judge.

In all seriousness, it's a complete failure of the game designers to know how women tend to walk, sexy or otherwise. I really do have to wonder if that's what the mostly male game designer demographic of the population think women walk like normally or if they don't give a flying fuck and are writing code to get their jollies. Either way, ick.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

According to the tie-in comics, Strange brainwashed the mayor and convinced him to let Strange's hired thugs outrank the police. And it's not like anyone ever pays any attention outside of Gotham to what happens in Gotham anyway.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

This game approaches the rape-yness level of A Song of Ice and Fire. It's really upsetting to me and I don't think I'm going to bother playing it.

Also I have no idea what's going on or why...

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think I'm going to disagree on the Catwoman-sexy thing. a) There's such a thing as trying too hard, and b) never promise crazy a baby.

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Degenerative hip disease... *snerk*

Your thoughts are my thoughts. I LOVED getting to start the game as Kevin Conroy Bruce. Oh, man. It should have lasted longer. And I love how Gotham looks. So many little call-outs to BTAS (like the blimps!) that make me happy – and the snow.

But yeah, I could do without the neanderthal comments from the thugs; they grate. As for the female character designs... they're at least less exaggerated than the comic art they're based on. Heh. Did you play Arkham Asylum?

I haven't played much more than an hour of the game, since I agreed to let Luke plow through first. I plan on sitting down and taking my time with it after I beat Uncharted 3 next week (as that one will take me a maximum of three days).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The real problem is that there are too many things to do. I'm trying to track down Mr. Freeze, but payphones keep ringing all over the goddamn place and I have to answer and then do an errand to track down Zsaz. It's maddening.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

A) She's only trying too hard in this game (Catwoman in Batman Returns was pretty sexy while making it clear she's fucking nuts) and B) She doesn't want a baby, despite her attempt to breastfeed villains as she fights them (given her couture, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

When Bruce Wayne cleared out the thugs (after busting out of his handcuffs), I turned him around to see the Penguin cowering. I stalked right the F up to him and punched his fucking lights out with one hit. That was my "LIKE A BOSS" moment, made all the more wonderful by the fact that Bruce Wayne sauntering in a suit pretty much DEFINES "boss."

I don't understand why we have to be all "Bitch, bitch, bitch" about things. People are trying to say, from comments I've seen, that that's just what you call women to be mean. If we were being mean about men, you'd call them douchebags, and no one's getting upset about that, blah blah blah. Except that the "bitch"es flying around are about how these assholes would like to hit those bitches and rape them (not an exaggeration! actual lines of dialogue: "I can't believe Catwoman can stay here. Some of these guys haven't seen a woman in a long time."). It's super, super gross.

I also don't think the costumes fix issues I have with the comics costumes. I mean, Catwoman's costume is exactly the same, from what I can see, but for some reason she's got to have her shirt mostly undone. Totally unnecessary. Harley's redesign is less offensive as it is stupid (her perverted doctor's uniform was both better for the character and more interesting). Ivy's is whatever--it reveals as much skin as any of her outfits ever have.

I did play Arkham Asylum, and I loved it, aside from the fighting aspect, at which I am still lamentably bad.