T w e n t y S i d e d

Here is a challenge for the “What Were The Developers Thinking!?” file. The game has allowed you to fling batarangs without really aiming them. Just double-tap the button, and Batman will fling a ‘rang at whatever valid target is closest to the center of the view. The Titan fights have specifically instructed and conditioned the player to quick-fire a batarang when a large monster is charging them. But in this fight they change that rule, and they do so without comment or giving the player any way to know about it. In the Croc encounter, you can’t use quickfire for some reason. You have to use the other batarang control, which is to hold down one button to aim and tap another button to throw.

The result here is that most players are going to uselessly fling quickfire ‘rangs at Croc, and have no idea what they’re doing wrong. Even after you die, the game simply hints that you should “Use the Batarang”, which of course the player probably was already doing.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to hit him several times? Am I supposed to dodge out of the way after I throw them? Or jump over him? Should I backpedal while I’m throwing these? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, GAME?

Arkham Asylum is very strange, structurally. It’s mostly mook fights, with a Bane fight and a few Titan fights sprinkled around. Those fights all use the regular brawling mechanics. And then here at the end of the game we have three mechanically divergent boss encounters back-to-back. In this episode we face Killer Croc, in the next one we face Poison Ivy, and after that is the final fight that we’ll talk about when we get to it.

Show of hands: How many people walked in this section, and how many people Bat-crouched like Josh?

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I have to say this gimmick section where the game does Batman / Joker role-reversal is charming and funny. Unlike the actual beginning of the game, it doesn’t wear out its welcome by belaboring the point.

The last episodes of this game have been recorded, and we should finish the game up next week.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I’m not sure why this game is so obsessed with making sure that the people you rescue end up dead a few minutes later. I guess they were trying to show that Joker was a serious threat, but they just ended up making Batman look careless and dumb. The number of survivors of this night must be pretty small. I could accept a few deaths, like the initial burst of guards and the death of Dr. Young, but this “everyone dies” thing feels like an accidental theme. It’s this ongoing problem that nobody recognizes or talks about.

Paul Dini wrote this game, and he also worked on Batman: The Animated Stuff. I have to wonder if he intended this, or if this is a side-effect of Batman inhabiting a videogame. Once Batman saves someone, their purpose in the story is concluded. In a show, they can just stop appearing in scenes and the audience can assume they’re just off-stage someplace, still safe. But in a game, there is no “off stage”. So then the game developer starts thinking, “Wait, what happens if Batman comes back? I don’t want to have to add more lines of dialog, and it makes no sense to have them always repeat their “You just saved me a second ago!” dialog. Bah, I’ll just kill them off. Easy solution.

I don’t know. I’m just trying to make sense of what seems like a very odd design decision.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.