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There's a few continuities where his psychology Doctorate in fear is actually a big deal and means he can also talk people into gibbering wrecks on the floor. The chemicals just speed up the process and produce phobias, however given time and knowledge of the person he's talking to he probably could break them with words and actions, he just doesn't have the time.
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May 3, 2016 13:19
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 09:44 |
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And you know, eventually you'll run out of stuff to say. Imagine taunting Batman for hours about fear. Eventually, you'll repeat yourself and lose your place. Maybe Johnny Crane isn't the greatest improv guy in town.
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May 3, 2016 13:29
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:And you know, eventually you'll run out of stuff to say. Johnathan crane is guaranteed the lovely guy in an improv class who always turns the scenes to be his favorite thing. Instead of secret agents or whatever, it's him talking about fear. If the Barbara Gordon headshot scene is a fear toxin hallucination, how does he know it happened? Can he make people have any specific hallucination he wants? I really want to see this plot thread pay off, because it has never made full sense to me.
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May 3, 2016 13:43
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:They'll probably change the title to that when Professor Pyg is introduced. Got ham?
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May 3, 2016 13:51
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rotinaj posted:If the Barbara Gordon headshot scene is a fear toxin hallucination, how does he know it happened? Can he make people have any specific hallucination he wants? I really want to see this plot thread pay off, because it has never made full sense to me. I think he put the wheelchair and the gun in the room and just let Batman's mind do the rest. The real question is how he knew when to say "You will bring death to all who follow you." Unless that part was also a hallucination. 
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May 3, 2016 13:59
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They problem with the hallucination card is that it can only be played once. We can't trust Batman's perception anymore. Maybe the Knight's final unveiling it's totally Jason Todd you guys will be another hallucination. Maybe not. Point is, it doesn't matter. The only thing I'm looking forward to is when the villains find out about the Joker.
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May 3, 2016 14:28
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Lord_Magmar posted:There's a few continuities where his psychology Doctorate in fear is actually a big deal and means he can also talk people into gibbering wrecks on the floor. rotinaj posted:If the Barbara Gordon headshot scene is a fear toxin hallucination, how does he know it happened? Can he make people have any specific hallucination he wants? Tasteful Dickpic posted:They problem with the hallucination card is that it can only be played once. We can't trust Batman's perception anymore.
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May 3, 2016 16:31
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Tiggum posted:Seems like he can. Like you say, it wouldn't make sense otherwise. But then again, the hallucinations have never made sense in this series. When Batman's hallucinating beating up a bunch of dudes or travelling across a nightmare landscape, what the gently caress is actually happening? How do the hallucinations hurt him? Is he actually fighting real dudes? If so, where are they and where did they come from? If you think about any of it for even a moment it falls apart completely. If memory serves asylum does a pretty good job of keeping your drug trip movements with the actual direction on the map you move. And in general if you finish a hallucination that involved fighting there's a bunch of thugs lying around knocked out. So the game lays out a pretty good framework for batman just wandering around tripping balls beating people up. The only real thing that isn't explained is where all the goons come from, but goons regularly burst into rooms in groups throughout the series.
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May 3, 2016 16:44
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They missed a golden opportunity of thugs talking about the times Batman just beats people up and mumbles to himself or whatever it is he does during these hallucination episodes. "You don't know how bad the Bat can get. This one time, Jimmy tried to jump him after Scarecrow gave him some of his early stuff. He was screaming about dead something or other and was even going after the guys that were running back to their cells!" "Woah, what happened to Jimmy?" "Guy's terrified of glass now. Can't go near a window without thinkin' the Bat's gonna drop kick him through it and then take him on a ride about several rooftops feet first!"
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May 3, 2016 16:51
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Tiggum posted:That really only works if you never see him in action, because there's no way to make it convincing (because it's really a pretty absurd concept). If it's a character we never meet, a threat that's hinted at but never directly encountered, and the writing's really good, it can work. But we've heard Crane talk a lot and he definitely can't do that. If the plot says he can, the plot is inconsistent. Arkham Asylum's audio tapes for Scarecrow were pretty decent in this regard. The guys they have opposite Scarecrow manage to voice act mounting fear pretty well. Batman's little speech at the end of the last tape just sounds like verbal teabagging though.
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May 3, 2016 17:06
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Lord_Magmar posted:There's a few continuities where his psychology Doctorate in fear is actually a big deal and means he can also talk people into gibbering wrecks on the floor. The chemicals just speed up the process and produce phobias, however given time and knowledge of the person he's talking to he probably could break them with words and actions, he just doesn't have the time. Scarecrow's toxins are obviously psychotropic, given the hallucinations they produce. But I think it's also a matter of him understanding the target and using his voice, either in person or maybe subliminally, that makes the visions take root as something that truly terrifies the target. I mean, it's basically just LSD and a hidden speaker ramped up with comic book technobabble. Crane is just really, really good at psychology to make everything so vivid and drive people insane. I'd wager that the thugs on the street right now are seeing the same demons the cop saw at the beginning of the game. Being able to tap into the giant video screens would allow Scarecrow to broadcast some sort of message that would make everyone in the city see the same horrific thing and react similarly.
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May 3, 2016 17:42
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Apologies for the delayed update, forgot to post it before I went to musical practice   The Silver Lining/Polsy
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May 3, 2016 21:49
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Not going to lie, the Arkham Knight's mask coming off and it being Joker underneath was pretty funny to me. Then again, it also means Rocksteady knew that people were tired of the Joker as the main villain and went ahead with Joker Hallucination taking over Batman's body being the main conflict (more or less), so... If there was any part I figured the thread was going to blow up over, it was the part at the end of the video. Well, let's see how it goes. 
Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 22:20 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 22:12
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Hahahaha, wow. Get hosed, game. It's really not a good idea to be a woman in any of these games, is it?
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May 3, 2016 22:28
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This loving boss fight. I hate all of the Cobra sections, but this one in particular is the worst.
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May 3, 2016 22:28
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This update had it all: lovely vehicle sections, lovely boss fights, lovely treatment of female characters, AND lovely jokerjacking! It's like the complete package, all in one.
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May 3, 2016 22:30
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I recall calling it. I loving called it. Except I was being sarcastic. I don't want to be right when I'm sarcastic. What the actual gently caress.
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May 3, 2016 22:38
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The Arkham Knight is such an awful villain. He's not scary or intimidating at all. All he ever does is make empty threats and play around with his expensive toys. To be honest, he just sounds really desperate and sad. The others may be similar with regards to that, but at least they are more interesting than "mercenary who's kind of bad at his job and wont even listen to direct orders from his client." cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 22:59 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 22:44
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Alexeythegreat posted:I recall calling it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AajslFuPro Someone at Rocksteady must really hate women. I mean at least she went out doing something useful, but did that really need to happen at all?
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May 3, 2016 22:47
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"I just want you dead!" Then why didn't you kill him when you put a bullet between his chestplates you loving idiot
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May 3, 2016 22:47
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I'm not even gonna bother going into the grump that everything in that video is causing me, so instead a question: Now that the Arkham Knight has "fled in terror", do you still get him yelling at you for taking out air/road outposts and bombs, or does Scarecrow start blathering at you instead?
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May 3, 2016 22:48
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John Liver posted:"I just want you dead!" Look writing a consistent or interesting character is hard okay.
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May 3, 2016 22:48
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Dangit, you let Ivy go to seed. Now they're going to be popping up all over the place next spring.
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May 3, 2016 23:01
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Air is lava! posted:The Arkham Knight is such an awful villain. He's not scary or intimidating at all. "We know how you think, Batman! And that's why we're going to win!" And then he spends pretty much the entirety of the rest of the game losing. I know it's probably not meant to sound that way, but it seems like the GCPD was more concerned with a strange transmission than the Cloudburst based on Alfred's comment. John Liver posted:"I just want you dead!" Or shoot him while he was disoriented from the explosion and the fear gas.
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May 3, 2016 23:01
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Bruceski posted:If we're betting on the Knight's identity, my money's on "random shmuck with an invented backstory connection" just because of general cynicism around "who is X" mysteries. If we're granting partial credit, I'm counting "running away with no resolution." Assuming he DID run away and isn't set up for some final-final boss fight.
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May 3, 2016 23:03
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I think the best part of this update was Alfred cannily reminding us that there were more sidequests to be done, seconds after another female character died for the plot. Or maybe it was the Arkham Knight failing to kill Bruce for - what is this, the fourth time, or fourteenth? Or maybe it was the Cloudburst, the big plot device we've been hearing about for hours, being neutralized barely one hour after it went off. Though I did think that the Cloudburst was going to be another fakeout - I guess it's not? I'm sure Scarecrow has a backup plan, but I wholly expected some other stupid plan to come rocketing out of left field. Hey, the night's still young, right?
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May 3, 2016 23:15
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John Liver posted:I think the best part of this update was Alfred cannily reminding us that there were more sidequests to be done, seconds after another female character died for the plot. "Oh my, how unfortunate. Have you considered reasserting your dominance and control over your city, sir? It is sidequest time!"
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May 3, 2016 23:19
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John Liver posted:I think the best part of this update was Alfred cannily reminding us that there were more sidequests to be done, seconds after another female character died for the plot. "Oh no. Well, I guess she was still human after all. By the way, Master Bruce, sidequests." Alfred's emotional range in this game is pretty nonexistent. I think I recall him being good during the Ace Chemicals section, and then everything else is just him being pretty flat. Even when he thought Barbara died, he's just like "Eh, poo poo happens. The mission." Might've been the fear gas, but still. Kinda jarring.
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May 3, 2016 23:20
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This entire video is just a nexus of bad gameplay. Yes a stealth tank boss fight, that's fun. And then let's stuff another female character into the fridge. Harley and Catwoman are still alive so that's okay right?
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May 3, 2016 23:23
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If you came into this looking for anything remotely resembling good writing, you've made a huge mistake. Ivy might be the only woman in the game that wasn't wasted. Her whole shtick is (her) plants above all else, and she sacrificed herself for her plants; it is a side effect of saving her plants that saves the city, after all.
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May 3, 2016 23:27
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I didn't think it was that bad - it fits Ivy's character of her caring for nature over everything else, and it's not like it was a cheap plot twist to give Batman motivation or anything. I think people misunderstand what 'fridging' means. It doesn't refer to any act of killing off a female character, but rather when a female character is killed off solely to give the male character motivation. Ivy was fairly fleshed out, with her own motivation and arc - it's bit lazy, but it's not putting her 'in the fridge' as it were. Barbara was fridged, Ivy was not. The fact Batman can sealth in what is basically his own tank 
OldMemes fucked around with this message at 23:32 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 23:28
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So the Arkham Knight lost the Cloudburst to feckless stupidity, their super tank chemical weapon and Crane isn't even hiding that this wasn't in their laberythinely complex battle strategy, meaning he likely only had one. One Metal Gear that is gone and Crane likely has no way of realistically replacing his trump card at this point. Oh and the Knight, the big bad Bat destroyer and Captain General of Scarecrow's forces fled in terror. But no, please act like you comfortably planned for this outcome as well, Crane. Also Ivy's Death, while not as terrible as it could be, is not in a comfortable position when Barbra and Catwoman are entirely motivation fuel and that lady joker was just introduced to die the second you wrangle them all up. It's mostly just guilty by association and entropy of the rest of the bad ideas that we have and will continue to wade through in this migraine inducing Long Halloween. But Batman has let a criminal die via the actions of another, he really is losing all semblance of control over the situation.
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May 3, 2016 23:55
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John Liver posted:"I just want you dead!" Much like a James Bond villian, they can't simply put bullets into his unprotected jawmoutharea. There must be some set up to it, some ambiance. Shooting someone with a gun is so pedestrian. Who'd choose that when you can drop them into a pool of sharks or saw them in half with a slow laser? Also RareAcumen posted:Lol if you think they're gonna kill anyone of the psychos that've been around for more than three decades just because they're doing some serious terrorist-level crime. I hope this put some people off guard for this scene. 
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May 4, 2016 00:10
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Well, not so much a motivation as an emotional reaction/change, which isn't necessarily the same thing. You could, in fact, argue it's a fridging, because, despite the "noble" sacrifice, it's someone else he's going to guilt trip himself over... So, yeah, died to cause the male character pain. Not going to argue that, because there's a much easier way to say "Actually, this is kind of lovely." Fucks given by Ivy about Scarecrow's plan at the beginning: Not a one. Fucks given by Ivy when Batman points out something she should already know (That Scarecrow's going to gently caress her plants over too): Suddenly a whole lot more. Why is this bad? First, yes, she should already know, what with being a plant psychic, effectively. And secondly, the only reason she does this is because Batman points this out. She doesn't offer, she doesn't think from the start "poo poo, maybe my chlorophyllic folks will get hosed over, co-operate with the person I know can stop this", she does nothing until Batman says things. So yeah, slight agency problem there. Aaaanyway, another thing in this update is that Scarecrow finally makes explicit what I think we see was the authorial intent here: This is meant to be a deconstruction of Batman, much like some other deconstructions in the past. The talk about destroying the myth of the bat is, on the one hand, the Scarecrow's actual plan (If he fails at anything, then he's fallible, and I've won, regardless), but also, y'know, what this game is trying to be overall. Except sometimes, it's just... Repeating, rather than examining. Recycling. People have, I believe, mentioned that the Jason Todd thing is not new. He has daddy issues. The Joker screwing up a Robin is not new. It's not even a new way of doing it, really. And, funnily enough, the one thing they can't actually deconstruct (His plot armour) is one of the things that causes problems with the rest of it. Batman can't not be the focus, even though... Well, we've seen the Bat-family are around. We've seen playing as others. As much as I feel that Arkham Knight is not a good game, it's still an instructively not-good game, and an LP of it feels important, because it shows this for future designers. Some of them may even take notes, who knows!
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May 4, 2016 00:14
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Alright, the entire Batmobile gameplay chunk really overstayed its welcome and I don't think it had very much welcome to begin with. Every time the Arkham Knight refused to back down during the cloudburst fight reminded me of this line: "He has defeated us numerous times, what makes him think he can do it again?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcAa2pRoV6E&t=4675s Also, I assume Robin and Harley are not effected by the gas considering that they are being held in a place that was meant for quarantine.
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May 4, 2016 00:20
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What's worse is that when Batman finds Ivy she's acting like she always does thinking she can easily dispatch Batman with some vines because she just feels like it. When Batman suddenly talks about plants/threatens to burn them, suddenly she's on board and willing to work with him. If she at least tried to approach him for an alliance of convenience first, her introduction may have felt like the actual beginning of a character arc.
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May 4, 2016 00:25
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Bat-tank predator sections could have been so much cooler if they had done anything at all to make them more like, you know, predator sections. Like allow you to use the power winch to grapple up the sides of some buildings so you could lay in wait for a tank to pass by, or let you burst through bricked-off alleyways to flip a tank upside-down.
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May 4, 2016 00:25
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Ivy's death wouldn't have been too bad on its own, but in the context of the games I find is another pretty bad move, both because of how the more important female characters have been treated so far, and how Ivy has been treated in the previous two games. It makes it feel like someone at Rocksteady really didn't like her.
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May 4, 2016 00:38
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I hate to fall into this trap, but it seems increasingly unlikely to me that anything in the game since That Barbara Scene has actually happened as the game presents us. Where is anyone's body at this point? I know that Ivy is magic, but she probably doesn't disperse like a dandelion when she dies.  e: Bruceski posted:Dangit, you let Ivy go to seed. Now they're going to be popping up all over the place next spring. 
Octatonic fucked around with this message at 01:05 on May 4, 2016 |
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May 4, 2016 01:01
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You know what I wish would happen at this point (not that it could)? Harley finds out that Ivy is dead, and it was Scarecrow's toxin that did it (not hard given his gloating). So Harley goes berserk and kills Scarecrow. No boss fight, no warning, just Scarecrow doing his usual thing and wham! Hammer out of nowhere. Because Harley and Ivy are clearly friends since Asylum showed her going against Joker's plans to let Ivy out, and the DLC showing Harley getting Ivy out of jail. It would have been a nice way to re-establish character motivation and agency. Except she's trapped under the movie studio with Robin.
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May 4, 2016 01:18
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