Comments on: Monday Musings: No One Tells Batman What To Do

By: Ayrton Coll

Ayrton Coll — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:53:21 +0000

That’s another problem with hand-holding in game sometimes it just means the developers are lazy in creating good puzzle/challenges that can be solved intuitively without hints but are also not boring. I really hated the path that the new prince of Persia took. The light which shows you where you want to go was stupid becuase the “open world” itself was rather limited and pointless, apart from preventing you from doing an entire level in one go and artificially lengthening the game. Then there was the combat, perhaps if it didn’t rely so much on quick time events and had much more free movement then they wouldn’t need to have Elika save you all the time, the enemies health refills anyway so they might as well have just had die and reloading.

By: Nightwing

Nightwing — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:31:35 +0000

I think you make a very good point, I’ve raised this on the Batman: Arkham Asylum message boards and hopefully the design team will take it seriously.

Part of the appeal of this game is becoming the Dark Knight himself, and that means solving problems and riddles. If they solve them for me…. then what’s the point in having them in the first place? If anything that would detract from the game.

By: /Dance

/Dance — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:01:50 +0000

It’s called Monday MUSING not Monday ‘In depth discussion into major issues surrounding gaming, life and death.’

The internets are a very big system of tubes, there is room for a few ‘not so important’ but interesting pages.

By: DavidR

DavidR — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:48:16 +0000

Hey David, nice article.

Also, WHEN IS THE AUSTRALIAN RELEASE DATE? Every retailer in the country has different dates and Eidos have said nothing. Is it the same as the European date?

By: timbizcut

timbizcut — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:53:21 +0000

I thought the system in the Paper Mario system was a good idea. You buy a hint from a central point.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:51:05 +0000

Ah, my mistake. I was thinking of the bit later on with and the five .

You’re right, blasting those two walls simultaneously is the only course of action for that section. And it’s obvious enough that it doesn’t require the developers spelling it out for you on the loading screen – maybe if you’ve failed it 10 times, but certainly not after the first try.

Perhaps you could get around this problem of the game spoiling itself for you, by changing the game’s language settings to Chinese?

Unless you can read Chinese, in which case I’m all out of ideas.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:43:46 +0000

Well, Game of the year… so far. That has Mark Hamill in it.

(apologies for the double post)

By: David Wildgoose

David Wildgoose — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:42:50 +0000

You’re not thinking of a slightly earlier stealth-focused section in the hospital ward?

By: j

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:39:46 +0000

Another game that could get annoying like this was MGS4. You could simply ask for help sometimes, which wasn’t a problem because it was an option, but I hated it when Otacon would jump in and tell you what to do without letting you solve it yourself.

By: Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:26:47 +0000

Oddly enough I didn’t even notice the destructible walls in that section, and instead went about silently throttling the five guards to death.

If anything, the game didn’t give me enough hints!

So clearly this game is so smart it can tell that I’m a better player than you, Goose :P

Game of the year.