By Jim Rossignol on March 16th, 2009 at 8:46 am.
It would be fun to extrapolate a kind of superheroic Splinter Cell from this new stealth-action trailer, but I don’t suppose the reality of Arkham Asylum will be anything like as precise as Ubi’s military infiltrations. Nevertheless the BatAction does look fairly entertaining, with plenty of swooping and batarang-ing. I’m wondering whether this or Wolverine will win out in the third-person action stakes. I guess we’ll find out on June 9th, for that is when Arkham Asylum is release on all formats.
16/03/2009 at 08:58 Pags says:
You don’t sound quite as certain of this game as Kieron does, Jim.
I must say that it does look like a bit of a lark(ham asylum) though. I especially liked the bit where he popped out from beneath the grating.
16/03/2009 at 09:12 Martin K says:
You know, trailer though it is, what I’m seeing does look like being a bit of a larf.
16/03/2009 at 09:20 nabeel says:
Something a little silly about gliding down – can’t see a bloody thing for his cape spread out and in the way.
16/03/2009 at 09:21 Ian says:
I’m still trying to avoid getting my hopes up, but that looked like it could be good fun. The hand-to-hand combat looks sorta generic but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, especially if the stealthery is fun.
16/03/2009 at 09:23 Idle Threats & Bad Poetry says:
Lark? Larf? I’m confused.
At any rate, the game looks pretty cool, though I’m not quite into non-random single player games anymore. (Dwarf Fortress & Spelunky for the win!)
More importantly, the new Batman logo looks awesome and really seems to capture the style of the game.
16/03/2009 at 11:05 Radiant says:
I am really looking forward to this game; please be good!
16/03/2009 at 11:34 Optimaximal says:
This game could be made or broken on its control system, especially on PC – I can’t imaging how bad Splinter Cell might have been had they not reworked the controls for the mouse & keyboard.
16/03/2009 at 11:58 Brian says:
I’ve a feeling this game will be fab
16/03/2009 at 12:21 An_Adult says:
@nabeel
Agreed about the cape, they should’ve made the thing semi-transparent during flight.
16/03/2009 at 13:00 Yiorgos says:
Is that Batman force-choking Riddick in the pic?
16/03/2009 at 13:35 wiper says:
And I should bloody well hope not! You’d hope for any bat-stealth to be much more open than SC’s there is one solution (with possibly a couple of essentially-identical variants) to this problem and there will be no errors and that is that. This based entirely on my experience of the first two SC’s, as I’ve not played owt beyond the demo’s of the later games, which might be entirely obvious.
The Batman, with his less restrictive setup (being an angry man in a suit against thugs, rather than a super-secret government agent against teh terrorists!!11) would, you hope, be more experimental, and able to play by ear when things go to pot. A more empowered (and killier) Garret, or less exploitable 47, if you will.
16/03/2009 at 13:50 Vandelay says:
This could be great, but I can’t help but have my doubts. What I would really like to see is some actual in game video, rather than these trailers made up of lots of quick cuts. As fun as they are to watch, they don’t really tell you much about the game. What I want to know about this game how linear it is, how good is the AI, how fiddly is the control scheme? These are the things that are going to make or break the game and probably won’t know until we get to play the game (bet there won’t be demo.)
On the controls, I won’t be too bothered about keyboard and mouse support as this really looks like a pad game.
16/03/2009 at 16:18 suibhne says:
It’s hard to get a feel for how exactly the game will play, sure, but the creative team behind it is the best that could be assembled for any Batman game: Paul Dini as writer, and voice talent including Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill. The fact that the devs/publisher are shelling out for such high production values from people intimately associated with the best of the Batman mythos…well, it’s hard not be at least a little optimistic. Here’s hoping the actual game design can uphold the quality of the voice talent and the writer.
16/03/2009 at 18:26 Leeks! says:
Chronicles of Batman: Escape from Arkham Island.
Say, you don’t think Butcher Bay is the body of water near Arkham do you? Of course, none of this is meant as a put down. Batman + closed persistent environment is basically a realization of my wildest gaming fantasies (I have a rather poor imagination).
16/03/2009 at 19:23 Josh says:
+1 Hype here! I didn’t realize this was a stealth game until now. For some reason I was thinking of this as a ninja-gaideny brawlerish game. Here’s to hoping this turns out good.
16/03/2009 at 22:00 Mister Yuck says:
@Wiper
If you only played the first 2 Splinter Cells you missed the good one. The first, Ubi Montreal was just coming to grips with the concept. The second was farmed out to a different team in Tokyo, and was painfully linear. More of a puzzle game than anything. The third went back to Montreal and is one of my favorite games of all time. It’s still linear, but it’s wider, it allows lots of creativity and meaningful choices. It also has the best animation of any game ever. It’s honestly worth playing just for the eye candy.
16/03/2009 at 22:21 Heliocentric says:
Yes, that the next splinter cell is the third real game is curiously exciting, will they mess it up and dead head the franchise or will this title open the door for another farmed out sequel and farmed out ds, psp and mobile titles. Not to mention the cut from the original title dlc that you’ll pay to activate on the disc. Couldn’t give a rats arse about a batman game, demo or gtfo.
17/03/2009 at 02:39 Radiant says:
Splinter Cell was a gruesome game.
If you put all the snapped necks together as a wav it would sound like a kid popping bubble wrap.
17/03/2009 at 02:42 Radiant says:
Actually they should do that at the end of each level…like a stealth rating.
These poor dudes… the last thing they smell?
The blood of the battle field? The perfume of their wives? The hair of their children? Oranges?
No.
My armpit.