By Adam Smith on September 16th, 2011 at 12:16 pm.

More Arkham City footage this morning, which makes me very happy indeed. It’s the reveal of a new villain, and we all know villains are one of the best things about comic book games. The footage comes courtesy of Gametrailers and as well as showing some footage of the game, it has excitable fellow Sefton Hill giving some background on another villain out to cause mischief and mayhem. This time it’s Deadshot, the world’s greatest assassin. That’s right, all those historical wrist-bladed assassins can step aside, because Deadshot has wrist-mounted cannons. BOOM. Take a look.
As much as anything else, I’ve learned that Deadshot sounds very pleased with himself.
The boss fights were the only thing I didn’t like about Arkham Asylum, and most of the world agreed with me. With a villain like Deadshot, there’s plenty of scope for detective skills to take the fore rather than fisticuffs. Investigating murder scenes and hunting the cad down should take precedent over punching him in the face while rolling out of the way of the wrist-mounted cannon blasts. I’d be perfectly happy if taking down the villains in Arkham City was all about the hunt rather than the kill. Or the knockout, as Batman would have it. And that just made me envisage Batman wearing jodhpurs and his cowl, riding a jet black steed, chasing down a fox, and then dismounting and punching it into submission.
Like all great detectives, there is nothing that man will not punch.


Might just be me but I can’t see le video!
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Fixed!
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The problem with the boss fights in Arkham Asylum wasn’t that they were physical fights, it’s that they were ALL THE SAME except for Poison Ivy, who was actually fairly interesting. I mean, literally, 90% of the boss fights were the same enemy reskinned to fit the situation. So lazy.
It looks like they’re doing something a lot more varied this time round.
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I don’t have this memory, there were definitely very similar things going on but I think maybe you’ve polarized things a bit! I’m thinking weird platforming for Scarecrow, running on planks in the sewer for Croc, being charged by Bane etc…
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it wasnt every boss but you fought the bane lookalikes waaaaay too many times, the Joker fight was particularly disappointing after Scarecrow and Ivy but i understood they had limited budget, i loved the regular fights so much and i thought they wrapped up everything pretty well so i didnt get too mad about it, they obviously have the budget now so im sure theyve revamped them, although the penguin seems to have a minion mysteriously similar to the bane lookalikes
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The only boss fight I had a problem with in Arkham Asylum was the Poison Ivy one, for the sole reason that the thing went on far too long for my liking.
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Yeah if you liked the poison ivy fight & not the others you belong in the 90s.
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Boomerang the guy in the face and watch him run into the wall. Over and over again, it’s how Batman solves almost every difficult situation he’s in.
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The Joker boss was one of those “are they really doing this?” moments. Very disappointing ending after an otherwise excellent game.
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Most of the Bane-alikes felt more like henchman variants than boss fights really.
And Arkham Asylum is on the whole basically a game that keeps on repeating it’s set pieces, but they prove fun enough to always welcome another room with gargoyles and armed guards or another straight up fight with a bunch of dudes.
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I loved AA but I wont buy this if GFWL in it. Sry.
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AA was equally infested with GFWL – why the change of heart now?
I have to admit I probably wouldn’t have bought it but for the fact that Microsoft were selling it through the GFWL store for about £3.50 in a promotion – so glad I did though.
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possibly because of the experience of GFWL in AA?
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Don’t get me wrong – I’m no GFWL apologist, but I don’t find it offensive enough to prevent purchase.
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There’s nothing – NOTHING – “oh so wrong” about GFWL to justify that kind of behaviour. It isn’t perfect, but for single player oriented games, it’s perfectly fine imo.
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Let’s test that shall we? I’m gonna try playing WH40k Chaos Rising CoOp later.
I’m gonna sooo rage in this comment if I can’t play it after years of purchasing it.
I couldn’t play WH40k DoW II CoOp.
I couldn’t play Resident Evil 5 CoOp, which was the very reason I bought this game.
I couldn’t play [insert game with GFWL]. Feel free to use my template. I’m gonna save it for later uses on my HDD.
Oh I’m just so pissed remembering what GFWL has done to me. I would be glad If I didn’t have to hear of it again or even see that logo on a game.
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I’m a fairly antisocial gamer, so I didn’t try the online bits.
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This is a console game anyway, play it where it’s best. (No insult intended, AA was great)
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@Nallen
I love it when people assume product X is a “console game” with no arguments whatsoever. One of the dumbest ones I’ve heard is “it’s a third person game, those are made for consoles”.
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It’s a ‘controller’ game actually, that’s how I describe em. They are by far best experienced on the tv through your pc on a 360 pad or controller of your choice. The 360 version in comparison will look proper pants.
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TV? Pfft. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plMmPL-bdOU
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OMG! I started WH40k DoW2 and as I was cursing the GFWL-Icon that popped up – as I always do when I see it – my graphic card died on me. I had to disemble it, put it into the oven, reassamble it and for now it seems to work in windows.
Sometimes I don’t want to believe in coincidences.
I hate GFWL, but It hated me first. How could it do this to me?
Oh and BTW CoOp doesnt work. It timed out. :X
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@DrGonzo Disagree completely, I’ve played AA using both gamepad and keyboard + mouse, I found it to be way easier to play using the latter. It’s just less fiddly.
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London is in England?
Mind. Boggled.
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I’m glad he clarified; I thought it might have been London, Minnesota.
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http://www.london.ca/
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London, KY Y’all! http://www.cityoflondonkentucky.org/
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Gawd, it reminds me of a particularly clunky bit of dialogue in the massively-overrated third Indiana Jones movie where Julian Glover (English-with-a-dodgy-American-accent) tells Harrison Ford that a major clue is to be found in “Venice….Italy”. Just in case the popcorn munchers mistakenly envisaged Indy exploring Muscle Beach when, of course, that scene is being saved for the next sequel.
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Lawn-dawn Ear-gland!
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So, he is kind of exactly the same as Bullseye?
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how is he anything like a darts based gameshow with boats for prizes?
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@cyberpope
I don’t know how you cant see it.
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I think he means BullsEye the Marvel villain. And yes, Deadshot does have a lot of similarities with BullsEye, except for, you know, Deadshot was created 26 years before BullsEye… So if anything, BullsEye is kind of exactly the same as Deadshot.
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“think he means BullsEye the Marvel villain”
Thanks, Captain Obvious, internet superhero.
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You’re welcome Nick.
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Yeah, Bullseye is just a ripoff.
Even took a suicide squad type job decades after Deadshot.
Suicide Squad is a great comic.
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theyve announced so many enemies the game must either be 40 hours long or you take one down every room
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Awesome. The best part of Arkham Asylum for me was the villains and their brilliant voice acting.
Of course, the most satisfying part was punching them in the face.
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Deadshot is an excellent villain. This just keeps getting better!
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I hope he’ll be as fun as he is in the Secret Six comics.
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The only thing I hated in Arkham Asylum game is that I found myself always turning on the Detective Mode and never actually seeing any textures and proper level design look/feel. I blame my mild OCD to find the most secrets I can but still it was kinda frustrating.
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Same here. I hated the detective mode because it just made sense to have it on almost 90% of the time, which made it impossible to enjoy the really nice, atmospheric visuals.
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Yes! I find that with any game with ‘alternative vision’ I played Splinter Cell almost entirely in grey.
Or night vision grey/green for the other splinter cells.
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I did that too, until I learned myself out of that habit. The way I started to do it, was enter a room, scan the place quickly with detective vision, and then proceeding with it turned off. Of course, you have activate it again every now and then to check something, but I tried to minimize its use. The game is too pretty to watch blue walls.
I think it would’ve been enough if the vision just highlighted enemies and places of interest, instead of turning everything blue. And the usage should’ve been limited somewhat. Which I understand they are trying to do with Arkham City.
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PLEASE DON’T USE GFWL ROCKSTEADY! I’M LITTERALLY BEGGING YOU!
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Yes, use Steamworks instead, which sometimes makes it impossible to run the game IN OFFLINE MODE! For some people, that “feature” is problematic or doesn’t work at all, it’s getting worse, now certain games won’t allow you to use it AT ALL. Case in point: Dead Island.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=445189
Kind of funny RPS “FORGOT” to mention this to warn potential buyers. Pro-Steam bias much? If it utilized Ubisoft’s DRM, Dead Island would be ripped to shreds.
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These “ALL CAPS” just incite my “ANGER!”
YOU’VE “AWOKEN” the “BEAST”.
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You’re a funny guy Khemm.
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my comments are getting eaten by horrace :(
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I love how when the informant is shot to death three feet away from him, Batman doesn’t even react at all instead of taking cover.
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http://bit.ly/mKuTNF
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I’m just gonna say it. TOO MANY CHARACTERS!!! I’m loosing interest just because of the sheer number of characters they’re squeezing in here. You can’t just announce character after character thinking people will get their game boner on. What kinda PR is that?
They can’t all be that engaging/interesting if they’re this many. But how engaging are Batman enemies anyway? Perhaps that’s why they gotta throw ‘em all in!!
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Arkham Asylum in a free roaming city with the “twitch pattern” bossfights removed would be truly marvelous. Sadly, I expect we’ll see plenty more “dodge, let them hit a wall, plug them in the back, repeat” crap, and I just don’t have the patience for that kind of thing anymore.
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I hated the Scarecrow platform bits…silly camera…did not like!
Also I think your fooling yourslef if there aren’t boss fights in the game.
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