By Alec Meer on December 7th, 2011 at 7:20 pm.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of Gotham City Imposters, the upcoming Team Fortress but with Batmens and Multi-Jokers shooter, but I am very glad to see Monolith embracing the peculiar once again, after too many years of cheerless FEAR games. And here’s a neat way of promoting it too: a stylised, scrappy, wordless animated short showing off assorted ways for Team Bat to off Team Joker and vice-versa.
And here’s another from a couple of months back that I’m not sure we posted. BECAUSE WE’RE LAZY AND THICK.
It’s such a brilliantly ridiculous idea, yet at the same time gets around the problem of everyone who plays a Batman game only wanting to be Batman or the Joker. I hope it all comes together on the day. And that day will be next January, so not long now.
Plus, a series of very cheerful dev diaries discussing character customisation, gadgets, classes and whatnot. These guys do, I believe, enjoy their jobs.
07/12/2011 at 19:31 Talon says:
Ugh. I hope they’ve improved the game technically since the technical beta, which was…not entirely awe-inspiring.
07/12/2011 at 19:32 jthmmdom says:
Batman and Joker imposters are the hip new craze sweeping the nation.
07/12/2011 at 19:36 bfandreas says:
Man, ever since I watched that awesome trailer I’m thinking of an old Procol Harum song. The anger of the moment might be there. Now let’s see if it is sillier than BAT:AC or BAT:AA which if you think about it are already pretty preposterous.
Our local picture house was showing a Batman movie
You see this guy fly up in the sky, thought to myself, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
So I bought a pair of wings, went up upon a wall
I was about to jump into the air when a guy from the street called
He said, ‘Hey wait a minute! Don’t you realize the danger?
What do you think you are, some kind of angel?’
I considered for a minute, realized he spoke the truth.
For the barbells on my eyelids only emphasised my youth
and the sawdust in my plimsolls means the same to him as me
But that’s neither here nor further, so I spoke considerately
‘Now if you understand just what I’m trying to say,
whatever you do, don’t grin, you’ll give the game away!’
By now a crowd had gathered and it seemed that all was lost
In the anger of the moment I had diced with death and lost
It seemed to me the time was right so I burst into song
In the anger of the moment the crowd began to sing along
I could not see a way out of this predicament
Just then a breeze came through the trees and up in the air I went
I must have flown a mile, or maybe it was eight
Thought to myself pretty soon I’d hit the Golden Gates
Just then a passing bird for no reason I could see
took a peck at my wings and that was the end of me
I went down, hit the ground faster than the speed of sound
Luckily I broke no bones only tore my underclothes
10/12/2011 at 10:21 Dhatz says:
is it THAT old I can’t find it on youtube?
07/12/2011 at 19:39 hypercrisis says:
I wish the in-game aesthetics were as interesting as the promotional material. As it is, I couldnt really distinguish this from any other manshoot at a glance.
07/12/2011 at 21:52 Wulf says:
Pretty much. I miss cell-shaded shooters.
They don’t really seem as fun as they pretend to be, though. And… ugh, cubicles. :P
I’m not holding out a lot of hope for this one. Because… sure, the promotional stuff is hilarious, but the game itself just seems very typical. It has some ‘goof animations’ on the weapons and such, but rather than aesthetic touches those seem like they’d get in the way by slowing things down.
Iono. Not for me I think, this one.
I’d definitely have been interested had it looked like the promotional material, though. (And I suppose I was secretly hoping that it would. A cell-shaded shooter with customisation, silliness, and so on… I’d play that.)
09/12/2011 at 00:53 sinister agent says:
Unfortunately I have to agree, at least based on what we’ve seen so far. Lovely trailers showing off a fun and silly (and sliiightly dark, in a subversive good way, not the po-faced tedious way) world. Then the gameplay trailer is the same counterstrike/tf2/cod/etc. trappings as everything else.
If it turns out that it doesn’t play much differently to the others, I doubt I’ll bother.
07/12/2011 at 19:50 Inigo says:
It’s Brink. With Batman.
That’s it.
08/12/2011 at 05:42 MrDanke says:
I am surprisingly okay with this.
07/12/2011 at 19:52 Hoaxfish says:
pretty sure RPS did post the second one: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/07/hassault-and-battery-gotham-city-imposters/
However there is actually a difference, each one has a different rating system in the opening (PEGI /ERSB)
07/12/2011 at 20:06 SirKicksalot says:
Well, these guys better enjoy their jobs while they last! WB recently made some heavy cuts to their Seattle area studios, including Monolith.
07/12/2011 at 20:12 Kretan says:
It uses GFWL. Good luck getting THAT to work.
07/12/2011 at 20:28 Hatsworth says:
If it weren’t for two caveats — GFWL and persistent unlocks — I’d be all over this.
07/12/2011 at 21:00 Monchberter says:
That was…
..Oh I can’t be bothered.
*Returns to TF2*
07/12/2011 at 21:06 Davee says:
Even though it somehow manages to look like a CoD:MWsomething -mod (if those were possible), it’s interpretation of the TF2/Brink-style of gameplay seems like fun. I feel divided.
07/12/2011 at 21:54 Wulf says:
Ya.
Like the idea, but it’s killed by the visuals. The aesthetics don’t fit it at all, and it comes off as looking very characterless.
07/12/2011 at 21:16 skyturnedred says:
I don’t know what everyone is complaining about. Looks quite fun to me, and the mobility with the gadgets seems like a nice idea. Only thing I dislike is the constant score pop-ups that seem to plague every shooter these days.
07/12/2011 at 21:24 sabrage says:
“everyone who plays a Batman game only wanting to be Batman or the Joker”
Batman, sure, but why would I want to be the Joker when I can be Calendar Man???
07/12/2011 at 21:26 Squirrelfanatic says:
I for one, am very excited about this. I think the idea of increased mobility (hookshot etc.) is good. Maybe it’ll make the classes appear a bit similar, but that’s difficult to judge. A bit worrying was the fact that the guy in the customisation video right away grapped his XBOX-controller – don’t know how good the port to the PC (which really should be the focus of any multiplayer shooter) will be.
Nevertheless, this looks like fun.
Edit: I just realised that there are no real classes in this game but a variety of customisation options to choose from. Also, the respawn times seem to be really low, don’t know how much a takedown will be worth this way.
07/12/2011 at 21:56 Wulf says:
I know where you’re coming from, but jump pads aren’t exactly new. It’s just something copied from the Quake III era of shooters and added into this. I just don’t know if that’s enough to save it.
I just can’t understand why they wanted to make it look so… boring. It’s more like APB than their own promotional material. I don’t get that.
07/12/2011 at 22:01 Brun says:
The success of Call of Duty has ensured that the focus of all future multiplayer shooters will be Xbox Live.
07/12/2011 at 22:27 Squirrelfanatic says:
@Wulf: You’re totally right, it really didn’t occur to me that this game actually is a bit similar to older arena shooters. What’s in contrast to Quake is the seemingly narrow level design.
07/12/2011 at 22:31 Strange_guy says:
The animated trailers are great, but using such a normal visual style for the game, as opposed to say a more TF2 like style. Also gameplay seems interesting thanks to the mobility options and use of gadgets, but for this sort of ‘medium paced’ shooter they should have done the same thing as TF2 and avoided rapid fire hitscan weapon that lead to hold mouse over enemy gameplay. Do I just want this to be TF2 with batman and joker imposter theme replacing spytech, fully customisable classes and the crazy gadgets? Basically yes.
07/12/2011 at 22:34 killmachine says:
ehr, 4 words… games for windows live…
07/12/2011 at 23:04 Vagrant says:
This needs to be retextured with some cell shading, like Borderlands did halfway through development. It’s amazing what that can do for a game’s atmosphere.
07/12/2011 at 23:05 MD says:
Looks more fun than any other modern shooter I can think of. Having a few interesting movement options makes a world of difference. I wouldn’t be able to put up with that headbob though…
07/12/2011 at 23:45 JerreyRough says:
Eh, just give Team Fortress 2 all-class Batman and Joker hats and the point of this game will almost immediately be lost. Especially since its visually identical to other manshoots out ATM.
08/12/2011 at 00:08 Koozer says:
That cartoon WB logo made me surprisingly happy. Where did you go childhood?
08/12/2011 at 00:47 VikingZombie says:
This looks really awful. :-[
08/12/2011 at 01:17 JKjoker says:
i have just one deal breaking problem with this concept : guns
why guns ? you pitch some crazy idea and then you go make something that plays like call of duty, TF2 has far more style than this both in characters and weaponry
THIS is the game to start pulling out out the shark repellents, bat-bubblegum capsules, nerve gas filled balloons, electric underwear, extremely phallic guns that are actually anything but guns, etc
THIS is the opportunity to give Adam West’s batman a run for its money with over-elaborated traps and stupid objectives.
but no, straight gunfights it is
08/12/2011 at 03:53 FatCatAttack says:
Lack of rapid fire hitscan in TF2 was a mistake. Without it everything orients around spam and overemphasizes the importance of good map design which most people suck at. That’s why all the comp games revolve around very FEW maps with the king being the moldy oldy Badlands. Also by scrunching everything into roughly the same distance you inevitably make classes lose out. The pyro despite the name is more about puffing air than fire because damage wise he’s redundant to the Heavy and Scout in the close range department. If the scout had an AK to be retooled as a Heavy Lite the pyro could get the scatter gun as a secondary and actually be the close range expert he/she’s suppose to be.
08/12/2011 at 04:28 Bungle says:
@FatCat Pyro kicks ass up close with a Degreaser/Axtinguisher combo. The game has so many different weapons now, there is a workaround for everything.
08/12/2011 at 05:48 FatCatAttack says:
The problem is there are work arounds to the work arounds if they were ever that good anyway. The Heavy, especially with the Tomislav, can paste a pyro before he can axtinguish. Scouts can’t be caught. They both have the ability to ignore the effects of flames post pyro death with the sandvich and milk/bonk respectively.
Axtinguishing itself relies heavily on unlocks. It’s not reliable due to the shoddy Source melee. You can only focus on one opponent at a time while meleeing leaving you extremely vulnerable. There’s nothing about axtinguishing that distinguishes the pyro from the more efficient ambush heavy or the flexibility of a scout.
TF2 doesn’t get rid of the “generalist problem” that people assign to assault rifles. It just creates new problems and in fact still retains the old problem as a team of nothing but boring generalist soldiers can stomp “balanced” teams of characters.
Quake and Unreal Tournament were able to balance the pew pew weapons with projectiles. They were far better games than TF2 IMO. It can be done.
08/12/2011 at 01:19 Bhazor says:
I was kinda hoping for a (given its Batman) Spy vs Spy style game. Batman and Joker setting traps for each other whilst stealing/recovering bags of money. Of course that will never happen in a post MW world.
Still it does have a sense of Quake 3 style crazy jumping so it’ll probably be worth a spin if it isn’t sadled with a shit ton of DLC.
08/12/2011 at 01:30 Revenge says:
Wow, this looks really awful. It looks just like modern warfare.
Shame such a great idea didn’t get much further than this.
08/12/2011 at 03:32 Jody Macgregor says:
I just hope there’s an option to play in third-person. If I can customise myself that much I want to be able to see it.
08/12/2011 at 08:03 DestructibleEnvironments says:
I agree with this man. (DId I do quoting right?). I could see this game standing out more if it were third person. I never understood games that focuses on the look of the character, and then sets it all in glory first person mode. Anyway, the Monolith guys are good chaps. (I hope we still like them)
08/12/2011 at 05:13 Jupiah says:
The concept sounds amazing and I’m loving the high mobility granted by all the gadgets, but I have to agree that a goofy comic book game like this would really benefit from some more stylized graphics.
08/12/2011 at 06:51 Bungle says:
The gameplay looks like it could be fun and exciting. I’m sure there will be a million cheap ways to die, so I’d get mad and leave anyway. Super MNC is going to have a ton of variety in the characters and weapons and I know that game will be beautifully balanced and skill-based. And free.
I will absolutely, positively be playing Super MNC next year. I’ll check this one out, but won’t hold my breath.
08/12/2011 at 12:08 mondomau says:
Is it me, or did that developer showcasing the combat come across as smarmy and kind of smug?
08/12/2011 at 12:58 Steelcool says:
I was in the beta for this! But I’m not allowed to talk about it. It was so *Stuffs hand in mouth*
08/12/2011 at 16:03 Thunderkor says:
I was also in the beta, but can’t really say anything.
Unrelated to my beta experience, I will say that I fear Games for Windows Live is a death sentence for any multiplayer shooter out there. People hate GFWL, and for good reason in many cases.
08/12/2011 at 20:03 kanaka says:
That developer looked too familiar, and then I remembered these trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86W0Xwxf7PU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGHNzY-qDmA
At least this guy is having fun!
09/12/2011 at 23:47 BathroomCitizen says:
There are good things in the dev diary.
- Colors
- Grappling hook
There.