I agree, civilians would be cool, but then Batman doesn't work as a game.
Spiderman 2 and the other games in the franchise like it had this system where there were civilians all throughout the city, and there were ambient crimes you could choose to help in or not. You can do that in Spiderman, because he's a little more ambiguous, sometimes a little morally misguided.
Not Batman.
Batman doesn't kill. He helps everyone in his immediate view no matter what, and has insane plot armor to make certain that he can. Batman does not work in a city where you may potentially be able stun civilians, much less simply ignore their pleas for help. Worse, stand high above them and watch as they are mugged or stabbed.
What's the solution? Make the enemies forever in a loop where they never hurt anyone? Make it so that the crime is always happening, and you can stop it once and for all, whenever you decide to get to it? Then the enemies never feel like a threat.
In a game world where you're already making concessions for Batman to use a giant tank by making unmanned drones, and making the Batmobile have some magic stun field that gently lifts thugs out of the way of Batmobile's certainly fatal treads, and where it also already seems like any of the things he is doing could be ultimately fatal, I don't think there's any room to give the player further freedom to fuck with civilians.
And so there are no enemies. And I would rather there be none, than have the game put up more strange arbitrary concessions or invisible walls to prevent me from mistreating civilians.
This would be a pointless article if you didn't go over the games that have the room to be more ambiguous with the protagonists treatment of civilians, like GTA, Infamous, etc. I don't think you should try to fit the Batman game into their mold. It's okay for games to be different, and you should play this game, or give it more of a chance, instead of brushing it off entirely simply because it isn't Superman Returns.
Log in to comment