Pudge

I'm hoping that some of the missing enemies and power-ups end up as DLC. They are already releasing some Famitsu crossover DLC as a promotional thing, so the ability is there.

As for how to make the game better, I would love to see some mixing and matching between game styles. If anyone remembers Super Mario Advance 4, there were e-Reader cards you could swipe in that would add stuff like Mario 2 Turnips and the Super Cape into Mario 3. It was insane, and that's the only real thing that would make this game perfect.

It is a damn shame, all of this is. Bungie was one of my favorite developers for years and years, with a unique culture surrounding it, and employees who cared about their fans. The forums on their website were always active and filled with great discussion, and they used to take matchmaking suggestions for gametypes directly from there in the Halo 2 and 3 days. It's like watching an old friend turn into a bitter and greedy old man before your very eyes.

At the current time, it seems like a token gesture that not many distributors are taking advantage of, much like the software store they have. I wish that Steam would give each category their own storefront so they are clearly distinguished and you could link them to people

Excellent writing, but I don't necessarily agree with the premise. Batman lives in the shadows of Gotham, alongside his enemies and the thugs they hire. It just wouldn't be right to wander around city streets filled with pedestrians in full regalia, or sail over them on a grappling hook in the same way that Spider-Man web-slings above taunting taxi drivers. This is why Asylum is still the best game in the series, it best represents the true dynamics of the character. He's trapped in his role in the same way that The Joker and Scarecrow are locked away in Arkham.

There are certainly plenty of heroes that would fit into that role better on the DC side of things, even a few from the extended Batman family. A Nightwing game set in Bludhaven perhaps. But Bruce is a loner no matter how many times he joins the Justice League. Dropping him into an open world filled with civilians and then designing missions around them seems like a fools errand to me. I'd much rather the next team to work on the series scale back the open world and bring us something that is a bit more claustrophobic.

@spaceinsomniac: I always find that Giant Bomb users make my points so much better than I can in these debates. Thank you for your eloquence.

@devise22: The difference, at least in my eyes, is that Hatred wasn't given an opportunity in this culture. Sure, GAF and other sites have a right to bar discussion of any topic they chose, but Hatred was given more power than it ever deserved by its censorship. It's a game, and a gaming outlet should foster discussion of any and all games. Instead, they added fuel to the tire fire and made it a top seller for at least a few days. It's idiotic and does nothing but hold the critical voices back if we have moral police sanctioning what is and isn't OK.

There is always the option to comment elsewhere yes, but if the top forums for discussion deny a topic, all that does it get the wrong people riled up and fuel indignation. It's a clear sign that gaming culture in all areas needs to grow up, not just the AAA developers.

@bollard: It may be moot now considering how few updates Team Fortress 2 gets nowadays, but adding in female equivalents to the mercenaries would only require a few voice acting sessions and the in game models. You would have to keep most of the animations the same because the classes in that game are designed by their body shape. If they didn't want to do the work, there are at least five mods that have added female mercs to the game in fully playable form.

I do agree that I think Austin fails to give the Internet credit for putting pressure on studios, and in certain situations I think it becomes unwarranted. It's really a case by case basis, but in most cases I'd usually prefer that a studio stick to their guns rather than submit to an Internet lynch mob from either side of the debate.

@milkman: I agree, but on the same token you're not going to rile up an angry mob because a game doesn't have dodge rolling. The reaction is the focus here. People who don't like how a game controls will just play another game. People who don't like a game's content but finds it fun will feel like they're being preached to, and they'll be much more likely to strike out against the game to save it from whatever forces are ruining it. In their eyes anyway. That may be a shortsighted way to look at things, but it's valid, and they're the type of people that fuel this hateful discussion and prevent everyone from looking at things logically.

OK, maybe I was being a bit simplistic in favor of my point, but I will say that there are plenty of examples of good controls out there for developers to take note of, and it's something that most people seem to agree upon in most cases on a per series basis. And even if they don't, developers can offer button mapping and alternate control schemes for those customers. I don't think it would be as easy to patch in well written female characters.

I'm basically saying that it's a much easier problem to fix and most people who would be able to fix it are already in place at game studios big and small.

A game having better controls is a pretty binary thing that can be tested. A game having better representation is complicated and requires a lot of forethought, at least in something story based like The Witcher 3. You can't just turn the racist switch to the off position, you have to have people that can write dialogue for different races and genders, you sometimes have to frame stories in a different way depending on who you include. If you just put in people of different races that act exactly like white people, some might call you out for being racist that way, because it doesn't feel right. The same thing going in the opposite direction.

If it's not a story game, it's a lot easier. Team Fortress 2 should really have female equivalents for the mercenaries for example, there's no reason not to include those. But if your story based game is being written by mostly white dudes, that's a lot of what you're going to get, because the alternative is horrible stereotypes that are worse than not having representation at all. At least in my opinion.