Quick Look: Batman: A Telltale Game Series

@woodoouk said:

Didnt realise Bruce Wayne was also the worlds most dangerous spy.

I mean... there was a reason why Xander Crews from Frisky Dingo looked the way he did. Considering Archer was the result the that show being canceled it doesn't surprise me.

People like Dan getting really upset about a budget series of visual novel games is bizarre.

It would be nice if Telltale would put effort into either modernizing and fixing their current engine (probably a huge pain considering how long its been kinda busted) or making a new game engine. I have to wonder what kind of money they actually make though. Sure The Walking Dead sold gangbusters, but basically none of these games are their IP so they only get a smaller piece of the profits.... also they are all budget priced. Makes me think their margins are probably pretty small and investing into either a new engine that would have to run on every platform under the sun, or licensing a 3rd party engine doesn't work out financially for them.

First thing I thought when batman opened his mouth to talk for the first time was: Is that duke nukem?

Looking at the comments I can see I wasnt the only one haha

That's totally a tuxedo jacket he's wearing, FYI.

@woodoouk said:

Didnt realise Bruce Wayne was also the worlds most dangerous spy.

Press X to "Lanaaaa"

I'd be more interested in a Telltale Archer game (if they got the writing right) than Batman, tbh.

Yeah, I appreciate that Alex seems to prefer the PS4, so that way there is more diversity in terms of what games look like on other platforms, but man; after No Man's Sky pop-in and the framerate in this, it's a bit disheartening to watch.

Side Note: Does anyone here have idea/ experience as to why the Telltale games don't seem to run super smooth (on consoles) when they appear (relatively) not-super-demanding? Is there a lot of background stuff going on there? Just genuinely curious.

[Comment deleted due to high excess of snark]

I feel the same, maybe it's because i haven't actually played any of there other stuff? I thought the little bit of the Borderlands demo looked good too.

And honestly it's not pixar quality, but the animation in that looked fine to me? Do adventure games need cutting edge graphics?

Batman uses a newly updated Telltale engine, which was supposed to fix a lot of the issues with their games. Telltale isn't that small anymore, they've been doing quite a bit of hiring and relocating to larger offices. For some reason they just don't seem to get the needed in-house talent or getting aid from a third-party.

Here's a tale - "couldn't load plugin".

Ah that makes perfect sense. Can't believe I did not think of the mass itself also influencing how much force would be required. Duh. XD

I'm pretty sure that the altered voice for Batman was pioneered by The Animated Series, but that show did it intelligently. Bruce Wayne is cheerful and corny (a fake persona); Batman is serious. As such, Bruce Wayne gets the altered voice; Batman gets his real voice. No elaborate electronics involved. Both voices are natural. They eventually dropped the concept and Kevin Conroy began using a different, third voice (the one that he uses whenever he plays Batman now). I've always wondered why.

Why every other creative team that chooses the dual voice route takes that ball and runs with it to such ridiculous extremes, I do not know.

Interested in this since there has been a lack of compelling Batman media (beside comics) in a long while (haven't played Arkham Knight).

As someone who watched that movie yesterday...no its just ...no...

wow, that framerate lol. so bad.

b-b-but licensed properties!

*he says wearing his licensed tshirt, drinking a canned advertisement, and shoehorning in taco bell references

My parents are dead. I'm Batman.

The penguin accent is HORRIBLE! It's a very, very butchered cockney accent. Nolan North's weird penguin cockney is actually better, and that's saying something (the part where Mark Hamill's joker takes the piss out of the accent in the game itself is pretty great)...

Still, just not feeling the tone of this one.

Wow, they weren't kidding about the terrible performance. It's running sub 900p, the scenes aren't particularly busy, there's not a lot of animation or AI to deal with, it's hardly a visual showcase (the art design is fine, but nothing we haven't seen before)...And it still runs like crap. Telltale really need to sort the Telltale Tool engine out. Between this and all the bugs, they are really turning in consistently shoddy work.

Join the conversation at #MyParentsAreDead

I am pretty curious how that Oswald picks up the Penguin theme.

Guys, you should really excuse the frame rate, this is a brand new engine, and they need to get a game out the door before they have the resources to figure out how to iron out the kinks.

@pkmnfrk: As a heads up, it's not a new engine. At least from people tearing apart the file structure on the PC version, it's the same engine it's always been. Likely they just added some new shader tech and tried to do some optimizations...which failed badly.

@silver-streak: Are you sure, I've never seen a game like this before!

(/s implied on both posts)

@pkmnfrk: Sorry, my sarcasm detector is broken this weekend.

@ntm: Yeah, if you like Telltale games, then I think you should grab Borderlands at some point. Just get it real cheap during a sale or something. The only ones I haven't played so far are Game of Thrones and Minecraft. Borderlands is the best one to me. I think I would say that, in terms of characters/story/humor, it is a better Borderlands game than actual Borderlands.

Look. Gas station pork rinds are bad. they're bad for you, they have no culinary merit, they're not even made of real foodstuff. You're allowed to like them, but saying that they're good is indeed wrong. Batman and Robin is the worst piece of trash to ever feature my favorite hero of all time, and is unwatchable. If you like it, thats fine. if you say its good, you are so so wrong.

@gtb08: I think the issue you run into with this line of thinking is that defining why something is "good" almost always comes down to an appeal to popularity. I just don't believe there is an objective "good" for media, only a subjective one.

Alfred has seen some shit! He was in her Majesty's service in the war, is good at field dressings (obviously), and can fight and hold his own. I like the Gotham Alfred (young Bruce) moving into the Nolan Michael Cain Alfred (older Bruce). But Alfred is not just a butler, and hasn't been in the comics for a very long time...

"My parents are dead. I'm Batman."

I really like the Batman The Animated Series style of this.

Wasn't a huge fan of this first season, but I have to say season 2 is pretty great.