Batman Arkham Knight, disastrous console port to PC

[Ginaz]

Not that I've been following this since I planned on getting it a year or two from now during another Steam sale, but I noticed they have stopped selling the PC version entirely even though it was released just yesterday.  It seems they did a rather shit job of porting it to PC.  Most of the issues seem to be with frame rates (capped at 30fps???) and lots of stuttering.  At least they're not selling it in this state anymore but who knows how long it will take them to fix it.  Lots of refunds have been issued  and I doubt many of those people will re-buy it, at least at full price.

http://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-is-suspending-sales-of-batman-arkham-knight-for-pc/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/208650

[Falconeer]

I've been going to the Steam Store page every day to see if the ratings have improved. I find it so inexplicably amusing to read that "32% positive reviews" score 

[Jeff Kelly]

That thread title is

[eldaec]

In other news, new Michael Bay film announced, is infected with explosions and bad action sequences.

Also new weather forecast published, infected with rain in Manchester.

I thought the original Splinter Cell : Batman was fun.

But hard to imagine how a game can be more of a phoned in console port than that was. And much as I am a proud member of the PC gaming master race, even I can't blame consoles for shit just not working in the PC version.

[Sir T]

I'm shocked that "Batman: Give Us Money For More Of The Same" skimped on the PC port. This has never happened before in the history of Gaming.

[Falconeer]

Let's be honest. This is not a case of a bad port, or a boring game. This is a disaster of unheard proportions for an AAA title.

[Jeff Kelly]

Unheard proportions? Unfortunately not. It's a disaster the likes of which we've seen at least three times in the last two years. What about Assassin's Creed: Unity for example?

To be fair, WB is the king and god emperor of ultra shitty PC ports. They are so bad in fact that Shadows over Mordor actually working on PC day 1 raised quite a few eyebrows because the press didn't expect that. Don't pretend like this is not getting exceedingly more common though.

This is also not a symptom of "consolitis". This is a symptom of: "we sell enough full price copies of our games on PC that we'll actually greenlight a port, yet not enough to invest the time, effort and money necessary to not make this a hackjob PC port".

PS 4 and XBone are essentially PCs and while they use somewhat modified versions of DirectX/Mantle porting those games is easy. This is a symptom of a publisher not giving a flying fuck about the port quality on the PC.

[Falconeer]

Unheard proportions? Unfortunately not. It's a disaster the likes of which we've seen at least three times in the last two years. What about Assassin's Creed: Unity for example?

I thought of that, and this seems to be much worse than Assassin's Creed Unity (let alone anything else).
Worthless Evidence: AC:U has a 70% score on Metacritic as opposed to the 63% of Batman Arkham Knight, and holds a 49% positive reviews on Steam as opposed to an "unheard of" 32% of Batman.

[Ironwood]

I was expecting this (well, not as bad,) after Arkham Origins.  There was a game that was a massive, massive letdown and actually made no sense.

I think people should just play Asylum and City and enjoy them.  Much like Star Wars, pretend that's all there was.

[Paelos]

I didn't even like the first game, so I guess I'm spared the issue.

[Sir T]

The first game was ok but By the end I was "Ok this guy FAILS to save the guards from getting slaughtered (they had to go hide in the liberary by themselves), tells some helpless medics "to stay right there, you will be safe" where they are promptly slaughtered, failed to save the "bruja" doc despite standing right there, Failed to stop Joker getting his hands on the super potion. failed to stop Joker spreading it all over the place, failed to stop poison Ivy, Failed to lock up all the lunatics he was fighting but knocked them out so he had to keep fighting them over and over and over, failed to stop Joker injecting himself... basically he failed at absolutely everything in the game. And he's some kind of fucking hero?" Combat was fun though, even though you have to do the same boss fight mechanics about 8 times.

Didn't play Arkham City but I imagine its better.

[Rishathra]

My son is currently on a big Batman kick, and we've been playing a lot of Arkham City recently, which we both enjoy.  I bought Arkham Knight on Steam day one because I knew he would be coming out of his skin to play it.  So far, we are having fun with it.  It's Arkham City with a bigger city and the Batmobile.  The consolitis is no worse than it was on the previous games.

There have definitely been performance issues, but I chalked it up to the fact that it's running on a fairly old computer.  So to me, this is good news, because it means there's a possibility that future patches will help things, without me having to get a new graphics card.

[DraconianOne]

I was expecting this (well, not as bad,) after Arkham Origins.  There was a game that was a massive, massive letdown and actually made no sense.

I think people should just play Asylum and City and enjoy them.  Much like Star Wars, pretend that's all there was.

Wasn't that because A:Origins was developed by someone who wasn't Rocksteady though?

[Ironwood]

Entirely possible.  Mostly, however, due to the fact that it was a retread and complete knockoff of City without any of the sense making story.

[Yegolev]

Runs great on the PS4, then?

[Lakov_Sanite]

I had pre-ordered this for my PS4 but had to cancel.....not because of the game but because I got robbed last Monday and they stole my TV and all my gaming stuff. 

[Lucas]

I've just finished watching Total Biscuit's report on this whole mess of a port, and it's really an horror story     :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBd5GgGkMs

Sub-par in-game graphic options (Antialiasing: on/off...w00t!) with others only toggleable through the .ini, like a very basic Anisotropic Filtering. Plus, others missing altogether, apparently: no SSAO/HBAO at ALL; no way to turn off motion blur; no DoF.

[Falconeer]

I had pre-ordered this for my PS4 but had to cancel.....not because of the game but because I got robbed last Monday and they stole my TV and all my gaming stuff. 

Fuck. Sorry, Lakov 

[Ginaz]

That thread title is

Happy now, poopy pants?

[Sir T]

I had pre-ordered this for my PS4 but had to cancel.....not because of the game but because I got robbed last Monday and they stole my TV and all my gaming stuff. 

That really sucks man

[Lantyssa]

I'm shocked that "Batman: Give Us Money For More Of The Same" skimped on the PC port. This has never happened before in the history of Gaming.

Oh, it's not more of the same.  It's more like Batmobile and Robin (cameo).

Seriously, they make you use the damn Bat-car for everything.  You can't not use it.  I just wanted to run around with Catwoman.  But no, you have a long ass quest to unlock her and its gated by the main story because... you have to get the main character (that's the car) to a location it's blocked from going, even though Batman himself can travel there.

Also in-game cut-scenes out the wazoo.  Not voice-overs, but full-featured shift your perspective to focus on your fancy wrist holo-TV.

I'm fortunate to not have many of the technical problems.  The game itself is still terrible in comparison to Arkham City.  Unfortunately NVidia had run out of the Witcher 3 codes so I got this piece of shit.  Now pardon me while I try to get through saving another damsel in distress so I can play the character I want.  (Until I find out it's only for certain set-pieces despite the hype.)

[Samwise]

I'm disappointed to hear they leaned too hard on the Batmobile gimmick.  I was a little concerned when I heard about it but figured that as long as it was supplementing the core gameplay rather than replacing it, it'd be fine.  Sounds like they were a little too determined to get their money's worth out of it though.

I'll probably still pick it up when it's on sale because I've loved all the previous Batman games, but my enthusiasm is dimmed now.

[Merusk]

Runs great on the PS4, then?

If my daughter hadn't fucked-up and spent the collector's coins her grandfather gave on on motherfucking Taco Bell I could tell you.  The game sits in my drawer at the office and will be there for quite some time.

Dumbass teens.


On the PC port front. Duh. PCs are the inferior redheaded step-child of things developed for consoles. We've been saying this for years, but now that it's becoming a consistent problem people are shocked? Why? What about the history of game development of the last 10 years makes this surprising?

Every time the bar is lowered in terms of Q&A or game completion on consoles, it goes even lower for PC ports. They represent such a small fraction of game sales, despite what the "PC MASTER RACE" grongards pushing an agenda at Forbes, etc want us to believe.*


*Even though 'game revenues' are favoring PCs right now, mobile & handheld blows it up.  I find it amusing every time I see Console compared to PC all the consoles are lumped together. However, as soon as you move to moble it's "per device" (ipad/ android phones/ iphones/ android tablets, etc) so the PC share looks bigger. 

[Yegolev]

Master Race gotta master.

[Ragnoros]

If my daughter hadn't fucked-up and spent the collector's coins her grandfather gave on on motherfucking Taco Bell I could tell you. 

I'm curious now. Grandpa gives granddaughter presumably valuable coins, girl thinks: "This is like 2.86, I could buy a taco with that!" and proceeds to spend them at the bell?

[schild]

Runs great on the PS4, then?

If my daughter hadn't fucked-up and spent the collector's coins her grandfather gave on on motherfucking Taco Bell I could tell you.  The game sits in my drawer at the office and will be there for quite some time.

Dumbass teens.

What the shit does that even mean?

[Malakili]

If my daughter hadn't fucked-up and spent the collector's coins her grandfather gave on on motherfucking Taco Bell I could tell you. 

I'm curious now. Grandpa gives granddaughter presumably valuable coins, girl thinks: "This is like 2.86, I could buy a taco with that!" and proceeds to spend them at the bell?

That's what I imagined. 

[Triforcer]

Let's be honest. This is not a case of a bad port, or a boring game. This is a disaster of unheard proportions for an AAA title.

To go a bit more old school than Assassin's Creed, how about Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor?

[tmp]

you have to get the main character (that's the car) to a location it's blocked from going, even though Batman himself can travel there.

He's a goddamn millionaire Batman, he ain't gonna just walk when he can drive somewhere.

[Furiously]

I so glad WB decided for me to wait for the GOTY (LOLS) version.

[Jeff Kelly]

WB Interactive now also stopped the sale of physical copies until further notice.

Nice little tidbit. Arkham Knight PC is the current NVidia Gameworks flagship title and NVidia also planned to bundle this game with its high end graphic cards. being a flagship gameworks title means that you get extensive consulting and porting help from NVidia in order to best integrate their technology. This also means that NVidia will lend programming staff to help your project and porting effort.

As it seems this is not only a "disastrous console port" but also a "let's integrate lots of our proprietary technologies, poorly" situation. At also means that since they were involved NVidia probably knew beforehand just how shitty and broken things were.

[Tannhauser]

I have the first two Witcher and Batman games.  I should like them.  I do not.

Really puzzling to me, both have great looking worlds, maybe it's the combat that turns me off.

Anyway, wasn't going to buy this before this fiasco not going to later either.

Also sorry you got robbed Lakov.  I did back in 2010 and it sucked.

[Gimfain]

WB screwed up with MK X on pc as well, just not at this scale.

[sickrubik]

All this just makes this moment from E3 a little more 

[Triforcer]

I played this a bit, but fired up Asylum for comparison.  The reviews are right- Asylum is by far the best in the series (followed by AC, with Knight a distant third).  Too much damn batmobile.