I loved Batman Arkham Asylum. I liked Batman Arkham City. I did not like this one, Arkham Knight. (I own it, but I still didn’t play Arkham Origins)

Upon release, Batman: Arkham Knight, was plagued with bugs in its PC appearance. So much that the developer had to pull it off from the shelves to polish it for a bit more time. I was, thankfully, not affected by this incident because I only acquired it much later. That said, I had a lot of issues regarding performance, bugs and crashes. I have faced major crashes during the course of the game. Lame.

Visually, the game is more colorful than ever. Definitively it makes use of more modern technology (I believe it uses the latest Unreal Engine). While it seems more realistic, I felt less pleasing. Gotham is too flashy, too busy. There are visual pollution all over the city. Back in the Asylum, the visual was more cartoony, but it was consistent. The visual effects and explosions, however, are more impressive than before. I liked it.

Another strange thing that I noticed it that almost all character 3D models changed dramatically. Bruce Wayne, Batman, Harley Quinn, Penguin.. everybody had a substantial visual transformation, like when studios reboot a movie franchise. I felt a little annoyed that my character from previous games simply changed.

Gameplay wise, the Batman Arkham series was migrating from a stealth game towards a very action driven. I remember in the first installment the tutorials were always very serious about being stealth is the way to play. The super vision goggles was implemented and was unlimited just to reinforce the behavior into players. Gas bombs, grappling from above or bellow, use of remote gadgets were all crucial for this play style. More than a play style, it was proposed gameplay.

It was all lost with City and mostly Knight. There are so many enemies spread across the map that it is simply not practical anymore to solve problems using stealth. It would take ages to complete the game. Instead, most of the time you will to a frontal assault, eventually using hit-and-run tactical. For me, the open-world feature, while amazing at the first glance, was detrimental to the series. It was better when it was confined in compartments. It was about solving puzzles, not brute force your way.

The main attraction of the game is the use of the Batmobile. Unlike the Arkham City, the game encourages the player to traverse the city using the car. I was positively impressed who responsive and fun was to use it. It’s dual mode, car and tank, makes the gameplay very fluid. However, the developers force the use of it by inserting several plots into the story that requires it. After a while, it gets repetitive.

The side missions and collectibles are forgettable. The trademark Riddle riddles are more repetitive than ever. After a while I knew that I would not be interested in completing it entirely. I would only go for the main storyline.

Story wide is once again very convoluted. The whole plot is thin, and even the twists are not that interesting. So twists are so intense that makes you feel that everything that you did until that moment was kind irrelevant. The same for the villains actions (if he knew that form the start, why he did all this?). Batman is too much powerful to be believable. Even on the brink of the death, the player never feel that he is actually in danger. Joker plots against Batman and Batman plots against the player. The main villains are boring with weird motivations.

Overall, I had a negative experience. I cannot recommend this game, unless you already have played the previous games and really want to give a Batmobile a ride.

It’s Carnaval! One of my favorite times here in Brazil. I always have a lot of fun and this year was no different. Some dear moments…

A couple of years back I was following a site that had a great insight: track Valve’s Steam prices and point out the best deals over time. It was great because if you are interested in a particular game, it was just matter of waiting to get a big promotional discount! Unless you are super-duper fan and want that game now, or it has a very heavy multiplayer component, here is no need to buy a $40-$50-$60 game. It will eventually get much cheaper (and much sooner than you imagine).

Unfortunately, I forgot the name of it, and I am a lazy writer that is not in the mood to search.

The good side is that is not needed anymore. That site closed doors and I discovered IsThereAnyDeal.com. It follows the same basic idea but in much bigger scale. It tracks Steam, GOG and a dozen of other online portals.

Also, it offers a chance to create custom alerts when a desired game get a price bellow a threshold. Indie games are often bellow $5. AAAs are also often promoted bellow $10. It opens a great window for great deals. My wanted list now have about 30 games!

It sounds unfair to the creators. But with so many good games in the market right now, I can play them all if I buy them cheap, or choose one or two with full price. Indies gets much more opportunities this way. The big players, that invest millions on a single title hopping to sell millions at a full release price, will suffer more and will have to adapt.

Just like Netflix, the abundance of games opens great business opportunities for those that have a long tail catalog instead only high-demand products.

So if you are a game developer, never count on making most of the sales with the full price. It was not true before, and it is even more true now. Your projections should include several strategies for promoting your product so 2-3 years at least.

With proper marketing and positioning, companies still can attract audience during launching. Mario, Zelda, Fallout, The Witcher, Doom and many, many other titles are recently launched and have massive initial sales. Of course there are always an EA, Ubisoft and Activision that tries to implement some weird and fake mechanism that forces players to buy or play in very specific way. Disasters like SimCity happens to them…

Otherwise: have fun buying!

One of the modern day indie classic, Limbo was in my shortlist for quite some time. Some days ago I got it and played from begging to end in a single seat. Here are my impressions. (Spoiler, I like it very much)

The first impression here is how minimalist it is. From the black and white presentation, controls, story and UI. It tries to be simple, but not simplistic. And it succeeds. It is a remarkable achievement. It conveys a lot of emotions with very few images and sounds. The general visual also transmits a sense of creepiness. All characters are have a bit disturbing visual. The enemies even worse.

The game is a simple 2d platformer. They gameplay focus on puzzle solving a timing action. There are no fights. And dying is a constant. The puzzles are clever but not brain burner. You will feel smart by solving, but not to the point that you can claim better IQ than your friends. It gives a sense of satisfaction and self-esteem without feeling that you cheated. The action is clever, and due to the presentation, represents real threats. Every time the famous spider appears, your heart stops.

The story is minimal, but I felt that it had a begging-middle-end. It is a little open and vague. People say that the “sequel” (not exactly a sequel, but it follows the same vibe, and it is from the same company) is even more vague and confusing. So it seems to be a personal mark.

It took me just a few hours to go through it entirely. I enjoyed it all the time and I recommend you to play.

This 2013 little indie game is pure charm. It tackles an unusual theme for games: father-son and brother-brother relationships. Generally games uses tragically and over dramatic man-woman love and revenge themes, but it is not what is shown here. It is a tale of two brothers trying to save the like of their father, that is just laying sick in bed. No supernatural force. No magic. Everything is very mundane.

Not only the story is charming. The visuals are also really cute. Even on the depths of the Earth, it still maintains the light color palette and the cute aesthetic. In fact, you can literally sit in a bench and admire the view. It delivers the introspective aspect of the story. Death, family bonds, life… a lot for the kids think about.

The world is not, however, mundane. There are some mystical creatures, monsters and a bit of magic. But the story motion force comes from the inner emotions. The narrative comes from very little dialogues. It is mainly a puzzle adventure game, focusing on the experience of guiding two young kids through obstacles. It is not very action-driven because most of the puzzles can be solved calmly, without hurries.

The main feature of the game is the ability of controlling both kids at the same time. It uses a very weird control scheme, but it works. It requires some brain rewiring and time to time it fails to be very responsive, but works both thematically and for the sake uniqueness.

The game is very short. I was able to finish it in a single long session. But it left a very fond mark on me.

It is inexpensive very cool adventure. Recommend to play.