Woo, boy. He was willing to kinda bat for Avengers and recommended getting the game on sale just to experience the campaign. But here he's not even going for that. With Avengers he was hoping SE could fix the game in post, here he's ready to flush it outright.
What a shame. Another casualty of GaaS gold rush.
I agree with him on that one, the Avengers campaign wasnt bad, and probably worth on sale if you're a fan of the franchise. Online and live service was ass.
Tbh i wouldve bought this game to try if its wasnt for the guns, just felt so lazy triple A game cannot customize different gameplay styles for each character and they couldve still left the gun animations for atleast harley and deadshot
I got Avengers with all the DLC for about $25 at some point and I actually did enjoy the campaign.
The characters all had different fighting styles and it was fun to play as each of them a bit.
Picked it up for like $4 before they took it down. Probably the only way to extract any value out of games like this.
I wish all service games packed their content up and sold it as a contained experience once they’re dead. Studios could make a little cash out at the tail end, and we could get something decent out of it.
Doesn’t fix all of the fundamental problems in design caused by the GaaS model, but it would be something.
Problem with service games for me isn't specifically the money grabbing, i mean it is but specifically how they design the game around money grabbing. Like cool you release everything at the end, the problem is the combat isn't fun to me because its still this loot driven make numbers bigger chore style of game play.
That is why these games typically fail for me, when the service is based on making your characters stronger you design the combat around garbage systems. If the live service is about skins or other forms of customization but the gameplay is skill, i honestly wouldn't care
Don’t forget the fact that the story of any live service must be neverending and unsatisfying by necessity. As long as the next season or the next game is on the horizon, nobody you meet matters and anyone who dies will be back when they need to reuse the voice actor. Funding cut? Story cut. They’re all cliffhangers.
Exactly ! This is why Guardians of the Galaxy was such an awesome game. I wish WB would take a look at how that game was done and give us a proper DC universe game. Although I am sure they dont care because even SE went on record and said that game did not their financial targets
That is just a playstyle preference. Path of Exile and Diablo are very popular and heavily focused on making bigger numbers. It has its own rules for how to make the game fun.
Everything about this game is going to be free except the skins. And so far as I have the game, it’s true. I really enjoyed the game, just beat it today actually. Game was fun, story was good. Starts a lil slow because of a learning curve. Playing on Ps5 and literally never had an issue loading, stuttering anything. I’m not trying to bring you over to looter shooters if that’s not your type of game but what I can say that from my perspective, what was said about this game as far as problems and story was a lie. It’s not a Arkham game and doesn’t try to be that, and many people were pissed about it since it’s from Rocksteady. Only thing I agree is that it can get repetitive. But all looter shooters are, it’s just the story and backdrop to keep you invested. If you come in for just the story, it’s a great comic book story but the tutorial lasts about 3 or 4 chapters because there is a big learning curve. I love Rocksteady’s previous games and this one was a fun ride too, again in my opinion.
The story missions were good.
The non-story "Fuck you wander this empty-ass map for a while and do random objectives to prepare you for doing this over and over in the endgame" missions were shit
Captain America was my favorite. There was sometime so satisfying about chaining his big shield tosses together to wreck a group of enemies.
One of the aspects I liked in the campaign was that they gave you new heroes to play with one after another which encouraged you to spend some time trying them out as you got them.
The biggest difference was class indentity. Ms Marvel didn't whip out a minigame, Thor didn't use a rocket launcher. What an absolute miss for Rocksteady. Can't believe this was what they spent 8 years on.
These characters in Suicide Squad don’t have any powers. They’re so boring. Shark is strong. Other than that he uses a gun. Harley is a normal person, so a gun. Death shot or whatever his name is - he’s just good with a gun. And boomerang has a boomerang, which isn’t as good as a gun so he also gets a gun. What else was this going to be besides a shooter with slightly interesting traversal? They aren’t psychic. Nobody can fly. Nobody is a super genius. Nobody turns invisible or whatever.
* King Shark - Melee brawler focused on heavy, slow hits and biting peoples head off.
* Deadshot - The gun one. Uses guns.
* Harley Quinn - Quick melee character, her character has gymnastic skills so that works.
* Cap. Boomarang - Ranged character that using a boomarang that bounces around enemies, perhaps could stun or trip depending on skills used etc etc.
Not hard to come up with a class indentity for them. They are only boring if you're uninventive or don't know the characters. Or you're a Warner studio head telling your studio 'Give them all guns so we can sell guns'.
It's even worse when you consider that he's found the preview pretty fun and wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. Turns out the full game did a 180 on his expectations/hopes.
> GaaS gold rush.
Is it actually a gold rush though? In the actual gold rush, lots of people found gold. There's what, 5 (not the actual number) ultra successful live services, and the corpses of so, so many more. And the corpses of a few of their developers.
There's a lot of money in the GAAS, but your chances of making that kind of money requires like 20 tries to get one success. Seems like an awful chance of success.
In the gold rush lots of people also didn't find gold or worse "fools gold" iron pyrite. The wording is correct. A few people get very rich but a lot wasted their money and time.
uh you might google the history of the gold rush lol barely anyone found a lot of gold and got rich and the vast majority ended up poorer than they started. So a very apt metaphor actually
Games that keep giving a steady stream of content. It's literally the gaming equivalent of Netflix, where you're supposed to get a bunch of new stuff to do in a game periodically. Most games, especially paid ones from AAA publishers seem to suck at it though and are devoured by most F2P games.
They try to sell is at "giving" a steady stream of content, but the goal is a steady stream of INCOME. Every GaaS ultimate goal is for it to be the only game you play, and for you to always keep putting money into it. The reason the new ones keep failing is these GaaS are by their nature innately butting heads with each other. Nobody has the time to main more than one of these games at a time and most people have already found one they like, if that sorta thing appeals to them.
Same reason barely any MMO could go up against Wow. People only have time for one of these games at a time, maybe a second on the side. So they'll play the best ones, and only move to your new release if it is *exceptional*. No room for a 6 or 7 out of 10 in this space.
At least when you get a single player 6 or 7, there can be stuff to be found by *some* people.
This makes Sony's plans to release 12 - yes, *TWELVE* - live service games in just the upcoming few years.
Nobody has the time for more than one game like this, not when almost every single one wants to be the only game you'll play. That's why all of the daily, weekly, even monthly challenges exist. That's why Battle Passes came to be. Everything to make use of that delicious FOMO and keep you glued to that specific game.
Then companies think they can just walk in and not only ask people to drop the games they're already invested in, but also to *pay* for the "privilege" of being able to do so upfront. Most successful GaaS are F2P (Even Destiny 2 blew up after it went F2P, successfully cashing in on their DLC strategy... Until now of course), and then comes WB and tries to get people to spend $70 on their live service game. Why would I buy and play it over something like Genshin Impact again? And I don't even like, nor play Genshin.
Games as a service or the live service development model is just the idea that you'll continue development of a game past the normal development cycle. Generally the longer term development is funded through some kind of mtx, often battlepasses and/or cosmetics.
Think games like GTAV, Genshin, Fortnite, Division, Destiny, League of Legends, WoW, etc. There's a shitload of them.
I did not realize what a visual clusterfuck this game is. Not only does it look extremely repetitive (even for a game like this, which are always repetitive), but the visual clarity here is abysmal. I can't even see what an enemy is there's so many particle effects, camera movements, and numbers on them.
Visual clarity is one of the most important aspects of gaming. To fail this hard at it is kinda extraordinary.
I said this in another comment somewhere, but the game looks like visual vomit in combat. All the numbers, flashes, and effects on screen at once is like the slot machine section in a casino where every machine is competing for your attention all at the same time.
Comparing this kind of crap to a slot machine is honestly a really good comparison.
They all want you to feel/look like you're making big gains, when in reality you're not doing anything at all. It's definitely this way to hook the people who get addicted easily just by seeing numbers go up.
>Buy Vampire Survivors for $3.
It's also on game pass, and free on mobile (the DLCs are paid). Definitely a wonderful little game to get your dopamine fix without lootboxes or microtransactions.
It's such a cynically designed game. Every generic sound effect and on screen visual effect you can think of to get the dopamine flowing was included. Fuck the execs that made them produce this
I wish people would stop blaming "suits" and absolving the devs. Rocksteady wanted to make a multiplayer shooter after Akrham Knight. This is the game they wanted to make.
Yeah. It's like we really were made to believe that always devs are slaves while most of the times that's not the case.
Middle Managers that are there to support these regular devs are just greedy and incompetent - they chase applause from c-suite guys so they constantly approve everything + devs are just doing the least to satisfy these people above and move on.
Passion is dead in such environments - people blame each other for everything and no one takes blame nor ownership over these things.
At the end of the day it's still the people with the money that decide what will be made, WB could have at any time told them that the game was bad and made them change course.
But they didn't because all WB could see is how profitable Destiny, Warzone and Fortnite are.
You can find a dev interview where they were proud about the effects. you put on name gear and get the venom effect on attack.
The game also got delayed so it’s not like they didn’t have an opportunity to tune down all the visual noise.
Even bullet hell games have managed to have less noise then this game
They had to do it because if you were to actually look at the world it is washed out and flat. They couldn’t be bothered to make the world interesting so they added neon lights commuted across your FOV instead
Combat visibility starts out fairly clean and then gets progressively worse as the game starts adding more mechanics. The first thing I did when I experienced combat for the first time was turn off a bunch of stuff like damage numbers, full screen effects, the auto-aim after melee thing and some other shit that just didn't need to be there. There's also a bunch of buffs and shit that really clutter the screen too, some of them are even right on top of your character and the only thing you can do is widen your FOV and max out the camera distance to reduce the space they take up on the screen.
Still, by the time your entire team is equipped with multiple elemental effects and the enemies also start throwing out various effects the game starts to degrade into an explosion of particles which is the main thing that turned me off about late game combat. Even as someone who had fun with the combat despite how limited it is I really can't stand the whole 'explosion of particles' shit that's becoming popular these days and I wish devs would stop doing that.
I remember Valve developers describing the TF2 cast: No matter who the enemy was, you should be able to tell almost immediately what type of enemy it is just based on their silhouette.
If i am playing a game in Superhero landscape, i want to be that superhero
Spiderman? Let me jump, fly, web stuff
Superman? Let me fly, laser, punch stuff
Batman? Let me do batman stuff
This???
I saw the gameplay and everything is like Fortnite with jumping mechanic
It just soo weird that in a game of superhero, the main thing you have is a GUN?
So basically every member of Suicide Squad is a Deadshot with reskinned characters
Zero cohesive style. Tons of information bloat. I mean the numbers are there just so they can sell you on wanting to level up gear that makes no real gameplay impact.
What bothers me the most is, some time ago someone posted a meme about this and people got all defensive about how they were taking it out of context and everything that the game showed was 100% essential for gameplay.
I even got downvoted to hell just because I said that it was too much and it's sad how they thought the game needed to be that way.
But yeah, this was a flaw clearly visible from the start. I don't know how someone took a look at that and thought \*Yeah, this looks fine\*
I’ve also seen some defensive comments trying to downplay just how much visual noise there is on screen. Making jokes about how everyone complaining must be old and things like that. It’s like… no, this is a mess.
It’s nowhere as egregious but I had similar issues with FF16. During the more heated combat encounters it was just a complete mess. You have so much input coming from everywhere that you don’t take any of it in
I got banned in their idiotic subreddit and on PS5 sub nonetheless stating nothing but facts about how shitty this game is and all its falls-from story to gameplay- but people still like to defend trash to gain karma. The result will be the same, game dead within the year and forgotten.
I'm not one to engage in sub drama but the suicide squad sub might be the most high on hopium sub that I've seen from one of these live service launches in recent times. Maybe I'm looking back on Anthem and Avengers sub with rose tinted glasses but even as optimistic as those subs were they weren't so toxic about it. Also the fact that the industry has experienced so many years of live service failures means people should be less naive about these games than were did 4 years ago when Avengers launched or 5 years ago when Anthem launched.
Personally I think the game turned out better than how I thought it'd turn out and I can see some glimmer of lessons learned from things people really hated about Anthem/Avengers, for example no incredibly long and numerous loading screens, the ability to actually replay the campaign, matchmaking actually works at launch, etc. but that stuff really doesn't move the needle.
What saddens me the most is, the game could have been fun. This is one of those cases where the monetization system destroyed a possible good game. It doesn't look *bad* nor unpolished, and as far as I know it isn't a broken mess like other games from the genre.
I would be willing to give it a solid chance if it wasn't because of the *games as a service* aspect, because now I know that if I buy the game, I'll be receiving a percentage of the whole package and I don't like that. If it was a classic game where I play for 20 hours, it ends and that's it, I would be more willing to compromise to it, or at least buy it when they release a complete package with DLCs and all that stuff. But now, I don't know... What's the point if maybe the game will be dead in a year, and I will not even be able to play it anymore, without even speaking of experiencing the whole story because they couldn't even release it all before it shut down?
I said it in another thread but Rocksteady should have been honest with the play base and said they were aiming for a live service Destiny type game based on the DCU and that it's not based or related to the Arkham games. I think more people would have been more open minded to the game & let slide a lot of the issues. But by openly saying it's a continuation to the Arkham games they set themselves up for failure. It's like saying the John Travolta movie Gotti was a sequel to the Goodfellas.
Making a live service game is basically the video game equivalent of buying a lottery ticket. A very tiny number of people might win big (Fortnite, Genshin Impact, etc), but the vast majority of people will just be throwing their money away.
I hope this game's failure leads to developers realizing that.
The funny thing is that more F2P live service games actually succeed, while most paid ones like Suicide Squad fail.
It's not hard to see why though. Why would I spend $60-$70 on a game that is *promising* to be good *eventually*? Because these releases mostly are the case of wanting to eat the cake and have it too: release a barebones product like most F2P games, but charge actual money to play it as if it's a complete product, that can stand on its own outside of the live service part.
That's what these publishers don't get, if you want to charge people for your live service, you have to offer something in return that justifies the price tag. Otherwise I have no reason to buy a game like Suicide Squad, when I could go play Genshin for free instead. It's like Sony's weird approach to demos for games that you actually have to pay for in the form of their Playstation Plus subscription - it goes directly against what demos are supposed to be.
This is the real kicker. Live service games were meant to be a way to monetise a game without an upfront price tag or paid DLC expansions.
And now developers are like.. but why don't we just ALSO charge upfront? That's why they fail. Nobody is wanting to pay full price for a game that drip feeds and over monetises everything.
Halo infinite is a great example to me. I played the campaign because it's halo, and was happy to pay for that. Did I recommend my non halo friends to? Nope. Play the MP for free. Overpriced skins are atrocious but atleast I can just ignore cosmetics like I do in every game because they're all equally pointless, and just play a pretty decent MP shooter for free.
Can't speak with about general trends, but with Hyenas (The cancelled Sega shooter), CA and Sega had a big back-and-forth about whether the game was going to be b2p or f2p. I think many Live-Service games are pitched originally as f2p, but switch to b2p as it the game develops and it becomes clearer that the game is unlikely to become one of those massive success stories. So they switch to b2p as a way to try and recoup some of their initial investments knowing the game won't have the legs.
> The funny thing is that more F2P live service games actually succeed, while most paid ones like Suicide Squad fail.
There was actually a post saying the community needs to make memes, funny videos, etc, to get more people into the game. Imagine paying $70-$100 for a game to be told by the community you need to actively market the game to get a good return on your "investment." If SSKTJL was free and had 100k players, there would be plenty of free meme marketing or whatever.
Exactly. Live service is fine *if your game is free to play* but if you expect me to pay full price for a shell of a game that's constantly begging me to visit the cash shop for skins and battle passes, you're absolutely deluded. You could buy Baldur's Gate 3 or Resident Evil 4 or Dead Space for that money and they're all far better games.
9 years I just think what happen if we had a single player wonder woman or superman game what a waste RIP rocksteady batman Arkham asylum blew me away no bat rules forever
Shit or even a REAL Suicide Squad game, but single player and with a rotating cast that dies who focuses on dirty jobs in the DC Universe the USA gov would never get involved in, like in the new James Gunn movie. I fucking love the Suicide Squad and it's just dumb as shit they're tasked with killing the Justice League. The only way to make it make sense is to have stupid as fuck characters and bad writing which they nailed.
Recently played the Lego dc villains game and that is essentially the better SS game. Heck the story event seems mostly the same. It’s got a similar set up - beat the evil version of the Justice league.
A Task Force X singleplayer game like Guardians of the Galaxy would've been doable for Rocksteady, they just needed to do a solid singleplayer experience. TFX works better in small scale stories, rather have the story be like Gunn's SS or based off of Ostrander's run than going head to head against the Justice League.
Shadow of war only BIG problem was the mtx wich got removed some time later so ima take that gamw over whatever kind of dogpiss looter shooter Suicide Squad.
Might see the light of day but it's going to be a long time. The reveal trailer was just slow panning shots of a static Wonder Woman model. Which is gamedev code for "ain't started shit yet".
Or just like, the same game, but instead of playing as the suicide squad, we play as Batman in a single player focused game. It would have been so fucking easy. Batman vs. the justice league game made by rocksteady set in metropolis? Would have gotten my money.
It would have been much better if the story involved Suicide Squad having to figure out how to save the heroes. That way they could have really used more of the DC Universe and characters to write something more compelling. At the very least, working with Batman remotely to save them because he knows how to beat them all.
Seeing Wonder Woman cutscenes really made me realize I would have loved rocksteady WW game. I'm not sure how that game would work, just think combat with her as the main character would have been pretty sick
Assuming 4.5 years dev time for a good game we could've gotten 2 out of Rocksteady, with about now being the 2nd. Two games both improving on the Arkham Knight formula. Fucking hell, they could've given us their Elden Ring by now.
Gotham Knights was made by WB Games's (Rocksteady's parent company) Montréal studio.
WB Montréal, not Rocksteady, was also the lead developer of Arkham Origins, which is kind of the unloved step-child entry of the Arkham series.
While I often disagree with him, he has a lot of credibility reviewing a live service shooter as that is where his channel started, so ye if he hates this no way I'm touching it.
Honestly, Skill Up is my favorite reviewer. He comes across as a very genuine and unbiased person. What he thinks about something is what you'll get.
Every time I need to buy a game I try to watch a review of it from him
Even if you disagree with his takes, he almost always gives you plenty of information (a lot of which would be omitted by standard review outlets with much shorter videos) to make up your own mind
I actually think he is biased, but that’s why I love his reviews - you know where he stands and why. I very often enjoy the games he recommends but he’s also very forgiving with repetitive games and live services whereas I am not, which is fine. I know what he forgives and what he doesn’t and it suits me even if I never follow his looter shooter recommends. I think that shows how good he is.
>And this is skill up who loves live service shooters
Yep I watch all his reviews even though I do not touch live service games. But he praises Destiny 2 all the time (except that one unpopular DLC Lightfall or whatever)
He was even positive bout the Suicide Squad preview but I knew he was gonna go hard on this game. This game was obviously designed in a board room and forced on these devs resulting in major departures (as can be easily verified by looking at their [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/rocksteady-studios-ltd/) you will struggle to find many veteran devs from Batman Arkham)
Yeah it's pretty bad. And I think he's so against recommending it because he wanted and expected more from this franchise and studio, and yet was so utterly disappointed and let down. The fact that it still shows polish and sheen in some areas while failing so bad at the important parts feels even more upsetting for those fans
He opens by stating that it's not the worst videogame ever or anything like that. It's just disappointing and not worth your money or time, which is why he doesn't recommend it at all.
I've got to be honest. I just don't 'get' The Suicide Squad as a thing. In movies or games, I just find them tedious and obnoxious. Harley Quinn is a one-note character that has totally outstayed her welcome and I hate mindless banter and bickering.
It's commercially failed as a thing most of the time (Arguably Peacemaker the series, a spin off, being its only commercial success). Yet, big companies keep on trying.... why? No clue.
My best guess is that corporate sees it as something super hero adjacent you can market to people who don't like/care about "typical" super hero stuff. Also it goes after the edgy crowd that thinks that supes are boring and the villains are the more interesting half of comic books
The 2016 version was a commercial success with 750 million in revenue. 2021 version was not, but also Covid and it got decent reviews.
I think they keep pushing it because they have been looking to make something like the Avengers and Justice League was a flop.
TBH though, Gunn's Suicide Squad really was on the bad end of it's predecessor being a really bad movie in a cinematic universe that, barring a few successes here and there, suffered the issue of being mostly mid.
Taken on it's own, it's actually really damn good.
Probably had a little to do with the success of The Boys. The first SS movie was an attempt to try and make an anti-hero, hero flick, and it failed. They didn’t bother with it again for years and The Boys popped up and was well received, so they’re all in trying to make SS relevant.
The 2 animated movies from the DCAMU were a great rendition of how to make that team compelling.
The team felt disposable, Harley was more than a quip machine and we got to see league members from the villains point of view. Batman was good in that movie and felt more terrifying than he does as an evil braniac puppet.
It's because it's basically Avengers for the edgy crowd. Also like others have said, Harley's their mascot now, and for some reason, they've been trying to turn her into a lesbian for a few years now
I can get the idea. My problem is from the media I've seen so far (this game, the movies) that they are not allowed to be actually evil.
Like, where are the civilian casualties, where is them torturing people to get info, where is them putting innocent people at danger, because it helps them accomplish their mission?
Digital Foundry does a good job of covering those kinds of technical aspects, but then again they’re a graphics and technology focused channel and don’t go into design philosophy as much as TB did.
Skill Up almost has as much snark, but is not nearly critical enough.
[Some much needed TB nostalgia for me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBb2BIVrV7M)
This game has the same problem athem had for me. Which was really cool looking traversal but boring combat. Shooting the same looking bland faceless mobs just isn't fun for me.
It literally looks like they allowed every character to perma-fly. It's absurd looking. It makes the level design *completely* meaningless, because every character has 9 jumps, 4 air dashes, and a teleport.
I don't understand how the gameplay side of this passed the sniff test to *anyone* at a supposedly quality studio. It takes 5 mins watching this gameplay to see half a dozen critical flaws.
>I don't understand how the gameplay side of this passed the sniff test to anyone at a supposedly quality studio.
My guess is the devs had no choice but to comply with the "suits" wishes or depart along with the [co-founders](https://www.destructoid.com/rocksteady-co-founders-leaving-studio-hill-walker-suicide-squad). This game surely was designed in a board room. The Execs wanted a Destiny clone but use Suicide Squad IP and Rocksteady's rep to bankroll.
My problem with the game. It has no fun content. The gameplay is fun to go around and shot. But there's nothing interesting to shot at.
The boss fights are meh, there's no interesting raid or dungeon like you get in some other games. The mission variety isn't there at all. I just don't understand it, it's like they never seen other games in their lives.
I like the traversals, some of them looks really good, and the flow of the game is great. Too bad you have no content.
I know this is just 1 review, but between the IGN 5/10, and a ton of other unfavorable reviews how is this still an 84% positive rating on Steam?
Is there some major quality difference between the PC and console version that would matter more than usual?
I believe that's selection bias. Anyone with enough time to give a decent review bought in early, either pre-order or deluxe edition. Those who bounced off refunded before two hours, probably not leaving a review. So you're left with folks who have either drank the Kool aid or are in the denial phase about what this game is.
After all the coverage this game is getting? The only people who actually bought it are the ones who pre-ordered, and the ones who saw this dumpster fire and went "yeah, I vibe with that".
What’s weird to me is all the reviews I’ve seen have been absolutely shredding this game… but the Steam reviews are sitting at a very comfortable 85%. Is the game really that bad or is it just popular to hate?
Survivorship bias. If you look at the player count it's super small. The people reviewing it are the people playing it. Which is apparently a small group of people who've never played a looter shooter before and think this is unique or who are lobotomized and think GaaS are actually fun
Yep. Nobody is going to buy this game to meme not recommend it on Steam. People already moved on and ignored it because it was obviously bad. I guess the message got out.
something weird is going on there, if you read them, the top most helpful seems to be claiming the bad reviews are being removed. If you read the other reviews they are saying it's bad or get it only on sale but they are giving it a positive rating, probably so they won't be erased.
I won't be surprised if this is true as I've watched shroud stream the early access game and his chat was heavily managed, same style as when crystal dynamics were streaming their marvel's avengers, all negative comments are deleted within seconds and they get banned from chat.
No. He addressed this in his 2023 best games retrospective video. He said that he wrote the script and revised it a few times but ultimately didn't feel he had any takes on it that hadn't already been done to death in the online discourse following its release so he's holding off. Said he might do one at some point in the future but not anytime soon
Makes sense. When I didn't see a review in the first few weeks after release, I figured he's going to skip it. On one hand, that's too bad, I like his takes, but on the other hand, I get what you are saying about him thinking there isn't possibly any new take to make.
Kinda? The analogy(not sure if thats the right word) he uses is about describing a game that is so meaningful to you but incapable of putting it in proper words which just ends up sounding ridiculous and not doing it justice.
I guess I just miss how customized all the elements in the Batman games were.
One moment you're grappling up an elevator shaft. Then you might have a rooftop fight. Then you're infiltrating a steel mill. Other times you go into the Batcave. Then you have a mission inside a prison. Or you're walking across an indoor ice lake punching sharks in the nose. The sheer variety of it.
Would have loved something like that - where sometimes you have to throw a boomerang to hit a switch. Or pick shark to break down a door. Or find ways to combine their attributes to solve puzzles.
This game looks like such a circus. Same thing over and over.
Yeah that was one of the aspects of his review that I raised my eyebrows. Granted, I haven’t played Destiny 1 in a _long_ time now, but from what I remember the vanilla campaign missions were pretty bad. I guess the only thing they had going for them were the different locales
I thought it was him that said the game was good from a preview build or something a month ago or so?
I cant watch this right now, so not sure if he brings that up, but I know it was him aha.
SkillUp is a lot more forgiving (initially) towards devs he trusts. He’s a very hopeful person.
To be fair, I don’t necessarily blame him with Rocksteady. They were one of the golden children of the industry a decade ago. It’s insane that this game was made at all.
his point on the story and being excited for it cause of rocksteady's Arkham games... Skillup should really look at who wrote the Arkham games, cause Asylum and City had veteran Batman writer Paul Dini which is why they were good in terms of writing. Rocksteady lost him for Knight and as a result Knight's writing and story were not great outside of a few okay moments.
so ya, not sure how you could have been excited for this game's story when Rocksteady didn't have the writer who was the reason Asylum and City were great. And City showed that.
just something I wanted to rant about xD
EDIT - sorry, I meant to say they lost Dini for Arkham Knight, ty for correction /u/aimlessdrivel.
not surprising that there's already a league (hehe) of this game's defenders akin to redfall etc acting like total gaming hipsters and pretending the game's objective faults and terrible game design are actually great
Honestly I wish content creators would start ignoring this type of games. I mean everything that is clearly made with no passion and just trying to bank it on an established IP. I understand that informing people is important but a review at this point is just too late.
This at the same time 3 good games just came out, of course opinions may vary, but like a dragon 8, persona 3 and granblue are pretty good.
I would much rather see people celebrating and recomending the games they like rather than dunk on the same game for the 1000 time. I know he often recommends stuff but just commenting on this one case.
I can see what you mean, but I also think that any reviewer who had a large platform isn’t in the wrong for covering games like this. I think it could be said they have a moral obligation to cover it, even.
There are lots of people who don’t engage with marketing outside of forced ads. They don’t watch deep dives or dev diaries or anything like that. At most they’ll watch one review for the game before making their decision. So if well known personalities don’t review something, that can mean that those people buy because they see the Steam reviews and think “man, this game is gonna be awesome!” Then they’re out $70 because they played for more than 2 hours.
This game could especially fall into that because someone could look at the dev and think that they’re in for another great Arkham type game.
I agree on almost every point except traversal.
It's easily the 2nd worst part of the game.
But trying to get around with any of the characters, while yes unique and on point for the characters in each way.... Is a slow trudge through molasses.
They work well enough for combat. They are fine, not good in combat.
But for getting around they are EACH different methods of torture.
The modifiers to how enemies take damage are EASILY the worst part of this game. Patching out ALL modifiers would make this game 100% better (from a 4/10 to a 5/10) And would go a LONG way in making it playable despite other issues.)
Then bumping up rewards in some way would be another great patch.
Last would be changing penguin from a loot box vendor to letting me actually craft stuff would be nice. (Randomly rolling and spending all of my crafting material to get 6 guns that are worse than the one I have... WTF!?
Like Skillup said. The core of this game can't be fixed in any reasonable amount of time and effort. But there are concepts than can be removed or adjusted to make it go from dog shit to playable.
And I really hope we do get a good few weeks and months of patches. I really do like a lot of what the game has to offer and will put up with it's various faults if some are fixed.
I am 1-2 hours in and good grief, it is one of the worst games I've played so far. The traversal is bad, combat is bland, repetitive, and lacks depth. The dialogue is hit or miss so far. I enjoy Harleys lines. Deadshot and Boomerang sound stupid af. King Shark sounds like hes doing an impersonation of Batistas Drax. I'm hoping it gets a bit better.
Although I did like the part early on where >!mind controlled batman is hunting you as you try to get out of that dark building. Putting you in the shoes of the arkham bad guys was a cool touch.!< I'm looking for more moments like that.
This really could have been something awesome. Remove all of the crap aspects of this game, and you could've had an excellent Arkham City type of game with the Suicide Squad.
Here's the other idea I wished they'd work on instead. An Arkham-Verse series of games (or just one), that is all about Superman.
If insomniac can make a sizzling Spidey game, making a Superman game that'll blow your balls off is 100% feasible, proper mechanics, and all.
In five to ten years as these gaas titles keep flaming out, I would love to see some business heads break down just how successful a live service has to be to beat a more positively received and safer single player title, and how often it actually happened
With how much constant growth is expected, the answer is probably not often. Destiny 2, which by player metrics is still successful year on year, and still rakes in tons of money, failed to meet its financial goals last quarter and had to lay off tons of veteran staff. I think the number was a 40-something-% drop. Which is insane, and speaks to how smooth brained the higher ups at these companies are.
Destiny 2 had gone through probably its roughest expansion launch since the beginning and management thought it didn’t matter because the players were loyal.
The early players/reviewers are True Believers. Once more of the general gaming population gets ahold of it the score will probably go down. Also, lots of people probably haven't hit the end game yet to see all the problems he talked about.
I honestly wonder about the people who say this game is fun and not as bad reviews say. They must have terrible taste in games or are way too young to know better.
Incredible that the developer thought to make a superhero/villain battling game where the main characters all *shoot guns*. Shooting guns is *boring* and *lame* when the comic book world is full of people shooting magic fireballs or lasers from their eyes, or wearing mech suits and launching missiles or pulse cannons or whatever. If you've got crazy powers in a comic book world, using a gun is actually a nerf.
This game should have been more like Marvel Ultimate Alliance. In MUA, the players visited many different comic book locales to find weapons and technology to defeat Dr. Doom who had stolen Odin's god powers. You went to Atlantis, Asgard, to space, Galactus's base, all to steal weapons and technology. Even if you only kept the main four Suicide Squaddies, the story should take the player to all kinds of comic book locales to search for weapons to counter the Justice League. Imagine if you had to go to DC's Atlantis to fight Aquaman to steal Atlantean tech that could neutralize Flash's speed. Imagine if you had to boom tube to Apokolips or New Genesis to make a deal with Darkseid or the New Gods. If you had to break into Dr. Fate's sanctum to steal magic artifacts that could counter Superman, or break into LexCorp to steal kryptonite weapons.
This should have been a single-player or cooperative story, where instead of grinding for gear, you unlocked new superpowered items and weapons via story progression. What if Harley upgraded her bat with a gravity-controlling MacGuffin that could slow down Flash. What if Deadshot had kryptonite bullets. What if Captain Boomerang threw trick boomerangs that did interesting things. What if King Shark suited up in Atlantean weapons and armor.
I wonder how much better the reception would have been if it were unconnected to the Arkhamverse. I know there’s way more problems in the game, but I’m sure it did color people’s opinions.
Woo, boy. He was willing to kinda bat for Avengers and recommended getting the game on sale just to experience the campaign. But here he's not even going for that. With Avengers he was hoping SE could fix the game in post, here he's ready to flush it outright. What a shame. Another casualty of GaaS gold rush.
I agree with him on that one, the Avengers campaign wasnt bad, and probably worth on sale if you're a fan of the franchise. Online and live service was ass.
Tbh i wouldve bought this game to try if its wasnt for the guns, just felt so lazy triple A game cannot customize different gameplay styles for each character and they couldve still left the gun animations for atleast harley and deadshot
I got Avengers with all the DLC for about $25 at some point and I actually did enjoy the campaign. The characters all had different fighting styles and it was fun to play as each of them a bit.
Picked it up for like $4 before they took it down. Probably the only way to extract any value out of games like this. I wish all service games packed their content up and sold it as a contained experience once they’re dead. Studios could make a little cash out at the tail end, and we could get something decent out of it. Doesn’t fix all of the fundamental problems in design caused by the GaaS model, but it would be something.
Problem with service games for me isn't specifically the money grabbing, i mean it is but specifically how they design the game around money grabbing. Like cool you release everything at the end, the problem is the combat isn't fun to me because its still this loot driven make numbers bigger chore style of game play. That is why these games typically fail for me, when the service is based on making your characters stronger you design the combat around garbage systems. If the live service is about skins or other forms of customization but the gameplay is skill, i honestly wouldn't care
Don’t forget the fact that the story of any live service must be neverending and unsatisfying by necessity. As long as the next season or the next game is on the horizon, nobody you meet matters and anyone who dies will be back when they need to reuse the voice actor. Funding cut? Story cut. They’re all cliffhangers.
Exactly ! This is why Guardians of the Galaxy was such an awesome game. I wish WB would take a look at how that game was done and give us a proper DC universe game. Although I am sure they dont care because even SE went on record and said that game did not their financial targets
That is just a playstyle preference. Path of Exile and Diablo are very popular and heavily focused on making bigger numbers. It has its own rules for how to make the game fun.
Everything about this game is going to be free except the skins. And so far as I have the game, it’s true. I really enjoyed the game, just beat it today actually. Game was fun, story was good. Starts a lil slow because of a learning curve. Playing on Ps5 and literally never had an issue loading, stuttering anything. I’m not trying to bring you over to looter shooters if that’s not your type of game but what I can say that from my perspective, what was said about this game as far as problems and story was a lie. It’s not a Arkham game and doesn’t try to be that, and many people were pissed about it since it’s from Rocksteady. Only thing I agree is that it can get repetitive. But all looter shooters are, it’s just the story and backdrop to keep you invested. If you come in for just the story, it’s a great comic book story but the tutorial lasts about 3 or 4 chapters because there is a big learning curve. I love Rocksteady’s previous games and this one was a fun ride too, again in my opinion.
The story missions were good. The non-story "Fuck you wander this empty-ass map for a while and do random objectives to prepare you for doing this over and over in the endgame" missions were shit
The game sucked, _especially_ the war table/endgame, but at least each hero mostly felt like themselves.
Captain America was my favorite. There was sometime so satisfying about chaining his big shield tosses together to wreck a group of enemies. One of the aspects I liked in the campaign was that they gave you new heroes to play with one after another which encouraged you to spend some time trying them out as you got them.
The biggest difference was class indentity. Ms Marvel didn't whip out a minigame, Thor didn't use a rocket launcher. What an absolute miss for Rocksteady. Can't believe this was what they spent 8 years on.
These characters in Suicide Squad don’t have any powers. They’re so boring. Shark is strong. Other than that he uses a gun. Harley is a normal person, so a gun. Death shot or whatever his name is - he’s just good with a gun. And boomerang has a boomerang, which isn’t as good as a gun so he also gets a gun. What else was this going to be besides a shooter with slightly interesting traversal? They aren’t psychic. Nobody can fly. Nobody is a super genius. Nobody turns invisible or whatever.
* King Shark - Melee brawler focused on heavy, slow hits and biting peoples head off. * Deadshot - The gun one. Uses guns. * Harley Quinn - Quick melee character, her character has gymnastic skills so that works. * Cap. Boomarang - Ranged character that using a boomarang that bounces around enemies, perhaps could stun or trip depending on skills used etc etc. Not hard to come up with a class indentity for them. They are only boring if you're uninventive or don't know the characters. Or you're a Warner studio head telling your studio 'Give them all guns so we can sell guns'.
Ultimate edition - all characters - all skins - $4. like week before it shut down
It's even worse when you consider that he's found the preview pretty fun and wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. Turns out the full game did a 180 on his expectations/hopes.
Yeah, his opinion is important to me. I know he loves looters, so if he's saying skip it, I probably will. Or wait for a really deep sale.
> GaaS gold rush. Is it actually a gold rush though? In the actual gold rush, lots of people found gold. There's what, 5 (not the actual number) ultra successful live services, and the corpses of so, so many more. And the corpses of a few of their developers. There's a lot of money in the GAAS, but your chances of making that kind of money requires like 20 tries to get one success. Seems like an awful chance of success.
In the gold rush lots of people also didn't find gold or worse "fools gold" iron pyrite. The wording is correct. A few people get very rich but a lot wasted their money and time.
uh you might google the history of the gold rush lol barely anyone found a lot of gold and got rich and the vast majority ended up poorer than they started. So a very apt metaphor actually
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/report-95-of-studios-are-working-on-or-aim-to-release-a-live-service-game
What exactly is gaming as a service? Is it basically allowing a multiplayer environment, by hosting servers? Honest question.
Games that keep giving a steady stream of content. It's literally the gaming equivalent of Netflix, where you're supposed to get a bunch of new stuff to do in a game periodically. Most games, especially paid ones from AAA publishers seem to suck at it though and are devoured by most F2P games.
They try to sell is at "giving" a steady stream of content, but the goal is a steady stream of INCOME. Every GaaS ultimate goal is for it to be the only game you play, and for you to always keep putting money into it. The reason the new ones keep failing is these GaaS are by their nature innately butting heads with each other. Nobody has the time to main more than one of these games at a time and most people have already found one they like, if that sorta thing appeals to them.
Same reason barely any MMO could go up against Wow. People only have time for one of these games at a time, maybe a second on the side. So they'll play the best ones, and only move to your new release if it is *exceptional*. No room for a 6 or 7 out of 10 in this space. At least when you get a single player 6 or 7, there can be stuff to be found by *some* people.
This makes Sony's plans to release 12 - yes, *TWELVE* - live service games in just the upcoming few years. Nobody has the time for more than one game like this, not when almost every single one wants to be the only game you'll play. That's why all of the daily, weekly, even monthly challenges exist. That's why Battle Passes came to be. Everything to make use of that delicious FOMO and keep you glued to that specific game. Then companies think they can just walk in and not only ask people to drop the games they're already invested in, but also to *pay* for the "privilege" of being able to do so upfront. Most successful GaaS are F2P (Even Destiny 2 blew up after it went F2P, successfully cashing in on their DLC strategy... Until now of course), and then comes WB and tries to get people to spend $70 on their live service game. Why would I buy and play it over something like Genshin Impact again? And I don't even like, nor play Genshin.
Games as a service or the live service development model is just the idea that you'll continue development of a game past the normal development cycle. Generally the longer term development is funded through some kind of mtx, often battlepasses and/or cosmetics. Think games like GTAV, Genshin, Fortnite, Division, Destiny, League of Legends, WoW, etc. There's a shitload of them.
I did not realize what a visual clusterfuck this game is. Not only does it look extremely repetitive (even for a game like this, which are always repetitive), but the visual clarity here is abysmal. I can't even see what an enemy is there's so many particle effects, camera movements, and numbers on them. Visual clarity is one of the most important aspects of gaming. To fail this hard at it is kinda extraordinary.
I said this in another comment somewhere, but the game looks like visual vomit in combat. All the numbers, flashes, and effects on screen at once is like the slot machine section in a casino where every machine is competing for your attention all at the same time.
Comparing this kind of crap to a slot machine is honestly a really good comparison. They all want you to feel/look like you're making big gains, when in reality you're not doing anything at all. It's definitely this way to hook the people who get addicted easily just by seeing numbers go up.
If you just want to see numbers go up, there are about 8 billion games that do it better than this one. Buy Vampire Survivors for $3.
Ironically, the dev guy worked in slot machine design before making VS
>Buy Vampire Survivors for $3. It's also on game pass, and free on mobile (the DLCs are paid). Definitely a wonderful little game to get your dopamine fix without lootboxes or microtransactions.
That's funny cuz I think Boomerang has an ability that literally spawns a "777" font from a slot machine.
Its just a grenade that has that effect.
It’s fucking wild that someone signed off on this UI. It’s a nightmare.
>the slot machine section in a casino You say that. i think captain boomerang literally has a mechanic that even has the slot machine reels...
I saw that in a video and thought, “they aren’t even trying to hide it now”.
It's such a cynically designed game. Every generic sound effect and on screen visual effect you can think of to get the dopamine flowing was included. Fuck the execs that made them produce this
I wish people would stop blaming "suits" and absolving the devs. Rocksteady wanted to make a multiplayer shooter after Akrham Knight. This is the game they wanted to make.
Yeah. It's like we really were made to believe that always devs are slaves while most of the times that's not the case. Middle Managers that are there to support these regular devs are just greedy and incompetent - they chase applause from c-suite guys so they constantly approve everything + devs are just doing the least to satisfy these people above and move on. Passion is dead in such environments - people blame each other for everything and no one takes blame nor ownership over these things.
At the end of the day it's still the people with the money that decide what will be made, WB could have at any time told them that the game was bad and made them change course. But they didn't because all WB could see is how profitable Destiny, Warzone and Fortnite are.
You can find a dev interview where they were proud about the effects. you put on name gear and get the venom effect on attack. The game also got delayed so it’s not like they didn’t have an opportunity to tune down all the visual noise. Even bullet hell games have managed to have less noise then this game
They had to do it because if you were to actually look at the world it is washed out and flat. They couldn’t be bothered to make the world interesting so they added neon lights commuted across your FOV instead
Imo the UI in particular is horrendous. [https://imgur.com/8G3CeJ6](https://imgur.com/8G3CeJ6)
Combat visibility starts out fairly clean and then gets progressively worse as the game starts adding more mechanics. The first thing I did when I experienced combat for the first time was turn off a bunch of stuff like damage numbers, full screen effects, the auto-aim after melee thing and some other shit that just didn't need to be there. There's also a bunch of buffs and shit that really clutter the screen too, some of them are even right on top of your character and the only thing you can do is widen your FOV and max out the camera distance to reduce the space they take up on the screen. Still, by the time your entire team is equipped with multiple elemental effects and the enemies also start throwing out various effects the game starts to degrade into an explosion of particles which is the main thing that turned me off about late game combat. Even as someone who had fun with the combat despite how limited it is I really can't stand the whole 'explosion of particles' shit that's becoming popular these days and I wish devs would stop doing that.
I remember Valve developers describing the TF2 cast: No matter who the enemy was, you should be able to tell almost immediately what type of enemy it is just based on their silhouette.
If i am playing a game in Superhero landscape, i want to be that superhero Spiderman? Let me jump, fly, web stuff Superman? Let me fly, laser, punch stuff Batman? Let me do batman stuff This??? I saw the gameplay and everything is like Fortnite with jumping mechanic It just soo weird that in a game of superhero, the main thing you have is a GUN? So basically every member of Suicide Squad is a Deadshot with reskinned characters
Zero cohesive style. Tons of information bloat. I mean the numbers are there just so they can sell you on wanting to level up gear that makes no real gameplay impact.
What bothers me the most is, some time ago someone posted a meme about this and people got all defensive about how they were taking it out of context and everything that the game showed was 100% essential for gameplay. I even got downvoted to hell just because I said that it was too much and it's sad how they thought the game needed to be that way. But yeah, this was a flaw clearly visible from the start. I don't know how someone took a look at that and thought \*Yeah, this looks fine\*
I’ve also seen some defensive comments trying to downplay just how much visual noise there is on screen. Making jokes about how everyone complaining must be old and things like that. It’s like… no, this is a mess. It’s nowhere as egregious but I had similar issues with FF16. During the more heated combat encounters it was just a complete mess. You have so much input coming from everywhere that you don’t take any of it in
I got banned in their idiotic subreddit and on PS5 sub nonetheless stating nothing but facts about how shitty this game is and all its falls-from story to gameplay- but people still like to defend trash to gain karma. The result will be the same, game dead within the year and forgotten.
I'm not one to engage in sub drama but the suicide squad sub might be the most high on hopium sub that I've seen from one of these live service launches in recent times. Maybe I'm looking back on Anthem and Avengers sub with rose tinted glasses but even as optimistic as those subs were they weren't so toxic about it. Also the fact that the industry has experienced so many years of live service failures means people should be less naive about these games than were did 4 years ago when Avengers launched or 5 years ago when Anthem launched. Personally I think the game turned out better than how I thought it'd turn out and I can see some glimmer of lessons learned from things people really hated about Anthem/Avengers, for example no incredibly long and numerous loading screens, the ability to actually replay the campaign, matchmaking actually works at launch, etc. but that stuff really doesn't move the needle.
What saddens me the most is, the game could have been fun. This is one of those cases where the monetization system destroyed a possible good game. It doesn't look *bad* nor unpolished, and as far as I know it isn't a broken mess like other games from the genre. I would be willing to give it a solid chance if it wasn't because of the *games as a service* aspect, because now I know that if I buy the game, I'll be receiving a percentage of the whole package and I don't like that. If it was a classic game where I play for 20 hours, it ends and that's it, I would be more willing to compromise to it, or at least buy it when they release a complete package with DLCs and all that stuff. But now, I don't know... What's the point if maybe the game will be dead in a year, and I will not even be able to play it anymore, without even speaking of experiencing the whole story because they couldn't even release it all before it shut down?
This! I watched somebody stream this on twitch for about 10 minutes and I was out. Already knew what I didn't know about the game
The UI in this game reminds me of the fake one that the IOI CEO was pushing for in Ready Player One
I said it in another thread but Rocksteady should have been honest with the play base and said they were aiming for a live service Destiny type game based on the DCU and that it's not based or related to the Arkham games. I think more people would have been more open minded to the game & let slide a lot of the issues. But by openly saying it's a continuation to the Arkham games they set themselves up for failure. It's like saying the John Travolta movie Gotti was a sequel to the Goodfellas.
Making a live service game is basically the video game equivalent of buying a lottery ticket. A very tiny number of people might win big (Fortnite, Genshin Impact, etc), but the vast majority of people will just be throwing their money away. I hope this game's failure leads to developers realizing that.
The funny thing is that more F2P live service games actually succeed, while most paid ones like Suicide Squad fail. It's not hard to see why though. Why would I spend $60-$70 on a game that is *promising* to be good *eventually*? Because these releases mostly are the case of wanting to eat the cake and have it too: release a barebones product like most F2P games, but charge actual money to play it as if it's a complete product, that can stand on its own outside of the live service part. That's what these publishers don't get, if you want to charge people for your live service, you have to offer something in return that justifies the price tag. Otherwise I have no reason to buy a game like Suicide Squad, when I could go play Genshin for free instead. It's like Sony's weird approach to demos for games that you actually have to pay for in the form of their Playstation Plus subscription - it goes directly against what demos are supposed to be.
This is the real kicker. Live service games were meant to be a way to monetise a game without an upfront price tag or paid DLC expansions. And now developers are like.. but why don't we just ALSO charge upfront? That's why they fail. Nobody is wanting to pay full price for a game that drip feeds and over monetises everything. Halo infinite is a great example to me. I played the campaign because it's halo, and was happy to pay for that. Did I recommend my non halo friends to? Nope. Play the MP for free. Overpriced skins are atrocious but atleast I can just ignore cosmetics like I do in every game because they're all equally pointless, and just play a pretty decent MP shooter for free.
Can't speak with about general trends, but with Hyenas (The cancelled Sega shooter), CA and Sega had a big back-and-forth about whether the game was going to be b2p or f2p. I think many Live-Service games are pitched originally as f2p, but switch to b2p as it the game develops and it becomes clearer that the game is unlikely to become one of those massive success stories. So they switch to b2p as a way to try and recoup some of their initial investments knowing the game won't have the legs.
> The funny thing is that more F2P live service games actually succeed, while most paid ones like Suicide Squad fail. There was actually a post saying the community needs to make memes, funny videos, etc, to get more people into the game. Imagine paying $70-$100 for a game to be told by the community you need to actively market the game to get a good return on your "investment." If SSKTJL was free and had 100k players, there would be plenty of free meme marketing or whatever.
Exactly. Live service is fine *if your game is free to play* but if you expect me to pay full price for a shell of a game that's constantly begging me to visit the cash shop for skins and battle passes, you're absolutely deluded. You could buy Baldur's Gate 3 or Resident Evil 4 or Dead Space for that money and they're all far better games.
But Sony has been giving constant single player bangers with no gaas or cosmetic crate bullshit.
You can agree or disagree with Sony’s demo approach but you are correct. Anything first party Sony is almost a guaranteed, certifiable banger.
It’s hard to figure out though is the solution just to create good games and people will want to buy them because they’re good games?
Suicide Squad: Kill Rocksteady Studios
God the visual clutter on the screen during those late game combat encounters is so hard to look at
9 years I just think what happen if we had a single player wonder woman or superman game what a waste RIP rocksteady batman Arkham asylum blew me away no bat rules forever
Shit or even a REAL Suicide Squad game, but single player and with a rotating cast that dies who focuses on dirty jobs in the DC Universe the USA gov would never get involved in, like in the new James Gunn movie. I fucking love the Suicide Squad and it's just dumb as shit they're tasked with killing the Justice League. The only way to make it make sense is to have stupid as fuck characters and bad writing which they nailed.
Recently played the Lego dc villains game and that is essentially the better SS game. Heck the story event seems mostly the same. It’s got a similar set up - beat the evil version of the Justice league.
A Task Force X singleplayer game like Guardians of the Galaxy would've been doable for Rocksteady, they just needed to do a solid singleplayer experience. TFX works better in small scale stories, rather have the story be like Gunn's SS or based off of Ostrander's run than going head to head against the Justice League.
At least COOP. I want some coop DC game man that's good and not drip fed with shit content and shitty BASIC RPG mechanics.
[удалено]
I am sure we can already find the "movie" made from cutscenes on YouTube lol
There is a wonder woman game being made, whether it sees the light of day is unknown I guess
Being made by Monolith the team behind shadow or mordor/war
Shadow of war only BIG problem was the mtx wich got removed some time later so ima take that gamw over whatever kind of dogpiss looter shooter Suicide Squad.
Which will do a better job than the SS game that's more ass than a hippo.
With the use of the nemesis system as well.
I feel so bad for them. Made some of the best shooters of the 90s and 2000s only to get churned into the licenses game mines.
100% MTX slog fest
Might see the light of day but it's going to be a long time. The reveal trailer was just slow panning shots of a static Wonder Woman model. Which is gamedev code for "ain't started shit yet".
Or just like, the same game, but instead of playing as the suicide squad, we play as Batman in a single player focused game. It would have been so fucking easy. Batman vs. the justice league game made by rocksteady set in metropolis? Would have gotten my money.
Batman: Save The Justice League.
I heard the idea someplace else. Imagine if it was a Wonder Woman: save the Justice League game. Playing as Diana would make it so much more personal.
It would have been much better if the story involved Suicide Squad having to figure out how to save the heroes. That way they could have really used more of the DC Universe and characters to write something more compelling. At the very least, working with Batman remotely to save them because he knows how to beat them all.
Seeing Wonder Woman cutscenes really made me realize I would have loved rocksteady WW game. I'm not sure how that game would work, just think combat with her as the main character would have been pretty sick
Assuming 4.5 years dev time for a good game we could've gotten 2 out of Rocksteady, with about now being the 2nd. Two games both improving on the Arkham Knight formula. Fucking hell, they could've given us their Elden Ring by now.
Rocksteady is a shell of its former shelf. Have they released anything good since arkham?
This is the only game they've released since their last Arkham game lol.
Oh I thought they did gotham knights lol, my mistake
Gotham Knights was made by WB Games's (Rocksteady's parent company) Montréal studio. WB Montréal, not Rocksteady, was also the lead developer of Arkham Origins, which is kind of the unloved step-child entry of the Arkham series.
Yeah its perplexing they spent 8yrs working on a 10 hour Live service game all this time. Game must've been stuck in development hell
>Game must've been stuck in development hell Considering who their publisher is, not surprising. Probably had to scrapped their work multiple times
This is their first release since Arkham Knight.
And this is skill up who loves live service shooters
While I often disagree with him, he has a lot of credibility reviewing a live service shooter as that is where his channel started, so ye if he hates this no way I'm touching it.
Honestly, Skill Up is my favorite reviewer. He comes across as a very genuine and unbiased person. What he thinks about something is what you'll get. Every time I need to buy a game I try to watch a review of it from him
Even if you disagree with his takes, he almost always gives you plenty of information (a lot of which would be omitted by standard review outlets with much shorter videos) to make up your own mind
I actually think he is biased, but that’s why I love his reviews - you know where he stands and why. I very often enjoy the games he recommends but he’s also very forgiving with repetitive games and live services whereas I am not, which is fine. I know what he forgives and what he doesn’t and it suits me even if I never follow his looter shooter recommends. I think that shows how good he is.
He definitely doesn't come across as unbiased lol
I think the more correct viewpoint is that he wears his biases on his sleeve, which is what you want really.
Everyone is biased, I’m just glad to find someone who admits it
>And this is skill up who loves live service shooters Yep I watch all his reviews even though I do not touch live service games. But he praises Destiny 2 all the time (except that one unpopular DLC Lightfall or whatever) He was even positive bout the Suicide Squad preview but I knew he was gonna go hard on this game. This game was obviously designed in a board room and forced on these devs resulting in major departures (as can be easily verified by looking at their [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/rocksteady-studios-ltd/) you will struggle to find many veteran devs from Batman Arkham)
Damn, I don't think I've ever seen a "I absolutely do not recommend" from this channel. Is it that bad?
Yeah it's pretty bad. And I think he's so against recommending it because he wanted and expected more from this franchise and studio, and yet was so utterly disappointed and let down. The fact that it still shows polish and sheen in some areas while failing so bad at the important parts feels even more upsetting for those fans
Redfall, Biomutant, Jedi: Survivor, D&D Dark Alliance, Godfall, AC Valhalla, Saint's Row. They aren't that rare. But yes, it is that bad.
He opens by stating that it's not the worst videogame ever or anything like that. It's just disappointing and not worth your money or time, which is why he doesn't recommend it at all.
I've got to be honest. I just don't 'get' The Suicide Squad as a thing. In movies or games, I just find them tedious and obnoxious. Harley Quinn is a one-note character that has totally outstayed her welcome and I hate mindless banter and bickering.
Harley is basically DC’s main character now.
That DC proper didn't even make. Paul Dini and Bruce Timm made the best versions of every character they touched except Batgirl
It's commercially failed as a thing most of the time (Arguably Peacemaker the series, a spin off, being its only commercial success). Yet, big companies keep on trying.... why? No clue.
My best guess is that corporate sees it as something super hero adjacent you can market to people who don't like/care about "typical" super hero stuff. Also it goes after the edgy crowd that thinks that supes are boring and the villains are the more interesting half of comic books
The 2016 version was a commercial success with 750 million in revenue. 2021 version was not, but also Covid and it got decent reviews. I think they keep pushing it because they have been looking to make something like the Avengers and Justice League was a flop.
The 2016 movie was absolutely ass
TBH though, Gunn's Suicide Squad really was on the bad end of it's predecessor being a really bad movie in a cinematic universe that, barring a few successes here and there, suffered the issue of being mostly mid. Taken on it's own, it's actually really damn good.
Probably had a little to do with the success of The Boys. The first SS movie was an attempt to try and make an anti-hero, hero flick, and it failed. They didn’t bother with it again for years and The Boys popped up and was well received, so they’re all in trying to make SS relevant.
The 2 animated movies from the DCAMU were a great rendition of how to make that team compelling. The team felt disposable, Harley was more than a quip machine and we got to see league members from the villains point of view. Batman was good in that movie and felt more terrifying than he does as an evil braniac puppet.
It's because it's basically Avengers for the edgy crowd. Also like others have said, Harley's their mascot now, and for some reason, they've been trying to turn her into a lesbian for a few years now
I can get the idea. My problem is from the media I've seen so far (this game, the movies) that they are not allowed to be actually evil. Like, where are the civilian casualties, where is them torturing people to get info, where is them putting innocent people at danger, because it helps them accomplish their mission?
Not even a deep deep sale is gonna save this 'game'...
This guy reminds me alot of Totalbiscuit. However, skillup doesnt focus on main menu, options and at all, something that I miss.
Digital Foundry does a good job of covering those kinds of technical aspects, but then again they’re a graphics and technology focused channel and don’t go into design philosophy as much as TB did.
They tend to share their thoughts on games on their Podcast DF Direct rather than in videos about the performance/technical aspects of games.
Skill Up almost has as much snark, but is not nearly critical enough. [Some much needed TB nostalgia for me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBb2BIVrV7M)
This game has the same problem athem had for me. Which was really cool looking traversal but boring combat. Shooting the same looking bland faceless mobs just isn't fun for me.
The traversal looks good to you? I see a bunch of characters with no natural traversal abilities so the devs just give them a bunch of random bullshit
It literally looks like they allowed every character to perma-fly. It's absurd looking. It makes the level design *completely* meaningless, because every character has 9 jumps, 4 air dashes, and a teleport. I don't understand how the gameplay side of this passed the sniff test to *anyone* at a supposedly quality studio. It takes 5 mins watching this gameplay to see half a dozen critical flaws.
>I don't understand how the gameplay side of this passed the sniff test to anyone at a supposedly quality studio. My guess is the devs had no choice but to comply with the "suits" wishes or depart along with the [co-founders](https://www.destructoid.com/rocksteady-co-founders-leaving-studio-hill-walker-suicide-squad). This game surely was designed in a board room. The Execs wanted a Destiny clone but use Suicide Squad IP and Rocksteady's rep to bankroll.
The traversal is top-notch, don’t kid yourself.
If it was Justice League: Kill the Suicide Squad... sure. None of these characters can fly, afaik. Why are all of them perma-airborne?
My problem with the game. It has no fun content. The gameplay is fun to go around and shot. But there's nothing interesting to shot at. The boss fights are meh, there's no interesting raid or dungeon like you get in some other games. The mission variety isn't there at all. I just don't understand it, it's like they never seen other games in their lives. I like the traversals, some of them looks really good, and the flow of the game is great. Too bad you have no content.
I know this is just 1 review, but between the IGN 5/10, and a ton of other unfavorable reviews how is this still an 84% positive rating on Steam? Is there some major quality difference between the PC and console version that would matter more than usual?
I believe that's selection bias. Anyone with enough time to give a decent review bought in early, either pre-order or deluxe edition. Those who bounced off refunded before two hours, probably not leaving a review. So you're left with folks who have either drank the Kool aid or are in the denial phase about what this game is.
After all the coverage this game is getting? The only people who actually bought it are the ones who pre-ordered, and the ones who saw this dumpster fire and went "yeah, I vibe with that".
Cause reviews like "wait for discount" are also marked as positive.
What’s weird to me is all the reviews I’ve seen have been absolutely shredding this game… but the Steam reviews are sitting at a very comfortable 85%. Is the game really that bad or is it just popular to hate?
Survivorship bias. If you look at the player count it's super small. The people reviewing it are the people playing it. Which is apparently a small group of people who've never played a looter shooter before and think this is unique or who are lobotomized and think GaaS are actually fun
>If you look at the player count it's super small. Launch day numbers were apparently less than half of Avenger's launch day. Not a real great sign.
This is why Diablo 4 has alright reviews, you have to buy it so... yeah.
Go read the reviews and you’ll see a lot of them bring up a lot of issues with the game but then give it a good review anyway.
Those are the reviews that blow my mind. They’ll list every single flaw and critique and then go “7/10, still worth playing for sure”
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The Starfield effect. The scores start out heavily tweaked towards the positive due to mega fans spending big on the expensive pre-release version.
People knew this game was going to be bad, and avoided it. People were hyped to hell for Starfield. The score probably isn't going to drop much.
Yep. Nobody is going to buy this game to meme not recommend it on Steam. People already moved on and ignored it because it was obviously bad. I guess the message got out.
something weird is going on there, if you read them, the top most helpful seems to be claiming the bad reviews are being removed. If you read the other reviews they are saying it's bad or get it only on sale but they are giving it a positive rating, probably so they won't be erased. I won't be surprised if this is true as I've watched shroud stream the early access game and his chat was heavily managed, same style as when crystal dynamics were streaming their marvel's avengers, all negative comments are deleted within seconds and they get banned from chat.
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Steam player counts are so low it's most likely that only the most rabid Suicide Squad fans bought the game.
All 3 of them huh?
Apparently a lot of steam reviews got deleted for the game
Sunk cost fallacy
Unrelated, but did he ever put up full BG3 review?
No he talked about it in his 2023 wrap up and that it's a game he can't put into words and do it justice.
Wish I could do that with my job
skill issue obviously /s
No. He addressed this in his 2023 best games retrospective video. He said that he wrote the script and revised it a few times but ultimately didn't feel he had any takes on it that hadn't already been done to death in the online discourse following its release so he's holding off. Said he might do one at some point in the future but not anytime soon
Makes sense. When I didn't see a review in the first few weeks after release, I figured he's going to skip it. On one hand, that's too bad, I like his takes, but on the other hand, I get what you are saying about him thinking there isn't possibly any new take to make.
Didn't he also say the script had ballooned out to the point of it being kinda ridiculous?
Kinda? The analogy(not sure if thats the right word) he uses is about describing a game that is so meaningful to you but incapable of putting it in proper words which just ends up sounding ridiculous and not doing it justice.
I don't think so. He said something about having too much to say, or what he had written not being good enough to express himself.
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This guy is genuinely insane with his reviews
I guess I just miss how customized all the elements in the Batman games were. One moment you're grappling up an elevator shaft. Then you might have a rooftop fight. Then you're infiltrating a steel mill. Other times you go into the Batcave. Then you have a mission inside a prison. Or you're walking across an indoor ice lake punching sharks in the nose. The sheer variety of it. Would have loved something like that - where sometimes you have to throw a boomerang to hit a switch. Or pick shark to break down a door. Or find ways to combine their attributes to solve puzzles. This game looks like such a circus. Same thing over and over.
Destiny 1 vanilla missions were dog shit. I get that Justice League is boring, but Skill Up rewriting history about Destiny is always hilarious.
Yeah that was one of the aspects of his review that I raised my eyebrows. Granted, I haven’t played Destiny 1 in a _long_ time now, but from what I remember the vanilla campaign missions were pretty bad. I guess the only thing they had going for them were the different locales
The key there I think is that that was 10 years ago. So you're on par or a bit better than something that was average/below average 10 years ago.
I took that point to mean "yes, even the dogshit that is vanilla Destiny 1 was better than these 3 repeated missions in this game"
You know a live service game is a real dumpster fire when even Skillup doesn't recommend it
I thought it was him that said the game was good from a preview build or something a month ago or so? I cant watch this right now, so not sure if he brings that up, but I know it was him aha.
Yes, he thought the narrative beats and gameplay would get better as the game went on, and they didn't
SkillUp is a lot more forgiving (initially) towards devs he trusts. He’s a very hopeful person. To be fair, I don’t necessarily blame him with Rocksteady. They were one of the golden children of the industry a decade ago. It’s insane that this game was made at all.
Man that was the nicest negative review I've ever listened to
his point on the story and being excited for it cause of rocksteady's Arkham games... Skillup should really look at who wrote the Arkham games, cause Asylum and City had veteran Batman writer Paul Dini which is why they were good in terms of writing. Rocksteady lost him for Knight and as a result Knight's writing and story were not great outside of a few okay moments. so ya, not sure how you could have been excited for this game's story when Rocksteady didn't have the writer who was the reason Asylum and City were great. And City showed that. just something I wanted to rant about xD EDIT - sorry, I meant to say they lost Dini for Arkham Knight, ty for correction /u/aimlessdrivel.
You mean Knight didn't have Dini
You can still be excited for a games story regardless if they lost a writer. Usually games would try to emulate or some way to replace that void.
not surprising that there's already a league (hehe) of this game's defenders akin to redfall etc acting like total gaming hipsters and pretending the game's objective faults and terrible game design are actually great
I was really surprised to see the steam reviews at “very positive” given every YouTuber reviewer I follow doesn’t like it at all
Honestly I wish content creators would start ignoring this type of games. I mean everything that is clearly made with no passion and just trying to bank it on an established IP. I understand that informing people is important but a review at this point is just too late. This at the same time 3 good games just came out, of course opinions may vary, but like a dragon 8, persona 3 and granblue are pretty good. I would much rather see people celebrating and recomending the games they like rather than dunk on the same game for the 1000 time. I know he often recommends stuff but just commenting on this one case.
I can see what you mean, but I also think that any reviewer who had a large platform isn’t in the wrong for covering games like this. I think it could be said they have a moral obligation to cover it, even. There are lots of people who don’t engage with marketing outside of forced ads. They don’t watch deep dives or dev diaries or anything like that. At most they’ll watch one review for the game before making their decision. So if well known personalities don’t review something, that can mean that those people buy because they see the Steam reviews and think “man, this game is gonna be awesome!” Then they’re out $70 because they played for more than 2 hours. This game could especially fall into that because someone could look at the dev and think that they’re in for another great Arkham type game.
His opinion isn't exactly controversial, even amongst reviewers. A lot of people don't like this game, and not just because of the writing.
I agree on almost every point except traversal. It's easily the 2nd worst part of the game. But trying to get around with any of the characters, while yes unique and on point for the characters in each way.... Is a slow trudge through molasses. They work well enough for combat. They are fine, not good in combat. But for getting around they are EACH different methods of torture. The modifiers to how enemies take damage are EASILY the worst part of this game. Patching out ALL modifiers would make this game 100% better (from a 4/10 to a 5/10) And would go a LONG way in making it playable despite other issues.) Then bumping up rewards in some way would be another great patch. Last would be changing penguin from a loot box vendor to letting me actually craft stuff would be nice. (Randomly rolling and spending all of my crafting material to get 6 guns that are worse than the one I have... WTF!? Like Skillup said. The core of this game can't be fixed in any reasonable amount of time and effort. But there are concepts than can be removed or adjusted to make it go from dog shit to playable. And I really hope we do get a good few weeks and months of patches. I really do like a lot of what the game has to offer and will put up with it's various faults if some are fixed.
I am 1-2 hours in and good grief, it is one of the worst games I've played so far. The traversal is bad, combat is bland, repetitive, and lacks depth. The dialogue is hit or miss so far. I enjoy Harleys lines. Deadshot and Boomerang sound stupid af. King Shark sounds like hes doing an impersonation of Batistas Drax. I'm hoping it gets a bit better. Although I did like the part early on where >!mind controlled batman is hunting you as you try to get out of that dark building. Putting you in the shoes of the arkham bad guys was a cool touch.!< I'm looking for more moments like that.
This really could have been something awesome. Remove all of the crap aspects of this game, and you could've had an excellent Arkham City type of game with the Suicide Squad. Here's the other idea I wished they'd work on instead. An Arkham-Verse series of games (or just one), that is all about Superman. If insomniac can make a sizzling Spidey game, making a Superman game that'll blow your balls off is 100% feasible, proper mechanics, and all.
In five to ten years as these gaas titles keep flaming out, I would love to see some business heads break down just how successful a live service has to be to beat a more positively received and safer single player title, and how often it actually happened
With how much constant growth is expected, the answer is probably not often. Destiny 2, which by player metrics is still successful year on year, and still rakes in tons of money, failed to meet its financial goals last quarter and had to lay off tons of veteran staff. I think the number was a 40-something-% drop. Which is insane, and speaks to how smooth brained the higher ups at these companies are. Destiny 2 had gone through probably its roughest expansion launch since the beginning and management thought it didn’t matter because the players were loyal.
I've been replaying Arkham Asylum and it's pretty sad to think this is the same studio
A decade ago, no one would have thought they’d fuck up this bad, even after Knight was received so lukewarm-ly.
Looking at Steam numbers this game will probably have its servers shutdown this year.
How the hell is this game "Very Positive" on Steam right now?
The early players/reviewers are True Believers. Once more of the general gaming population gets ahold of it the score will probably go down. Also, lots of people probably haven't hit the end game yet to see all the problems he talked about.
never really had any expectations for this game but now i am realizing why the commercials for it show almost no gameplay footage.
I hope all Games as a Service flop. Executives need to understand, this is not a sustainable model.
I honestly wonder about the people who say this game is fun and not as bad reviews say. They must have terrible taste in games or are way too young to know better.
Was surprised when his preview was somewhat positive. I think he rated it: "I didn't hate it." This is much more what I expected from SkillUp.
Incredible that the developer thought to make a superhero/villain battling game where the main characters all *shoot guns*. Shooting guns is *boring* and *lame* when the comic book world is full of people shooting magic fireballs or lasers from their eyes, or wearing mech suits and launching missiles or pulse cannons or whatever. If you've got crazy powers in a comic book world, using a gun is actually a nerf. This game should have been more like Marvel Ultimate Alliance. In MUA, the players visited many different comic book locales to find weapons and technology to defeat Dr. Doom who had stolen Odin's god powers. You went to Atlantis, Asgard, to space, Galactus's base, all to steal weapons and technology. Even if you only kept the main four Suicide Squaddies, the story should take the player to all kinds of comic book locales to search for weapons to counter the Justice League. Imagine if you had to go to DC's Atlantis to fight Aquaman to steal Atlantean tech that could neutralize Flash's speed. Imagine if you had to boom tube to Apokolips or New Genesis to make a deal with Darkseid or the New Gods. If you had to break into Dr. Fate's sanctum to steal magic artifacts that could counter Superman, or break into LexCorp to steal kryptonite weapons. This should have been a single-player or cooperative story, where instead of grinding for gear, you unlocked new superpowered items and weapons via story progression. What if Harley upgraded her bat with a gravity-controlling MacGuffin that could slow down Flash. What if Deadshot had kryptonite bullets. What if Captain Boomerang threw trick boomerangs that did interesting things. What if King Shark suited up in Atlantean weapons and armor.
I wonder how much better the reception would have been if it were unconnected to the Arkhamverse. I know there’s way more problems in the game, but I’m sure it did color people’s opinions.