Idle Weekend February 6, 2017: Batman Academy

[Chris]

Idle Weekend February 6, 2017:

Batman Academy
It's time to talk Batman! Well, sort of. Rob is having second thoughts about Batman: Arkham Origins, which prompts a discussion on games that give a very particular kind of feedback during play. Also, Superman Returns is an underrated movie.

Discussed: Batman: Arkham Origins, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Street Fighter V, Metal Gear Solid IV, GTR, Crazy Taxi, BioShock, BioShock 2, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, Mafia 3, Papers Please, Superman Returns, Avatar: The Last Airbender

 

• Listen on the Episode Page
• Listen on Soundcloud
• Listen in iTunes

[cheezcola]

The start of the podcast with the message about the ACLU warms my heart. This is becoming my "feel good" podcast now. Thanks for that.


I apologize for advertising for games if that is not allowed, but there are a couple of games that are donating their sales to the ACLU as well.

First one is 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. Many had it as their best game of last year.

The other one is the famous Papers Please that is also for sale for ~$2.99 right now.

Fez is also for sale with all the money going to ACLU.

I am sure there are others out there if you want to both donate and try out cool games.

 

Please love each other.

Edit: Both games mentioned on the podcast as well! 

[Roderick]

I've been away from listening the Idle podcasts for a while due to the nature of my work (writing doesn't lend itself to listening to people talk), but I've been making an effort to get back again. Idle Weekend is so good. It's a relaxing, charming thing and it's always a pleasure to hear Danielle speak her mind. And the chemistry with Rob is great!

[cooljammer00]

It's like they decided to do an episode just for me about underrated things that I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Arkham Origins is good and has a sense of holiday melancholy you rarely get in games. It's a Shane Black movie in game form. And it actually has decent/good boss battles and good DLC.

 

Brandon Routh was a solid and underrated Superman who got the short end of the stick in terms of public perception of that movie. I'm glad his career seems to have bounced back in recent years, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night not withstanding.

[shizumadrive]

Brandon Routh was a great Superman and Spacey was a great Luthor, but that movie has so many problems that calling it a panacea for our current crop of superhero movies is a bit much.

 

Things I hated

 

-Superman as stalker

-Luther's plot (Real Estate again)

-Lois Lane decides to be dumb to advance the plot (I found where all this power was going, maybe I should go alone with my child)

-They managed to make Lois Lane unlikable, even if you understand her anger towards Superman

-The idiotic "Is Superman dead?" stuff at the end.

 

X3 may be bad but I had a way better time watching that movie.

[Urthman]

Also, the scene where Superman floats up into the atmosphere and listens to all the voices in the world, all the people who might need his help, and what gets his attention?  "Oh no! A bank is getting robbed! Are those deposits even insured? And even if they are...the bank's premiums will skyrocket! To the rescue!"

[feelthedarkness]

This might be a stretch, and I'm going to talk about games I haven't played based on my impressions, but I feel like survival sims are a kind of collective guilt modelers. Rust, Day Z, ETC. You might not go to work in a munitions factory, but I think they show how when given the choice to help those with less, many choose not to, go along with horrible behavior, or to take what they can to survive.

[Gorbles]

Just on the movie note, I enjoy Superman Returns far more than X3. I unashamedly love the X-Men movies for what they are, but so much of X3 hinges on people we've spent two movies developing as insightful and resourceful even in the face of overwhelming odds . . . and making them all incredibly stupid.

 

I'll never not love the Juggernaught, though.

[malkav11]

On 2/6/2017 at 0:12 PM, shizumadrive said:

Brandon Routh was a great Superman and Spacey was a great Luthor, but that movie has so many problems that calling it a panacea for our current crop of superhero movies is a bit much.

 

Things I hated

 

-Superman as stalker

-Luther's plot (Real Estate again)

-Lois Lane decides to be dumb to advance the plot (I found where all this power was going, maybe I should go alone with my child)

-They managed to make Lois Lane unlikable, even if you understand her anger towards Superman

-The idiotic "Is Superman dead?" stuff at the end.

 

X3 may be bad but I had a way better time watching that movie.

 

I can't go with you on that last bit (X3 was godawful, SR merely bad) but otherwise your list is pretty spot on. That's the sort of stuff that made me dislike Superman Returns, not it being "boring" - a criticism I honestly can't remember ever hearing although I guess I wouldn't be surprised if it was out there. I mean, my strongest takeaway from the movie was Superman being stalkery and how horribly out of character it was. Though I guess maybe I'd take that over massive-collateral-damage Superman of Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman. I don't know.

 

On a non-reply-y note,  you're partly right about Bryan Singer, Danielle. He was the director on the most recent two X-Men movies (Days of Future Past and Apocalypse), he merely produced First Class. First Class was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who I think was a bit better (though I did like Future Past okay), and who I still most fondly remember from Stardust.