Top posts of the week: Batman and Catwoman finally defeat Bane

For the first time since the public location shooting began in Pittsburgh, Tom Hardy’s Bane was not in the top five search terms, which this week is dominated by Christian Bale (Batman/Bruce Wayne) and Catwoman in two forms:  Anne Hathaway/Selina Kyle in the Dark Knight Rises, and the Arkham City Catwoman, with an emphasis on player dissatisfaction with her costume and portrayal in the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum.

1. Profile: Christian Bale is Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises
2. Anne Hathaway, Selina Kyle/Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises: so very good at being bad (via Sexy Girls Dressed)
3. Arkham City Epic Fail on Catwoman Costume
4. The Dark Knight Rises Set Photos: Bane
5. Batman and Catwoman Cosplay: The Best of Dragon Con
6. Bane Mask, Other Batman Items coming up for sale in Movie Memorabilia Auction
7. Batman Merch: Joker Tshirt of the Day
8. The Dark Knight Rises: New Poster and a menu on Official Website
9. Batman Merch: Arkham City models from Play Arts Kai
10. Christian Bale said Anne Hathaway had the hardest job as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
11. Hot New Location Photos: Not Bruce and Selina this time. It’s Batman and Catwoman IN FULL COSTUME (or is it?)
12. Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment at Comic-Con: LOVE BITES

Top search terms:
christian bale
selina kyle
catwoman arkham city
anne hathaway catwoman|catwoman anne hathaway
batman cosplay

Top Posts of the Week: It’s the Big 3 all the way Bale/Batman, Hathaway/Catwoman and Hardy/Bane

In the last shopping days before Christmas, not a lot of Batman merchandise made it into the Internet consciousness.  A few lingering boos and hisses aimed at Arkham City as the Bat-letdown of the year, and the Riddler Converse shoes got some traction, but for the most part, the collective consciousness is fully occupied with The Dark Knight Rises, its prologue and trailer.  We don’t know what to expect from the movie itself, but it’s clear what fans are most interested in.  By a wide margin, it’s the big 3: Batman/Christian Bale, Catwoman/Selina/Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy/Bane.

1. Christian Bale is Bruce Wayne / Batman in The Dark Knight Rises
2. Anne Hathaway, Selina Kyle/Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises: so very good at being bad (via Sexy Girls Dressed)
3. The Dark Knight Rises Set Photos: Bane
4. The Dark Knight Rises Prologue: Leaked and Plugged
5. The Dark Knight Rises Gotham Stadium Video
6. Script pages from The Dark Knight Rises “leaked” (Not exactly, but they’re letting us know what Bane was saying)
7. Batman and Catwoman Cosplay: The Best of Dragon Con
8. Overheard on the Social Networks: Selina Kyle is “Very Hepburn”
9. Why I’m passing on Arkham City
10. The Dark Knight Rises: Batman’s plane the Batwing
11. Arkham City Epic Fail on Catwoman
12. Batman Merch: Riddler Converse

Searches
tom hardy bane
christian bale
anne hathaway catwoman the dark knight rises
selina kyle
dark knight rises prologue leaked

Top Posts of the Week: Arkham City’s 15 minutes are up. TDKR back on top. Interest keen in Batman-Bane fight and all Dark Knight location shooting.

Looks like Arkham City’s 15 minutes are up.  The week was full of interest in The Dark Knight Rises filming, particularly the Batman/Bane fight, and the  unflagging interest in anything involving Anne Hathaway, Catwoman and the word ‘sexy.’  Old pictures from the location shooting in Pittsburgh months ago are getting more requests than anything pertaining to the game released only last week.  It is quite an anti-climax after their months of relentless  hype.

1. The Dark Knight Rises Location Photos: Batman/Bane Fight
2. The Dark Knight Rises Set Photos: Bane
3. Anne Hathaway, Selina Kyle/Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises: so very good at being bad (via Sexy Girls Dressed)
4. Candid set photos: Batman, Catwoman, Commissioner Gordon from the set of The Dark Knight Rises
5. Arkham City Epic Fail on Catwoman Costume
6. Batman Merch: Riddler Converse
7. New Set Photos from The Dark Knight Rises: Christian Bale/Bruce Wayne looking very Wall Street and Joseph Gordon-Levitt looking very much like a cop
8. The Dark Knight Rises Location Photos: Batman/Batsuit #TDKR
9. DC Reboot Catwoman #1 – Wrong costume is a warning sign to fans but characterization sounds like an improvement
10. Production Images from #TDKR NYC Locations | Examiner.com
11. Why I’m passing on Arkham City
12. Hot New Location Photos: Not Bruce and Selina this time. It’s Batman and Catwoman IN FULL COSTUME (or is it?)

Top searches
dark knight rises fight
christian bale
anne hathaway catwoman
the dark knight rises bane | tom hardy bane
arkham city bait and switch
catwoman reboot
justin bieber’s batmobile
the dark knight rises batwing
batman shooting

Batman: Arkham Asylum for Macs Oct. 13th | MacNN

There is one bright spot among all the angry cries of “Bait and Switch” and disappointment over Arkham City.  The original game, Arkham Asylum, which everyone agrees was a wonderful Batman adventure, will be coming out for Macintosh October 13th.

Batman Arkham Asylum: Released for Mac, October 13

Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum will at last reach Macs on October 13th, port developer Feral Interactive has announced. The Mac version has been a long time in coming; the game originally launched for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in August 2009, and for Windows systems less than a month later. All three of the original platforms will in fact be getting the sequel, Arkham City, on October 18th.

In Arkham Asylum, players assume the role of Batman as he escorts the Joker into custody, only to fall into a trap where he must stop not only the Joker but other residents of the asylum like Bane, Scarecrow and Poison Ivy. Gameplay involves a mix of stealth, gadget use and brawling, the last being based on a system of chained combos. The story is penned by long-time Batman writer Paul Dini.

The Mac port will cost $40 at retail, and also go on sale through download portals including the Mac App Store. Buyers will need a minimum of a 2GHz Intel Mac running OS X 10.6 or better, along with 2GB of RAM and a dedicated graphics card sporting 256MB of memory. This excludes any system using integrated Intel graphics.

via MacNN.

More Arkham City delays for PC

DSO gaming is reporting more delays for Arkham City for the PC.  Originally slated for November 15th, it has now been pushed back to November 18th in Europe and November 25th in the U.S.

The news has given disgruntled XBox and PS3 buyers a chance to vent their anger over the “Catwoman bait and switch” wherein Catwoman, who was promoted as a primary part of the game and pictured back to back with Batman was revealed to be an optional add on who therefore has no impact on the main story and little interaction with Batman.

The PC players are lucky” said one disgruntled buyer.  ”They will (know) what they’re getting (NO CATWOMAN in the main story and Talia al Ghul traipsing around as a love interest for godsake!) thanks to the rest of us that fell for the bait and switch.

I will never spend another penny on this franchise or anything with (Paul) Dini’s name on it.

“They sold us one story and delivered another”

Arkham City DOA (Oh yeah, Nightwing now)

Major games are often compared to Hollywood movies now, and savvy game-watchers took one look at the pre-release hype for Arkham City, the pressure to pre-order and the saturation bombing of ads on ESPN and Spike that opening weekend and said “This is a turkey.” It was the behavior of a studio that knows negative word of mouth will kill the thing as soon as real people not swayed by fanboy hype see what all the fuss is about.

Rocksteady should be thanking the people complaining about the sexism and the Catwoman bait-and-switch, because they’re practically the only ones talking.  There are a few reviews on various blogs.  Shockingly few.   On par with reviews of an Indy comic book.

“That’s what the hardcore fans do when they’ve bought into  hype and been disappointed,” said one insider at metacritic.  ”They don’t admit it. They don’t write bad reviews. They just go quiet.”

Serious gamers have called the movie-making elements dated: the camera work, lighting and action are at least a generation behind other top-tier offerings like Uncharted 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

“They seem to be relying entirely on it being Batman to make up the difference,” said a GameStop clerk.

And Batman fans were, on the whole, disgusted with everything from character re-designs to characterization on everyone from Alfred to Oswald Cobblepot.  Paul Dini’s story is rooted in a ludicrously dark “Gotham is Hell” environ that played in comics in his glory days back in the 1990s, but has long since worn out its welcome.  Dini himself became a red flag to comic readers in recent years when his stewardship of the Batman titles drove away even hardcore fans.  Many point to his mishandling of Batman and related characters at the very time when The Dark Knight and its rival boosted popularity to unprecedented heights as pivotal in the corporate restructuring which recently manifested in the DC Reboot and “The New 52.”

What politicos call “The Base” is always there to provide numbers and positive quotes, but the swift disappearance of the Arkham City TV ad says it all.  Unlike Dini’s old masters at DC Comics, corporations will not throw good money after bad to let this guy save face.

Rocksteady doesn’t have that luxury of cutting bait.  Having built their name on Arkham Asylum, they’re still begging us to keep our eye on the ball on their left hand.  They’ve released a new Nightwing DLC, which spurred a lot of “Arkham fanboys like dick” jokes on the forums, but did nothing to spur new interest in the game.  Even positive reviews from that base who are so determined to be pleased have called it “a ripoff.”

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Top Posts of the Week: Arkham City steals TDKR spotlight but at what cost?

Arkham City’s took the top spot from The Dark Knight Rises this week, but Warner Bros. probably wishes it didn’t.  Back in May, the game got off to a terrible start with Catwoman, offending fans with a costume that was instantly proclaimed an “Epic Fail.” It was portent, because the revelation with the games release that Catwoman is a downloadable add on with little contact with Batman or impact on the main story has many fans crying Bait and Switch, and googling ‘bait and switch’ in conjunction with various arkham-related keywords.

1. Why I’m passing on Arkham City
2. New Set Photos from The Dark Knight Rises: Christian Bale/Bruce Wayne looking very Wall Street 
3. Anne Hathaway, Selina Kyle/Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises: so very good at being bad (via Sexy Girls Dressed)
4. At long last: There will be Alternative Catwoman Costumes (skins) in Arkham City
5. Batman at Comic Con: Catwoman of the DC Comics Reboot, not apologizing for sexy!
6. Batman and Catwoman Cosplay: The Best of Dragon Con
7. Bruce Wayne’s latest hot ride: The Lamborghini Aventador
8. Batman and Catwoman in full costume on the set of The Dark Knight Rises
9. Batman Merch: Riddler Converse
10. Arkham City Epic Fail on Catwoman Costume

Top AC-related search terms

• arkham city bait and switch
• catwoman arkham city bait and switch
• paul dini ruined arkham franchise
• talia al ghul arkham bait and switch
• arkham city catwoman skins
• dlc catwoman bait and switch

Top non-Arkham City searches

• the dark knight rises catwoman (variations)
• selina kyle
• the dark knight rises bane | tom hardy bane
• riddler converse
• the dark knight rises batmobile