Gotham City Impostors

[Binnatics]

I got caught by this game on steam. I think this is the equivalent for the people who don't love superheroes and just want to make fun of them :-D
Art, this is just in your league, check out the video ;)

http://www.gothamcityimpostors.com/#

Well, that is the website where you can find everything about the game plus the video, and here is the embedded youtube promo video±

Gotham City Impostors has arrived!

Doesn remind me of Team fortress a bit 8)

Holy crap this is madness! I´m downloading right now  ;)

[JRD]

I saw that game at STEAM but didn't check it.

Looks mad... and fun!  >:D

[Binnatics]

Looks mad... and fun!  >:D

That's what it is!!!

I'll give some info about the getting started thing: First of all, you download the game. That doesn't take ages in my case, so I start to install the game. Well, that takes a while. Especially because you have to sign up/in to both Game for Windows Live and WBID. That makes you have to sign up with 3, yes you read that right, THREE different online services. First Steam to fire up the game, then GfWL to join matchmaking (matchmaking still lags quite a bit so it's hard to hook up with friends and find full parties, but they're working on it ;)) and then WBID to be able to progress in XP and unlock unlockables.
Well, if you're through all that, agreeing a million privacy policies and terms of use and other crap, you're down for it. It was quite frustrating that all this signing up and signing in was taking even more time to download the freekin game, but I guess it's a one time only so let's leave it at that.

When you're finally in, you'll get a tiny tutorial about what's at stake. A guys who wants to be called 'sir' explains to you what this impostors thing is all about, and his friend Melvin helps him with that. The basic idea is: We help Batman fight crime and to do so, we use a little less advanced equipment than the Bat uses so to speak. Our equipment is more efficacious though >:D
To give you an idea of the available gadgets and guns, you play the "getting started". I found out that e.g. the graple gun is a simple line launcher that shoots a line to a certain point, and leaves the wannabe Bat to turn a wheel in order to get to the desired point. Fortunately, you don't have to turn that graple yourself. The ingame fool does it :-()
There are more gadgets like inline skates or special jumper boots etc. Some of them make it possible to use environmental objects like a ramp or a ventilation shaft.
The guns are nothing special. Well, you have the usual arsenal of firepower and just like in Team Fortress, they are divided over 5 different types of soldiers: Scouts, medics, defenders, snipers and, eurhm, not sure if that last one was an engineer. I guess it was something else. I'll come back to that one.

There are thousands of customizations available, which are in general buy-able and also obtainable by gaining XP. That is the great formula we already know of TF2 :-D
The graphics looks great. It's more or less Arkham city by daylight. Very well worked out detail and cool characters. All different wannabe joker- and batman guys.

The gameplay is smooth and fun. I've tried some team deathmatch and leveled up rapidly to 5, which gives me access to a custom load-out etc. Not sure what to do with it, first I'm gonna get used to the game and the controls.
There's a huge variety of challenges where you can practice the available gadgets and so in the given maps. Gonna focus on them first I guess, to practice moving a bit.
Funny thing is that aiming was set to 'toggle'. I found that very unpleasant so I turned that off immediately.

Gonna find out more about this funny game. So far it looks a lot like an exact copy of the Team Fortress formula, with another theme and a slightly different gameplay. I like it 8)

[Binnatics]

Here's a first impression of the map Ace Chemicals. Funny detail is the poster of course :)
[smg id=3996]

[Art Blade]

 :)

[Binnatics]

Well, getting to know the game a bit through the challenges. A perfect way to get used to the available gadgets, weapons and maps. I already noticed everything has humour in it. The motto is: Don't take yourself, or whatever, too serious. I like that. ^-^
These challenges are quite difficult by the way. It starts with easy gadget-test challenges and ends up with a map full of 'move-spots' (locations that you'll have to reach or pass) and targets. You'll have to find the fastest and smartest way through and meanwhile shoot as a warlord. Some guns give you reload times of let's say, a second. That second can be fatal so no miss is permitted. You really have to be a fast and secure shot while running, gliding or skating through the maps. ;)

So far the match making isn't perfect but they said they're 'working on it' :-\\
I had a minor issue with confirming my inscription in WBID. Somehow the authorization mail they sent me didn't reach my inbox. I think it was their mistake because a day later it worked and now my Winlive and WBID are "linked" ;)
The WBID page is sort of a community page with forums, stats, leaderboards and artwork. There's no possibility of 'trading' upgrades or other obtainables, so no perfect match with Team Fortress :-D

[Binnatics]

Here's some pics showing another map of the game, called the Docks:

[smg id=4001]
The weapon here, a catapult, is shooting nitro-bombs who explode and have quite a nice damage range. The projectile behaves realisticly and you can charge your catapult to throw it further.

[smg id=4002]
As you can see the maps are heavily realistic. That's no disadvantage to the gameplay though. The way the maps are put together is clear and balanced. You won't find hard to reach places or dull alleys. Every map got its own characteristics, both in looks and in design. So far I haven't found places where ppl can camp. The graplegun makes it easy to reach high places but you can either not oversee much space or you'll be clearly visible to the rest of the players. It seem to be very good MP maps so far :-X

I've reached lvl 8 now and am able to make my own costume for both joker weirdos and batman weirdos.
Most of the stuff is still locked though, so I don't have much to choose from :-D

[PZ]

Nice graphics!  Looks almost like a cross between FC2 and JC2

[Binnatics]

Since monday I'm playing the online MP now, and I must say the game itself is great. The different game modes offer a nice variety of gameplay and the maps fit the needs for good online team play. The only downside in order to gameplay though is that the heavies have an unfair advantage to the tiny guys. The tinies are faster and that should give an advantage, but the gadgets like roller-skates, grapple guns and gliding capes give speed as well to the heavies. There's a huge difference between the quantity of bullets a heavy can take and a tiny can support, and that makes them too strong imho. So far the only successful thin guys I've seen are the guys who know the right spot to camp and snipe.  :-\\

Although the game is great once you're in, I want to warn anybody who thinks about buying it because it's quite hard to get in. This is caused by the laggy matchmaking system. It's not the first time I find this type of lobbies in GfWL online games, and it sux. It's quite hard to find active lobbies and it's not an exception to be waiting for 5 or 10 minutes before you finally can start a game. The maximum amount of players is 12 (6 vs. 6) and it's not possible to browse lobbies, join matches in progress and / or invite players you learn to know during games. There seems to be some kind of a gang system, but the menu function to explore and learn more of this is malfunctioning.
Connecting to the WBID, the online community for the Impostors, fails quite often as well. No idea what benefit it has to be connected though, since you can still play and unlock stuff when not connected.  ????

Well, WB agreed that the game runs badly, especially the matchmaking system, and they announced a free DLC, that will fix a lot of connection issues, make joining matches in progress possible (which I think is not the biggest breakthrough) and fix some other in game issues reported by early users. IT will also contain extra weapons, a new map and more unlockables. It will be released in march, so until then we will have to keep struggling with the laggy matchmaking. Let's hope for the best and that they will come up with a good alternative. The game deserves it, since it is an online shooter with potential. ::)

[Binnatics]

Today I got my highest kill streak so far; 13, and I got the nemesis (kill someone 5 times without him killing you) of 3 other players in a single match.
That's quite remarkable, given the fact that this game is still lagging out horribly.

The biggest problem is the "Host is God" system they use in their matchmaking. They say they have some dedicated servers running, but these seem to be too busy all the time. So there's a sort of peer to peer matchmaking system where the game picks a host randomly from the players in the lobby. This host will always have an advantage to the other players, sometimes of almost a second (!) which means he can start shooting at you before you even see him (if he comes from round a corner) and he will not be at the place where you see him (if he moves fast). Result; all your bullets miss target, no matter how fine you aim, and he will probably kill you before you even get a descent shot at his sorry a$$.
This not only happens when you're facing the host; also other players will be in an advantage depending on how close they 'live' from the host. In my case; if the host is an American, I can hardly shoot anybody.

When I'm connected to a nice party I can hit most of the players at the places where they appear, which makes it a pleasant fight. Only probably the host is untouchable (almost) so you can make a nice score especially when the host is in your team. But half of the matches I get involved in are far worse. That makes it kind of frustrating.
I still like the game though, it's nicely designed and provides a lot of fun. I hope for better results when they fix matchmaking with that first patch, but I have my doubts if they will ever really fix the issues. It seems they picked the cheapest way of providing on-line gaming and I'm afraid they won't completely change that :/

That means I'll get bored very soon, which is a shame with a new map and new unlockables to come available any time now :(

Edit: Oh, and somehow they seem to never pick me as a host ::)

[PZ]

That's too bad - it never is fun when someone else has an advantage.  In the scenario you presented, there is no way to predict where the host is going, so it is just about fruitless to try to play under those circumstances.

That's one of the reasons I don't play MP.  There was a time a couple of years ago where I was able to get online with the FC2 MP servers - I tried it, but it was all "run and gun" which for me becomes as boring as watching grass grow.  I was also able to be a host for private MP in RDR, and was able to enjoy a bit of cooperative play.  Other than those experiences, I've not really been online.  SP is where I like it best  :-()

[Binnatics]

I do like the "Run and Gun" experiences from time to time. But indeed, under these circumstances it's not fun at all.  :-\\