PC game bad news for Batman

POW! BAM! KABLAM! That is the sound of your computer trying to run Batman: Arkham Knight. The Caped Crusader’s latest game has been an absolute disaster on PC. The game locks up so often it’s putting Mr Freeze out of a job. Did the Joker get his hands on the code before release? Whatever the case, the joke is on us.

If you bought Arkham Knight on a console, then you made the right choice. Batman runs just fine on a PS4 or an Xbox One. On the PC, however, the game performs so badly that Steam pulled the title from its store so customers couldn’t buy it.

Green Man Gaming is offering refunds if performance doesn’t improve with the first update. Publisher Warner Bros has requested that GAME stop selling the product. The whole thing is messier than that alley from Bruce Wayne’s past.

Unfortunately, this news is all too familiar these days. Developers are under such pressure from publishers to get their games out that they simply release the product unfinished. Like Batman escaping a burning building, quality assurance goes out the window.

The end result is that consumers become the testers, with publishers crossing their fingers that the code is stable and compatibility issues will be scarce. That simply isn’t good enough. If we are going to pay €60 or €70 for a product, the least we can expect is that it works.

While creating a perfectly optimised game for PC is no small task, a huge publisher like Warner Bros has the resources and the talent to do a far better job than this.

The same could be said of Ubisoft last year, when they released a broken Assassin’s Creed Unity on both PC and consoles. Big-budget gaming should be about more than just flashy graphics and production values — it should be about reliability and consistency, too. When we buy something like Arkham Knight, we’re also buying into a brand that we trust.

Rocksteady are hugely talented developers. It’s disappointing to see their Batman trilogy end in this fashion. For now, PC gamers must wait for fixes and updates to solve their problems. They should have called him Patch-man instead.

Virtual reality headsets

Arkham Knight isn’t playing nicely on Windows but that isn’t Microsoft’s fault. The company, it seems, remains very dedicated to gaming. In fact, a memo sent to Microsoft employees that leaked this week only affirms that dedication.

“We will pursue our gaming ambition as part of this broader vision for Windows and increase its appeal to consumers,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, perhaps clenching his fist in determination. “We will bring together Xbox Live and our first-party gaming efforts across PC, console, mobile and new categories like Hololens into one integrated play.”

Microsoft have been trying to make gaming central to their future for a long time, but the Xbox One’s dead-on-arrival vision of integrated Kinect set them back somewhat. They will be hoping that the exciting Hololens (an augmented-reality headset designed primarily for gaming) will be that big breakthrough.

In fact, Nasa this week sent a pair of Hololens headsets to astronauts on the International Space Station, perhaps underestimating the gravity of the situation. Bad jokes aside, this is a fascinating glimpse into the future of augmented reality and gaming.

The astronauts will be using the headsets to receive instructions and training from technicians on the ground. Using the Hololens headset, directions will be drawn over the real world, allowing the astronauts to receive live assistance from their grounded colleagues.

“Hololens and other virtual and mixed reality devices are cutting edge technologies that could help drive future exploration and provide new capabilities to the men and women conducting critical science on the International Space Station,” said Sam Scimemi, ISS program director at the US space agency.

“This new technology could also empower future explorers requiring greater autonomy on the journey to Mars.”

It can also be used to play Minecraft, Sam. Let’s not forget about the important stuff here. There’s no release date for the Hololens yet, but the technology sounds like something from the Batcave. If Batman’s PC doesn’t crash on him.