Don't Follow the Balls When They Make the Street
In this excerpt from podcast episode 441, NinjaSistah and Pandalicious discuss Panda's experience playing Batman: Arkham Knight. The title of this article is a reference to a 40-year-old comedy skit performed by a troupe called Firesign Theatre.
Pandalicious: He was doing a mini-mission with the Batmobile where he had to take out these other cars, which because the whole city is abandoned if a car rolls up to you, it's got baddies in it, it's just a given, because there are no good people really? Yeah! But it was really kinda hard to navigate the Batmobile because the Batmobile is now kind of like tank now. It's got these weird wheels that kind of look like balls.
NinjaSistah: So is it the Batmobile from the last Batman movie that Nolan did?
Pandalicious: I don't think so, because I do think that particular Batmobile is something that you unlock to be your vehicle. I did find that part interesting and I'll get back to that. But, like this Batmobile that you're in, you (have) these weird extended wheel things with a wheel base that can kind of move, and they look like giant balls, so they roll, which is fine...
NinjaSistah: It's good that balls roll...
Pandalicious: Balls do roll. But wheels are not balls. Wheels are... cylinders? Wheels are cones? Wheels are...
NinjaSistah: Round.
Pandalicious: No, they're not. They're... A sphere. So, so these are like spheres, like, they roll, and they roll omnidirectional, so you can... It's like skating. It's like skating on those weird, uh, rollerblades from the '90s that were giant balls. Like those. And then at some point you can turn it so then, on the other... I don't want to say side, because they don't have sides, because they're round. But on a different plane of the sphere, you have these weird, like, track, tracks that, like, tanks will have, like, those things. And then that plants it back down in you little, you've got a little less mobility and it's more of a sturdy vehicle. They give you all these things to stabilize your movement while you're going really fast, 'cause they kind of want you to be zipping around the town in this thing. And it's just so, I think it's way too much, so that when you're doing all that you're trying to stabilize so you know where you're going you, one, lose sight of where you're going because you don't have, like, a HUD you have, like, this scanner thing in the side that you can hear conversations being happening. You have, like, this weird number line/timeline thing that, like, if you're getting closer to something, an icon will get bigger or smaller, but it doesn't really help pinpoint exactly where you are in the space. I mean, you could go way out to the map, but it only helps you, you know, so much. So I feel I get too consumed in everything that is available to me.
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