Our second stream is, naturally, where all the technical difficulties had arisen, with the primary one being Shamus’ blown out mic gain. We tried several times to fix his audio, but unfortunately no matter how it sounded for us, it did not sound well on the actual stream. Additionally, trying to screen share with him and Twitch led to some frequent frame drops.

This happens with every group stream I have with friends. No matter what audio settings remain unchanged between streams, the volume of friends will vary. I have a feeling there’s something going on with Discord between each call, but only because that’s the common source of the call.

It is for this reason I tend to proselytize the Elgato Wave:3 as much as I do, because no matter how loud I set the volume I come in nice and clear. Simultaneously, I don’t need to set the gain very high for it to capture my voice at a decent volume. The only thing missing are sound absorbers to reduce echo, which is barely an issue under most circumstances. It’s a top notch, “affordable” mic (compared to what most professional level microphones are asking for), and I got better quality than similarly priced Snowball and other model microphones frequently used by streamers.

On top of the technical issues, I was also forgetful to fix the audio alignment. With the original Elgato HD60, it had an automatic stream delay that would cause the video to be behind my reaction time. As a result, I would add a delay to my audio, and if I was playing a multiplayer game ahead of time then I’d also add a delay to the audio of my computer. I had evidently not bothered fixing this for a few streams at this point, so the audio of the game and our discussion is out of sync with the video, as I had been playing Arkham Origins on PC.

This is fortunately no longer a problem, as I upgraded to the Elgato HD X, which no longer has automatic latency. Instead, it’s a 1:1 signal, and therefore I can just keep all audio and animations set to their default state without worrying about anything going out of sync.

Disregarding the technical problems, it was interesting going through the original comments on Shamus’ accompanying blog post, where there was a lot of grief given to Jim Gordon’s willingness to stick to a job with such blatant corruption. There’s multiple things going on here, one of them being the notion that Gordon truly is the only good cop in the city. Despite the extremism of modern politics treating every cop as a saint or a devil, the reality is that no organization is so corrupt as to employ a horde of demons. The problem comes from the corruption being so systemic that the good are beaten down and intimidated into submission, intentionally left to feel isolated and disempowered.

Which the graphic novel Batman: Year One actually addresses. Jim Gordon was transferred from Chicago, and in different continuities due to stirring the corruption pot in those locations. In other words, it’s a transfer of punishment and revenge that Jim is sent to Gotham, an even more corrupt city in the pocket of Falcone. Gordon is an army veteran with a pregnant wife and infant son, and therefore he’s not in a position to simply change careers. Being both an outsider and having something to lose, this puts those in power at Gotham at an advantage. Nonetheless, despite the then-commissioner having Gordon beaten down by his partner and other corrupt officers for stirring the pot once again, Gordon sends his own message to the rest of the force by ambushing his partner, beating the man to a pulp, and hand-cuffing him naked in the snow where the other officers can see.

In other words, Gordon was no push-over and committed enough to correcting the Gotham police that he was willing to get his hands dirty.

This is what Batman: Arkham Origins is so bad at imitating. They’re taking the history of Gotham PD being a corrupt organization, but there’s no thought put into it. Gordon is hardly a character, and rather than being a story about how Batman befriends James, it’s more about how Batman is introduced to Barbara. Because Warner Bros. Montreal emphasizes video game logic over any substantial world-building logic, the police officers are all evil and corrupt and therefore it’s okay to punch and punish them.

Honestly, the best establishment of Jim Gordon and his friendship with Batman is in Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and Jeph Loeb’s Batman: The Long Halloween, two comic series that have been hugely influential in the Batman canon but rarely improved upon.