I'm kinda getting a bit annoyed at people piling hate on this game and any other games either for being sequels (which everyone seems to complain about nowadays) or for being developed by a different studio. Haven't completed it yet, but I'm about 8 hours in and this may be the Arkham game with the most badass story. So many cool Batman ass Batman things happen, and they're presented in such a cool way that I can't help but grin a little. I'm playing on PC, and thus far have not experienced any sort of glitches or bugs, so that may be one reason I'm enjoying it more then some other people who seemingly are having weird problems.

The voice acting is also fantastic. Batman's voice fits him perfectly, and while it's obviously not Kevin Conroy, it sounds like it could be a believably younger version of him. Also Troy Baker sounds eerily similar to Mark Hamill. The only real difference is the laugh, which sounds a tad different, but then again I haven't heard him do the full on Joker cackle. Anyone on the fence about this game should really play it, because so far it's been really fun. The detective mode stuff is really badass and plays up the other aspect of Batman that the other games didn't really play up enough.

Overall it's just a great experience, and I kinda rolled my eyes at a few different reviews when they mentioned that it hadn't added anything new... It's been like 2 years since the last Batman game, and I had really missed it. It adds enough and retains enough to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

I thought Troy Baker did a fantastic job, but I couldn't help but hear a hint of Saints Row voice in there at times when he was just speaking normal and not laughing/cackling/yelling

They really, really need to fix the freezing and save corruption issues, though. It's gotten so bad it's almost comedic for me on the 360.

I agree!

I think the problem is that to many, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were mind blowing amazing A++ games but to me they were just really great games that were fun. So when a third one comes along a bunch of people are pissed that it's "more of the same" but less polished but to me it's just another awesome game.

I haven't experienced any glitches yet and I've only gotten to the sewers beneath the GCPD but the world looks sharp and is fun to explore. There's lots to do and the combat, stealth and story are just as good as before. Glad I'm not tired of the formula yet, maybe next time I will be...

Did they fuck off all the Riddler shit? It was brilliant in Arkham Asylum, then they just way overdid it in Arkham City. 70% of those puzzles weren't even fun.

Might wait for a price drop on this one.

Haven't seen any Riddler riddles. Instead he has towers which you need to disable, and some collectibles you need to find and destroy like the cameras in City.

Cool ... this game actually looks alright. Hope the city is better than Arkham City as well.

Arkham City is in the city but it looks different. It connected to a whole other island as big as Arkham City, making it at least twice as big.

There are still riddles. The city is the same location but totally different, it's neat to see it before it became a prison but it's also much less rich with detail and easter eggs. I really didn't care for the story, though many think it's the best, guess it depends how you like your Batman. I stil had a blast doing the same old free-roaming Arkham stuff though, despite its rough edges.

about a week ago Steam updated Arkham Asylum and City by patching out GFW, so I marathoned both of them. The games are fresh on my mind when coming into Arkham Origins. While still I do feel it has an amazing story of the Joker/Batman relationship I do feel this game is like playing one of those annualized Spiderman games. The game is sloppy and buggy considering how solid Arkham Asylum and City still are. That's my honest opinion.

Troy Baker knocked it out of the park as the Joker. Hamill will always be my Joker voice, but I think Baker has gone above and beyond as a replacement. The whole Red Hood scene is incredible and the way it goes straight from the Joker's origin to Bruce's gave me chills.

I completely agree the game is great. I think for most people, were somewhat trained to expect mediocrity when we see something slightly iterated on in the games industry. Putting out similar experiences are heavily frowned upon, due to the constant demand of evolving design and new gameplay experiences. We see certain franchises put out repetitive and sometimes lazy iterations year after year. This has created a mindset for core gamers that a game being similar to it's predecessors is bad, and sometimes it can be.

I'll say, Arkham Origins is extremely similar to the previous entry. There are certain aspects like the city layout, combat and traversal that are exactly the same as City, some of which are arguably not as good or refined as it previously was. It is a complete extension of the title that came before it. Almost like an expansion. but it's nowhere near as egregious as some other offenders of this expansionist venture. The game comes out two years after the last installment. Which for me was enough time to gain my interest back up. It has some pretty annoying bugs (which hopefully are fixed within the reasonable future) and a little less polish than Asylum/City, but it's a perfectly serviceable and fun game within the franchise.

Hold on, how can Arkham City be in the game if it is set years prior? Or do you mean just the land mass itself as some of sort of Gotham slums?

Anyway, I'm sure the game is fine, but I still find it really stupid that they decided to make "Arkham" the franchise, especially with the stupid contrivance in City about the penal colony. You know, doesn't the Batman name hold enough weight that they don't have to shoehorn Arkham into the title of every game?

I have enjoyed the game and there have been some fantastic Batman-y moments, especially in the storytelling, but the game has a bunch of things that don't make any sense. The limited grapple points, the insane rushdown on all enemies at once during the combat requiring an insane amount of countering and in some cases unfair attacks from knife and bat-wielders and a collection of bosses that suffer from one of the biggest problems in modern games, bosses... and their mates. Just stop it developers. The game started out with a great one on one fight against Deathstroke and then every other assassin or super-villain has a collection of lesser enemies to contend with because the fights would be too easy without them. (yes, I count the Copperhead fight in this complaint.)

I'm also playing the PC version and it has crashed three times, is full of some really bad camera problems, constant glitches, including the broken tower and enemies getting stuck in the level geometry. As wells as interrogate prompts and mission markers not popping. It feels really unpolished in places despite some really great work on the story and voice acting side of things.

I'm really enjoying the game as well, though the game locks up on me all the freakin' time.

It's a great game mired by a lot of really annoying bugs. There are a few things I'm pretty much stuck waiting for a patch to be able to complete.

I do agree that the amount of hate this game is getting from reviewers is insane. Besides the bugs it's a fun batman game, what do you want? Yes AA was a revolution and AC was a much bigger step forward. You shouldn't hold that against this game.

I really enjoyed it, but the lack of polish really rubbed me the wrong way. There's also a lot of nitpicky things I could mention that definitely make it an inferior Batman game when compared to the first two games, but I still loved playing through it. Not sure if I'll go back again, though.

@liquidprince: Next thing you'll be telling me is that Arkham City was better than Asylum hah..hah..!

It's a great game so far, but I got my save corrupted after 10 hours of OCD completionism (Look at my avatar photo expanded and you'll see how I play these games) and I'm just not able to bring myself to start al that shit again. Plus the vent glitch in Burnley Tower. I'm at least waiting until the single player patch they promised comes out.

It's good. It's not bad - but people are giving it poor scores due to the bugs on the PC and due to the fact that it's just not quite as good as the other games. I don't think it's a bad game... I don't think it's great either though.

I haven't finished it yet but yeah, so far it's fantastic. I still enjoy zipping around the open world, beating up random thugs and collecting stuff. The main story has been really interesting so far and the mission design is fun too. I wish they would have added a few more fight animations and I'm kinda bummed that Deathstroke is the only other challenge map character but overall I'm not disappointed.

i agree, im having a lot of fun with this game. it is more of the same, but when more of the same is more of awesome then why is that bad? lol.

I like the later half of the story better then the story in City. It's much better done imo.

But in everything else it feels like a sub par version of the last game. Still good tho.

City is still the high point for me, but Origins is damn good. I love that Batman is kind of an asshole, and that they lay hard on the "He's just as bad as some of his enemies" angle. The idea that Batman does more damage than good at times yet refuses to see his own hypocrisy is one of my favorite aspects of his character.

I do have some quibbles, like the Deadshot fight being almost exactly like the Two-Face fight in City, and the new Detective mode only being used to its full potential twice (and only once during the main story), but it's not a huge deal.

My corrupt save file says otherwise.

Joking aside I really started digging the game the further I...dug into it. The story was starting to get good and then I turned on the game yesterday and my file was corrupted. Luckily I only rented it.

I did find it quite funny when the electrofist dude went down in one hit. Other than that, I hated the first few hours. It seemingly is getting better, but I don't think I have the patience to finish it. The first few hours are marred by poor design choices. Can't tell you how many times I got lost trying to find my way. Also, the game crashing all the time doesn't help.

Does the corrupted save issue affect all platforms? I'm on PC and stopped playing when I heard about it.

It is in every conceivable way. If City came out before Asylum people would say Asylum was a step back.

Yeah, I'd be careful and make backups of your saves. I'm playing on PC too and the only problem I've had is CTD multiple times. Arkham City had a corrupt save issue on PC, so I wouldn't be surprised if the same issue made its way into the Origins code. The bug is nasty. I lost my 99% save on Arkham City because of it. Then Rocksteady patched it which unfortunately didn't bring my save back. This is why I learned to backup all my game saves, just in case.

This game is pretty cool. Some bugs here and there, but if this game was made by Rocksteady nobody would be crapping on it this much.

Seriously, if you like City this game is as much of a valid sequel as any. Some missions and boss fights in it are really memorable.

@laserbolts: Asylum has better level design, more meaningful enemy encounters and much better pacing. City took everything that was great about Asylum and stretched it thin over the rather empty and dead open world. The plot and motivations are simply laughable in City. Oh hey Bane you want me to go get some containers? Oh uh well sure no biggie. Gotta get to the Penquin, oh wait he's somehow smuggled three military grade radar jammers and then assembled them underground. It was a joke for the most part. Still a good game, but nowhere near as tight and well put together as Asylum was.

@pimblycharles: Will do, thanks for the info.

Mine happened on 360. I also had a lot of crashes and glitches (not being able to use the grappling hook, not being able to move, etc).

25% off on gmg right now. Haven't played it yet, but it looks like another solid arkham release. I wasn't necessarily expecting this game to reinvent the wheel or anything anyway. The glitches sound unfortunate though.

Okay I just got to the 'interlude' mentioned in a spoiler tag above. This game just jumped to way better than Arkham City in my mind. Way better.

Still no as impressive as Asylum, I still really feel the missing riddles rather a pile of collectibles, but the way the dynamic between the villains plays out feels much stronger to me than it did in City. Although I enjoyed that it did feel, as previous mentioned, very thin. Some of the bad guy roster just felt tacked on in a way it doesn't here.

Despite the odd lack of agency when gliding, especially around that bloody power plant, and spending 30 fucking minutes to get the glitch to access the Burnley tower it's really ramping up into something damn special.

And I'm such a sucker for a character model that gets damaged as the game continues. Always loved that in all three games. Oh and multiplayer, much more enjoyable than I was expecting. Tying in one of the most wanted to a few free unlocks was great.

@pimblycharles: Hey mate, where are the save files on PC? Had a quick google and that didn't seem to help and it'd be cool to avoid anything horrible happening.

How dare other people have different opinions!

I got bored of the formula on City

I fell in love with it right off the bat. When I saw the hard difficulty option I was so happy, and I've loved it ever since! Having to play through the game once before I could play hard was actually the biggest draw in Arkham City for me.

I'm overall with you. I mean, Arkham Asylum is on my short list of "Best Games of the Generation," and Arkham City follows close behind. I will say that I'm not enjoying it quite as much as those two. I think that sequel fatigue is absolutely a valid criticism.

Like I said, the first two Batman games are spectacular, this one is slightly less polished, but aside from that it is still a Batman-ass Batman game. That has both good and bad connotations with it. I don't think the game benefits in any way from the big open-world. The flying is fun but gets old after a while, the story may be one of the better ones in the Batman series (also Nolan North's Penguin is Mark Hamill/Joker levels for me), it really balances out.

A friend of mine was questioning why I was being iffy and giving the third Batman game a bit harder time, while I didn't with GTA V. In the end my answer was because there was breathing time. There's at least 4-5 years between proper GTA games while there's been a new Batman every two years now. It's like that old saying, "I can't miss you, if you never go away." It's still great, but taking a breather is not a bad thing.

Ehhh? Ehhhhhhh?

C:\ProgramData\Steam\<folder>\20900\

The <folder> may be named differently for each person (unsure) so just search for 20900 in C:\ProgramData\Steam.Let me know if you found it okay.

Backup all folders and files in the \20900\ folder. To revert to an older save, just copy and replace.

Yeah, it is still better than most of the big games this year. But man, there were SO MANY times I was astounded by the sheer lack of creativity as they repeated exact bits from Asylum or City. Can we believe that 3 out of 3 Arkham games were focused on the Joker? I mean, I love him too, but talk about low hanging fruit... I really hope they don't do another one on this same template.

@pimblycharles: Cheers! Found it under steam > userdata > *long number* > 209000

Good to know where all those saves are for the future :)

my brother picked this up today and I watched him play for a while. Looked pretty good to me, so I decided to pick it up myself. Installing right now.

@maajin: Have to agree that some of the game seems shockingly lazy but I'm a huge Killing Joke fan from way back when and something that gets those story bits right, I'm always going to have a soft spot for.

In a lot of ways the game reminds me more of Battlefield than anything else - an iteration rather than a new game. If it keeps up the current pace I can see myself replaying this game and Asylum and never touching city again.

Only hope that the rumours that Rocksteady are working on a Silver Age Batman are true - taking these mechanics, putting them into a world of peril rather than horror, really playing with some of those crazy 70's story beats (maybe even some zur-en-arrh Morrison moments) that'd really be wonderful.

@jarowdowsky: Morrison insanity sounds wonderful. Morrison has admited he's played the game and thinks it's wonderful, he's such a hippy dippy goofy ball once he's gets talking with that Scottish accent.

The game is totally fine, really good even, but it lacks polish. The camera is especially a nuisance in tight spaces and that makes the overly aggressive combat AI intolerable in some instances. That same aggressive AI also makes the freeflow combat much less "free" and more reactionary, which can turn what could be really fun encounters into frustrating messes. The boss fights can be really cool (I fucking LOVED the first Deathstroke fight), but the lack of polish shows up in some cheap design choices: for instance, Bane's ability to turn on a dime when he is charging at you or the instant fail state for the Deadshot hostage encounter. Much of the side stuff is pretty inconsequential without the sort of narrative context provided in City, but, having said that, the main narrative is bloody fantastic. The writing is the best in the series, and the voice acting is easily on par (if not better) than the other games. The story is comparable with the best of the graphic novels or the good Nolan movies. My only grip with it is the over-use of pre-rendered cut scenes, which look super blurry and compressed on my PC.

I'd have a real hard time deciding whether this game was a three or a four out of five. I am having a ton of fun playing it, but holy shit does it have its problems. Considering this is a totally new studio, though, kudos to them. It's a good game in a series of amazing games. Some people might poo-poo that, but they did well.

EDIT: I also haven't run into an severe bugs. At one point, my framerate dropped to about 3-5 fps in the game and menus, and I had to reboot my PC to fix it. That's the only technical trouble I've had. Really sucks that those problems seem to be wide spread, especially the save corruption stuff.

Dem bullet holes.

@triumvir: I feel the same way, the thing about Asylum and City have stories good enough for a video game, enough to just get the set pieces working. Here it does work better, just meh on the rest. What's actually interesting about Arkham City and Asylum is how much it depends on you knowing the comics or the animated series. Like Hush, was so obscure for the most casual gamer, I looked him up on the hospital roster without really knowing it'd be a riddler challenge and then BANG. Or like the whole reason for Catwoman being in Arkham City because Holly is held captive by Strange, and he interest in Falcone. And it's nice for a fanboy but this story in Origin is just a excellent set up without any excess nerd baggage.

Games like this, the developers have the set pieces already in mind, then they hire writers to pad it out, have little audios here to just support what's going on. I don't undermind the work they did, but I do feel you can see this team did a better job here and then they didn't polish the rest.

You know been like 3 games, and you can see different costumes.... kinda want to just change the cape. Especially when I'm just collecting riddler trophies without having to look at batman looking like a Burn victim in City.