Batman: Arkham Origins

This isn’t a prequel it’s a retcon and actually it’s a new franchise in hopes to live in the same universe as the other Arkham Games. A new developer works hard at really staying true to the formula of large set pieces, rhythm based combat and stealth gameplay that made the series famous. Sadly you can’t get everything all the time.

The strongest element is the story, this is probably one of the best crafted story that has no baggage of reading previous comics, watching animated series, or having to read little text logs unlike the other games. It’s exciting to view, and you never know where it’s going to go next even if you have read all the comic books. Troy Baker’s joker is electrifying on par with Heath Leadger, Mark Hamill and Jack Nicholson and I’m anxious to see what he will do next time. Likewise with the new Batman, this is actually the first time I would say Batman isn’t outshined by his villainous counterpart. In fact Batman and Joker do feel like 2 halfs of a coin. Arkham Asylum and City were stories more defined by set pieces designed by developers and leaned too heavily on comic book and animated series as duct tape the story together. Do you have to know why Oracle doesn’t like Joker’s wheelchair jokes? Nope, in fact this is easier to follow then even the Chris Nolan Batman films, did anyone remember the Mob families in all of the three films?

This is more of a linear experience, so the whole hired assassins aspect doesn’t really impact the core story, at first it’s quite exciting with the introduction to Deathstroke, but then it lays theres like a dead fish. You never see half of the assassins through a single play through and even when you go out of your way to discover Deadshot or Anarchy it ends in a simple sequence no real character or personality. Linearity isn’t a cardinal sin, but yet in this game it does feel a lot like your in a room with only one door and yet you feel confused as to where to go. The past games had an excellent sense of incentive for their linear structure. A good example of this in the first game was the small catacomb sequence where you listen to Joker sing as he experiments on his Titans formula.

The rhythm based combat is completely broken and not in that “well it’s a new game and if I give it more time I will learn sort of way.” The simplicity of the combat was a thing of beauty, you could easily play the game forever just hitting counter and then you’d be lock into a series of animation which help let you assess the battlefield. So in Arkham City new elements were introduced to help make it more of a risk reward gameplay that could rival Geometry Wars. So small elements like the new smaller Banes and Martial Artists who do double counter moves add a new change of pace. Still its unreliable and buggy at best, in the challenge rooms it feels tighter and more rewarding of an experience with complete lack of leader boards that are suppose to be there later.

The biggest game changer are the shock gloves, which help overcome the aggressive nature of the AI. This contradicts the intelligence of the free flow combat, being able to slow things down to a crawl so you can look on ahead and select a new enemy to focus on. The design of the freeflow combat was a mix of Adam West and the Frank Miller’s inner monologue description. But instead they reward each punch with the value of 3 punches making Batman more into Wolverine a fury of rage. You are just constantly rewarded with no sense of risk, and it’s a dumb fun, but really felt like it could have been better used in a game like Saints Row 4 or Infamous.

Sadly they reuse from Arkham City, this isn’t the city off in the distance we have lead to be believed. A fair amount of texture work, a new section is build and the bridge has been repaired all to make the city appare new. There’s an entire curfew because of the snow, which leads the entire city overthrown by rabid mobs. At least in Arkham City you had Political Prisoners, so when you rescue someone they never turn around to kill you. There’s a lot of effort to make this city feel new and dangerous but in actual execution it just turns into this washed out devoid of any real personality. It turns into a real chore just to travel across a map to continue to main storyline.

The biggest and strongest complaint would have to be this game is buggy. It’s a whole new engine, so really anything you thought you knew flies out the window with a whole new pathfinding, hit detection, getting stuck in air vents, falling through the ground, audio cut off, game crashes and even controller disconnect of the mouse and key board. It’s rushed and unpolished. We can only hope there could be more patches but even with a release as large as this onto 5 consoles you could imagine that might come slower than imagined. PC support seems to be coming faster then the consoles

Multiplayer is pretty solid, handled by Splash Damage, creators of Enemy Territory series and Brink it’s a bit closer to Brink and Gears of War. With a theme of influence which later builds up to unlocking a super villain. There’s lots of compensations to compete against batman and robin, an Xray view that recharges within use, a slower run speed, and under performing weapons. Which really brings the problem of just paying to win model which will help compensate for each one of these problems in simple mechanical errors. It’s only a matter of time where this feature is sold separately as a Free to play game like Gotham City Imposters.

And an always online DRM of WBID is pretty intrusive, often cutting off single player experience during key saves and stat track that really never benefits the player. The reason why users sign up for these services is in hopes to share with friends multiplayer, leaderboards screenshots, stat tracking or unlock a Lego Batman player skin. Nope, instead it’s inconsistent and disconnects mostly through single player experiences. Leaderboards for challenge rooms haven’t even loaded up since launch.

It’s underwhelming playing this game, even with a new team you’d imagine there would be new blood injected into this reboot. Still it’s a botched attempt at making comfort food gaming, so there’s a lot to tolerate even if you want to get to “well more stuff collect and more dudes to punch.”

You’re lucky if you’re expectations are an annual Spiderman game here.