The Arkham series of Batman games began with Arkham Asylum back in 2009. At the time I was fairly entrenched in World of Warcraft mode and didn’t pick up this game right away. When I first heard of it I heard nothing but absolutely stellar recommendations. By the time I rolled around to playing it in about 2012 it suffered from a bit of a problem. The main hook of that original game was its amazing melee combat mechanics. The problem is that by the time I played it I had already played several games that had “borrowed” and iterated on this mechanic, so it wasn’t as mind blowing as it was for early players. I definitely saw the appeal though, and the story telling and atmosphere was absolutely fantastic, especially for its time.

Fast forward two games and 4+ years and we have the next installment, Arkham Origins. For the record, I’d like to say that it’s absolutely incredible that we live in a time in which Batman games are actually good and highly anticipated. Throughout gaming history, Batman games have been nothing but absolutely horrendous. If Arkham Origins was the first of a new wave of Batman games we’d all be celebrating it as absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, as the third in its series and the 20,349th in the last few years with these mechanics, Origins just feels a little flat.

It’s still as solid mechanically and visually as ever, but that’s kind of the problem. When you’re comparing yourself to a game that came out in 2009, saying you’re “on par” just isn’t that great. They introduced some new aspects lately, like the so-called open world aspect from Arkham City and the detective mode in Arkham Origins, but these two additions feel a lot less like additions and a lot more like inconveniences.

Everything about Arkham Origins just has an overall feel of fatigue. From the combat mechanics to the scenarios to the story, the whole thing just looks like the Batman peanut butter was just spread a little too thin over this three-game piece of toast. The most offending victim of this fatigue is the cast of characters you’ll be seeing. In Arkham Asylum we interact with The Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, The Riddler, Scarecrow, and Poison Ivy. In Arkham City we get to see Hugo Strange, Catwoman, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Ra’s Al Ghul, Talia Al Ghul, and Soloman Grundy. So who do we get in Origins? Um…… Bane. Pretty much just Bane. The rest of the cast is made up of every obscure character that could be dragged from the dregs of the DC basement.

I hope you enjoy fighting the likes of Deathstroke, Firefly, and Deadshot, because those are the new enemies you’ll face this time around. The story hook is that Black Mask has hired 8 assassins to track down and kill you, leaving the assumption that you’ll be fighting all 8 at one point or another. Here’s the thing. I think by the end of the game I’d really only fought like 5 of them. I seriously don’t remember fighting at least a couple of them, which means either I didn’t have to fight them or those fights were REALLY forgettable.

The epic fights play out in a way that keeps in step with the blandness of the rest of the game as well. One of the first fights was against Deathstroke, and it was actually pretty badass…..for the first quarter of the fight. That is until I realized that the fight was basically the EXACT same choreographed sequence four times in a row. It was NES-esque in its design. Melee attack the enemy for a bit until his health reaches a certain breakpoint, at which point he breaks off from the fight and lunges at you, generating a quicktime event. Once you fend him off, you go back into melee until another breakpoint, in which you are served the same quicktime event from before. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were maybe only about 4 different animations used in that entire 5 minute fight.

I struggle to say that Arkham Origins is a bad game. It doesn’t do a whole lot particularly wrong, it just doesn’t go out of its way to do anything new, or even improved from the previous games. Combine that with the plethora of other games that have utilized the Arkham melee mechanics, and this game just works out to a really big meh. If you are a huge fan of Batman then I’m sure you’ll find some enjoyment in this game, but if you’re new to the series and want to try it out I really suggest you go back and try the first game instead. It did all the things Origins did just as well, but with way better atmosphere, more creative story and encounter design, and far more recognizable characters. It speaks volumes that I got Arkham Origins a week before getting Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, and as soon as that game came in, I put Origins aside for almost 8 months.

I hate people saying that Deathstroke, Firefly and Deadshot are the bottom of the barrel when they are actually pretty prominent, they just haven't been featured in movies yet.

Arkham Origins' story mode isn't great but where it really shines is the challenge mode, there's just a ton of stuff in it.

Well I can only speak on behalf of those that have never really read the comics. What I meant was that as a non-reader I know all of the characters from the first two games and really don't know any of the new characters in this one, although I will concede that what I said was probably pretty unfair to fans of the series. It's like I said at the end, if you're a fan of the series there will probably be good stuff for you in there, but non-fans like me won't get much.

Arkham Origins wasn't a terrible game I think the two things that put people off on the game and ultimately had many skipping it when it first came out was that the game was broken, literally. I think after you got to the open world aspect of that game alot of people would get stuck or trapped and could not move at all. I played that game well over a year after it came out on PC and yep Killer Croc still vanished part way through the fight and all of a sudden the audio would cut out. That game for being a AAA franchise had too many bugs that just squashed the gameplay for me. The last thing was a new studio was helming that franchise and you could kinda tell that while they put some new concepts into the game the fatigue of the gameplay was there that going through it felt like rehashing the same stuff you did in the previous games.

I will admit that the one bright spot to that game was the dlc Cold, Cold Heart. I really enjoyed that side story even though it kinda rehashed some of the concepts of Mr. Freeze from the Batman Animated Series.

I wouldn't say that at all. I felt the two problems with the game was the lack of improvement over Arkham City and the weird changes to the combat. I felt as though the combat was way more about hammering on the counter button than doing sweet combos.

I'd agree for the most part. I didn't really even see that many problems. It was more just that they didn't improve almost anything from the previous games. I also felt like it lacked some of the cool sequences like the Scarecrow level from the first game.

Yeah I forget but there was a conversation on the forums when the game initially came out where we discussed about the combat not feeling right. With the previous 2 games the combat felt clingy and smooth you didn't necessary have to point your stick in the appropriate direction in order to counter a hit and pull off a combo. This one if you weren't facing the proper direction or your stick wasn't facing the proper direction of the enemy the counter didn't necessarily always go through. Just felt really uneven compared to the previous two games. That wasn't honestly a game breaker though just something you had to deal with. The bugs on the other hand that could kill hours upon progression did.

@tarfuin: In origins it was kind of weird but alot of the side stuff was actually pretty cool. The Mad Hatter sequence was pretty mesmerizing.

As a counterpoint, I'll just say here that I thought Origins may be the best game in the series. But that's a controversial blog for another time...

My save file corrupted so I never finished Origins. That didn't sit very well with me.

It definitely was divisive. I loved it personally, although I recognize it's shortcomings.

@joshwent said:

I wouldn't go that far, but I had a better time with it than most. The story is easily the best in the series.

@i_stay_puft: Some of it was incredibly tedious though, like having to round up all of the escaped prisoners.

Personally I have no problem calling this game bad, I had to restart the game twice due to game breaking bugs. First time I failed a combat sequence in the sewer area, it reloaded a checkpoint where I was on a lift and Batman fell through the world for eternity. Instead of waiting for a patch I just restarted, then when I was around 25% complete the game stopped reading my save file, I checked the xbox hdd and it was still there, I tried putting it on a flash drive, in the cloud and no matter what the game just refused to even see it when I started it up.

I agree with the combat points raised too, I felt like I couldn't really show as much flourish as in previous games because I'd just have to hammer on counter due to the combat just feeling off. I even loaded up Asylum and City to see if it was just me and it wasn't. It'd have been nice if the one main complaint I saw a lot of people have with City was addressed in cutting down the amount of Riddler crap you had to do.

It's a game where WB decided they'd play it safe in order to not mess up a great franchise. To put their own stamp on things would've been risky with rocksteady waiting in the wings to pick it back up.

They did what they had to and gave us a good Batman game. Pisses me off rocksteady are disowning the game as, "NOW HERE'S THE REAL ENDING OF THE TRILOGY!"

I thought the deathstroke fight was the highlight of the game. The game itself was ok, but it was too much of a retread of Arkham city. That being said, I still have faith in the upcoming game. To say that some mechanics are played out when there have been only 3 games seems silly when comparing the Arkham games to other successful franchises.

I loved the first two Arkham games but I just could not get into this one. It just felt like a step backwards to me and unfortunately I never wound up finishing it.

I was bummed to realize that a lot of the animations from the Deathstroke fight are taken directly from the Ra'as Al Ghul fight from City.

hahaha Deathstroke and Deadshot are obscure and "dragged from the dregs of the DC basement."

Good one, that was highly amusing.

Best story in an Arkham game so far. YEAH I SAID IT!

@themanwithnoplan said:

I thought it had the best story mode out of the trilogy, funnily enough.

Origins also had its shortcomings, but it was also more cohesive than either Asylum or City - and yet for some reason, at the end of it I was thinking "that was pretty good" and that was all. Can't quite figure out why. I didn't have high expectations (word of mouth took care of that), but from a feature standpoint it wasn't lacking anything the other games didn't have and, in some ways, was mechanically better.

It's a bit of a conundrum, in my opinion.

Yeah agreed. For one thing the thugs/goons were much more diverse and much more difficult to fight. The addition of small brutes and ninjas was amazing, and I loved it. They also improved the boss battles as well, Firefly, Deathstroke and Bane(last fight) were particularly memorable.

Plus, it's the first game to actually explore the relationship between batman and the joker on a much grander level. Don't get me wrong, the dynamic was great both in City and Asylum but not quite as in-depth as in origins.

Especially considering Deadshot appearsin Arkham City, which was praised for its villain roster. Which included the Mad Hatter.

Considering his new origin in the comics, there's no need to make another one, the Animated series version is pretty much perfect.

I liked the game as a whole just fine, but in certain fights you couldn't be all that creative, the Joker was cool though, well done.

The combat was NOT as fluid as the first 2 (though technically better than Asylum but that gets props for being the first), boss fights did have a bit more variation. And the Atmosphere was better than City most of the time though it missed out on Key moments like Crime Alley (seriously, what the heck is that?)

I really like AO. It had one of the better stories, certainly a better story than AC I thought. The only thing that pisses me off about it is the fact they teased something really cool in the post credits and still nothing has come of it.

It would have been cool if we had a calendar man mission in Origins :(

I didn't encounter any game breaking bugs, so I can't say my game experience was broken. And aren't most Arkham boss fights just repetitive patterns? You complain about the Deathstroke fight but most boss fights in general are that way. The Mr. Freeze fight in City is an exception. That doesn't drag the whole thing down. Also, you say that fighting all 8 assassins must not have been memorable because you only remember fighting 5 of them. You obviously didn't pay attention to the story bits while you were playing. I wouldn't suggest anyone play Origins as their first entry into the series either, but that's because it's not really the first game; Asylum is. I think the game is easy to hate because it's not Rocksteady and because it wasn't monumental in some way. But neither are a lot of games that come out yearly and still get praised. Since when is a good combat system being used again a bad thing? Should they have rebuilt the combat gameplay and risked it being broken or non-fluid? It was a solid game that was a good 6-8 hour experience. The character roster was great. The only issue I took away from the game was I could have done without The Joker. Why can't Deathstroke and Black Mask carry their own game? It seemed just fine with them involved.

This game is great. Had it been released exactly as it is under Rocksteady's name, a lot of the negativity wouldn't be present. I'm pretty sure of that.

The story is great, the Joker's stint in it is amazing, the combat system is... still not as good as Asylum's but still better than City's and finally there's something to do during investigation sequences. Overall not a revolution in the franchise, but I played it in a couple of very long sittings and enjoyed it throughout.

It's interesting to see how this was coloured by expectation and prejudice, but I feel for the team that did a damn good job on borrowed tech and gameplay concepts. That Deathstroke fight alone, which is a 1-1 fistfight the mechanics were never meant to accommodate, shows how inventive they were right off the bat. It looks brutal and it feels consistent with the crowd combat inputs while tweaking things just enough to handle a smaller scope. If anything, I was disappointed those mechanics never came back. I was expecting 'Stroke to pop up a few times in the game.

I preferred Origins to Arkham City and I may be alone in thinking that, and that is ok by me.

Nope I'm totally with you. I love Arkham Asylum, it's one of the best action adventure games from last generation but neither the sequel or the prequel really improved the formular. I don't think the open world nature of City added anything of value to the game. But I actually found the story of Origins really interesting. And the combat is still fun, although not as cool as the first time you played it in Asylum. Plus the Deathstroke battle is easily one of my favorite boss battles from last generation.

Also the part where you play as Joker is brilliant! I also get the feeling that a lot of the people that criticize Origins didn't play up to the part where you play as the joker which is the best part of that game imo.

Really? City improved on combat and missions, they where more varied and much required actual exploration like the Hush stuff. Traversing was a lot better too.

I liked the Joker part in Origins a lot more than Asylum, but objectively it was better anyway. City didn't have as much emotional death though,

Oddly enough - I found myself in the extact same boat of putting this game down for months and months and then restarted it recently, with it in mind of finishing the game.

Overall I felt a little disappointed with the game. I think the biggest issue for me was the length of it. I was just left wanting a hell of a lot more then we actually got. I believe the main story doesn't even amount to 30% of the game's progress bar which is terrible in my opinion. I know the idea was suposed to be 'it's all in one night' but have that night as maybe an Act 1 and then lead into more mayhem perhaps running up till New Years in terms of the story.

The other issue I felt was that Joker is the most over used villian in the Arkham games - and sure, Troy Baker does a hell of a job with the role, but it just felt like every other villian only really got 5 minutes of fame, when they could really carry the story on their own shoulders instead of having to rely on old faithful Mr J. Don't get me wrong - I like him as a character, but we've seen an incredible amount of him over the three main games of the franchise. Going back to my 3 act story - have Joker as Act 1, and then maybe two more (Riddle is woefully under used in the franchise as the guy that just leaves stuff dotted around to be collected).

I had a better time with Origins than with City. Story had better rhythm to it, boss fights where great. Asylum is still the shit.

One of the worst parts of Arkham Origins for me was the Riddler challenge stuff, which I actually ended up completing. Often you had to re-enter all those little indoor areas where most of the story and boss fights take place to get some trophies. Even though you HAD to reenter these areas to get certain riddler trophies because you didn't have the correct gadget the first time around, there was zero thought put into that.

It felt like I had stumbled into a weird beta or alpha version of the game, where they had only just completed the level design and were making sure it worked. The level was there, but outside of the riddler challenges, it was COMPLETELY empty, and eerily quite as well. Not only that, but often to make your way through a level, you had to go via this labyrinthine pathway, and you then had to repeat it upon reentry. This is true even if certain levels (I'm looking at you, Gotham PD), only had you go those roundabout ways because of locked doors. Those doors would not unlock. The hotel sequence is perhaps the worst offender when it comes to this.

In what world are Deathstroke, Black Mask and Deadshot obscure villains?

In the world of video games.

So this where you've been hanging out all along. :P

Yeah but not being in a game doesn't make you obscure

Haha yep sometimes

I was kidding.

Took a vacation from comics I see :P

@theacidskull: I just left CV.

Wait, why? O_O

I concur.

@theacidskull: The staff abuse their power so I have no intention of returning

Really? I know they can be...annoying and difficult at times, but I never thought of it that way. Any specific incidents?

i recently completed this game and enjoyed most of it more than i thought i would from general opinion

to start i think Asylum is far and away the best of the series and after playing it the first time thought it should be considered alongside the best games ever made, almost as if it was a classic nintendo game

i enjoyed City the second time through but all the talk of improving upon the one 'flaw' of asylum - its flat narrative - left me disappointed as the story in city is very ramshackle and just throws villains at the screen for the sake of it then kills them all off when it doesnt know how to end everything

to this end i think origins actually had probably the best narrative of the series, i still think its a flaw of the series as a whole but origins made the best attempt. the introduction of the actual detective work / rewind feature was probably the greatest part of the new additions and game as a whole. It took what was the better part of city for me and made you actually use Batman's intellect, something which the recent games and films dont really touch upon as much as the gadgets and strength or psychology of batman

i wish they had made more of black mask but the denouement tied it up cleverly enough that i ended up enjoying it. though i still think black mask is under-utilised in batman media, i think the dynamic between him and bruce/batman could be as potent as joker (i've only read the more famous graphic novels so if anyone has any suggestions on black mask reading i'd appreciate it)

with this game i feel like its getting closer to a batman whodunnit, in the line of long halloween, which would be great to play but the games still feel disjointed, asylum was the tightest narrative but it felt flat because they'd tried to stretch what wouldve made a very interesting 30min or hour episode of the TV show into an 8 hour game which i understand is hard to deliver and something many narrative games struggle with; how do you provide 10 or even 30 hours of interactive entertainment with a convincing and enticing narrative over the same period of time, the equivalent of an entire trilogy or tv show season

the real problem with the game and the main thing that will keep me from replaying it -unlike its predecessors - is its technical problems, frame rate was (playing digital version on ps3) consistently terrible throughout, as in constantly, which i could only forgive because i wanted to know more about the story otherwise i would have stopped playing. But it made flying through the city a chore, despite being bigger / having more room to fly around and more atmospheric - it really hit the tone of 'Gotham' for me far better than City, if i ever get a gaming PC i'll definitely look into this

on the whole i ended up enjoying it, the premise is clever enough and handled fairly well throughout the game but technical problems completely let it down as well as just a general roughshod nature to everything - ironically the opposite of the previous games which i remember to be very competently made with a lacklustre, rushed or confusing narrative

I really, really enjoyed Origins until the second Joker was thrown in as the main villain.... again.... for the third time

If it turns out he is the Arkham Knight in the next game I will be extremely disappointed.

Also, I enjoyed Origins more than City

@theacidskull: I was banned from comic vine because of this comment: Comic Vine Podcast - Comic Vine Podcast 8-1-14 - Comic Vine

Its a buggy piece of shit in general but its a real buggy piece of shit considering it presented me with a game breaking bug that stopped me progressing halfway through the game.

City is a way better game then Origins which had a lot of problems.

I feel like you guys have all nailed it.

Arkham Origins, even "playing it safe," could've been the best game in the series. But it has some pretty stark mechanical and technical flaws.

Also, the narrative bait-and-switch at the halfway point is frustrating.

Origins has the best story of the three, though. The characterizations and character designs are better, and Batman is Batman. He's not on a constant fetch quest, but is actually going out there and doing detective work. I found myself appreciating the story alot more than I did in the first two games.

That being said, the technical flaws and glitches and game breaking bugs people have encountered are far too glaring to simply ignore. I feel like had the game been much tighter and polished people would have been far more receptive. Hell, even the multiplayer (which was actually kind of fun) was horribly broken and a chore to partake in.

Game was fine, but a buggy mess. Couldn't finish it since the final boss battle never triggered.