Oh yes, there will be blood spoilers.

I don’t have a better name for this unfortunately right now, so we’ll go with this name for the time being. I’m a pretty big PlayStation fan, I guess you could call me a fan boy, if you want to, I just really enjoy the electronic devices that Sony makes, I think they’re designed well and I love the quality of the products that they make. With that said, Sony has now made four main consoles and two handholds. No matter the success of each individual platform, that’s going to be a lot of games. A lot of games that I have wanted to check out, but never got the chance. Or a lot of games that I started to play, got distracted or busy and had to put down. So my goal here is to play every single PlayStation game that I want to play and I’ll write some thoughts about each one. Obviously, I will not complete every game, there are some games that either I just won’t click with, or I just am no good at. Those games will be dropped, but I will do my best to talk about why the game didn’t work for me. So, first up:

Game: Batman: Arkham Origins

Console: PlayStation 3

Year released: 2013

Developer: Warner Bros. Games Montreal

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

I love, love, love, love Batman: Arkham Asylum, the first game released in the Arkham series by developer Rocksteady. It’s currently #14 on my games of last generation list and I think, story problems aside, they just absolutely nailed the feeling of Batman, better than all previous Batman video games, which were a bit of a mixed bag. Asylum is the first time I felt like gaming had absolutely nailed the feeling of Batman. So with Rocksteady moving on the current console development with the upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight, Warner Bros. handed the keys to the Arkham franchise to relatively new developer, Warner Bros. Games Montreal, which led to people getting all in up in arms that a developer besides Rocksteady was developing an Arkham game.

I wasn’t really all that worried, I mean, Rocksteady was a fairly new developer when they started out as well, so I had confidence that Warner Bros. Games Montreal would at the very least, replicate the game play of the Arkham series fairly well. Having beat the game now, I feel like they did exactly that. The one bummer about that, is that they did exactly that. They didn’t really bring much else game play wise new to the series. I did like the improvement of being able to combo the traversal movement through the city, but aside from that I struggle to think of what else Montreal brought to the Arkham table so far as the game play goes. This is an Arkham game through and through, for better or worse and honestly, for the most part, it’s for the better. There’s always potential to ruin a series if you mess with the formula too much and for Montreal’s first game, I’m glad they didn’t.

There is an aspect of this I’d like to talk about and that’s the fake series fatigue that surrounded this game after the announcement of the game. A lot of people online and on podcasts talked about how they weren’t sure necessarily if they wanted to play another one of these Arkham games. Which is ridiculous, because up until the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, there wasn’t really another game that played the way that these games played. So we’ve had a total of three of these games and the first sequel added the city to traverse (for better or worse) so there have been additions to the gameplay. Then Rocksteady’s Arkham Knight was announced and people were like, “I can’t wait to play Batman again!” What? Seriously?

What sucks about that, is where Montreal may have slightly dropped the ball in terms of the game play, I feel like they nailed the story, something Rocksteady has yet to get right. Both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were a bit lacking on the story and Arkham Origins just nails it. I knew we were in good hands when they released the TV spot ad for the game pre-release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InUj9BT8KCc

If you haven’t seen it yet, definitely check it out, but like Kevin Smith, he of the (among many other things) Fat Man on Batman podcast says, that TV spot does more for storytelling about Batman, than most other media has in far less time. The game is not quite as effective as that TV spot, but it’s pretty close, there are several really good moments in the game, my favorites being: the Deathstroke fight, the Joker reveal and subsequent Batman/Joker origin related things and the relationship between Batman and Alfred is really touching in this game. I love how Alfred just wants Bruce to come home and eat a nice Christmas Eve dinner and Bruce just wants to do his Batman thing, until Alfred’s life is threatened and then Alfred becomes the most important thing.

I hear Montreal’s goal was to make a Year Two story. Year One, for those not in the know, is the proto-Batman Begins story and the story that movie borrowed from a smidgen to help tell the origins of Batman. It is, like the title says, the first year of Bruce’s life as Batman. So Year Two, obviously, would be Bruce established as Batman, but not quite the legend he will be come in later times. I think they nailed their goal of telling a Year Two story. I love that they ground it with the Christmas theme, though I think they could have used a little bit more of a Christmas look to the game to help sell that idea a little better.

The voice acting is pretty great here, which really surprised me. I expected Troy Baker as the Joker to knock his role out of the park, 2013 was an amazing year for Troy Baker and I expected that trend to continue, though I was surprised at how much I liked him as the Joker. Yes, he was partially aping Mark Hamill’s take on the Joker, but I also think he spun it his own way a little bit. It was a fantastic performance and made me very interested in his next take on the role. Roger Craig Smith as Batman/Bruce was equally as effective, which is saying a lot. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are just so iconic as those characters, you really have to bring it to live up to them and I feel like both Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker did and more so.

Overall, I think Montreal really brought it for their first take on Batman. It will be interesting to see if they get handed the key’s to Batman games after Rocksteady leaves after Arkham Knight. It really kind of reminds me of the Call of Duty Infinity Ward/Treyarch thing, back in the era of Modern Warfare 2/Black Ops, where both developers were better at some things than the other developer was. So far, I think Rocksteady has the upper hand as far as game play goes, but I think are nowhere near as effective storytellers as Warner Bros. Games Montreal was for Arkham Origins. If you skipped over this game, because of some reason and you’re a Batman fan, I highly recommend the game and hope that Montreal gets another shot and if so, I’m very interested in seeing what they do next!

Rating: 4/5