Arkham Origins, the "Prequel" to Rocksteady's popular Arkham franchise has been out for long time. Fans are still split on if they love it or hate it. Some reviews were just ridiculous (Gamespot) and others seemed to get it. So here's my take on the game.
I'll start with this. The game is not better than Arkham Asylum or Arkham City. Asylum brought this amazing take for the character set in a hospital/island. City took everything from the previous game, made it better, and added to it. The studio really payed close attention to detail to make sure the game was better than its predecessor. This game however does none of that. It made no effort to advance the franchise or make it stand out at all. That's not to say it was bad! The game was developed by WB Montreal this time so keep that in mind. Let's break down different aspects of the game to see how each was was.
1. Story:
The story for this game was fantastic. The character development was executed wonderfully. As one event was leading up to another I was genuinely invested in what was going on, and I felt that was throughout the entire game. The characters were interesting for the most part. It was disappointing to see most of the characters reduced to side quests. When the game was being marketed as Batman going up against assassins that's what I thought was going to happen. It didn't feel that way. Batman fought Deathstroke, Bane, Firefly, and Copperhead. They were actually somewhat important to the plot. The rest of them just seemed like additions. When the time came to go deal with them i really didn't care. The story shifted to a Joker story after a while and that was fine because it was done so well. His scenes in this were amazing. The game did a fantastic job helping players understand the complex dynamic between the two characters.
2. Gameplay:
The gameplay was pretty solid. It wasn't as good as the previous game however. It would be SO frustrating gliding around and trying to grapple to a building but the game just wouldn't let you. Or gliding and getting stopped by a building top for seemingly no reason. Places you wanted to grapple to you couldn't. So that meant you had to go all the way around a building instead of just going over it. This just got worse and worse over time. You would think that with a bigger area to explore buildings would be taller so you could grapple higher and cover more ground. NOPE! The combat was back from the previous game with nothing much new. The new martial artist baddies were a fun addition. Batman also got a claw that could pull two objects (or bad guys) into each other. Other than that it was a re-skinned line launcher with much less functionality or use. You also got a type of stun grenade that stuck to enemies. This was useful during combat but to try to use it to sneak past or attack in a stealthy situation it just wasn't useful. A batarang was way more effective. The fighting was pretty much the same. Sometimes however combo's failed for no reason, batman would start punching into a place where there were no enemies. Other than that it was the same thing from the last game. Nothing new, nothing innovative. They even had the nerve to make the ice grenade the "glue grenade". Like come on! And it did the exact same things as the ice grenade. Just a cheap re-skinning. However, the gameplay elements it copied from the last game were the solid. Who doesn't enjoy the fresh combat and gliding around the city?
3. The characters:
The characters were somewhat disappointing. I did however LOVE Deathstroke. He was awesome and his boss fight was fun and approachable in different ways. I do wish there was more of him because after that, he was done. The "assassin" ninja baddies were back, re-skinned from Arkham City to, i guess, use whatever they had. I could have done without them. I got a feeling the game was trying to play off the popularity of the recent Nolan Batman films with the 2 main villains in the game, The Joker and Bane. The Joker was done extremely well in this game. Mark Hamill didn't return to do his voice this time around so the role went to Troy Baker, who did his best to mimic Hamill. And he did an excellent job. If his roles as the character after this game he has gotten better in my opinion. His reveal in the game was awesome. The writers really got his character down and Baker brought it to life. The character felt young and new which is great since it's his "origin" in the game. Bane's personality was very well done. I much prefer this design to the Asylum one, though the Asylum bane had titan in him. Bane was smart, goal oriented, and formidable. However by the end he became a hulking, dumb brute monster. This kind of contradicts his history with Batman in the other games. The bane in the beginning of the game is the one who would break Batman's back. Yet he doesn't and becomes a mindless brute first. And it is stated in Asylum that Bane broke Batman's back. I don't know why in different media's they're afraid to make this happen. Thank you Dark Knight Rises for being brave enough to have him do the dead. On to Batman himself. This did not feel like a younger, inexperienced Batman. For being so far into the past he shouldn't have had half the technology he did. Some of which was better than what he had in the future games, which was what? 20 years into his future? They tried to give hints to his youth with the Batmobile still being designed, yet he's flying around in a Bat Jet. That's like playing L.A. Noir and someone pulls out an iPhone. Other than that he was actually a pretty good Batman. I was extremely disappointed when it was revealed NONE of the Batfamily would be in the game at all. Or anyone else to play as. It felt like a step backwards. Then to put Robin in, and only on multiplayer was a slap in the face. They even had the nerve to give him different costumes. You can play as Deathstroke in the challenge maps, although even he wasn't made to be anything special. The developers just recycled moves from Robin and Nightwing from Arkham City and gave them to the Deathstroke model. That was a cheap move. For that they should have just put Robin in the challenge maps. I'm surprised they didn't, yet they have him in multiplayer. It also really got to me that if I didn't have a PS3 I would never get to play as Azrael batman. That was cheap and angered a lot of people. Even down the line it was never available.
4. Multiplayer:
This was a horrible experience. It was a horrible idea. It's absolutely no fun at all to play. Your either team Joker, team Bane, Batman, or Robin. The team tries to kill each other, Batman and Robin. The heroes try to take other players down. First of all, the controls are terrible. It's a 3rd person shooter so clearly nothing like the games controls. You'd think they'd give you a practice room or something to learn completely new mechanics for the game. NOPE! They just toss you in with a bunch of other confused players. The levels are so cluttered it's hard to move around. The chances of even playing as Batman or Robin are slim. There's literally no reason to play it. I don't even know where the disk is. If this was removed from the game completely it's score would go up. That's how bad it is.
5. DLC:
The DLC was pretty nice. We got tons of cool skins, though none as cool as the Jean Paul Valley Azrael Bat PS3 owners got, but there were nice ones. You also got to do challenge maps with young Bruce Wayne before he became Batman. Those were also fun. Finally we got the Mr. Freeze DLC. It gave us a new suit, some new things to do, and a new story. The story was pretty neat. I hated Mr. Freeze's voice. It was so annoying. The fight wasn't anything like the one in City so that was good. It was a solid DLC. This was an opportunity to involve Robin in something too and of course they didn't.
Over all the game is a re-skinned Arkham City. With added area that's a pain in the ass to get around. Some performance issues and nothing really new. If things in the game weren't so cheap (glue grenade) it would get a higher score but those things really made it feel like a cash in. The story however shines through a lot of the negativity. The story is one of the most important elements of this kind of game and it was done extremely well. Since they just copied all the controls and moves for the most part you get the same excellent combat from the previous game. The remote claw is an awesome weapon, though only useful in combat. All in all, this is a re-skinned arkham city that, while not as good, was special in its own way.
8/10
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