Imagine, if you will, falling in love with a beautiful girl. She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful and she knows how to make you happy. You have no idea how but somehow every syllable, every word and every one of her actions make your heart soar. She just has that certain 'quality', if you will.
Fast forward in time, you and your beau have broken up (circumstances not important) and you're with someone else. She's sweet, she's passionate and she really, REALLY wants to please. You smile and you nod and then you tell her to try an act like your old girlfriend...she does so and because she loves you, she does a really good job at it. She hits every note, every pitch and yet...there's something missing.
"Je nais se quoi."
It's that quality. It's missing.
Batman: Arkham Origins is the third game in the Arkham series and the first one NOT develoed by series founder Rocksteady. The first game, Arkham Asylum, did the impossible by giving the players the sense of what it is to be Batman. The second game, Arkham City, went even further and perfected the feeling of being The Dark Knight culiminating in one of the most emotional endings of all time.
It's safe to say that WB has mighty big shoes indeed.
STORY
Arkham Origins begins on the start of Batman's third year as Gotham's Caped Crusader. The majority of the criminal underworld believe him to be a myth whilst the Gotham police force consider him a public menace. Meanwhile Roman Sionis the Black Mask, summons many of the world's greatest assassins with the promise of 50 million dollars to the one who brings him Batman's head.
Safe to say, there's a lot of interesting ground to cover.
Unfortunately, the narrative lacks any sort of impact at all. The stakes are practically non-existent. Wheras Asylum had the Joker's ultimate plan driving the whole narrative and Asylum had Hugo Strange's ominprescent all-seeing precence every pulling us towards the end, Origin's 8 assassins storyline feels lackluster and weak. As Alfred aptly put it, the deadline for Batman's death is 24 hours and he could just simply hide and let them leave. Your story loses any semblance of an 'oomph' when your main threat can be defeated by waiting them out.
I suspect it was because of this that the writers introduced THAT plot twist and the rage on the boards have been nothing short of amusing.
All in all, don't expect to be wowed by the story. The isn't a love-letter penned by Paul Dini, that's for sure.
GAMEPLAY:
Exactly the same as Arkham City which does a good job of making you feel like Batman. The only interesting addition are the 'Crimes-in-progress' which are basically a group of baddies that you have to beat. They're tedious and entirely optional. I do miss the Riddler's puzzles, though.
MECHANICS:
The game is unoptimized. Never in an Arkham game have I suffered the black screen of death or have had Batman stuck behind a wall or a trash bin, yet there I was...restarting and replaying the game over and over. WB Montreal doesn't seem to have a handle on the engine. Already several workaround 'solutions' are fluttering around the net.
Expect a few game-breaking bugs.
CONCLUSION
That Troy Baker attempts to imitate Mark Hamill's Joker seems so eerily appropriate in lieu of everything. Arkham City desperately wants to please you and hits all the right notes, sometimes perfectly but it just lacks that certain quality.
The new guy SOUNDS like Batman but he's not Kevin Conroy.
Troy Baker SOUNDS like the Joker but he's not Mark Hamill.
The story ATTEMPTS to be emulate Paul Dini's writing but it's not the same.
The gameplay COPIES Arkham City but brings nothing new to the table (certainly not the difference between AA and AC)
Je nais se quoi, indeed.
I would like to STRESS that WB Monstreal had been correct in their approach. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They were caught between a rock and a hard place. If they changed the formula too much, fans would have undoubtedly burned them at the stake. It just pains me that this game could have been easily a 9 out of 10 game if Rocksteady returned to a final entry.
If you're hungry for more Arkham City, pick this up to sate your hunger pangs.
Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League is almost here, but I can't revisit the best Arkhamverse game on PS5 without sacrificing quality.
Not a fan of Orgins. Blame it on the absence of Conroy & Hamill. Blame it on the lack of atmosphere compared to Asylm. Hell blame it the devs thst dicked over Wii U owners like me that purchased the game only for support be dropped as a thank you to me. It's better than Knight but that's not saying much. I don't care for that entry either.
tbh buying a game like that for WiiU should’ve been an obvious non-purchase when it existed on better hardware.
Origins is amazing..
my favorite Batman is Batman and Robin on mega drive.. an HD REMASTER of that would still look glorious
I got it launch. Kinda hard to go back. I'm supposed to know they were going to drop support months after the fact. 🤣
You sound like a salty fanboy, that it didn't come to your precious plastic of choice. It's not the developers fault Nintendo continues making underpowered hardware. It's our fault because we keep buying it. Yes I say (we) I'm part of the problem as well.
I have a PS3 and a Wii U. How was I a salty fanboy? I bought the game on the system I wanted it for.
Nah my comment has nothing to do with whether you’d know or not that they’d drop support.
Buying any AAA game of that era for a WiiU you should’ve known you’d be sacrificing graphics and load times.
Smacks of hyperbole to me, talk about clutching at straws to create some drama around PS5!!
Titles like these are designed to get you to come in, go to their comment section and tell them how they're so wrong so they can boost their numbers.
Even though its not the best arkham game in the series, its still an enjoyable game in its own right. What it do really well at though, was the crime investigations scenes. Which imo, were the best of the franchise.
Never played it and recently I've finally tried it via cloud on psn. It's not the best for sure, but it ain't bad either.
Batman: Arkham Origins launched 10 years ago today, and sadly doesn't stand the test of time as well as its predecessors.
I fail to grasp why this title is worse compared to Arkham City (according to the article) as the author didn't provide any argument to explain why aside from that it felt the bigger map compared to Arkham Asylum made the experience less tight.
More importantly, the author seems like he never played Arkham City since he described the game as linear (alongside Asylum).
Despite certain flaws, Batman: Arkham Origins is a splendid entry in the legendary Arkham series and deserves better than being forsaken.
It's the worst of the three in my opinion, but still really enjoyable. Definitely underated and gets far more crap that it deserves.
Should be included with the other Arkham games in the bundle.
I'm honestly enjoying it alot, my first time playing since I just decided to get a Xbox 360 slim for 65$, I cop some other gems too tho, I went into Arkham origins not expecting better than Arkham city but it does deliver plus the guy who voices batman did a good job aiming for the young Bruce impression
I like your analogy. Hahaha...
Good job.
I was afraid of this when I heard that the gaming press hadn't been sent review copies.
Seems like this game would have benefitted if they had moved it to the PS4 and XBO for more processing power for better graphics and bigger maps, and a Spring 2014 release date to add more features, gameplay options, characters, a better story, and iron out all bugs.
It saddens me, but this is one of those games I have to try for myself, because it's just so hard to believe that a game that was a GOTY contender a couple years ago has dropped down to just above average.
See, I feel very differently.
I, for some reason, didn't find Arkham City very compelling at all. It felt largely like a chore to me. So I was just expecting to have a bigger, more fun version of Arkham City with Origins- and I got exactly that.
To me, it goes:
Arkham Asylum = Version 1 (almost flawless, too)
Arkham City = Version 1.5 (disappointing)
Arkham Origins = Version 2 (what City should have been- big map, many more enemies/ fights, big story, etc.)
In my review which I'll be N4G'ing very soon, I gave Origins a 9.5/10. I've had a bloody great time with it.