Arkham Origins Review

Batman: Arkham Origins Review

         Although I was initially put off at the idea of a prequel after so much sequel setup in City, and skeptical about a company other that RockSteady working on it, Arkham Origins quickly allayed my concerns. I'm trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible, although I've included the names of some bosses, a couple of gadgets, and features in the game, but avoided all major plot points.

High Points

         And there were a lot. First and foremost, they got the feel of the game right. This game immediately feels like it belongs in the series. The story is solid, and as dark and gritty as anything we've seen so far. Your attention is intentionally divided among plotlines as in previous installments, and there are some great twists that will blow you away. Boss battles represent a major improvement in this game. Instead of feeling gimmicky(dodge, throw batarang, rinse, repeat) each boss battle is significantly different, and the method used to take down the boss makes sense for each one. Side missions abound, and with the new police scanner feature, there's always a fight to stop. In addition, I initially thought this would be a one-off game, but some very interesting potential plot points, including an after credits teaser that takes a surprising direction. Do yourself a favor and watch it on YouTube. The credits run insanely long. 

Attention To Detail

          The first thing I noticed was how clunky Batman's armor looked. It's just a nod to him being early in his career, and doesn't impede movement at all. He doesn't have a Batmobile yet, although you can see he's building it in the cave. The cave itself looks very cobbled together, not at all how it appears in the Arkham City challenge map. Another interesting nod to the timeline is that people tend to think Batman isn't real, and totally freak out when they see him. He's even attacked by a hostage he rescues early on. This is entertaining, but not overwrought, with a couple of scenes early on, and not much else after this. Batman's inexperience shows as well, when he attempts to interrogate a criminal, and inadvertently chokes him into unconsciousness. He also later knocks out a boss, but forgets to tie him up, leading to a later confrontation.

That said, it would have been easy for the developers to leave out recent elements such as the Grapnel Boost, or the Beatdown, but both were present. Fun is not sacrificed to get a point across.

New Additions

           This game does offer some forward momentum to the franchise. One of the new elements introduced are new enemy types. Martial Artists are probably the most challenging, able to perform double attacks which must be double countered. They are also able to counter your attacks. Some of Bane's soldiers are equipped with Venom pumps that make them faster, stronger, and able to perform attacks that can't be countered. The pumps must be torn off before a takedown can be performed. Finally, they also have hulking Enforcers. Massive mountains of muscle, able to attack in ways that can't be countered, and generally a massive nuisance on the battlefield. Enforcers are essentially stand-ins for the Titans from previous games.

            The new Fast-Travel system is really useful, though diving and gliding is still so much fun that you may forget you have it. There's also a skill tree based levelup system that's a lot of fun to work with, and the new Crime Scene Reconstruction mode is awesome. Instead of merely deducing what happened in a certain crime scene, the Detective Vision now allows you to replay the events of the crime in shadowy holograms. Following the crime through step by step may also lead to finding more clues. I heard some complaints that the sequences are linear, and they are, but they're also a lot of fun, and something I hope they build on in future games. Finally, we got new gadgets in this game. A couple were copouts, so I'll just get them out of the way. The glue grenade worked exactly like the ice grenade in City, and the concussion grenade had essentially the same effect as the R.E.C. but can affect large groups of opponents. Now for the new ones. The Remote Claw that Batman obtains early in the game allows him to fire a tether between two vantage points, creating a tightrope he can traverse. It also has combat applications, allowing him to tether fire extinguishers or gas tanks to opponents, stunning or knocking them out, respectively. A later upgrade allows you to tether an opponent to a vantage point remotely. This has been called out for making stealth missions too easy, but I will say that the upgrade has limited ammo, and redeems itself by hilariously whiplashing unsuspecting gunmen all over the place. The Shock Gloves also caught some flack since they basically make you unstoppable, punching through armor, and car doors, and allowing you to counter tasers. They are a lot of fun, and offset some of the more annoying combat elements I'll mention later.

Low Points

           There had to be some. While they were few, one failing in particular was crushing. In melee combat, the window for your counters is shortened, causing your freeflow to get broken far too often. It also seems like the camera angle was off a lot, allowing opponents you never even saw to get the drop on you. This made fighting mixed groups of opponents a nightmare, hence my love for the shock gloves. In addition, more often than not you would run up on a group of thugs and one of then would pull a gun and take potshots at you from a safe distance. Realistically a sound strategy, but it made combat overly annoying in most cases. Also at times I noticed the A.I. had blind spots (sometimes) allowing for hilariously obvious "silent takedowns". My last gripe is that in the boss battle with Deathstroke, who, mind you, is able to counter your attacks and is probably one of the most challenging bosses, you get almost no onscreen hints as to how to go about fighting him. This made for a very long trial and error process. It was still a great fight, I just would have preferred some hints as to how to take him on. 

Final Remarks

The combat in Arkham Games has always been a high point for me, so the debilitating weak spots in the system this time around hit me hard. All in all however, given the ingenuity of the boss battles, the great story, and the fun new features, this game has earned its place in the Arkham Canon. 

9.5/10