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Just wondering if anyone else has played this yet? I completed it last night.

The game has simply been made with the Arkham City engine, not that thais is necessarily a bad thing. It wasn’t broke after all and so there is no reason for a new studio to mess with it all that much for what is basically a filler game. So it does feel a bit like a expansion pack as opposed to a brand new game.

A few extra things have been bolted on and some work and some don’t. The new crime scene feature, where Batman can recreate a crime in Detective Mode and go through a virtual reconstruction of events is an innovative idea that works well.

There is however a bit of Laziness, the Ice grenades from City are in Origins, however as Mr Freeze doesn’t feature in the game they have simply been renamed ‘glue grenades’ with a slightly different look. But they are, for all intents and purposes, identical. The ‘experimental’ grapnel boost from City is also present, though no explanation as to why.

The main negatives are that the boss fights are uninspired and repetitive. The ‘8 Assassins’ never seem to live up the hype. Deathstroke for example seems rather underused. One doesn’t even feature in the main game at all, but only features as a side mission. The Firefly battle is a wonderful set piece and very atmospheric but again rather repetitive.

Also the game is very buggy compared to the first two games in the franchise. Slowdown is relatively frequent, particularly after using the ‘fast travel’ mode. Batman also occasionally gets stuck. This can be resolved by reloading but it’s still a royal pain.

They have also dived the upgrades out in ‘trees’ that are a bit too restrictive. For example the player is forced to take 3 armor
upgrades in close combat before they can take anything else.

My suspicions are that Rocksteady are busy locked aware on the next ‘proper’ game in the franchise for the next generation of consoles and this game has been farmed out to another studio so the franchise can get one last hurrah on the current generation.

It’s by no means a ‘bad’ game but it’s a case of treading water for the franchise. Worth a play if you’re a fan of the first two games but by no means essential.

I played the first one and found it thoroughly enjoyable, i was not and am not interested in the sequel(s) however as it just looks like more of the same.

Also to be honest i'm not really a fan of 'Comic-book' batman so one game was quite enough for me. This isn't helped by the fact that Rocksteady/the Origins guys have used UE3 in the most unimaginative way, lots of gun-metal and steroidal body-builders. There have been some great looking games in UE3, for example Mirror's Edge.

I felt the look of the game was the weakest aspect, not helped by the fact you spent half the time in detective mode.

A minor thing i liked in Arkham Asylum is that it's insinuated you're fighting alot the same guys over and over again. In general i am rather sick of modern slaughter-fests so this was a nice touch.

IIRC Rocksteady will no longer be working with the Batman IP, or at least their first Next-gen Property will not be a Batman game.

Playing it now. Spending almost every second in combat wishing they hadn't reversed the detective vision and quickfire buttons.

And Perkustin, you really should play Arkham City. It's a fantastic game.

I've not seen anything to say that they're not working on a sequel to Arkham City (in fact things point to the fact that they are... which is good).

Destructoid's Jim Sterling posted a traffic-baitng 'controversial' review of Arkham Origins giving it a 3/10. Although i quite like Jim Sterling, Jimquisition, his Lets plays and Podtoid are very entertaining, his reviews aren't really very good, like most of the internet game 'Journalists' really. I am actually surprised that they are his bread and butter.

He also takes a big poop on the writing which other outlets have said is fantastic in Arkham Origins. That's probably the most annoying aspect of Sterling reviews, he's always criticizing the writing in games, often with an Air of (unfounded) superiority.

I'll look up that Article on Rocksteady. I do know for certain that nothing has linked them to Batman, even remotely, as of yet

Nothing has been announced regarding what Rocksteady are currently doing.

But given that Origins is a prequel and the last game in the franchise that will be released on the current generation of consoles, I think it’s a safe bet that Rocksteady are be working on an actual sequel designed for the next gen and the release of Origins has given them additional time to work on it by keeping the franchise alive.

Personally I didn’t have an issue with the plot. It was solid enough and explored the Batman/Joker relationship rather well.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And Perkustin, you really should play Arkham City. It's a fantastic game.

Very, very true. If you liked Arkham Asylum, you will love Arkham City. The phrase "more of the same" only technically applies in that it's the same good stuff but at a bigger scale. The scale difference is actually wondrous and makes you feel even more like Batman. Also, Perkustin, I totally agree with your comments about Jimquisition -- IMO, everything about him is traffic-baiting.

As to Origins, I want to play it but I can wait. We'll see for how long.

I'd say Arkham Origins is very much just an evolution on City.

The map has got to be at least twice the size, for example. It really does feel more like the centre of Gotham, whereas AC did get a sense of every notable Batman location being crammed within a corner of each other.

I'd say the writings good - Well worth playing if you just like more Batman stories. Although, I do feel the concept of it being an early Batman is rather underused.

It is different voice actors, however they all do a good job of playing 'younger' versions of their characters incarnations.

The game feels pretty long as well, I was playing it constantly over the weekend. Steam has me listed as having played it for 25 hours now. - I thought I was actually getting near the end of the main story for the game, however it looks like it was actually just simply the halfway point.

So yeah, I'm very much enjoying it, however the game is very buggy. The Enigma/Riddler missions are actually unfinishable for me right now, due to what appears to be a clipping/collision bug when trying to climb up a vent.

It's certainly one to keep an eye on, possibly not worth rushing out to buy quite yet. - Wait until a few patches are out.

Multiplayer seems alright as well, although I've just had a short spin of it. What it really reminds me most of is Star Wars: Battlefront 2, but with the Mass Effect 3 / Gears of War (????) style cover shooting mechanics.

I think Jim's using Arkham Origins to grind a particular axe with WB over this type of game, and I don't blame him. WB is an insidious publisher obsessed with pointless DLC and has in the past cut parts out of a game just to monetise them later (the Catwoman stuff from Arkham City being a good example). They get away with it because they're no where near as big as the "Big Three", but this game is another example of their mentality towards the consumer. Also his comment that we're somehow meant to believe that Batman met all these various villains on the same night is also true.

Overall what Jim's saying isn't wrong per se, it's just that they're the reasons why he doesn't like it. I am liking it. I'm just past the Deathstroke fight (that was hard!), and other than the stupid fething control change and the odd bit of wonky fighting (it's not as smooth as the last two games) I'm having a lot of fun.

Assuming you only fight Deathstroke once....

I was quite disappointed about the Deathstroke fight. - I didn't expect him to be the first villain and to go down so easily.

Admittedly, not as easily as the Electrocutioner, but then he's pretty much designed to be the Red Shirt of the Assassins.

As far as the logic of the game works, meeting all those villains on the one night makes perfect sense. "Black Mask" pretty much managed to set up the entire city as a Christmas special for Badguys. Of course they'd come out of the woodwork for it.

Easily? gak that fight took me three tries.

I have a feeling Electrocutioner will come back. He did escape the Final Offer after all. I don’t think he’ll be such a pushover the second time either.

And Batman fighting them all on the one night isn’t that hard to believe. It’s him meeting all of them for the first time on the same day.

I may play Batman a little too much... I was actually in the top 30 for the rankings of some challenge maps over the weekend.

What's driving me crazy right now is waiting for the 'Disarm' move to unlock. That's the only thing that's stopping me from finishing that 100 to 1 map.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Easily? gak that fight took me three tries.

I have a feeling Electrocutioner will come back. He did escape the Final Offer after all. I don’t think he’ll be such a pushover the second time either.

And Batman fighting them all on the one night isn’t that hard to believe. It’s him meeting all of them for the first time on the same day.

I'm under the impression that some of them he's met before--or at least has heard of/found files on them. After all he's been Batman for two years at this point.

He’s certainly aware of them. His reaction to Bane is “Bane? In Gotham?”, but meeting all of them for the first time plus the Joker, all in one night, is just a little silly. I don’t really care, I mean, as I said, the last game was stuffed with an unreasonable amount of villains as well (even for a prison), but it is silly.

Arkham Asylum had the right amount of bad guys, and as terrible as the boss fights were in that game it felt more subdued and had the right amount of big bads to face off with.

And that’s the other thing. He’s been Batman for two years and the response from most of the crims is “Holy crap! He’s real?”. I know that Batman’s deal is fear and whatever, but you’d think two years in he’d have made himself known enough that they fear what Batman is rather than what they think he is.

Again, I’m really enjoying the game (button remapping and wonky combat aside), but I find it really hard to disagree with the criticisms levelled at this game. I can easily look past them because I’m such a big fan of the series and because they don’t bother me as much as someone with less investment might.

Batman already had a longstanding feud with Penguin and Black Mask by the time Origins happens. In this one night the only 2 major villains he encounters for the first time are The Riddler (Or Enigma as he’s currently named) and The Joker. Though if you look in the Batcave you can see he’s been tracking Red Hood for a while, so they are presumably going with the Killing Joke origin story. He’s obviously well aware of Bane, it’s just not clear if they have ever met before.

He's never met any of the assassins, even if he was aware of their existence.


And... I just lost the Deadshot encounter because of the fething changed controls. Went to turn off detective vision and hit what was the detective vision button... launching a quick batarang at Deadshot, causing him to shoot the hostage. *sigh*

Why... WHY did they make such a fundamental change to the control scheme.

I'm guessing you're playing on the PS3, HBMC?

The controls are identical for me and I'm using an X-box controller on Windows.

There are control differences on PC too, but slightly more obtuse... using the Del key for clearing the menu means I can no longer use it for grappling. *sobs* This happened between Asylum and City for something else, too. You console players don't know the half of it, back in my day, blah blah. *shakes fist*

Lucius, though I know it should be obvious from the thread title, can you please edit it (or the post) to make it very very obvious there are *SPOILERS AHOY*? I'd have to guess you haven't covered everything yet either, because it does become clear later on that

There is also one difference I've noticed with the glue grenades - when you're using one as a raft, you can throw more from it at pipes etc. There's a couple of puzzles where this comes into play. But aside from that, it's obvious they've done it so they don't have to explain why Batman has grenades he first picked up years later. That only makes the grapnel boost more jarring, though.

My biggest gripe is to do with the main villain -

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


And that’s the other thing. He’s been Batman for two years and the response from most of the crims is “Holy crap! He’s real?”. I know that Batman’s deal is fear and whatever, but you’d think two years in he’d have made himself known enough that they fear what Batman is rather than what they think he is.

It's important to remember that Batman is considered to be, by law enforcement, the general public, and by the criminal element, (for all intents and purposes) a myth. The only reason we don't get that sense in Asylum/City is because Batman was largely responsible for putting all those people there to begin with (there are numerous lines to that effect), whereas in Origins, we're dealing with the ones "outside the cage". The only real exceptions to this are the "supercriminals" who have encountered him, Commissioner Gordon, and a select few that have had direct interactions with him.

I just the level in the hotel. I was worried the Joker would overshadow the rest of the game. Nope. The Joker just made things better. That hotel level was amazing.

I enjoyed the first two games quite a bit, but for some reason this game isn't drawing me in at all. Maybe it was the reviews that indicated it was very repetitive.

 Ouze wrote:
I enjoyed the first two games quite a bit, but for some reason this game isn't drawing me in at all. Maybe it was the reviews that indicated it was very repetitive.

All the Batman games are repetitive.

Origins can be repetitive in places, but even when you're doing things like the Casefiles(arguably the most repetitive thing in the game) you end up with having to travel the city and locating the suspect.

The game is repetitive, but it draws me in. I absolutely suck ass at the combat but can get through.

I have to say I've been experiencing a lot of crashes, so much so that it has been turned off for the night. I was considering putting Asylum in as I've not played that since it came out and it was very entertaining.

For all those that haven't got it? I'd say hold off until a game of the year edition comes out, or that it drops in price enough to justify buying the season pass.

While I like the game I really wish we had seen a sequel to City that brought back Scarecrow and introduced Hush after we briefly encountered him. I'd really like the next game to be set in the rest of Gotham, preferably more detective elements and less using repeatedly placed objects like the ring-pulls etc.

I think the two new voice actors (Batman & Joker) have done remarkably well. Still not sold on the new Harley Quinn voice actress.

It's the same one from the last game (as far as IMDB is concerned - if it isn't, I've been misinformed).

The Harley Quinn voice actress changed between Asylum and City. I agreed the Asylum voice was better, the City/Origins actress' voice is a tad too whiney for my liking.

Wasn't the first Harley the one from the 90s cartoon anyway? Automatically required to be better!

It was the same person - Arleen Sorkin. In City and, I believe, in Origins (and also in Injustice) it changed to the delectable Tara Strong.

Eh, those are both great voice actresses anyway.