Batman: Arkham Origins Review - Good, But Not Good Enough
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Currently i cannot get past the first (that is, i assume its the first) Copperhead encounter, because the game crashes exactly when i look out of the elevator on the way out after getting poisoned.
Worse still, that moment was a checkpoint so when i try to load the game, it crashes.
Despite that, what ive seen so far definitely lives up to the standards set by Arkham City.
Worse still, that moment was a checkpoint so when i try to load the game, it crashes.
Despite that, what ive seen so far definitely lives up to the standards set by Arkham City.
That's because the actor that voices Batman (Roger Craig Smith) did indeed voice Chris Redfield, and I'm with you, it is a little odd to hear.Mcoffey said:
Little oddities like that aside, I've enjoyed the first hour or so that I've played so far.
Question: is it on par with the (fairly minor) reaction time that was in City? Or is it more like Robin's (much longer) attack animations? If you've played him, that is.Mcoffey said:
I was pleasantly surprised by the differences in the fighting styles between the various characters in City, but Robin's slow attacks definitely made him the most frustrating to play.
A few people have mentioned online that he reacts slower, but I haven't found that to be the case. Some of his moves themselves take a little longer, but that could be because he's only been at the job of Batman for two years? So he's not quite the Dark Knight we're all used to yet. May be a narrative thing. But I honestly haven't had any problems with the game, am playing on PS3.Mcoffey said:
I re-played Arkham City before starting on Origins, and I really think that was a mistake. The devs tried to do some good here, but it seems like every step forward requires three steps back. Some of the controls are tighter, but the timing of the combat has changed significantly.
The Ground Takedown is never really safe to use outside of Free Flow Focus, not that it ever was. In Asylum, that move put you in slow motion, but nobody else. They removed some of the delay in City, but in Origins, it feels like most moves have a delay that gets you hammered outside of Focus. They also screwed with the way Ground Takedown is aimed. In AC I was able to knock a guy down, jump to him and do the takedown, then get back into range with enemies. In Origin, I tilt the stick toward the guy I want to take out, and I still jump the opposite way to the guy I just knocked down that is standing next to the guy with the baseball bat who is about to take a swing.
I find I'm using the Beatdown attack more than just about anything else. It lets me focus on one guy, usually the jerk with the knife, and funnels everyone else into pretty much a straight line. Beatdown, counter, keep beating, counter, keep beating, finish, take out enemy with charged attack, repeat. Combat in the first two games was a lot more fun, because I kept experimenting to find ways to make it look like an elegantly choreographed fight scene, and when AA and AC were on, you came out of a big battle feeling like a total badass. In Origins, any time I don't play it safe, I get caught up and juggled between a bunch of cheap hits. The countering is a lot less responsive. Not on hard mode yet, but I don't think it makes a difference. Most of the time, my successful counters happen when I'm already on the button before the icon shows up. If I wait for the game to tell me I should counter, I usually end up taking the hit.
I get that it is possible that Batman is supposed to feel different being at an earlier stage in his career, but most (all) the animations for the attacks are the same, they just have a different timing. I would rather have seen different moves, showing off a younger, more kinetic, brutal approach. They treat the character this way in cutscenes, why not do it with gameplay?
The new seeking grappling hook shots feel like the wall split from Splinter Cell. You couldn't find a promotional ad without showing it off, but in the game it wasn't ever that useful.
I also hate the way the upgrade trees are structured. In Asylum and City, I never had to invest a level up in Combat or Ballistic armor, until the end of the game when I ran out of other upgrades to unlock. I didn't need them with my playstyle. Here, I had to waste six or so levels just getting armored up before I could get into the upgrades I'm used to playing the game with.
The first few lines Batman spoke made me literally say "The Conroy impression is pretty spot on," then it devolved into Bale-Voice most of the time.
I do like the Nolan-esque approach to Batman's armor here. He's new at it, so he is decked out like a tank (which could be why they screwed with all the reaction times). I like the idea that he streamlined and went more mobility oriented by the point of Asylum and City in the chronology.
The main fault with the way the game handles for me just clicked. I remember one of my martial arts instructors explaining the difference between the way young men and older men fight. The problem here is that the older Arkham games featured a more acrobatic feeling Batman who fights like a younger man. In origin's we have a slower character who tends to deal with things like an older fighter.
Overall, it feels like an old-school style expansion to Arkham City instead of a new game. Origins is to City as Mysteries of the Sith was to Jedi Knight.
Old Gotham also feels entirely too empty. This would work in a No Man's Land type story, but here it just feels strange. I'd have liked to hear news broadcasts about traffic jams and other issues caused by a mass exodus from the area of Gotham the game takes place in. All they needed was something about a public announcement of the contract on Batman, and give the public x hours to evacuate the region. Then we could have had some "rescue a school bus full of kids" and "disable to bomb on the cable car/ferry/train tracks" segments that would have made it feel a little more populated, and give Batman someone other than cops and criminals to rescue from each other.
EDIT - The Deadshot room is absolute bullshit. Went slow and careful the first time, eliminated everyone quietly and went to get the drop on Deadshot. He gets back up after the combo. In keeping with my way of dealing with this game's annoying bullshit, I would stunlock him with the cape and then beatdown, ending early for another stunlock, until I depleated most of his healthbar, at which point he automatically gets away, and the room refills with henchmen. Pissed off now, I do the loud/flash takedowns. I hang everyone I can up with the hook shot and turn off everyone else's guns on my way to Deadshot. Standing on a railing above, I use a remote batarang to hit him FROM BEHIND to distract him so I can drop down and finish him off, and he "sees" me. Have to start all the way over. Done variations of this about twenty times now. I have the choreography memorized. Hookshot between gargoyles, drop down silent takedown, grate takedown, grate takedown, grate takedown, silent takedown, silent takedown. Cape stun + beatdown. Respawn. Hang everybody up, this time sneak carefully up behind Deadshot. The game gives me the takedown prompt, I press it. Batman strikes the "I am countering in this direction even though nobody is attacking" animation, and Deadshot kills the hostage. Complete bullshit.
EDIT AGAIN - When I do finally clear the room properly and take him down, the game freezes.
The Ground Takedown is never really safe to use outside of Free Flow Focus, not that it ever was. In Asylum, that move put you in slow motion, but nobody else. They removed some of the delay in City, but in Origins, it feels like most moves have a delay that gets you hammered outside of Focus. They also screwed with the way Ground Takedown is aimed. In AC I was able to knock a guy down, jump to him and do the takedown, then get back into range with enemies. In Origin, I tilt the stick toward the guy I want to take out, and I still jump the opposite way to the guy I just knocked down that is standing next to the guy with the baseball bat who is about to take a swing.
I find I'm using the Beatdown attack more than just about anything else. It lets me focus on one guy, usually the jerk with the knife, and funnels everyone else into pretty much a straight line. Beatdown, counter, keep beating, counter, keep beating, finish, take out enemy with charged attack, repeat. Combat in the first two games was a lot more fun, because I kept experimenting to find ways to make it look like an elegantly choreographed fight scene, and when AA and AC were on, you came out of a big battle feeling like a total badass. In Origins, any time I don't play it safe, I get caught up and juggled between a bunch of cheap hits. The countering is a lot less responsive. Not on hard mode yet, but I don't think it makes a difference. Most of the time, my successful counters happen when I'm already on the button before the icon shows up. If I wait for the game to tell me I should counter, I usually end up taking the hit.
I get that it is possible that Batman is supposed to feel different being at an earlier stage in his career, but most (all) the animations for the attacks are the same, they just have a different timing. I would rather have seen different moves, showing off a younger, more kinetic, brutal approach. They treat the character this way in cutscenes, why not do it with gameplay?
The new seeking grappling hook shots feel like the wall split from Splinter Cell. You couldn't find a promotional ad without showing it off, but in the game it wasn't ever that useful.
I also hate the way the upgrade trees are structured. In Asylum and City, I never had to invest a level up in Combat or Ballistic armor, until the end of the game when I ran out of other upgrades to unlock. I didn't need them with my playstyle. Here, I had to waste six or so levels just getting armored up before I could get into the upgrades I'm used to playing the game with.
The first few lines Batman spoke made me literally say "The Conroy impression is pretty spot on," then it devolved into Bale-Voice most of the time.
I do like the Nolan-esque approach to Batman's armor here. He's new at it, so he is decked out like a tank (which could be why they screwed with all the reaction times). I like the idea that he streamlined and went more mobility oriented by the point of Asylum and City in the chronology.
The main fault with the way the game handles for me just clicked. I remember one of my martial arts instructors explaining the difference between the way young men and older men fight. The problem here is that the older Arkham games featured a more acrobatic feeling Batman who fights like a younger man. In origin's we have a slower character who tends to deal with things like an older fighter.
Overall, it feels like an old-school style expansion to Arkham City instead of a new game. Origins is to City as Mysteries of the Sith was to Jedi Knight.
Old Gotham also feels entirely too empty. This would work in a No Man's Land type story, but here it just feels strange. I'd have liked to hear news broadcasts about traffic jams and other issues caused by a mass exodus from the area of Gotham the game takes place in. All they needed was something about a public announcement of the contract on Batman, and give the public x hours to evacuate the region. Then we could have had some "rescue a school bus full of kids" and "disable to bomb on the cable car/ferry/train tracks" segments that would have made it feel a little more populated, and give Batman someone other than cops and criminals to rescue from each other.
EDIT - The Deadshot room is absolute bullshit. Went slow and careful the first time, eliminated everyone quietly and went to get the drop on Deadshot. He gets back up after the combo. In keeping with my way of dealing with this game's annoying bullshit, I would stunlock him with the cape and then beatdown, ending early for another stunlock, until I depleated most of his healthbar, at which point he automatically gets away, and the room refills with henchmen. Pissed off now, I do the loud/flash takedowns. I hang everyone I can up with the hook shot and turn off everyone else's guns on my way to Deadshot. Standing on a railing above, I use a remote batarang to hit him FROM BEHIND to distract him so I can drop down and finish him off, and he "sees" me. Have to start all the way over. Done variations of this about twenty times now. I have the choreography memorized. Hookshot between gargoyles, drop down silent takedown, grate takedown, grate takedown, grate takedown, silent takedown, silent takedown. Cape stun + beatdown. Respawn. Hang everybody up, this time sneak carefully up behind Deadshot. The game gives me the takedown prompt, I press it. Batman strikes the "I am countering in this direction even though nobody is attacking" animation, and Deadshot kills the hostage. Complete bullshit.
EDIT AGAIN - When I do finally clear the room properly and take him down, the game freezes.
While I definitely quite like this game, I have to say, it's a buggy mess on the PC. No idea what it's like on the consoles, but I've encountered some major bugs so far.
The top 3 most debilitating/annoying are:
1) Can't climb into a vent in one of the Comm Towers to unlock the region.
2) During the Mad Hatter's level/thing, you have to ride a tea saucer across a river by pulling yourself across with the batclaw. It spawns incorrectly and, unless you get absurdly lucky, gets stuck at the spawn point. Worse, you can't get out of the level after you get in, and this is about halfway through. If I didn't get lucky on the spawn (after 15-20 tries) I wouldn't have been able to complete the game, so that was kinda bullshit.
3) Fast Travel will randomly deactivate and be unavailable until I restart the game for no apparent reason.
I do rather enjoy the game, and I'm more or less happy with the purchase, but the bugs are driving me crazy.
The top 3 most debilitating/annoying are:
1) Can't climb into a vent in one of the Comm Towers to unlock the region.
2) During the Mad Hatter's level/thing, you have to ride a tea saucer across a river by pulling yourself across with the batclaw. It spawns incorrectly and, unless you get absurdly lucky, gets stuck at the spawn point. Worse, you can't get out of the level after you get in, and this is about halfway through. If I didn't get lucky on the spawn (after 15-20 tries) I wouldn't have been able to complete the game, so that was kinda bullshit.
3) Fast Travel will randomly deactivate and be unavailable until I restart the game for no apparent reason.
I do rather enjoy the game, and I'm more or less happy with the purchase, but the bugs are driving me crazy.
Well i have just completed it, have to say its not as good as Arkham City, i'd say its on par with AA. What Arkham Asylum doesn't do, this game does, and what AO doesn't do, AA does, they pretty much do the opposite, but stay on the same level, if that makes sense.
Also guys, listen to the credits, it pretty much bridges the gap to Arkham Asylum.
Also guys, listen to the credits, it pretty much bridges the gap to Arkham Asylum.
This game has crashed on me and corrupted my saves too many times. I've lost over 20 hours of gameplay from starting over and powering through to get back to where I was, and maybe a bit further, and the save corrupted again. I've never managed to load the game after turning it off once.
So I'm pretty much over this broken product. The game is good but it's not better than Asylum or City and is definitely not worth the headache I've gone through while fighting these bugs. It's unacceptable that a game in such a high-profile series as this was released in such a sorry state.
So I'm pretty much over this broken product. The game is good but it's not better than Asylum or City and is definitely not worth the headache I've gone through while fighting these bugs. It's unacceptable that a game in such a high-profile series as this was released in such a sorry state.
Probably pick it up for the Christmas break. Might get it cheaper, patched and it seems appropriate...
I pretty much agree with this review...apart from the Voice Acting. Complaining about Penguins voice? Nolan North Voiced him, who also voiced him in Arkham City. I admit however, Tracey got on my nerves! I admit voice acting isn't as strong, but considering most of the actors are back who played characters in the other 2 games (Alfred, Penguin and i believe Banes voice actor from AA, could be wrong however, sounds pretty much the same.) it still feels like an Arkham game 
I just want to pitch in here and say that this review is spot-on.
Coming in, I steeled myself that at worst, it was going to be an expansion of City, and I'd be fine with that. Well...it is. Almost all of it - mechanically, but also in terms of architecture - is directly taken from the amazing base that was Arkham City, with a tiny bit added here, and a couple of little things done worse. They're obviously not as good as Rocksteady and it doesn't have that sheen of amazingness, like the perfect pacing, but they didn't mess with what works. And they made boss battles that are (at least so far) way better than Arkham Asylum's.
Interestingly, you know that pretentious wanker phrase, "ludonarrative dissonance"? Well, this game has one of the best counter-examples I've seen. In a cutscene, Batman gets shot, several times. ...And then he's fine, because he's wearing armour, and you get shot all the time.
Coming in, I steeled myself that at worst, it was going to be an expansion of City, and I'd be fine with that. Well...it is. Almost all of it - mechanically, but also in terms of architecture - is directly taken from the amazing base that was Arkham City, with a tiny bit added here, and a couple of little things done worse. They're obviously not as good as Rocksteady and it doesn't have that sheen of amazingness, like the perfect pacing, but they didn't mess with what works. And they made boss battles that are (at least so far) way better than Arkham Asylum's.
Interestingly, you know that pretentious wanker phrase, "ludonarrative dissonance"? Well, this game has one of the best counter-examples I've seen. In a cutscene, Batman gets shot, several times. ...And then he's fine, because he's wearing armour, and you get shot all the time.
Gotta step in here and say that I think Mr. North's voice acting was great, it was Penguin's writing that I think was horrible. He and his assistant both. Neither of them is like some feverish nightmare based entirely on american media based on british people in AC. The dialogue they gave North in AO is just atrocious. He does great with it, but the words coming out of his mouth are so fantastically shit.arc1991 said:I pretty much agree with this review...apart from the Voice Acting. Complaining about Penguins voice? Nolan North Voiced him, who also voiced him in Arkham City. I admit however, Tracey got on my nerves! I admit voice acting isn't as strong, but considering most of the actors are back who played characters in the other 2 games (Alfred, Penguin and i believe Banes voice actor from AA, could be wrong however, sounds pretty much the same.) it still feels like an Arkham game
You'll all note that I did not address the multiplayer in this review. I think it is shit and bad. I would rather not dignify its existence.
This is exactly the type of review I can agree with: I think that AO misses what AC was able to accomplish (and AA before it) but does well as a near copy of a game that's well loved. There are many things that aren't right with Origins, most disappointingly the tweaks in the fighting mechanics and the strange XP system they now have, but as a copy-paste sort-of game that is normally reserved for sequels, this prequel did rather well.
I do really miss the little things that City had in it. Doing some of the Riddler's challenges from City and I had to scan in a security pass of a security guard I vaguely remember from the comics. I've now learned that there's no point in taking in the scenery in Origins because you just don't get those little bits of trivia anymore.
I do really miss the little things that City had in it. Doing some of the Riddler's challenges from City and I had to scan in a security pass of a security guard I vaguely remember from the comics. I've now learned that there's no point in taking in the scenery in Origins because you just don't get those little bits of trivia anymore.
