So, I think we've all heard or read the reviews. Sterling and Yahtzee hated it. Now I feel the need to vent.
Let's start:
I hate Batman.
No, really. I am utterly sick and tired of Batman and have been for most of my adult life, which is... somewhat considerable.
That said, I think Arkham Asylum was a fantastic game. It was polished, the story generally made some semblance of sense in the context of a closed Asylum environment, where all your enemies had been locked up. There were a few minor issues. The boss battles were horrifically stupid and repetitive (i.e. wave 1, wave 2, wave 3 + titan... don't fight the actual boss), and the combat didn't quite flow perfectly (enemies interrupting you in what should have been an uninterruptible slow-motion moment, enemies tracking 20 feet to follow you in free flow, etc).
Arkham City, on the other hand, was as stupid as two brain cells having cocaine sex inside a dirty liquor bottle. The story premise was beyond absurd. All the bad guys in the prison and Asylum get locked up in a portion of closed-off Gotham? Really? (Apparently, there are no female prisoners, other than those at the Asylum, of course) However, Arkham City was a serviceable game with a noticeable improvement to the Asylum system. Combat was much improved and, for a city, everything worked in a way that was completely intuitive. If it looked like I should be able to batclaw/grapnel to it, I could. It was what Assassin's Creed games have been, for the most part, trying to do for years, if AssCreed had better combat. Arkham City was a dumb game, but it was a polished game and for all the inherent idiocy of the characters and plot, it played very well.
And... then comes Arkham Origins.
I am not sure I can finish it. Let me qualify this with the obligatory bullshit: I almost never can't finish a game. I spent countless hours banging my head on Tobal No. 1's Infinite Dungeon. I love the Souls games in NG++(and beyond). I take game challenge as a personal test. However, there are only a few games that I cannot finish, and they are all almost horrifically bad examples of poor gameplay compounded by stupid design flaws. GRAW and Splinter Cell: Conviction come to mind.
The problem with Origins is that it takes everything that worked with AC and breaks it. The combat was broken. The city was broken. The intuitive travel/grapnel was broken. The boss fights, which AC improved over AA on, are just horrific QTE's. Let's consider:
Combat: Counter to what some people say, the free flow combat is NOT back. I realize some people have not played AC in a couple years. I skipped AC until recently, as I knew the story was drek, so I just played it recently. The AC combat flows well. If you use a quick-gadget in combat and then follow with a gadget takedown (i.e. batclaw slam) you cannot be interrupted. If you counter an attack and immediately counter one time, you will not be interrupted. If you attack someone and then properly follow with a critical strike/glide, you will continue attacking/combo-ing. In AO, that is all gone. You are returned to the random broken combat of AA. Attacks like the batclaw slam will routinely either not fire at all (oops, random pellet drop!) or will be interrupted by an enemy attack. Countering an enemy will result in another straight up counter attack on your part. Any attempt to go on the offensive, even one time, will potentially result in a combo interrupting unstoppable attack (MANY times now, I've initiated an attack with NO enemy attacking me only to be hit by an enemy and interrupted after I've started my attack and with no chance to counter).
Also, why is it that Batman (in ALL the games) chooses to NOT glide against enemies wielding guns randomly? Sometimes you can hit them on a glide or batclaw slam and sometimes he just randomly swings in their general direction (regardless of his combo multiplier/freeflow), breaking his attack combo? This is despite having the exact same animation for the batclaw pull or any other attack at the same moment. The only difference is that the enemy you intend to attack/glide/slam is wielding a gun? Makes no sense.
Travel: So, as I said, I AA/AC if you think you could climb/grapnel to it, you could. This was consistent almost throughout the games. Yet in Batman: AO, ledges that should be reasonably hit with the claw, you just can't. Why? CNHNLLGE! (sorry, old DAOC joke from Bedevere server). Generally, it works only where intended and, the rest of the time, the devs didn't want you using an intuitive skill, so they just made it not work. It makes the travel/grapnel completely random and the travel becomes tedious.
Boss Fights: Wow were these bad in AA and, wow, were these cleaned up a lot in AC. Not perfect, mind you, but AC was, mostly a big improvement. And then AO comes along and we get "Fight random horde of crap (Copperhead)" or "Predator kill random horde of crap (Deadshot)," that are almost no different from any other encounter in the the normal game. Or, worse, we get a boring QTE event like Slade, or a random buggy junk encounter like the first Joker/Bane, where Bane might hit you or might not with his tracking, almost unavoidable bullshit charge. And let's not discuss the attempts of both AC and AO to recreate the almost perfect Scarecrow encounters of AA using the Mad Hatter. Frankly, a boss fight should be against a boss. If you can't figure out how to make a boss unique and interesting in an encounter, he shouldn't be a boss or mini-boss.
-And that brings me, inevitably, to the story. The most horrifying part of my problem with AO. I actually really like the story. That's the problem. I find the story of AA to be passable and the story of AC to be absurdly stupid, but the story of AO is almost compelling. The characters and development of Batman and Joker are almost engaging. It is a huge leg-up on the previous crap that came before, and that's what makes this game so frustrating. I want to know what happens, but the gameplay itself is such a frustrating step back, that I am not sure I can bother myself to bring the game to its conclusion.
Shame on you, games industry for continuing to push money driven sequels that lessen the experience of previous games and shame on us for buying them. (Note: my game was free with my purchase of a new Nvidia GTX 760, so I didn't, and wouldn't, pay for this crap)
It's time to ask if a game needs and deserves a sequel and, if that's the case, see that it gets into the hands of people who make it worthwhile. If you're in doubt: review the Bioshock series for what makes a bad sequel (2) and what makes a good one (Infinite).
Let's start:
I hate Batman.
No, really. I am utterly sick and tired of Batman and have been for most of my adult life, which is... somewhat considerable.
That said, I think Arkham Asylum was a fantastic game. It was polished, the story generally made some semblance of sense in the context of a closed Asylum environment, where all your enemies had been locked up. There were a few minor issues. The boss battles were horrifically stupid and repetitive (i.e. wave 1, wave 2, wave 3 + titan... don't fight the actual boss), and the combat didn't quite flow perfectly (enemies interrupting you in what should have been an uninterruptible slow-motion moment, enemies tracking 20 feet to follow you in free flow, etc).
Arkham City, on the other hand, was as stupid as two brain cells having cocaine sex inside a dirty liquor bottle. The story premise was beyond absurd. All the bad guys in the prison and Asylum get locked up in a portion of closed-off Gotham? Really? (Apparently, there are no female prisoners, other than those at the Asylum, of course) However, Arkham City was a serviceable game with a noticeable improvement to the Asylum system. Combat was much improved and, for a city, everything worked in a way that was completely intuitive. If it looked like I should be able to batclaw/grapnel to it, I could. It was what Assassin's Creed games have been, for the most part, trying to do for years, if AssCreed had better combat. Arkham City was a dumb game, but it was a polished game and for all the inherent idiocy of the characters and plot, it played very well.
And... then comes Arkham Origins.
I am not sure I can finish it. Let me qualify this with the obligatory bullshit: I almost never can't finish a game. I spent countless hours banging my head on Tobal No. 1's Infinite Dungeon. I love the Souls games in NG++(and beyond). I take game challenge as a personal test. However, there are only a few games that I cannot finish, and they are all almost horrifically bad examples of poor gameplay compounded by stupid design flaws. GRAW and Splinter Cell: Conviction come to mind.
The problem with Origins is that it takes everything that worked with AC and breaks it. The combat was broken. The city was broken. The intuitive travel/grapnel was broken. The boss fights, which AC improved over AA on, are just horrific QTE's. Let's consider:
Combat: Counter to what some people say, the free flow combat is NOT back. I realize some people have not played AC in a couple years. I skipped AC until recently, as I knew the story was drek, so I just played it recently. The AC combat flows well. If you use a quick-gadget in combat and then follow with a gadget takedown (i.e. batclaw slam) you cannot be interrupted. If you counter an attack and immediately counter one time, you will not be interrupted. If you attack someone and then properly follow with a critical strike/glide, you will continue attacking/combo-ing. In AO, that is all gone. You are returned to the random broken combat of AA. Attacks like the batclaw slam will routinely either not fire at all (oops, random pellet drop!) or will be interrupted by an enemy attack. Countering an enemy will result in another straight up counter attack on your part. Any attempt to go on the offensive, even one time, will potentially result in a combo interrupting unstoppable attack (MANY times now, I've initiated an attack with NO enemy attacking me only to be hit by an enemy and interrupted after I've started my attack and with no chance to counter).
Also, why is it that Batman (in ALL the games) chooses to NOT glide against enemies wielding guns randomly? Sometimes you can hit them on a glide or batclaw slam and sometimes he just randomly swings in their general direction (regardless of his combo multiplier/freeflow), breaking his attack combo? This is despite having the exact same animation for the batclaw pull or any other attack at the same moment. The only difference is that the enemy you intend to attack/glide/slam is wielding a gun? Makes no sense.
Travel: So, as I said, I AA/AC if you think you could climb/grapnel to it, you could. This was consistent almost throughout the games. Yet in Batman: AO, ledges that should be reasonably hit with the claw, you just can't. Why? CNHNLLGE! (sorry, old DAOC joke from Bedevere server). Generally, it works only where intended and, the rest of the time, the devs didn't want you using an intuitive skill, so they just made it not work. It makes the travel/grapnel completely random and the travel becomes tedious.
Boss Fights: Wow were these bad in AA and, wow, were these cleaned up a lot in AC. Not perfect, mind you, but AC was, mostly a big improvement. And then AO comes along and we get "Fight random horde of crap (Copperhead)" or "Predator kill random horde of crap (Deadshot)," that are almost no different from any other encounter in the the normal game. Or, worse, we get a boring QTE event like Slade, or a random buggy junk encounter like the first Joker/Bane, where Bane might hit you or might not with his tracking, almost unavoidable bullshit charge. And let's not discuss the attempts of both AC and AO to recreate the almost perfect Scarecrow encounters of AA using the Mad Hatter. Frankly, a boss fight should be against a boss. If you can't figure out how to make a boss unique and interesting in an encounter, he shouldn't be a boss or mini-boss.
-And that brings me, inevitably, to the story. The most horrifying part of my problem with AO. I actually really like the story. That's the problem. I find the story of AA to be passable and the story of AC to be absurdly stupid, but the story of AO is almost compelling. The characters and development of Batman and Joker are almost engaging. It is a huge leg-up on the previous crap that came before, and that's what makes this game so frustrating. I want to know what happens, but the gameplay itself is such a frustrating step back, that I am not sure I can bother myself to bring the game to its conclusion.
Shame on you, games industry for continuing to push money driven sequels that lessen the experience of previous games and shame on us for buying them. (Note: my game was free with my purchase of a new Nvidia GTX 760, so I didn't, and wouldn't, pay for this crap)
It's time to ask if a game needs and deserves a sequel and, if that's the case, see that it gets into the hands of people who make it worthwhile. If you're in doubt: review the Bioshock series for what makes a bad sequel (2) and what makes a good one (Infinite).
