Also, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions all suffer from framerate problems while gliding around the city. Gotham is also full of annoying blockages that seem like Batman should be able to easily grapple or climb over, yet prove frustratingly insurmountable. The bridge stands out as crumby and inconvenient map design and I rushed to skip it with fast travel at every opportunity. The northern half of the map, which is largely recycled from Arkham City, is connected to a new southern island by a tediously long bridge that your quest marker will frequently make you cross as you chase the next mission waypoint. It may be the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, but streets teeming with nothing but decidedly un-jolly criminals are still weird. Without that (admittedly far-fetched) scenario, the absence of any hint of civilian life makes Gotham feel eerily barren, especially next to Origins’ open-world peers and their populated streets. In Arkham City, the excuse is that this part of town has been walled off and given to the criminals. Out in the expanded and snow-covered open world, I found Gotham City beautiful but lifeless. And Predator still makes me feel like a ninja, particularly when playing in challenge mode where I can disable certain gadgets or enable other handicaps. With the gamepad in the right hands (which every so often, mine are) it looks like elaborate fight choreography. I found myself deliberately avoiding either of those gadgets, because I’m not in this to not fight criminals.Įven so, I could live in the challenge rooms for days, trying to string together the ultimate, uninterrupted flow that includes each of the dozen or so moves and gadgets in Batman’s arsenal. They’re basically a win button, and the kind of thing that doesn’t work in a prequel because why would Batman ever get rid of them? Meanwhile, in the stealth fights where Batman picks off armed thugs one by one, there’s another somewhat dirty-feeling win button: a remote grapple that strings up thugs without them even having to walk under a gargoyle. Riot shields, stun batons, armored thugs – Batman just punches ‘em. The Shock Gauntlets are among the last gear you unlock, which is good, because once charged (by hitting a few guys in regular combat) and activated, they let you completely ignore everything that makes combat interesting. But the only substantial change is one of those things that’s awesome for the first time you use it, but quickly reveals itself as a bad idea. Freeze’s absence from the rogue’s gallery means the cryo-grenades are now concussion or glue grenades.) Two new enemy types add a little extra variety, notably the martial artists who can counter your attacks. So at the cost of really selling the idea that these events happen prior to the other two games, Origins keeps the foundation of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City’s amazing combat intact, including every gadget in one form or another. This younger Batman already has all his signature moves and gear, flies a fancy plane, and is on a first-name basis with pretty much every villain but The Joker. Conroy will always be Batman for me, but his understudy does well enough. But it’s the kind of prequel that screams “What were we thinking when we killed off that incredibly popular character? Undo! Undo!” The actors standing in for long-time Batman and Joker voices Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill do a good job in emulating their predecessors - Troy Baker’s Joker, in particular, is close enough that I might not have noticed immediately if I weren’t listening for it. It’s a respectable plot that even concocts a plausible reason for Batman to face so many villains all in one night – a $50 million bounty on his head. It’s more of a traditional Batman plot that retreads some of The Dark Knight’s most familiar themes over its roughly eight hours of main story content: a self-destructive insistence on working alone, and how far he’ll go to avoid taking a life - a concept the final battle cleverly toys with. Its name, “Arkham Origins,” is a flagrant misnomer - it may be a prequel, but this story is neither about Arkham, nor is it an origin story in any significant way.
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