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The Goddamn Batman: Arkham Origins

Vibalist

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And only now do I realize it's Jim Sterling who wrote the review. It's probably fair to assume it's some mixture between trolling and attention seeking, then.
 

Markman

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It gets the clicks. If he wrote a bleh 7 or 8 out of 10 not alot of people would read it.
3.5 is a bit of an overkill, if he doesnt like Batman franchise rape or the Arkham games mechanics then I can see why he rates it that low.

I just finished AC the day before I started AO and I still didnt mind spending another 20 hours in the Arkham universe. Its pretty much the same game with a new story.
So you can say I kinda enjoy it. Besides bugs only thing I didnt like is the way story went halfway through.
 

Dr Tomo

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Sorry copy&paste dicked things up, anyway here are snip-its from the review since I know people don't want to read through Destructoids material.
Destructoid gives a 3.5/10 to Batman: Arkham Origins

http://www.destructoid.com/review-batman-arkham-origins-264357.phtml
Alongside of the map, most of the gameplay has been recycled too. Yet again, you'll be gliding from rooftop to rooftop, collecting Riddler trophies (now called "extortion data"), and punching out bad guys. Combat is yet again a case of pounding on opponents and obeying button prompts in order to counter enemy attacks, while utilizing the same arsenal of gadgets found in previous titles. Something about melee combat in Origins feels off, with Batman frequently failing to target foes properly, punching thin air, and failing to perform ground takedowns. I replayed Arkham City a few months before this, and found none of the problems with combat that Origins has given me.

The only other added feature enhances crime scene investigation. Using Batman's trusty Detective Vision, players can examine evidence in crime scenes to build a virtual reconstruction of events. Taking a blatant page from Capcom's Remember Me, these reconstructions may be rewound and replayed in order to find fresh evidence. The attempt to add more detective work into a Batman game is respectable, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Funnily enough, it turns out that watching a blue virtual reality man fly backwards through the air so that you can hunt for little red triangles is very boring.

On top of that, Arkham Origins is littered with glitches. I had the game crash on me twice in a row while fast traveling, and I encountered a number of physics bugs that saw enemies become almost untouchable or completely disappear. At one point, I needed to restart a checkpoint because a character I needed to interrogate couldn't be interacted with. These are just the issues I had, with many other users reporting other bugs, such as important ledges that can't be climbed, and horrendous framerate drops. Warner Brothers' proprietary little online account system -- an aping of Origin and uPlay -- also appears to be broken, as using it can further make your game unstable.
Because this product seems to be going out of its way to epitomize the concept of the cynical cash grab, online multiplayer has been crammed in with all the grace of a cat in a bathtub. Essentially a mediocre third-person cover shooter with Batman shoehorned into it, Arkham Origins Online pits three of Bane's thugs against three of Joker's goons, with two other players taking on the roles of the Dark Knight and Robin. It's a three-on-three battle, with the rival gangs capturing territory and shooting each other, while the superheroes use gadgets and predatory stealth to take them out.

As a gang member, you can look forward to awful movement controls, with the character wildly swinging when trying to run, sometimes not running at all, and occasionally refusing to fire his weapon. As Batman or Robin, you get to be frequently stuck on walls, or have diving kick attempts halt in mid-air for no good reason. The demented controls and obnoxious errors were able to be experienced almost instantly, and consequently, I managed to withstand only a few rounds before having to turn it off, utterly appalled.

Add to that a general sense of lag and graphical texture pop-in, and you have one buggy, unwieldy, ugly, deeply unpleasant bit of online guff. It's almost as if the whole thing was cobbled together quickly to satisfy some advertising department goons, so much so that I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

Edit* Echo Mirage, that is why I put up snip-its of some of the accusations and see what others say about it as I am curious if they hold up. A lot of people don't want to read let alone click on the site as this is the codex.
 
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Eyeball

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It's a fun game, it seems. It does, however, somehow lack soul. I'd say 7.5 out of 10 is more correct, but it is probably the weakest Arkham game so far, which still makes it roughly 10000 times better than just about all the other high-profile titles released these days.
 

Vibalist

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Sterling mentions in his review that Batman meets Bane, Joker and an assortment of other villains for the first time ever in this game, all over the course of the same night. To those of you who've played this game, is this as retarded as it sounds?
 

Echo Mirage

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He does, since the plot involves 8 assassins that are out to kill him on Christmas eve. So its not that retarded. The implementation of the villains is what is questionable.
 

HanoverF

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You're playing as a guy who dresses up like a bat to fight crime, the retardation is a matter of degrees. Sterling is reviewing the idea of a cash in sequel by another company more than the actual game itself.
 

DalekFlay

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I don't get the "gameplay is largely unchanged" complaints when these same people cum all over Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed and Uncharted every year. What do I know though, lowly normal consumer that I am.
 

AW8

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Tl;dr: Asylum 8/10 City 9/10 Origins 7/10

Finished the game today. I'm a big fan of Asylum and City, as well as a huge Batman fag. Off the top of my head I'd give Asylum 8/10 because it was awesome. City would get 9/10 because it improved the gameplay and really made you feel like Batman, when you glide around the prison city and take out snipers stealthily, or takes apart an enemy's assault rifle in the middle of a fight. With all the new gadgets and moves, it's pure joy to start up a challenge map and kick ass and try to get a 100+ combo.

Now, Batman: Joker Origins? I'd give it 7/10. It's simply not as good as the other two games, most of it feels like a total conversion mod to City. There's really nothing new gameplay-wise, and the story turns out to be even more nonsense than City's. If you disliked the previous games, your opinion of the franchise will not change. If you liked Batman: Joker City and are OK with more of the same, you will enjoy it.

I greatly enjoyed playing through the main story and most of the side missions, because it feels like a great chunk of new content to City. Collecting collectibles and completing misc. challenges just feel pointless though, as I feel I've already done more than enough of this in City.

The city is huge, twice the size of City, but that just means twice the amount of empty streets to glide through. It made sense with an empty "city" with gang members here and there in the last game. It just doesn't in Origins. It's nighttime and Christmas Eve, and there's a city-wide curfew for some reason. Nope, not good enough. Armed gang members standing guard on the top of a random building for no reason? I love the huge bridge, but why does the bridge scream "No Man's Land"? It just feels fake, with roadblocks erected everywhere(!) and yet not a single civilian is stuck with his car behind one, arguing angrily with a police officer.
But when Firefly attacks the bridge, there's suddenly a busfull of hostages to be taken. Wasn't there a magical curfew going on that teleported everyone to Christmasland?

Many upgrades are tied to specific side missions or misc quests ("glide 250 meters") now. This would have been good if the rewards were upgrades new to the franchise. Unfortunately, almost all of them are fun upgrades unlocked with XP from the earlier games that are now locked away into some side mission that only appears 75% into the story, meaning you'll have to play the majority of the story without things like one of City's most fun combo move, Disarm and Destroy. Needless to say, this way of taking stuff from earlier games and making them exclusive rewards in a sequel is retarded. The gameplay is just as fun as in City, but progression is terrible due to this.

The story? Nonsense!
Mostly because they try to do to much at the same time. They want to tell the "8 assassins in one night" story, the ultimate Joker story, the ultimate Bane story, the GCPD is corrupt except Gordon story, the Batman-Gordon starts their friendship story, the Alfred accepts Bruce as Batman story, all at the same time (and all this in the main story). The result is of course that nearly all of these are half-assed. The only one that feels finished is the Batman-Gordon one.

They really got the characters of Bane and Joker right. I like that. I like how the Joker got to use his disguise skills and how Bane is a super-smart gang leader who's Batman's physical superior even without Venom.

But why do they both share the life-goal to kill Batman? It's not even adressed why, but they both live to kill Batman at the beginning of the story. With Joker I can kind of accept that he wants to off the mysterious Bat-Man as a part of his goal to simply cause havoc in Gotham, but that doesn't explain why he went through the trouble of impersonating Black Mask specifically. There has to be simpler ways to get the money used for the bounty. And Bane? He wants to kill Batman. Why? He knows Batman's secret identity. How!? Should I really need to draw (2 rather lame*) plot points from Vengeance of Bane/Knightfall just to make up for the lack of in-game information?

*In these comic books, Bane makes it his life goal to defeat Batman and rule Gotham City because he had a nightmare of a bat or something. And he figures out Batman's secret identity by looking at Bruce Wayne after having looked at Batman. Yep. Other than that, the comics are great though.

The Black Mask impersonation is a twist I didn't see coming, but it was a completely pointless one. Black Mask ended up like Hugo Strange, a character that screams "Major threat" in the traillers and then ends up as a second-rate wimp in the game, sidelined by that fucking clown. Thank you, "major twist"! But we didn't even get to meet "Black Mask" until the tweest. They could as well have pulled the twist in the beginning at Blackgate. It's like if Vader revealed himself to be Leia's and Luke's father in the interrogation scene on the Death Star. Pointless twist, Black Mask turned out to be a total joke, ugh.

There are other dumb things too. The story starts out incredibly weak, a break-in at Blackgate? Really? And then Batman learns of the bounty by interrogating mob enforcer Croc and by searching the memory of one of Penguin's spy drones(!?!??!). Remember how Asylum started with the Joker being taken into Arkham and then escaping, and City started with Batman being thrown into the prison city? The games' tutorials were fused into that, while Origins' tutorial is some dumb prison attack that pure nonsense, and can't be explained away with "The Joker is crazy and does random stuff".

And after that, the red line gets increasingly thinner. The Enigma sidequest is slipped in as part of the tutorial to make it even longer (WHY) and then it's off to Penguin. That's over an hour that doesn't lead anywhere. Then it's off to the Lacey Tower crime scene, which I admit is really cool (although the whole "the sadist suspect forced Sionis to shoot his girlfriend"-part is never adressed again). In order to identify the victim Batman spends the next 3 hours sneaking into the GCPD(!) and then has to enter the damn sewers as well. In the sewers he finds ENOUGH BOMBS TO LEVEL THE BLOCK PLACED BY BLACK MASK'S GANG and Batman then does exactly what we expect him to do! ...He shrugs it off and ignores it completely. Wannabe Sherlock has a case to solve, he can't allow distractions! The bombs are never again mentioned, by the way.

It continues like that, with pointless stuff being introduced and important details being left in the dark. The game should have stopped when Batman saves Joker but then has to continue on with another visit to Blackgate, another boss fight with Bane, make that two, and then a QTE "fight" with Joker who makes speech after speech without being that interesting at all. Troy Baker does a good Mark Hamilll impersonation good job, but in the end they make a great effort to be memorable that doesn't work out at all.

The new crime scene gameplay sounds cool in theory, but in practice it's just the same as looking at highlighted stuff and pressing SPACE like in Asylum and City. The ability to rewind/fastforward time has great potential, but it turns out to be just as much of a fake challenge as the "crack the password" cryptographic sequencer minigames. Batman uses his state of the art equipment of the Batcomputer to find mundane shit like a dropped phone or a broken ladder. It's even more laughable when said clues were somehow missed by the police despite lying 5 meters away from the victim.

I also tried the multiplayer. It was outright terrible. :D
Matchmaking, no text chat, confusing UI with scores and levels and shit without descriptions of what the fuck it is, and horrible control over your character. Ridden with consolitis. It's sad how they wasted voice acting and soundtracks at this shit. It was fun to watch Bane rampage through and kill a teamate as Robin's cape disappeared onto a platform just as I was cut down by one of Bane's mercenaries, though. :)

Despite moving graphics and control options into the game itself, the game is still guilty of crimes against PC gaming. The keys to combo gadgets can't be rebinded like they could in earlier games, and the mouse thumb buttons are unrecognized by the game. They gave us tesselated DX11 snow footprints, but couldn't bother to make a couple of keys rebindable!??

The mere thought of a proper batman beyond game gives me a raging boner.

Batman+cyberpunk, what more do you fucking need? The fucking batsuit is basically a batmanfied crysis nanosuit, only the crysis one could be considered a ripoff as batman beyond predates that game. Batman gadget potential would be through the roof, who needs superpowers when you've got Wayne Industries R&D. The only problem would be that few established iconic batman villains are still alive in that timeframe and the need to make up new shit could spell shitty villains. Also Terry is somewhat of a faggot as were his high school shenanigans. If they had a 10 years older Terry however now that could fix it.
Hell fucking yes. 26 year old Terry vs. Blight, Inque and Jokerz. Flying around with jet boots and using limited cloaking field. Neo-Batarangs dispensed from the wrist into the hand! Quick batarangs being the small shuriken discs fired from the hands without the need for throwing!

GOTY 2039
 
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Blaine

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The keys to combo gadgets can't be rebinded like they could in earlier games

With the right combination of keyboard/macro keys/peripherals/mouse drivers/macro programs, anything can be re-bound to anything. Also, you might see if there's a config file somewhere you can manually edit. Regardless, that's absolutely retarded.

I picked up Arkham City on deep discount during the Summer Sale, and would consider it unplayable without a USB console controller—and the one I own, the Razer Sabertooth, has six extra buttons: two more shoulders and two two-way rockers on the back. That came in super-handy for AC's combat, which, if your goal was to excel rather than just get by, was extremely satisfying and challenging on the hardest difficulty/endgame.

I got Arkham Origins for free with my GTX 780 (probably actually free in this case, presume an even trade of promo codes <-> free publicity for the game). Sounds like that was for the best.
 

AW8

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Keyboard + mouse works great for the Arkham games. There are enough easily-reached keys for the quick gadgets and combo moves, and then my mouse only has one thumb button. The mouse allows rapid movement of the camera during fights, and selecting gadgets takes an instant with hotkeys. Despite this recent key debacle, I think the Arkham games are great PC ports with the only cancer left being "space does everything".

With the right combination of keyboard/macro keys/peripherals/mouse drivers/macro programs, anything can be re-bound to anything. Also, you might see if there's a config file somewhere you can manually edit.
I had never thought about that, to be honest. Configuring macro programs do take both time and energy though, that shouldn't even have to be spent if the actual developers had spent just a little more time on making the damn game I actually pay them to play.

Well, I actually also got my copy for free with my GTX 760 (I was gonna buy this specific card anyway), but still.

Asylum 8/10 City 9/10 Origins 7/10

You could have saved yourself the trouble.
:D
 
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Blaine

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Keyboard + mouse works great for the Arkham games. There are enough easily-reached keys for the quick gadgets and combo moves, and then my mouse only has one thumb button. The mouse allows rapid movement of the camera during fights, and selecting gadgets takes an instant with hotkeys. Despite this recent key debacle, I think the Arkham games are great PC ports with the only cancer left being "space does everything".

I dunno, I'm a M&K purist, except when another interface is more appropriate—arcade stick for fighting games, HOTAS (joystick, throttle, pedals) for flight and space sims, wheel, gearshift and pedals for driving games, and the controller for console emulators, platformers, and certain games that seem ideally played with controllers (it's hard to define all of them in a few words).

I tried M&K in AC for a little while, and fled back to the controller in a hurry. This may be because I started off using a controller, but I use M&K far more, so you wouldn't think so....

Also, as far as moving the camera quickly, I never found that to be an issue even when doing advanced combat challenges. YMMV.

It occurs to me that this trio of Batman games has followed the same pattern as the recent Batman movies: Very good, excellent, mediocre.
 

Correct_Carlo

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The Batman games are harder with a keyboard and mouse, especially during the really long group battles. The mouse is a very precise instrument, yet these games were totally not designed for precision so the mouse puts you at a disadvantage. The longer battles are really more like rhythm games, in which the best way to survive is just to shut your brain off and bounce around from enemy to enemy according to a certain timed, beat. Some of the super long ones actually kind of reminded me of "Bit.Trip.Runner" in the way that they require you to get into a sort of rhythmic, mental, "zone" and sustain that concentration for long durations. It's way easier to do this with the comparably blunt instrument of a 360 controller than it is with a mouse as the mouse is just so precise that it makes things way more complicated than they need be. Playing with a controller is much more forgiving when it comes to aiming in battle and just seems better suited for the sort of twitchy, rhythm-focused, gameplay that is Batman's combat.

Which isn't to say that they don't work with KB and mouse. I played through the first two games entirely with KB and mouse on the hardest difficulty, so I managed fine. But it wasn't until I later tried them with a 360 pad that I realized how much easier they are with a controller.
 
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AW8

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Yeah, I'm certain it's easier with a controller as the whole freeflow fighting basically screams controller. But it's remarkable how well it plays with keyboard and mouse. It's not exactly Lego Star Wars where you might as well cut the mouse cable and throw it away once you've double-clicked the .exe.

When I think about it, there were another anti-PC crime committed in Arkham Origins. The in-game menu and the map does not like the mouse at all. You have to use Q and E to change submenus and on the map you scroll with the mousewheel but does everything else with the keyboard. Wat.

I'm going to find all the Riddler trophies extortion data tomorrow and complete the rest of the side missions. I played on Hard and it was actually ridiculously easy (I can still take a tonne of damage), I don't know if I'll bother to play New Game Plus. The only thing that was really hard on New Game Plus in Arkham City were the boss battles , and the boss battles aren't really that fun no matter what difficulty level you pick. I'm sure as hell won't touch I am the Night though. Nope, no way, count me out. (Its inclusion is great for all the masochists, though.)
 
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RK47

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The Batman games are harder with a keyboard and mouse, especially during the really long group battles. The mouse is a very precise instrument, yet these games were totally not designed for precision so the mouse puts you at a disadvantage. The longer battles are really more like rhythm games, in which the best way to survive is just to shut your brain off and bounce around from enemy to enemy according to a certain timed, beat. Some of the super long ones actually kind of reminded me of "Bit.Trip.Runner" in the way that they require you to get into a sort of rhythmic, mental, "zone" and sustain that concentration for long durations. It's way easier to do this with the comparably blunt instrument of a 360 controller than it is with a mouse as the mouse is just so precise that it makes things way more complicated than they need be. Playing with a controller is much more forgiving when it comes to aiming in battle and just seems better suited for the sort of twitchy, rhythm-focused, gameplay that is Batman's combat.

Which isn't to say that they don't work with KB and mouse. I played through the first two games entirely with KB and mouse on the hardest difficulty, so I managed fine. But it wasn't until I later tried them with a 360 pad that I realized how much easier they are with a controller.

All you gotta do is use the slow-motion time to scan your surrounding and plan the next move.
 

RK47

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I like the mouse more cause you can scan your surroundings much more quickly.
 

Markman

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Just finished it.
If it werent for bugs it would be much more enjoyable experience. It bugged 3 times since firefly fight and I had to restart every damn time. Even when the game continued after outro i get a new mission and cant finish it cause of a new bug. aaargh

I liked it more than AC. Took me 19 hours to beat it and I cant say I wasted alot of time at data hunting and random thug showdowns. 103x free flow combo with gloves on, 75 without gloves.
I may play it some more after the patch comes out, but Im pretty much done. Dont give a shit about achievements or the enigma data and theres much better multiplayer elsewhere.
I'll do some challenge maps tho. Hope they pump out some Deathstroke dlc if that last cutscene was telling something.
7/10 , 8 if they fix all the bugs.
 

DalekFlay

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People who are super used to using a mouse for camera control will likely still want that, but the Batman games unarguably play better for a controller, which they were designed for. What you're used to is super important though.
 
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Yeah, I did try using controller for this for about an hour. Didn't feel comfortable to me. Like was said, scanning surroundings quickly during combos with mouse is really important to me, I couldn't reach as high combo counts with controller. And even gliding felt worse.
I do use controller for something like Ass Creed games, those receive no improvement playing with KB/M whatsoever. But Batman games, especially combat, are a lot faster paced.
 

Heresiarch

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Played it for an hour or so.

Hmmm...so, the first boss, which is also for the tutorial, which is less than 30 min in the game, is Killer Croc. The fight is stupidly straightforward and easy. It's not unlike fighting normal armored goons. No needs for environments, no clever use of gadgets. It's a HUGE disappointment for me.

Then I read some reviews on the game and they all complain that the game's boss fights except for a couple, are all like this - brawls with more and more normal mobs. While I admit, with the comparable realism behind Batman and their opponents in AO, I don't expect epic fights like those in God of War, but at least they could implement something clever.

The city itself feels barren and lifeless. It's exactly like Arkham City (the city), with armed criminals EVERYWHERE, no civilians at all. What annoys me most is the level design. Traveling around is so much more tedious than in AC. There are unclimbable blockades and ungrapable places everywhere despite they LOOK to be very traversable.

The whole thing just feel sterile...of course I haven't pushed into the game at all. But comparing it to DX:HR:DC edition which I'm also playing recently, AO feels just so off.
 

Echo Mirage

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...Traveling around is so much more tedious than in AC. There are unclimbable blockades and ungrapable places everywhere despite they LOOK to be very traversable.

Gotham light and powers placement and impassibility is the most annoying thing in the city for me. When crossing the bridge its the first thing you will crash into every time making you travel all the way around it to get to anything.
 

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