The Goddamn Batman: Arkham Origins

[Shadenuat]

Played till fight with Bane. I like the Christmas look of the city more than levels in game before this one. Bosses are at least better than in AA. Difficulty is fine too. Story is mmkay. Joker's revelation and Hatter were good. So, seems like pretty much more of the same to me, although I am enjoying this a little bit more because of the setting. Liked the batcave building in process.
Liked Most Wanted quests too, some of them can really surprise you and have neat detective feel about them.
Hate Bruce's character though, or rather lack of any, and how he growls on everybody and even shouts on Alfred.

I also counted 7 to 8 separate logo screens during game launch.

 

[Echo Mirage]

Well the game got patched. Here is the change log.

Fixed player progression reset when leaving the title
Fixed consumables not being used/applied when activated in the pre-match lobby
Fixed Arkham credits not being awarded after playing a match
Fixed cases where purchasing credits were not working
Reduced map vote countdown from 30 to 15 seconds
Reduced map start countdown from 10 to 5 seconds
To everyone playing on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, we've not forgotten about you, either, and are working on some stuff to make your experience better too. Stay tuned.

And its all Multiplayer stuff nothing to fix all the other issues with the base game.

 

[AW8]

Well the game got patched. Here is the change log.

Fixed player progression reset when leaving the title
Fixed consumables not being used/applied when activated in the pre-match lobby
Fixed Arkham credits not being awarded after playing a match
Fixed cases where purchasing credits were not working
Reduced map vote countdown from 30 to 15 seconds
Reduced map start countdown from 10 to 5 seconds
To everyone playing on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, we've not forgotten about you, either, and are working on some stuff to make your experience better too. Stay tuned.

And its all Multiplayer stuff nothing to fix all the other issues with the base game.

...

When I tried my one MP match, I had to wait 10 minutes until our room was full. Thank you, matchmaking! And after the match half of the players left the lobby, which caused me to leave as well.

I got the impression that no one plays fucking multiplayer on PC. And yet that is all that they've patched? ON THE PC TO BOOT!??

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.

I really like that big-ass building, but the fact that you can't grapple onto it makes it an enormous pointless roadblock, indeed.

 

[Reject_666_6]

Fuck this game.

It crashes every 5 minutes. I can't fly around and finish even 2 fights of random mooks before it blacks out and wrestles focus from the Task Manager whenever I try to end it. I had to fucking bind C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /f /im "BatmanOrigins.exe" to a shortcut on my task bar to avoid having to reboot my comp every time.

Also, the rebalanced combat is terrible. Aggressive playstyle was nerfed significantly: mooks punch faster than you and strike one by one too frequently, instead of 2 or 3 at a time. What this means is that there's no incentive to punch anybody since you're going to very likely get hit first, and there's a small chance the game's targeting will spaz out, making you punch the air and break your combo. It also means that since every mook likes to strike one by one, you'll never get a break from performing counters! If they'd just attack 3 at a time, you could to a triple counter and then have some breathing room to go on the offensive. But the only times I've had this happen is in the training simulator!

Tying basic things like crits and weapon takedowns to story missions is also a pain in the ass. No crits means fights take forever, since getting 8x in practice means punching maybe twice, getting a batarang out if you're lucky, then suffering through 5 counter animations just for the privilege of eliminating one mook with a takedown. One down, 14 more to go! Awesome! Critical counters? Thanks, you know how much I love counters as it is! Weapon takedowns are tied to some randomly triggered side-mission, god forbid I want to break some dude's machete and make the fight go faster. My favourite fight so far was 10 mooks 1 gun, knock the guy with the gun down, somebody else picks it up, repeat ad nauseam.

Let me tell you about pacing! In the previous games, you also wouldn't get access to these things right away, however you wouldn't be fighting gangs with knives, stun prods and rifles from the beginning of the game either. The skill tree progression seems completely arbitrary. It doesn't feel like in AC where new stuff opens up new combat possibilities, it feels like its sole purpose is to gate you and restrict your favourite playstyles.

When it runs and I'm not in combat, the game itself is good. Weakest of the three though.

 

[Vibalist]

I'm glad I learned from my experience with Rome 2 and waited to purchase this game until after reading some feedback from people. It sounds like a painfully uneven and mediocre product.

 

[Shadenuat]

Let me tell you about pacing! In the previous games, you also wouldn't get access to these things right away, however you wouldn't be fighting gangs with knives, stun prods and rifles from the beginning of the game either.

It's also very annoying when game teases you with riddles and events you'd think you can pass, but then you just lack that one gadget to do so.

The most retarded example of breaking suspension of disbelief in the game ever - to break into radio tower on an island, you have to swim on a raft which you create by throwing glue grenade into waters. Guess what - there are WOODEN BOATS right near the place, basically ready to go, begging to be used! THREE OF THEM!

Also, while fight with Firefly was very fun, it really makes you think why do you play as goddamn Batman with 10-12 buttons for different gadgets, but in the end, you still can beat many bosses ONLY with specific QTE's based around 1-2 of them. It really sucks. Why do I have to throw that particular grenade on boss, when I also have explosives, stun grenade, smoke bomb, ect.? Why can't I use something different, appropriate for situation? Why must I grapple boss with bat claw, when I have another claw which can tie any other enemy in place by grappling to other object? Eh.

 

[Ermm]

About lack of civilians, what's funny is that ''Batman & Robin'' for the PS1 had a free roaming city with pedestrians and other cars!!!!!!!

 

[Reject_666_6]

Why do I have to throw that particular grenade on boss, when I also have explosives, stun grenade, smoke bomb, ect.? Why can't I use something different, appropriate for situation? Why must I grapple boss with bat claw, when I have another claw which can tie any other enemy in place by grappling to other object? Eh.

That's why the Freeze fight in Arkham City was so cool, you could pretty much use every gadget and trick in your arsenal to take him down.

 

[Shadenuat]

There is Bane fight which uses same mechanics as Freeze fight in AC, but turns out to be a lot less exciting. The setting is boring (corridors) and you still end up using one "true" attack multiple times.

 

[AW8]

Why do I have to throw that particular grenade on boss, when I also have explosives, stun grenade, smoke bomb, ect.? Why can't I use something different, appropriate for situation? Why must I grapple boss with bat claw, when I have another claw which can tie any other enemy in place by grappling to other object? Eh.

That's why the Freeze fight in Arkham City was so cool, you could pretty much use every gadget and trick in your arsenal to take him down.

Even better is that every boss fight before that had basically been nothing but evade-then-batarang-spam or button mashing, and then suddenly BANG! the Mr. Freeze fight surprises you by forcing you to think and not simply complete QTE's.

 

[RK47]

There is Bane fight which uses same mechanics as Freeze fight in AC, but turns out to be a lot less exciting. The setting is boring (corridors) and you still end up using one "true" attack multiple times.

That is the downfall of Batman gameplay to me.
There is something really fucked up when boss fights ended up shittier than taking on a group of thugs in the open.

 

[Diablo169]

Played the game to completion with literally zero bugs or crashes. Was enjoyable enough for the heavily discounted price I got it for. Story wasn't as shit as I was expecting it to be considering the new writers are the Assassins Creed writing team. Voice acting was also great for the most part.

Not really much to say about the actual gameplay. It's an Arkham City redux. The game mostly just presses my "I'm Batman and I'm going to beat the shit out of you" button same as the other two.

When I get tired of the teenage power fantasy I assume the iterative sequels will loose their luster, same as Assassins Creed.

 

[Eyeball]

Very impressed with both the Joker and Batman voice actors, personally. Batman SOUNDS like a younger Conroy and Joker does an excellent Hamill impersonation.

 

[Nryn]

Finished the game, and I can safely say that I'm not a big fan of the changes to the combat this time around:

1) The window for canceling your attacks mid animation to counter an enemy is very tiny compared to before. It also feels a lot more unreliable.
2) Batman is slower than most of his enemies when it comes to attack animations, which makes going on the offense a big risk.
3) The enemies are far more aggressive compared to before and attack one after another without pause. This changes the gameplay flow completely compared to the older games. The most efficient way to play the first half of the game is to counter the enemies one after another since they never stop attacking, and as a result, felt like I was playing an Assassin's Creed game. During the second half, due to the amount of evading I had to do, it felt like Witcher 2 all over again. I appreciate that they tried to make the game more difficult, but it ended up reinforcing a very defensive playstyle.
4) It seems like the entire combat and encounter design is based around the shock gloves. With it, hitting 100+ combo strings is quite common, but without it, the combat lacks flow once the more difficult enemies start showing up.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

urgh, they really fucked the combat. It's harder, but harder because it's sloppier, not because it offers more of a challenge. Hooray for enemies you didn't know were there because the fucking camera zooms in further and further on Batman's cape-coated ass every game flying across the fucking room to hit you with a baseball bat in the time it takes you to land a punch

 

[Dr Tomo]

Batman: Arkham City Dev's New Game Could Be Out in 2014
The developer of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City may be readying a new game for next year.

A new Kotaku report from Internet sleuth Superannuation highlights the similarities between certain Rocksteady job postings on its own website and those on a job listing website. That's significant because those on the latter site don't mention Rocksteady by name, but they do peg its location as being in the United Kingdom. (Rocksteady is based in London.) What's most notable in the latter listings is the following claim, mentioned in each of the three, albeit in slightly reworded fashion: "[O]ur current project has been tipped to be one of the most successful games of 2014."

One of the listings describes the game as "an extremely ambitious AAA 3rd Person/Action Adventure Game." Batman isn't mentioned by name, but Superannuation notes that the Arkham prequel rumored last year could have, in fact, been the recently released Arkham Origins. That game was developed by Warner Bros. Games Montreal and not Rocksteady, which has been at work on an unannounced project since releasing Arkham City in 2011.

In other words, it's possible Rocksteady's project is another Arkham game. The existence of such a game was confirmed earlier year by Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy, who did not return to his longtime role for Arkham Origins as Roger Craig Smith took the reigns. Despite this, Conroy claimed at one point that he was working "on the next Arkham," a statement he soon after clarified by explaining that he is in a new Arkham game that is not Arkham Origins. Whether or not this new game was being developed by Rocksteady was never clarified, but it now certainly appears possible.

*source IGN so beware if you click the link

Mostly speculation based off the job listings that the studio has put up.

 

[Whiner]

Why did they don't want to make game with a new superhero ? There is nothing new or interesting that they can do with the batman games anymore.
Maybe more polygons(you will see batman arm hair now) or "new" Joker story.

 

[J1M]

I would like to see the Arkham treatment applied to another license. Perhaps Punisher or Spiderman. But since those are not DC properties, it is unlikely. There's no chance of them doing The Flash. Moving at that speed would rape even the newest console hardware. I guess that leaves Jonah Hex? DC doesn't have many interesting characters.

 

[tuluse]

There's no chance of them doing The Flash. Moving at that speed would rape even the newest console hardware.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

there were rumours of Rocksteady doing a wider DC game set in the Arkham universe, which could be fucking rad as long as it didn't end up a spread-too-thin jack-of-all-trades. Still, Arkham Origins was also at one point planned to be a wacky Silver Age-style romp dedicated to all the ridiculous 70s Batman comics about going to the moon and fighting space moles and such, so they have a track record of cancelling premises that seem more interesting than "the Joker fucks with Batman for no reason, again"

 

[tuluse]

I don't know if wacky silver age shit is more interesting than the Joker. There is a reason the Silver Age is dead.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

Conroy confirmed that he's working on another arkham game. I've been assuming that it's the rocksteady title

 

[Diablo169]

Could be a Batman/Superman game to tie in with the upcoming shit movie.

 

[Roguey]

I don't know if wacky silver age shit is more interesting than the Joker. There is a reason the Silver Age is dead.

They could just ape Morrison's take on silver age Batman. Or better yet just get Morrison to write it.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Morrison has said he wants to write a video game so it kind of boggles the mind he hasn't been drafted for Arkham at all