Review: Batman Arkham Origins

Of all the people at Dorkadia, I was probably the most excited about Batman Arkham Origins that hit the shelves last week on October 25th. Nick played the companion mobile game, but I called dibs on this one! MWAHAHAHAHA And while it may sound like you’ll get a biased view because I loves me some Batman, let me tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about this (PC version) game.

The good

Click for full size painting like screen shot!

There is a great story being told here. Set in the year after the story line of Year One, we’re smack dab in the world that has Batman still being hunted by the police as a vigilante (read: you have to fight mobs of cops as well as mobs of villains), super villains that are out in the world with more motivation than just ‘I want to kill Batman”, and interaction with characters who will grow into major players in the games you’ve already experienced in this series (ie: Harleen Quinzel, Barbara Gordon pre-Batgirl or Oracle, Captain Gordon, and more). I’m SO HAPPY with this story – let me reiterate this to you. We’re all sick and tired of the origins stories in movies and games, and the past 2 Arkahm games in this series has hammered home that Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered and now he is a crazy playboy with anger issues who fights crime. We don’t need to recreate that wheel again, so we’re now playing in a world where Batman has been roaming the night for two years. He’s starting to make a name for himself in the criminal world and make a difference.

Click for full screen of action shot during Bane combat

You’re in a setting that is in areas that you’ve played before – Arkham City covered a lot of this ground, so these buildings will look familiar. You also get to experience new buildings though, including Black Gate Prison, Gotham Royal (SUPER CREEPY) Hotel, My Alibi lounge and more. Spoilers ahead– You get to play your hand with all sorts of villains in this game. Black Mask, Bane, Killer Crock, Firefly, Copper Head, Deadshot, DeathStroke, Lady Shiva, and more. In cut scenes we even get a light origin of the Joker and discussion of the Red Hood. There is a lot of variety in this game!

The Bad

While there is a lot of variety in Origins, there is also a lot of repeats. Riddler is yet again trying to goad you along by hiding things around the city – I know this is an origins game, but we’re getting a little tired of these side quests. This is also the 3rd game with Calendar man being frequently mentioned throughout key sections of the story, but not a villain you get to encounter. And while I love the plot of this game, continuity wise, it’s all sorts of confusing. Are we in the new 52? How are we already in Redhood, Joker, and Harley, but (according to posters around town) the Graysons haven’t yet had their accident, so no Robin to speak of? It feels like we’re post year one, and maybe even pre-cursor to The Killing Joke or Long Halloween? I’m enjoying the story, but as a Batman nerd, i’m a little confused where this lies in the history. (The answer is most likely that they’re just making their own timeline)

The Ugly

Nick mentioned that he had technical problems with this game, and I think he was being generous. I experienced memory leaks, rendering issues, and out right bugs that thankfully only broke side quests instead of the man story line. I’m lucky enough to have a awesome gaming rig that allows me turn all my graphics options up super high with zero issues, but when I encountered Barbara Gordon in the police station, there was such rendering issues of that character no matter if I rebooted the game or even the PC, you would have thought this was a live action game from the early 2000’s. When I was in the post fight scene of Anarchy and he is sitting on the ground with his wrists tied together and he is rocking on the floor lecturing you, the rope was a static image that moved, but didn’t rotate with the characters hands that were rotating and moving.

The breaking bug that I – and tons of other people according to Steam and WB forums – encountered was the Burnley tower you need to clear for the Enigma trophies and to unlock the quick travel to the area. This was bugged to where you couldn’t enter the HVAC vent to get into the building. You could grapple off the cover to the vent, but when you jumped to get up, your hands went into the texture and not to the ledge – Batman isn’t giving you the option to jump up in there. You’re forced to quick travel out of the area, because you’re trapped in the room (bars block the entrance you used to get into that room).

Here is my opinion – this game needed a good 2-3 more months of hard QA work. I can’t say if it’s because the game was developed by WB Quebec rather than Rock Steady games this time around, or if maybe they knew if they pushed release out to late December, early January they would miss the Holiday purchase rush, as well as people not wanting to buy games for a console that is soon to be replaced with the PS4 or the XBox One. The broken parts of the game and the less than perfect visual issues really suspend the veil of disbelief.

Bottom line is, this is a fun game. Be prepared to get a little frustrated now and again with some issues that hopefully get patched quickly, and kick some butt as the caped crusader!