Review: Batman, Arkham Origins (spoilers)
Summary: In the third installment of the mega popular Batman Arkham series of games, original game developer Rocksteady takes a powder and is replaced by WB Montreal, who moves the setting back to the early days of Batman's career, when his steady diet of beating up mobsters is unexpectedly interrupted Christmas Eve when the Black Mask puts a 50 million dollar bounty on his head.
Review: This was a pretty thankless task for WB Montreal to take on. After the tragic, operatic climax reached by Arkham City, where could the series have really gone? Setting it back at the beginning of the Bat's career was probably the best of out of a small number bad choices. So you can hardly fault them for coming up with a game that suffers a lot of from "More of the same".
It's not that the gameplay is bad. They've kept the original Arkham engine, tweaking a bit to make the mook beatings go a bit faster. With the exception some hair tearing quicktime events in the Deathstroke battle, the boss battles are pretty well designed as well. It's just that it's all very "meh."
Part of it is the writing. Paul Dini didn't do the scripting, and when even Alfred lampshades the fact that if Batman simply stayed at home, he wouldn't have to worry about anything, you know you've got a problem with the plot. There's no emotional hook to get the player involved, such as Bat's conflict with the Joker in the first two games. Plus, we've got a definite over abundance of masterminds. At first it's Black Mask driving things, then suddenly it's this new villain calling himself the Joker (which made me groan loudly, as I'm quite sick of the Joker being behind everything). Then at the end of Act Two he's suddenly out and it turns out Bane is the Big Bad. It's all very klutzy, and several of the touted nine assassins are side missions that you can ignore at your leisure. Worse, you can hear the checklist being marked as the developers go "Okay, we need Riddler puzzle quests, a mindf--- sequence with the Mad Hatter, two hunt down the barrel missions like the Bane one from Arkham City. We miss anything?"
That said, it's not an outright bad game, it's just not a great game like the first two.
But hey, at least they got Harvey Bullock's original voice actor to do his part again...
Review: This was a pretty thankless task for WB Montreal to take on. After the tragic, operatic climax reached by Arkham City, where could the series have really gone? Setting it back at the beginning of the Bat's career was probably the best of out of a small number bad choices. So you can hardly fault them for coming up with a game that suffers a lot of from "More of the same".
It's not that the gameplay is bad. They've kept the original Arkham engine, tweaking a bit to make the mook beatings go a bit faster. With the exception some hair tearing quicktime events in the Deathstroke battle, the boss battles are pretty well designed as well. It's just that it's all very "meh."
Part of it is the writing. Paul Dini didn't do the scripting, and when even Alfred lampshades the fact that if Batman simply stayed at home, he wouldn't have to worry about anything, you know you've got a problem with the plot. There's no emotional hook to get the player involved, such as Bat's conflict with the Joker in the first two games. Plus, we've got a definite over abundance of masterminds. At first it's Black Mask driving things, then suddenly it's this new villain calling himself the Joker (which made me groan loudly, as I'm quite sick of the Joker being behind everything). Then at the end of Act Two he's suddenly out and it turns out Bane is the Big Bad. It's all very klutzy, and several of the touted nine assassins are side missions that you can ignore at your leisure. Worse, you can hear the checklist being marked as the developers go "Okay, we need Riddler puzzle quests, a mindf--- sequence with the Mad Hatter, two hunt down the barrel missions like the Bane one from Arkham City. We miss anything?"
That said, it's not an outright bad game, it's just not a great game like the first two.
But hey, at least they got Harvey Bullock's original voice actor to do his part again...