Before I
start, I want to clarify. Batman Arkham Origins is not a bad game, per-say. But
in my honest opinion it’s an ok-good game that exists in a franchise where
that’s not good enough.
A little
background: games starring superheroes is a not a new franchise but until the
Arkham games came out, none of them really felt right. From Superman getting
easily beaten by basic weapons, to team games where everyone loses health every
time they take a hit. Not to mention the complicated systems of combos and
super-moves. There have been a few Batman games in the past, including a Batman
Begins game and several based on Batman: The animated series. None of them felt
quite right, partially being restricted by their respective franchise
Out of the
shadows came Batman: Arkham Asylum. Boasting the writing talents of Paul Dini
(writer of the award-winning Batman: The Animated Series episode Heart of Ice)
and the voice actors Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin, all veterans
from Batman: The Animated series. Unlike
that said series. This was a much darker story, featuring the Joker committing
on screen murder, dead bodies at every turn, and a far more gritty
surroundings.
It was a
huge success, it took (an element I hate in many games) and made it exciting,
it took strategy, but not so much that it was highly complicated, and the
surroundings were beautiful. Obviously a sequel was planned: Batman: Arkham
City. Batman: Arkham City took everything that made Asylum great, tweaked it by
adding new moves, gadgets and the like, and put onto an open world environment.
The story, still penned (at least in part) by Paul Dini, and with return of
most voice actors (with Tara Strong doing a good stand-in for Arleen Sorkin,
and Mark Hamill reprising the Joker for what he said would be the last time, it wasn't the last time)
Arkham City expanded on the roots of Arkham Asylum in all the right ways. It
still looked lovely, was packed with references, and the story, while somewhat
cluttered was a good one.
Lots of
rumours had been going around as to what the third iteration of the Arkham
franchise would be, with rumours of have a silver age backdrop and including
heroes like Superman. In 2013 we received news that a new Batman: Arkham game
would be released that year. Later, to many people’s disappointment, it was
discovered that Rocksteady, who were the developers of Arkham Asylum and Arkham
City, would not be working on it (as they were still in the process of creating
Batman: Arkham Knight) instead, the task fell to Warner
Bros. Montreal, who did the Wii U adaptation of Arkham City. Furthering the
disappointing news was the fact that they’d chosen a voice actor for Batman who
wasn’t Kevin Conroy. Also of note was that Paul Dini was not working on the
story for this game. Batman Arkham Origins would serve as a prequel, detailing
the origins of key relationships in Batman’s mythos.
OK, that was
a lot of backstory, so on with the review. Spoilers ahead
