HOLY how-did-we-get-here?: Batman Arkham Origins

More of the same.....plus some new bugs

Compared to Arkham City, this contains a bucket load more bugs. Some are progress breaking too (Penguins lair and Burnley Comms Tower mainly). There are also instances of not being able to interrogate criminals because they are stuck in an animation loop. Flying from a building Batman will sometimes act like a mermaid and go all flipper-like in the air for 10 seconds before spreading his wings.

Don't get me wrong, it still feels and looks a great game and I'm sure the bugs will be ironed out in updates, but when bugs stop you completing missions it's rather annoying.

Oh and doing just the main story fills about 28% of the completion count. The rest is spent on side missions like the Riddlers pickup traps, etc.

Arkham Sidescroller

I'm playing Arkham City and Arkham Asylum now. Decent games, but when they turn from first person into a side scroller for the Scarecrow sequences, it just ticks me off. The combat system is wonky. With more than three combatants, you can't knock anyone out without their buddy coming along and interrupting the sequence. Not to mention being surrounded by seven guys with automatic weapons and all I can do is knock one down for four or five seconds. The repetitive moves to take down a boss are also irritating. Having to repeat the same sequence three times over is just unimaginative. Other than that, the Riddler clues are decent mind benders and the puzzles to get trophies also work. Being able to change into Catwoman also gives a bit of a laff.

I probably will get Origins, but not until it comes down in price. Picked up City and Asylum on a Steam sale for fifteen quid total. That seems to be the right price.

My thoughts

Flawed but good. The bugs I saw were the framerate issue on PS3 (dropped down to about 5FPS once and needed as reset) and a bug where I lost most of the functions associated with the triangle button (Couldn't interrogate informants or do silent takedowns. One gripe is that the 'playable Deathstroke character' is just a reskinned Nightwing with the same moves as the last game. It is more of the same Arkham style gameplay with just a little cautious innovation thrown in, so whether or not that's what you hanker after should dictate if you buy this full price or wait a while.

My biggest gripe with the game is BIG SPOILER WARNING

The main bad guy is the bloody Joker. AGAIN. I get that he is important to the franchise, but would it have killed them to show Batman facing the schemes of another villain as the main threat for once?

Electrocutioner

I'm guessing it is actually the second Electrocutioner, the first one was purely a vigilante (but disliked by batman) and was killed. His brother then took over and became a bad guy after starting out as a vigilatte too.

I think he too was killed in a Green Arrow storyline though.

there's a ton of stuff to do in the 1P campaign, but I'm a little disappointed by the lack of variety in Gotham City. I guess on a next gen console, this is going to be something special. But looking at GTA 5, I think they could have had a bit more variety in that environment. The story itself, and the way it plays is fantastic and absorbing, it's what I love most about this series - it's a genuinely interesting 1p campaign and I always find myself replaying it on harder settings

really enjoying it.

but yes, for something that feels a lot like a copy/paste from the previous game, there's a lot of bugs and graphics glitches that i wouldn't have expected. Rocksteady obviously paid a lot more attention to detail when they were in charge.

but all that said, it's great fun and hasn't disapointed yet.

but i quite agree, they're allowed this one to be very much the same as the last one. i'd like to think that if there's a next one, i'll wait for the reviews to ensure it's an improvement.... but i won't. it's a Batman game where you get to roam around Gotham punching evil in it's turkey neck (as Kevin Smith would say) so i'll be buying it regardless.

Sorry to be a pedant, but surely the most sensible thing to do with a ticking bomb would be to defuse it, not diffuse it!