The story is this; Batman has been operating in Gothom for about 2 years now and most of the city believe him to be an urban myth. But on Christmas Eve a criminal named Black Mask hires 8 of the world's deadliest assassins to kill the bat, and the one who succeeds will be paid $50,000,000. The story is dark, maybe even darker than the previous installments; the police under Commissioner Loeb are corrupt, many civilians are killed in the killers pursuit of Batman, and even some major characters are offed by the end of the game. There are some major plot twists as well that I will cover in the spoiler section. Other than that the game feels a lot like Arkham City, which isn't exactly a bad thing. I have heard some people are experiencing some major bugs and glitches, and I have as well, but so far none of mine have ruined the gameplay.
Plot (Spoiler Section)
I covered a lot of the main plot above, so here I'm going to go into detail on it a bit. As mentioned before Black Mask hires 8 killers to go after you, but strangely only 6 are a part of the main story, in fact I actually finished the game before realizing I never even saw Shiva. In fact there are a lot of optional villains, some of which are interesting. Riddler of course returns with more hidden items, this time he is called Enigma and he hid data packets that reveal proof of crimes committed by the GCPD and other "outstanding citizens".
Now onto the true spoilers. I was really excited when I heard that the game would feature a new mastermind from the previous games, but part way through the game there is a murder scene you investigate at Black Mask's safe house. Turns out he was terrified of some new player in town, The Joker, and retreated to his safe house with his girlfriend to wait until he was taken care of. when you arrive Black Mask's girlfriend is dead and strung up on display, a second body is there presumed to be Black Mask himself, meaning the Black Mask that hired the killers is not the real Black Mask. Later on it is revealed Joker has the real Black Mask captive to get at his funds and has been pretending to be him the whole time. It is a great twist but I still would have wanted to see someone other than Joker as the main villain.
The best change from the previous games Origins did was Bane. a simple Google search will reveal just how different he is. The Bane in Origins is a mercenary with his own private army, he is methodical, cunning, and highly trained. Personally I prefer this Bane to the giant brute we usually get but what really makes him stand out is towards the end of the game when Batman finally finds Bane's secret base it is empty, but worse than that there is a board where he is trying to find out Batman's secret identity...and he knows Bruce Wayne is Batman. This Bane is addicted to the substance Venom, which amplifies his strength but oddly doesn't affect his physical appearance. However if he were to stop using the drug the resulting withdrawals would more than likely kill him. As a result he is working on a new drug, TN-1, that would have a permanent effect and end his dependency on of Venom, the downside is that currently it does some major damage on the subjects brain (This plays in later). So later on in the game Bane pays the Batcave a visit while Bruce is out looking for him and destroys it, and just to make things worse he even kills Alfred, you heard right Alfred dies in this game...sort of. Batman revives him with a new gadget he uses to restart his heart. To bring Bane full circle at the end of the game Bane is forced to used the unfinished TN-1 on himself in an attempt to kill Batman, this turns him into the hulk-like creature he is in the other Arkham games and destroying much of his memories, including Batman's identity.
What Works (End of Spoiler Section)
Like the previous game all of the main bosses are unique and require a different strategy to bring down. For example Deathstroke is a one-on-one match where he can counter-attack anything you throw at him and vise versa, which requires you to time every move you make just right. Another is Copperhead who poisons you so you hallucinate, thus you must fight her and her many duplicates. Then their is my personal favorite Electrocutioner, the only villain I didn't recognize in the game. His fight has a fair amount of build up, but when you go to punch him once he is knocked unconscious, to put that into perspective the random henchmen take more than that to bring down, it is freakin' hilarious.
Another thing I like is the large amount of content, between the main story, the optional enemies, and all the collectables the game keeps you invested for quite a while. And the size of the map is perfect for this type of game, big enough to move around a lot, yet small enough you aren't spending large amounts of time moving from point A to B.
Gameplay wise it is almost identical to Arkham City, which works very well; you fight, level up buy an upgrade, and repeat. The only problem here is that some upgrades require you to preform feats of skill, in a specific order. Which doesn't affect the game too much, but it would be nice for those who cannot preform some of there tasks to be able to get the upgrades as well.
My favorite part of the game however has got to be the characters themselves, I went into detail on Bane in the spoiler section, but the others are great as well, especially the costumes. I have always been a fan of Arkham's character designs, and Origins may have the best yet, fixing minor annoyances I had like Penguin's bottle eye and Batman's underpants. And the complete overhaul they gave Bane and Deadshot make them better than before.
One thing I didn't expect to like was the voice changes. Conroy and Hamill have been the voices of Batman and Joker since I was a child, and have been regarded as the best portrayals of the characters by just about everyone. But with Hamill's retirement from the Joker and the need for a younger Batman it makes sense they needed replacements. The new Batman is a mix of Christian Bale and Conroy, gruff enough to hide his identity, but not enough to make him unintelligible. Joker on the other hand is phenomenal. Troy Baker manages to mimic Hamill's voice perfectly, and his range also allows him to play Black Mask and have them be two separate characters.
But of course what good are great characters without an equally great story. Arkham Origins is another well written chapter in the Arkham franchise. In may not be as good as Arkham City, but in my opinion it is better than Asylum, if you liked the other two games, you will more than likely like this one as well.
An welcome addition is the inclusion of unlockable suits, Arkham City introduced the idea of alternate costumes that can be used in story and challenge mode, but they were all DLC. Origins gives players a few suits that can be unlocked without paying, and then there are a lot of DLC suits as well.
What Doesn't Work
As I mentioned before there are reports of the game having serious bugs/glitches, and even not working all together. While I personally have yet to have any major problems, I have notices it takes a while to load an area, and it also takes forever to save your progress. The biggest issue I've had so far is that my WBID despite being entered and linked still denies me my 1 Million suit. But this is a small problem since the Noel suit you unlock is way cooler anyway.
I mentioned earlier how all the main bosses are unique and interesting, sadly the same cannot be said about the optional ones. All of them have the same strategy they attack you with a number of thugs that continue until their boss is defeated. The only exception to this is the Mad Hatter, he messes with your brain and sends you to Wonderland, this is pretty cool as it changes the game a bit.
One of the biggest letdown is in no way the game fault, there is a multiplayer mode, however every attempt I've made to play it has been met with a message that I can't find a game. But it kinda looks like it will be your standard 3rd person shooter so whatever.
Another problem I had with this game is the challenge mode. While still a fun mode the challenge mode this time falls a little flat of its predecessor. in Arkham City Challenge mode had 4 playable characters, and a crapload of maps. Origins so far has 2 playable characters, more may be on the way but for now it sort of feels like a step back. Honestly this is a minor complaint though.
Final Verdict
Arkham Origins may not be the best of the franchise, but it is still a very good game. I for one look forward to seeing what the new studio has in store for us in the future and I am proud to give Batman Arkham Origins a B+.
What I Want In The Future
Keeping with my new way of doing reviews, in this section I will list some things I want in future installments of the franchise. With Arkham Origins there is now a second timeline for the franchise to follow, allowing for stories like the introduction of members of the Bat family, or tying up loose ends created in Arkham City like the Hush sub-story. Another big thing I want a new mastermind, as great as the Joker is the Arkham games have really overplayed him. I don't mind if he has a sub plot, but making him the main villain for every game kinda ruins him.
Another big thing I want to see is the return of different playable characters in the story. In Arkham City we are allowed to take control of Catwoman, which sometimes felt awkward, but other times helped progress the story. Later they added a Robin story that was really well done. I want more like that, maybe Batman gets injured for part of a game, or Nightwing happens to be closer to a crime, basically mix it up a bit.
More multiplayer options. I stated earlier that multiplayer is giving me some problems, but why not make some more options? Imagine a mutliplayer challenge mode where players team up to take down enemies, or a mode where some players take control of villains and others try to take them down, or even a campaign unique to multiplayer that would be episodic and have character selection, something like Halo's Spartan Ops. This goes into the next item on my wishlist.
I want more playable characters and costumes. Over the course of the series there has been 7 playable characters, a relatively decent amount, but with the dawn of new consoles the possibility to expand is realistic goal. Besides, Arkham City has Nightwing and Tim Drake as Robin, meaning there was a Batgirl and my personal favorite former Robin...Red Hood. If nothing else I would love just the inclusion of Red Hood, honestly I thought Arkham City would have been perfect for him; a large walled off city full of criminals the city doesn't care if they kill each other off, Red Hood could have cleaned up. Plus adding in playable female characters like Batgirl or Huntress would open the franchise up to a wider audience.
As for costumes, I like how Origins had some you could unlock, but I would like more options, why not give us one for each sub-plot you finish, but make them related to the challenge. For example a Bane based subplot could give you the Knightfall costume, or take down Mr. Freeze to get a thermal suit and so forth. Or maybe even have a shop in the Batcave where players can trade points for a suit of their choosing. Or imagine if the suits had perks that altered gameplay, perhaps add this to a tailor system and choose the perks for the suits yourself. If you haven't noticed I'm a sucker for alternate costumes, and having to buy them seems a bit unfair, especially if they are announced before the game is even released. Giving players a large amount of costumes would allow for more individuality that would on turn make the game more immersive for players.
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