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LTTP: Batman - Arkham Origins

SomTervo

Member
I've recently played origins mostly because of the praise for the story from multiple places and personaly I found it massively underwhelming. So many characters are poorly written and the game seems to worship a completely psychotic batman.[snip]

Gameplay wise I thought the game was pretty decent, the game manages to squeeze some decent boss fights out of arkhams combat system and the detective stuff was a neat idea, it's a shame it boils down to find the red triangle put I appearicated the effort and hope arkham knight expands upon it.

If you actually read all this I apologise for my terrible grammar, I'm tired, and I have terrible grammar at the best of times

Good to hear this opinion, I disagree on most points though.

- He's "mad batman" because he's not that good at being Batman yet, and is inexperienced, so can't yet objectify all the bad shit he sees. He's still too emotionally involved basically, he's not a professional yet. I have high standards for game writing in general and I was broadly happy with Bats in Origins.

- The Joker is great in Origins. He comes to Gotham so that he can ruin the city and take command of it. As ever, he just wants control followed by chaos. He comes to disrupt the status quo with his genius, get to the top of the tower, then burn house and leave. However, Batman showing up changes all that. Initially he tries to have bats killed because bats is just a hurdle, just a roadblock on his road to criminal power and general madness. But when we take control of him, this is because he realises that Batman is more – Batman is his anathema, the ying to his yang. So us players actually get to experience Joker's turning point when Batman goes from being nothing to him to being almost the point in his entire existence.

- You're right, the Alfred stuff wasn't great. Didn't enjoy any of that.

- Commish Gordon was fine, though? Not great, but more than serviceable. You're right that "the worst kind of criminal" line wasn't ideal, but his point is that, clearly from his perspective, Batman is a criminal who will just escalate his behaviour until he's murdering people. Batman was a violent unknown quantity at that point, who believed he was more important than the law, rather than just operating outside of the law for profit. From the cops' perspective, Batman was by no means a benevolent hero. He hadn't killed anyone yet. For this reason Gordon is fully suspicious of him and keeps his distance.

Ever read the comic Gotham Central? It's great and really illustrates why the cops hate Batman generally. Only Gordon, the most principled one, is okay with him.
 
I just finished my replay and it's still very meh for me.

The beginning starts cool enough, then the middle just drags for what feels like forever but once the Firefly stuff started happening, it really ramped up.
The whole bit with stopping Bane's heart was classic Batman badass-ness so that helped sell the ending for me too.

My biggest issues were the combat was nowhere near as refined or responsive, they changed some of the backstories that were hinted at from Asylum, too many useless and recycled gadgets, and like I said, the middle dragged on forever.

I really do hope AK is the last entry. This quickly became my favorite game series and Rocksteady has never NOT knocked it out of the park so I hope they finish strong and WB has the decency to let the sleeping dog lie.
Especially if WB Games Montreal would be making another spin-off. No thank you.
 
Played it again last week (bought a used copy on ps3 after getting rid of my original) and it's still good, though it's definitely not as refined as AA or City. Takes a while for the story to pick up and you feel like an observer for the first twenty minutes compared to AA/C, where you are an active participant. At times the combat seems like it is too hectic and the game messes up your movement/combo while it's trying to keep up with all the enemies.

Really started liking it after you leave the Final Offer. Not sure what changed but I felt a drive to continue rather than slogging on.
 
The issue i had with the Joker in this game is that he sudden appears for the first time really but the dude is already immensely powerful in regards to his influence. He's got all sorts of roller coaster shit everywhere and has completely taken over the whole area in a way that seems wayyyyyyy too sudden.

It's an okay game, but it's certainly not better than Arkham City.
 
Wish they got the guy from Origins to play Batman in Arkham Knight. Considering this is Batman at the end of his rope, everything's fucked, and he's backed into a corner, I want the snarling, vicious, angry Batman from Origins to return in Arkham Knight. Conroy has never done 'snarling, vicious, angry' that well.

I want Batman, not Chris Redfield. Conroy is Batman to me.
 
i played it when it came out. The game had 5 glitches within the first 5 minutes. I said fuck it and this game and never played it again.
 

Skunkers

Member
Definitely in the Origins is best camp, I've replayed it a bunch of times. I have confidence Knight will be the best yet, but I definitely love Origins more than City (AA is close). Origins gets way too much unjust hate for being done by a B-team (in fairness the launch bugs and PR blowup didn't help), I expect great things out of this studios next game.
 

Firebrand

Member
I love this series of cutscenes and fights (spoilers, obviously): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0H3Twj_Gz
I kinda wish they would have kept Bane that way instead of turning him into the usual monstrosity.

The Joker is probably the scariest I've seen him
in this game.

Despite the somewhat disappointing twist, I still liked the story and that parts of it were like a detective story. Would have more fun if you were actually involved in the deduction beyond pressing A over and over, but eh.
 
OK, nostalgia blinds you if you think Conroy is doing a good job in Arkham Knight then.

Conroy isn't poor at all in the Arkham series.
Roger Craig Smith sounded a lot more emotional and "excited" because that was Origins Batman, back when Bruce's emotions still got in the way even when he was in the suit. He needed to have more emotional delivery because Bruce hadn't perfected the persona, he was still reigning in his feelings and seperating himself from Batman.

In Asylum and City, he continued to get more stoic and dry because his emotions weren't at play, he was Batman, he wasn't Bruce. In Arkham Knight, criminals fear him even more after he
killed Joker
and time has passed so his voice is gruff, stern, controlling and intimidating. The less emotion he shows as Batman, the more criminals fear him because they don't know what he'll do to them. He's just an angry, strong man in a costume who
murdered their former boss and walked out of a building holding his corpse.

Batman himself is darker and angrier for it all and the criminals are even more scared of him, making his voice more of another tool of intimidation.

Granted, I could be the only one who sees it this way, but I wholeheartedly believe this since his voice and tone has altered every entry.
 
OK, nostalgia blinds you if you think Conroy is doing a good job in Arkham Knight then.

OR...you know.... I'm not ready to judge till I actually play the game. He was fine every time he played the role. Maybe this will be the time he drops the ball. We will see. Not going to judge from just seeing a few minutes of footage.
 

munchie64

Member
I liked all the story and design stuff they did, but they completely fucked both the combat and stealth as far as I'm concerned.
 
I just finished AO a couple of days ago as well - like the OP finally going through it in preparation for Arkham Knight. To me it's better than AC - it took AC's formula and strengths and built on them and refined them. The case solving is a nice touch, for example. I felt the combat was easier (I had a lot of trouble in AC) and more responsive, and also I felt that the premise of the story was a bit easier to get behind, rather than it just being in some "cordoned off area in the middle of the city" - who does that? That said it still bugs me that the whole city is somehow "empty" except for thugs on Christmas Eve - that was a stretch IMO. Also I felt the ending was a better one. AC's ending felt like it ended that way just for the sake of it - AO's seemed more plausible.

I'd be quite wary of buying a WB Montreal game in future, though... Cold, Cold Heart is SUPER short, and the way they abandoned the game leaving it still with problematic bugs is really not right.
 

Pejo

Member
I have owned this game for a long time and haven't even installed it yet. I remember playing about 2 hours of City, and I hated the open-world aspect so much over Asylum's tight pacing and kinda metroid-y "get upgrade to get past here" mechanic. I will eventually (maybe) get to playing all of these games. I even own Knight already due to buying a 970 and getting it for free, but I think when I go back i'll play them in release order.
 
I seem to be one of the few people here on GAF that legitimately enjoyed all 3 games. Origins is pretty good with the exception of 3 things:

-rhythm for combat is off

-open world is largely empty and fairly boring

-glitches and WB basically saying that they will not be fixing the game

Those problems make it my least favorite out of the 3 but its still a good time and a good game.
 
I seem to be one of the few people here on GAF that legitimately enjoyed all 3 games. Origins is pretty good with the exception of 3 things:

-rhythm for combat is off

-open world is largely empty and fairly boring

-glitches and WB basically saying that they will not be fixing the game

Those problems make it my least favorite out of the 3 but its still a good time and a good game.

Nope. I am right there with you man. I love all the games as well.
 

vg260

Member
I really like it, and actually prefer Batman's voice actor in this one to Conroy, as blasphemous as that sounds.

The whole dark knight unlock challenge system was horribly flawed though.
 

Sojgat

Member
I really don't think they messed up the combat at all. Taking out the Remote Electrical Charge was smart, it's way more overpowered than the Shock Gloves. Enemy variety is also much better, and the boss fights are in different league altogether. Mr. Freeze is the best boss fight Rocksteady have come up with so far, and it's more of stealth puzzle than a combat encounter. None of their other boss fights really take full advantage of the combat mechanics the way the ones in Origins do.

I am willing to entertain the idea that many of the new concepts in Origins were borrowed from Arkham Knight while it was still in development though.
 
I really like it, and actually prefer Batman's voice actor in this one to Conroy, as blasphemous as that sounds.

The whole dark knight unlock challenge system was horribly flawed though.

Yeah, and the skill tree. Having to unlock all the armor upgrades before being able to get the X5 takedowns was a pain. I got so good at the combat I didn't need the armor upgrades. I liked that in AA and AC you could pick whatever upgrade you wanted from the start. (Not counting weapons you didn't unlock yet)
 

phyrlord

Member
I did like Origins, I liked the detective stuff and especially the boss stuff. I think they should of went the route of the first Batman game and a MUCH smaller suedo open world style.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I don't think the combat felt as good as the previous games. I liked the detective stuff, though.

Agreed completely. It places a much heavier emphasis on countering and the camera was often too close since enemies could hit you from across the screen.

Never had that problem in Arkham City.
 
Seems to be popular opinion here on GAF that Roger Craig Smith did a better job as Batman but for me, they are playing almost two different characters.

Smith is young, emotional, reckless, Batman

Conroy is older, wiser, confident, stoic, zen master Batman.

They both fulfill the roles quite well, when people say that they prefer Smiths portrayal, its less a criticism of Conroy and more of a desire for angry, reckless Batman IMO.


I would love to see the next Batman game have a go at Dark Knight Returns-Crazy Batman, where he doesnt just decide to be Batman, but has no control over it. An old soldier looking for a worthy, honorable death.
 
One thing I did like about Origins combat is that they had Batman trigger into a combat stance while in combat. I don't think that they are even doing that in AK and he is still just standing up straight all the time. Guess you could say he is just more confident in later games. lol.


EDIT: Also they brought the cave back in Origins. Really hoping they have it in Arkham Knight.
 
I really don't think they messed up the combat at all. Taking out the Remote Electrical Charge was smart, it's way more overpowered than the Shock Gloves. Enemy variety is also much better, and the boss fights are in different league altogether. Mr. Freeze is the best boss fight Rocksteady have come up with so far, and it's more of stealth puzzle than a combat encounter. None of their other boss fights really take full advantage of the combat mechanics the way the ones in Origins do.

I am willing to entertain the idea that many of the new concepts in Origins were borrowed from Arkham Knight while it was still in development though.

On a macro scale, Origin's combat is fine. The stuff it added (aside from the concussion grenade) are great. There's definitely some spotty balance as far as inconsistent attack lock-on (some of Batman's attacks whiffing when they should've landed, beatdowns breaking when countering other enemies mid beatdown), enemies attack frequencies and stun-recovery times quickened (enemies not caught in initial blast running straight through smoke as if it's not there) without Batman moves being adjusted to account for it, some old animations looking really slow compared to the newer ones, that aerial attack being extended to the point it's not useful, and so forth. That it's more challenging is great, but it's challenging for the wrong reasons. Arkham City's combat is easier at low enemy numbers, but it scales well to more difficult encounters where breaking a combo is always the player's fault (e.g. in the Joker's Carnival challenge). The average fight in Origins is more challenging, but in bigger fights or extra challenges, the micro-level problems become really evident. If those faster/more frequent enemy attacks were properly adjusted for and the electric gauntlets were better balanced, it would be an improvement. Hopefully AK adopts the positives of Origins' combat while fixing its problems.
 
On a macro scale, Origin's combat is fine. The stuff it added (aside from the concussion grenade) are great. There's definitely some spotty balance as far as inconsistent attack lock-on (some of Batman's attacks whiffing when they should've landed, beatdowns breaking when countering other enemies mid beatdown), enemies attack frequencies and stun-recovery times quickened (enemies not caught in initial blast running straight through smoke as if it's not there) without Batman moves being adjusted to account for it, some old animations looking really slow compared to the newer ones, that aerial attack being extended to the point it's not useful, and so forth. That it's more challenging is great, but it's challenging for the wrong reasons. Arkham City's combat is easier at low enemy numbers, but it scales well to more difficult encounters where breaking a combo is always the player's fault (e.g. in the Joker's Carnival challenge). The average fight in Origins is more challenging, but in bigger fights or extra challenges, the micro-level problems become really evident. If those faster/more frequent enemy attacks were properly adjusted for and the electric gauntlets were better balanced, it would be an improvement. Hopefully AK adopts the positives of Origins' combat while fixing its problems.

YES^^ We should make a challenge rooms thread when Arkham Knight is out and post videos of epic fights. (no spamming evade rolls allowed) lol.
 
YES^^ We should make a challenge rooms thread when Arkham Knight is out and post videos of epic fights. (no spamming evade rolls allowed) lol.

The guy who runs the Batman Arkham Videos Youtube account is really good at the game, but he uses evade a lot. There was another guy who posted videos who almost never evaded and got exceptionally high scores too. At any given moment, he would do the best/coolest thing without playing it safe and would still never break a combo. Wish I could find those videos again.
 

shanafan

Member
The guy who runs the Batman Arkham Videos Youtube account is really good at the game, but he uses evade a lot. There was another guy who posted videos who almost never evaded and got exceptionally high scores too. At any given moment, he would do the best/coolest thing without playing it safe and would still never break a combo. Wish I could find those videos again.

I wish I could be as good at challenges like this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rG_SZE5P-U

From the initial viewing of the video.. and my much lower scores in challenges knowledge.. it appears he uses attacks, reversals, and shock gloves. I saw the batclaw used once, and as well the 360 bat stun maneuver twice. What's his trick?
 
I wish I could be as good at challenges like this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rG_SZE5P-U

From the initial viewing of the video.. and my much lower scores in challenges knowledge.. it appears he uses attacks, reversals, and shock gloves. I saw the batclaw used once, and as well the 360 bat stun maneuver twice. What's his trick?

In origins is pretty easy to get the high scores in the combat challenges. Basically just do beatdowns every chance you get, watch your back and reverse when you need to but after adopting that method, I 3 starred every challenge, only had to retry a few.

EDIT: actually I take that back...that might have been Arkham City.
 

vg260

Member
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In origins is pretty easy to get the high scores in the combat challenges. Basically just do beatdowns every chance you get, watch your back and reverse when you need to but after adopting that method, I 3 starred every challenge, only had to retry a few.

EDIT: actually I take that back...that might have been Arkham City.

That is definitely a method. Though you would end up getting an even bigger score with the multiple variation bonuses topped with a no hit with flawless freeflow run.
 
That is definitely a method. Though you would end up getting an even bigger score with the multiple variation bonuses topped with a no hit with flawless freeflow run.

Yeah, I usually start out with a few dodges and maybe a gadget or two before going into the beatdown method, but on most of the challenges I surpassed the target by so many points that it wouldnt have mattered either way. Just as long as you keep the multiplier high.
 
I know I'm in the minority, but it's my favorite of the 3. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but it had my favorite story of the Arkham games, one that kept me captivated the whole way through, so because of that it's my favorite.

Asylum is still my favorite by far, but yeah Origins is right behind it

City, even for comics, is duuuumb
 
Wish they got the guy from Origins to play Batman in Arkham Knight. Considering this is Batman at the end of his rope, everything's fucked, and he's backed into a corner, I want the snarling, vicious, angry Batman from Origins to return in Arkham Knight. Conroy has never done 'snarling, vicious, angry' that well.

This

RCS >>>>>> Conroy

Sorry, but its true
 

X05

Upside, inside out he's livin la vida loca, He'll push and pull you down, livin la vida loca
Origins has the best story by far, the gameplay itself sadly is not really good, they totally ruined the combat rhythm, the upgrades tree was terrible, and plenty of bugs to boot.
 
Better than Asylum but worse than City. I really enjoyed it to be honest. I just love playing as Batman. The Deathstroke fight is amazing if you accidentally turned off qte and counter prompts and went in the fight without knowing you did. I just counter when it felt right without any hint and it felt like a real battle.
 

EpicBox

Member
Get the Cold Cold Heart DLC. It's very good.

There were only 2 major glitches in this game:
1. Killer Croc kept flickering invisible
2. In the above mentioned DLC, there's a section where a balcony you have to reach won't let you fire your hook at it. This can only be gotten around by gliding from another point in the room to stand on top of a sign under the balcony and climbing up.

I'm playing on PC and I have to say that playing these games in 3D is awesome. Arkham City on PS3 has 3D but doesn't use it nearly as well.
 

Sojgat

Member
YES^^ We should make a challenge rooms thread when Arkham Knight is out and post videos of epic fights. (no spamming evade rolls allowed) lol.

I would be very into this.

I wish I could be as good at challenges like this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rG_SZE5P-U

From the initial viewing of the video.. and my much lower scores in challenges knowledge.. it appears he uses attacks, reversals, and shock gloves. I saw the batclaw used once, and as well the 360 bat stun maneuver twice. What's his trick?

That wasn't even that good, he got hit a number of times. Using the gloves gives a x2 multiplier with each hit, and ground pound takedown is x75 (always use for final takedown when your combo is highest). Use Bat Swarm a lot, use beatdowns to charge the gloves faster and maintain your combo when waiting out Knife Dodge Takedowns, and don't get hit.
 

Fordfx2

Member
Despite all the negative flac about the Batman games, I loved all 3! Already pre-ordered Arkham knight...
 

shanafan

Member
What is the criticism behind the Wii U version and the Shock Gloves? I just got them, and they are working fine so far.
 

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
Nowhere as good as AA or AC, but still fairly good. The changes to the combat infuriated me and the city felt much blander and less alive than in AC, which is particularly strange as 50% of the map was a copy/paste of the AC map. On the other hand it has the best story and set pieces of the 3.

AA: 10/10
AC: 10/10
AO: 8/10
 
What is the criticism behind the Wii U version and the Shock Gloves? I just got them, and they are working fine so far.

Idk about Wii U criticism l, but the shock gloves are op. Basically turn them on and whoop everyone's ass.

The Vita followup was actually really cool too. You should try it out. Don't know how the HD one on psn is though

It's a fun Metroidvania game, but navigation is confusing as hell. The map doesn't really help, and even the redesigned one for the XB/PS release wasn't a major improvement.
 
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