The Mortal Essensce of a Batman Game: An Arkham Origins Review

     It has become rather standard fact that up until Arkham Asylum that no videogame company could do the Batman franchise justice. So After playing into the latest title of Arkham Origins I felt compelled to break down the Arkham Series and take a closer look at what makes a good Batman game.

• The Invisible Predator -

One of the first things that was brought out of Arkham Asylum was the Predator approach to clearing a room of bad guys. As many comic fans and well fans of the Batman anything know the caped crusader is not all fight but a mixture of intimidation and catching his opponents off guard. This has been a staple since Arkham Asylum and even been slightly modified yet always for the better.

• The Warrior Within -

Batman is a very skilled martial artist and well usually one to rely on his fists last, unless there is no other answer. This is where early games had issues either they made him a brawler or a run and gun and well battarangs aside Batman isn't really a "gun" person. Although many of his tools resemble guns, they always house another surprise. The Arkham Series has held strong to batman being able to fight his way in instances where well there is no other choice so again a bonus to them for keeping to the truths of Batman.

• Batman Does NOT Kill -

     This is a tough topic with any game series and even Arkham has had it's deaths but they were all written to not be directly by the hands of the Bat. Early games had you working on killing enemies or defeating bad guys with a gun or battarang launcher and it just lost that Batman feel. Arkham has been strong in keeping to that story essential code.

• Batman the Detective and Vigilante -

This has always been a controversy as Batman is a hero detective but also a vigilante whom cleans the streets where and when the cops cannot. Early Batman games stuck to either one but never got the combination quite right so you'd feel off. Arkham has found it's way to allow Batman to do both and thus is a Hero but also in this newest endeavor a enemy in the eyes of the police.

     Now these are a lot of the basics besides getting into the detail of Batman's gadgets and equipment you have to keep in mind that Batman although looked at as rather meager is really quite a complex super hero. So a lot of questions fall to looking into a Batman game and thus have lead me to the following takes on the Arkham Series -

Arkham Asylum: First Batman game done right. A mixture of challenge and well thought out use of villains as well as a strong story. They kept things simple to the Island that is Arkham Asylum and allowed the player to delve into the mythology and the rather obscure aspects that are Batman. It's really hard to top this as a Batman game as you have to look at so many components that worked well together.

Arkham City: It was a hidden hint in the first game. So well hidden that it was only after it was announced that people started to understand or even find the hint. This was well done to expand upon what Arkham Asylum was and mix in further aspects of the Batman Legacy as well as give the player a mixture of the hidden details and get a good look into how big a game of this style could go.

Arkham Origins: It's Arkham City pre Arkham City so you have the huge part of Gotham as well as a nice mixture of characters yet it's not quite the first two but I'm going to get into that a bit further down the page. I've not finished the story as of this posting, but I really have been looking at detail and this falls under a good Batman game, but like many good game legacies this has been infected with the multiplayer aspect. It's not bad, but think Gotham City Imposters meets Arkham Asylum.... it's limited and well lets just call it a beginner multiplayer experience.

Flaws to Arkham Origins.
     This is where we start getting a bit of mixed feelings and to be honest a lot of this is my opinion but also factors that I feel could have been improved upon.
Characters.) I'm a finicky bastard when it comes to what Villains you choose to throw at me when it comes to a comic book story. The first two Arkham games went with favorites I can agree to that aspect, but I like to see that mixture of super powered or intelligent that batman has to overcome instead of "Assassins" Not that I'm not a fan of Deathstroke, but C'mon. They start you out against Croc and it just seems to drop in enemy style from there.
Character Modeling.) This is another aspect that not many think about when playing a game but I'm rather fixated on. If you're sticking to a series name try to keep your modeling close or even within the same aspect. Killer Crock and Bane are both a third of the size they were in the first two games and I understand this is a prequel but I think you're going off a different set of comics and it kinda kills the feel.
Voice Acting.) Before you bash me for being a purist I have to say I'm for the earlier casts rather than the Origins cast but the origins cast is close but not that accurate. I don't hate them, but I feel like I've been shorted in the Joker Dept. and yes that is aimed at you Mark Hamill.
There really isn't much else in the way of flaws against Origins the controls are strong and even the free flow combat seems to be much improved. So Although I have some gripes this game has earned it's way into staying in my library of games for a long time.

- William Dreimann