The Bat-Thread of Batman: Arkham Origins Bat-Hype

[mauve]

Batman: Arkham Origins comes out later this month. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? Well, that's a matter of personal opinion.

I, for my part, am torn over Arkham Origins. Asylum and City are among my favorite games of the last five years. The combat was amazingly fun, the reimagining of Gotham and its denizens was interesting and relatively believable, and the storylines were... passable. Oh well: as disappointing as City's Dur Hurr three different antagonists and oh yeah Joker's here too I guess and also Talia?? ending was, I really enjoyed the overall experience. So when I heard there was going to be a third game, I was naturally thrilled.

See, I want to like this game and look forward to it. I really do. And what few reviews I've seen so far lead me to believe it's a good game. But....

There's just a bunch of warning signs for me.

A) New dev studio.Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but Rocksteady did a fine job on the last two. What will the new studio bring to the mix?

B) New voice actors. Kevin Conroy is my favorite Batman voice actor, and Mark Hamill my favorite Joker. Sure, Hamill said he was done playing Joker, which is fine, but--

C) Joker AGAIN. There are lots of villains in the Batman universe. I'm getting bored of Joker being the main antagonist in these games, particularly after how disappointing he turned out to be in City.

D) It's a prequel???I find this a bit disappointing, since half of the sidequests in City were quite literally pointing to a sequel. "Oh look someone is impersonating Bruce Wayne OH WELL I'LL DEAL WITH THIS LATER CUZ IT'S SUPER IMPORTANT" -game ends- "Hi there Mysterious Stranger who keeps following me! I'll learn more about you later, in the sequel!" -game ends-

E) Where mah Riddler at?! So Joker gets to come back, Mad Hatter comes back, Black Mask apparently plays a big part, but no mention of Riddler. He's my favorite so I hope he ends up in the game somewhere. He's voiced by Almighty Tallest Red from Invader Zim, which is awesome.

So I have those misgivings. On the plus side:

A) Multiplayer: Not sure how this will be implemented, but kicking villain butt in co-op sounds fun.

B) Probably no Harley, definitely no Robin. Enough said.

C) It's been getting decent reviews thus far, and I really do want to believe it'll be good.



Anybody else waiting on this game?

[POS Industries]

As fun a game as I'm sure it will be, the thing that I like most about the first two games is how they operated out of an existing, evolved universe and I wanted them to continue building on that and moving forward, rather than backward. We don't need Batman's origin story done yet again, especially since it's probably been done better in Year One and Batman Begins.

But, then again, the other games stayed largely true to the universe the comics at the time had built, and that universe is gone now so I can see where they might have run into some issues with the licensing on DC's end when it came to making a sequel. The only thing it leaves room for anymore is origin stories because that's all DC's doing anymore for most of their properties.

Also as much as I love the character she used to be, I'm glad this game probably won't have Harley. While they didn't do a bad job with her personality, the Arkham games did start the unfortunate trend of everybody falling all over each other to see who could make her outfit the skimpiest, which was the beginning of her downward spiral as a character toward becoming nothing more than "Joker with boobs" that she is now in the comics. So at least they shouldn't be able to make her any worse this time around.

[Ramary]

Mutiplayer is not co-op, according to Wikipedia...

Arkham Origins also introduces a multiplayer component to the series. One mode, called "Invisible Predator Online", revolves around a gang war between the supervillains Joker and Bane. It involves a match of 3 Joker gang members against 3 Bane gang members against the team of Batman and Robin. Gangs win by killing all of the opposing team's reinforcements, while Batman and Robin win by acquiring intimidation points from eliminating gang members. At a specific point a gang member can become their respective boss – Joker or Bane – gaining more powerful abilities. Gang members have access to guns and explosives, while Batman and Robin have access to gadgets and abilities from the main game, including "Detective Vision". Gang members have a limited "Enhanced Vision" which requires recharging.
"Invisible Predator Online" features a customization element that allows players to outfit all three factions with unlockable gear and outfits, earned through playing the mode. Gear includes such things as new weapons and additional loadout slots, while outfits include Batman's costume from Batman: The Animated Series and Tim Drake's costume from Batman: Arkham City.


Also the only thing the dev has ever done before this was the WiiU port of Arkham City, which was apparently a huge mess of bugs and low frame rates, so that is not the best sign.

[mauve]

Multiplayer is not co-op

The only thing this dev has ever done before this was the WiiU port of Arkham City, which was apparently a huge mess...

...dammit.

I want to like this game so badly but it keeps conspiring against me!!

It seems kinda weird for Bane to be the other gang boss in the multiplayer mode, since he was sort of a solo act in City. I'm not familiar with the comic continuity of Bane, so maybe this makes sense in that regard. I would've thought the devs would have picked a more traditional "boss" like Two Face, Penguin, Black Mask, Scarface, etc.

Also I'm guessing Origins won't have Zsasz since it's a prequel, so there goes the creepy Zsasz missions.

[Bells]

the story in City had so many glaring holes but i only noticed them after i completed the game cause it was just so tight and well polished i didn't even bother to care!

I'm totally excited for this. VERY rare for me to toss up for a pre-order but this one was i the bag for it. Multiplayer is also going to be super fun.

[Ramary]

Bane is almost always a solo act, but he was in Dark Knight Rises, so LETS HYPE HIM UP YO.

[Bells]

I would not mind at all if they brought the new Bane into the game canon, change it up like they did Copperhead

[POS Industries]

The difference is that nobody cared about Copperhead whereas old Bane was awesome and movie Bane was fucking awful.

Which means of-fucking-course movie Bane is going to become the standard now because it's what the largest amount of people was exposed to. Can't blame on trying to go where the money is.

[Bells]

Character-wise old Bane was just fine, my thoughts were mostly visual really. I like the posture and looks of Movie Bane more than the OverHulking Luchador thing from the comics...

I'll say this about changing old standards though... only playing the game will let me know for sure... but i'm getting Ok with the new voices for Batman and Joker. Still Fanboy butthurt about not having Conroy as Batman, but i suppose it makes sense... new Joker could fool me as the old one though, nicely done.

[Magus]

I wouldn't complain about the reuse of villains like the Joker and then complain that they are replacing Riddler with Anarky. That said at least the Joker isn't going to be the main villain (uh, hopefully) like he was in Asylum and basically was in City (actually I thought City did a great job of using Hugo Strange/Ra's Al Ghul as major villains, that was basically perfect in my opinion, Joker was left as much more of an enemy on a personal level with Batman as opposed to being the main danger to Gotham). I think with Black Mask being the main villain this time around Joker will be mostly made into a side-villain like everyone else is in the other two games.

As far as gameplay goes it looks about the same as the other two which is fine with me. I'm sure I will get tired of the formula sooner or later but since they are switching devs it's probably best to go with a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality.

That said I don't think I can pay 60 dollars for it because I feel like it's not worth that much money, much like the other two. I'll be waiting for the game of the year edition.