Courtesy AnnoyedCritic.com
Batman: Arkham Origins is an exciting experience for casual gamers who aren't bothered by game bugs and glitches. But if you are, this game will probably cause you to completely rage.
What it does not capture well are the limitations of the systems the game was designed for. The game is loaded with bugs, glitches and system crashes. Plus, it isn't original at all. You're playing Arkham City, with new skins on Gotham and the characters.
That isn't necessarily bad - but it's not a good thing either. I immediately felt like I was playing a version of Arkham City that was redone by people not involved with creating the originals. I say this because you can tell that too many textures or elements are going on at once sometimes, when in the middle of a heated battle, your frame rate drops to 2 or 3 per second.
I don't want to play a slide show of Batman. I want to play as Batman. And many times, I've been killed because I couldn't effectively combat the horrible frame rate.
The main story is pretty good on the surface but underneath it, there isn't much. Putting a bounty on someone is a cheap story tactic used to give a variety of villains motivation for battling the hero. It's been done in wrestling for years, like in the 98 Royal Rumble, when Mr. McMahon put a $100,000 bounty on Steve Austin. Only that made sense, since McMahon was trying to avoid Austin as a champion and the Rumble winner gets a title shot. Here, Black Mask basically puts the bounty on Batman for little to no reason.
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***
Also, even though Bane and Joker try to kill each other, they inexplicably unite at the end for an elaborate "heart monitor" fight scheme. Not much of a spoiler, considering that the game was a spoiler for my expectations.
The detective mode returns with some crimes to solve. It's limited fun, however, as usually you just scan 4 points that Batman's computer is inconceivably able to reconstruct events from. Once, I scanned a paint scrape from a car - and in 10 seconds, Batman knew the make, model, all recent sales AND who had bought it and ran down the victim.
Compare that to real life police, who could analyze the same paint scrape for a day, just to tell you the color.
Online is fun concept - except it's also bug-ridden. Routinely, online players crash their entire systems several times per play sessions. I've watched others playing the game online routinely sign in and out on the PSN - a sign that the system crashed. Mine has done the same. When it doesn't crash, you may encounter a variety of bugs. Throwing a grenade while aiming with the marksman rifle will leave you zoomed in to the scope, after you release aim, for example.
Although the bugs are present, the game is actually some fun online. Playing as Bane or Jokers crew (and sometimes the super villains themselves) is a chore because of train-like controls. But playing as Batman and Robin is obviously where the real fun is - and the game has a great random selection method of assigning the heroes to different players. I just wish I could team up with a buddy as Batman AND Robin. Friends are randomly assigned to teams with no regard to who invited them or who is their friend. You can even select which team you PREFER to be on, but that is hit or miss.
Even the new special weapons sucks. The glue grenade is a lame recoloring/slight redesign of the freeze grenade. Shock gloves aren't even truly new, as it is basically the ability to punch through defenses, as seen in previous challenge maps. However, the Line Launcher is gone because that would include too much freedom for a cheap studio to design for - so Batman literally steals Deathstroke's crap version that only works in preplaced spots.
This is what happens when a substandard studio takes over an amazing IP and milks it. 4/10, with 4 points being generously awarded for it being sort of fun, for a while.
2.0