Batman Arkham Origins Review (PC)

Hello again Techfans, we’ve been playing a bit of catch up with all the different big games to come out this year, and today we’ve finally have our full review ready for Batman: Arkham Origins. Now one thing about this particular title that worried some fans was the fact that it was developed by WB Games Montreal, the team behind remaking Arkham City for the Wii U, as opposed to the original developer of the first two games Rock Steady. After having finished the games campaign, it’s quite clear that such fears were both right and wrong at the same time.

WB Games clearly took the approach of trying to maintain as much of Arkham City as they could, which has lead to a title that features little in terms of new mechanics, but rather a new storyline with a few little additions here or there, in some ways feeling like a stand alone expansion more than a true sequel. This isn’t a bad thing by any means, the formula for Arkham City worked well, and being a single player game a change in story, boss fights, and level design can be enough to keep it feeling fresh, which overall WB Games has done a solid job of. Arkham City still beats it overall in terms of story and design, but Origins comes surprisingly close, especially after the games midpoint when the real main story starts to kick in.

The freeflow combat system is just as fast, fun, and intuitive as it was in Arkham City, and the game also features some updates to some mechanics like the improved detective mode, which has you actually recreate crime scenes rather than just stare and talk about a clue. Where the game falls a bit shorter however is it’s boss designs, most of which rely on a simple mastery of the combat system rather than using more unique tactics or gadgets as you would on many of Arkham City’s bosses such as Solomon Grundy or Mr. Freeze. Side Quests in this game also feature the same weakness as Arkham City, in that while they do a good job of diversifying the villains you encounter, many of them are underwhelming or just straight up short and dry.

The story itself was solidly well done, and continues to maintain the Arkham game series’s strength in that it respects Batman tropes and concepts, while still adding its own unique little spin to help it stand out as an original, separate universe. It takes place before the other games, and is only a year into Batman’s career in fighting crime, so a number of familiar plot elements are different or yet to be established, such as Gordon not trusting Batman, or most people believing him to simply be a myth. Origins’ name is accurate though a bit misleading, in that it is not the story of how Batman came to be, but rather how he rose in notoriety, and how many character relationships were formed.

Visually the game is an improvement on Arkham City, with a well detailed though stagnant city, filled with mostly random thugs and lots of snow. With all most settings at max, with FXAA anti-aliasing at high and PhysX on, with our test system which includes a GTX 780 and an i7 4770k Processor, during normal fights outdoors we saw average frame rates of 70.8 on 2560×1440 and 92 on 1920×1080. Withh PhysX off these scores increased to 80.2 and 124 fps respectively.

Where the change in Devs has shown to be an issue however is in the QA department, at least for the PC version. There have been numerous bugs that have stalled game progress, or even made the game unplayable till future patching; and with each patch so far these past two weeks, it seems as though even more bugs are created or discovered. Examples include areas not properly loading, or events and interactive options not triggering, such as needing to interrogate a suspect and having to reload save files. These issues are of course temporary as long as patching continues till fully fixed, and assuming it does there’s no reason to recommend against playing the game itself, only that it may be wiser to wait till patching is finished before you invest time and money into it.

Now the one completely new addition to this game was the multiplayer mode “Invisible Predator” developed by Splash Damage. In it, 8 players join in a 3v3v2 battle, in which two villain gangs battle over territory and kills, while Batman and Robin try to take enough enemies out on both sides to successfully intimidate them. It seems as though the mode is a lot friendlier to the villains, mainly due to the fact that they have greater numbers, and whiles heroes work similarly to Batman during the single player, there are enough differences that an actual playable tutorial would have been useful. Each Villain gang, one side Joker the other Bane, level up separately and each have their own unique gadgets, and eventually in the match players can fight over the right to play as their respective bosses, which in all honesty is the most fun part of any game. Playing as Bane or Joker completely turns the tide of a fight, making a winning teams victory more assured, or allowing the losing team a chance to a comeback; not to mention the fact that playing as this super powered baddies is just plain fun. The mode also features a surprisingly deep appearance customization system that has a good balance of detailed limited options, but also enough choices to produce a variety of unique looking characters. The mode itself is pretty fun, but not something that steals the show from the single player, and is more of something you might try out just because it’s an option, and not the sole reason why you’d want to buy the game.

Overall Batman Arkham Origins is a great addition to the series regardless of the change in developers, and the only thing holding it back from being a holiday must buy is it’s massive amounts of buggy issues that weren’t fixed before launch. Hold off for now, but once Patching is complete or you find it on sale, this one is definitely worth picking up.