Batman: Arkham Origins

Warner Brothers Games Montreal - 2013 - PC/X360/PS3/WiiU

I think Batman needs to just give up on Gotham and find a city worth protecting. It seems like 99% of everyone you run into in Gotham is a criminal. I mean it made sense in the first game where Batman was in the asylum and all of the inmates had gotten loose. And I guess it made sense in the second game too, when all of Arkham’s residents had gotten loose again and taken over the city. But now in this game, aside from the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, it’s a normal day in Gotham city and the streets are still covered with criminals. Literally every single person you see on the street is either a criminal or a member of the SWAT team. Where are the normal citizens? Exactly who is Batman protecting here?

Anyway, Batman: Arhkham Origins is, as the title suggests, part of Batman’s origin story and takes place in the early years of Bruce Wayne’s career in crime fighting. It tells of Batman’s first encounters with characters like Killer Croc, James Gordon and, of course, The Joker. The game begins with the criminal organization leader known as Black Mask placing a 50 million dollar bounty on Batman’s head. Several B-list Batman villains, most of which I had never heard of before, show up in Gotham to try to take down Batman and collect the bounty. But then of course The Joker shows up and upstages all of the other villains. Sounds like a typical Christmas Eve for Batman.

This game was actually not made by Rocksteady, the studio that did the last two games, but by WB Montreal. If you don’t count the WiiU port of Arkham City (who does?), this is actually WB Montreal’s very first game, which made me a bit nervous to try it. You’d never know it though, the quality and polish of Arkham Origins is pretty high, so I suspect there were a lot of veteran developers brought on to the WB Montreal team. Actually, if I hadn't known the series had switched developers, I doubt I would've noticed at all; Origins is so similar to the other two games, especially Arkham City. A lot of the animations, game mechanics and even the models and assets from City seem to be copy/pasted into Origins, so I guess Rocksteady gave WB Montreal access to their source material.

There’s really not much new introduced in this game either, which I guess is a bit disappointing, but I had been meaning to replay Arkham City anyway and this was a nice way to do it - with a different narrative layered over the pre-existing gameplay. Actually, just about the only noticeable difference between Origins and City is the change in voice actors. I was disappointed to not see the actors from the animated series and the other games return to reprise their roles, but the new actors do a fine job. The new Batman actor does a younger and angrier emulation of Kevin Conroy’s Batman and the new Joker’s portrayal is a bit more edgy and dangerous feeling than Mark Hamill’s Joker. Different, but still good.

Summary:
This game is quite similar to Arkham City and what you thought of City will likely be the same thing you think about Origins. I had fun with this game, so check it out if you were a City fan.