Batman: Arkham Origins

[DIrishB]

Just finished this game. I liked it. Yeah.

Cool.

But... wasn't there already a thread for this?

 

[SSJmole]

I did not. Hated the story

Spoiler

been joker again

hated how lazy it felt and the multiplayer barely worked. (however when it worked multiplayer was great)

 

[Lithium]

We definitely already have a thread for this, but I can't link to it from my phone. I'm sure the mods can link them.


Anyway...I finished the main story and a good chunk of the side missions a while back. I actually really liked it. I went in expecting similar gameplay with a new story and that is what I got, so I was satisfied. Personally I absolutely loved the story. Troy Baker's Joker was absolutely fantastic, and the monologue scene in particular was one of the best in the entire series.

 

[Zombipanda]

Anyway, it was good as long as you go into it with reasonable expectations. It's pretty much more of the same as Arkham City though they make a few minor, inexplicable changes that hurt the final product. The responsiveness of combat seems a bit slower, which hurts that steady rhythm of brawls, though towards the end of the story I'd gotten a pretty good handle on the flow of things. And it's even more combat focused than the earlier games. Whereas City paced out puzzles, combat, and predator challenges pretty well, the stealth sequences are few and far between in this one, and it sometimes feels like you're just getting shuttled from one big melee to another. The new gadget is a cheap ploy that takes all the challenge out of combat, but it's easy enough to ignore for the most part. And while I agree that the Joker monologue was pretty great, the subplot with Harleen is pretty ludicrous for the span of time it takes place in and terribly marginalizes a character that's been treated pretty badly in the Arkham canon. I think they need to put aside this whole "It all takes place in one night" rule, because it's starting to break credibility. There do seem to be more glitches than the older games, but none of them I've encountered have been game breaking.

There are a handful of small new ideas that could be great if integrated properly, but don't seem fully formed as they are now. The addition of a challenge system is really cool, but each tier is locked until you finish the one below it, and in the case of the predator challenges is frustrating because there are so few predator encounters available. The batcave is cool, and it integrates the challenge maps into the actual game, but there's rarely a reason to go back there, so I usually just access the challenges from the main menu. Ditto for the Enigma Towers. They're fun little puzzle challenges that are over a bit too quickly and open up fast travel across the map, but generally, with the long load screen, it just makes more sense to glide and grapnel across the city to get wherever you're going. The new additions to the detective sequences are pretty cool, but largely cosmetic. It's basically the same as City where you search around an area for highlighted objects to scan, but sometimes you have to rewind the sequence as it plays out and find objects indicated by a red line. Not much new, but then, I'm not sure there's a great way to integrate detective cases any better without breaking up the flow of the game. The side quests are the same. Like, exactly the same. You have one where you have to get from one side of town to the other with a time limit. You have a few where you have to find containers and either blow them up or disarm them with your disarmer thing. You have Riddler trophies to collect. You even have one where you have to get into detective mode and follow the blood trail of a ninja. So yeah, that's all a bit derivative.

But then there's the good. The story is well-paced for the most part. The opening sequence is cool and despite a brief lull following that, the rest of the story runs at a steady, compelling clip. It feels like Batman as action movie. For the most part, the assassins aren't all that well fleshed out, but they aren't meant to be. They exist as the catalysts for neat boss fight set-pieces and for the most part, they serve that purpose nicely. It certainly feels less forced than AC, where so many villains seemed to be thrown in for the sake of fan service without much explanation. I was a little disappointed to see the Joker playing such a prominent role again, but if it weren't preceded by two games that were already all about the Joker, I could probably say it's the best story of the trilogy. I wish Baker had the opportunity to lend a bit more of his own personality to the character but he does a good job at imitating Mark Hamil and there are some shining moments where he adds a bit of edgy menace to the role that's not really present in Hamil's portrayal. Bane gets fleshed out more than any characters have in the past two games. But if anything, I wish they had given him more of a role (while toning back the number of Bane boss fights. Christ, it gets obnoxious) instead of focusing so much on the Joker. The boss fights are a bit hit or miss, with some basically being transparent retreads of City fights, but the Firefly sequence is magnificent and I had a lot of fun with Copperhead too. And Batman feels like a character with an actual arc for the first time in the series, rather than a cipher who exists there to just growl and punch things. And this game has the coolest looking of all the obligatory hallucination sequences. Oh, and the martial artists are a neat addition to the combat dynamics.

So, all in all, enjoyable stuff, though nothing that will exactly blow your socks off. There are some small ideas that aren't quite there but could really add to the game given a little more polish. There's a narrative quality that Rocksteady could learn a little bit from. Or they could just hire me. I already know how a new trilogy should be plotted out.

 

[DIrishB]

I did not. Hated the story * SPOILER * hated how lazy it felt and the multiplayer barely worked. (however when it worked multiplayer was great)

I've played a bit of the campaign and lots of multiplayer at my friend's house and haven't noticed any problems. What went wrong for you?

Ordered my own copy as a gift to myself for Christmas.

 

[DIrishB]

Anyway, it was good as long as you go into it with reasonable expectations. It's pretty much more of the same as Arkham City though they make a few minor, inexplicable changes that hurt the final product. The responsiveness of combat seems a bit slower, which hurts that steady rhythm of brawls, though towards the end of the story I'd gotten a pretty good handle on the flow of things. And it's even more combat focused than the earlier games. Whereas City paced out puzzles, combat, and predator challenges pretty well, the stealth sequences are few and far between in this one, and it sometimes feels like you're just getting shuttled from one big melee to another.

That was intentional, I believe, to reflect a more rookie Batman. He's still a well-trained badass, but he's not as refined as he is in the later games (since those take place 5 and 6 years later). That applies to the combat as well as the stealth approach. He thinks things out and examines approaches more cerebrally later in his career, whereas here he's still more likely to go in swinging than to hold back, investigate the surroundings, etc. Chalk it up to the naivety of youth and inexperience. Logically I think it makes perfect sense and does a great job of reflecting a more rookie Batman. Granted I haven't played more than 10-15% of the story so maybe my opinion isn't fully formed.

The new gadget is a cheap ploy that takes all the challenge out of combat, but it's easy enough to ignore for the most part. And while I agree that the Joker monologue was pretty great, the subplot with Harleen is pretty ludicrous for the span of time it takes place in and terribly marginalizes a character that's been treated pretty badly in the Arkham canon. I think they need to put aside this whole "It all takes place in one night" rule, because it's starting to break credibility. There do seem to be more glitches than the older games, but none of them I've encountered have been game breaking. There are a handful of small new ideas that could be great if integrated properly, but don't seem fully formed as they are now. The addition of a challenge system is really cool, but each tier is locked until you finish the one below it, and in the case of the predator challenges is frustrating because there are so few predator encounters available. The batcave is cool, and it integrates the challenge maps into the actual game, but there's rarely a reason to go back there, so I usually just access the challenges from the main menu. Ditto for the Enigma Towers. They're fun little puzzle challenges that are over a bit too quickly and open up fast travel across the map, but generally, with the long load screen, it just makes more sense to glide and grapnel across the city to get wherever you're going. The new additions to the detective sequences are pretty cool, but largely cosmetic. It's basically the same as City where you search around an area for highlighted objects to scan, but sometimes you have to rewind the sequence as it plays out and find objects indicated by a red line. Not much new, but then, I'm not sure there's a great way to integrate detective cases any better without breaking up the flow of the game. The side quests are the same. Like, exactly the same. You have one where you have to get from one side of town to the other with a time limit. You have a few where you have to find containers and either blow them up or disarm them with your disarmer thing. You have Riddler trophies to collect. You even have one where you have to get into detective mode and follow the blood trail of a ninja. So yeah, that's all a bit derivative.

But then there's the good. The story is well-paced for the most part. The opening sequence is cool and despite a brief lull following that, the rest of the story runs at a steady, compelling clip. It feels like Batman as action movie. For the most part, the assassins aren't all that well fleshed out, but they aren't meant to be. They exist as the catalysts for neat boss fight set-pieces and for the most part, they serve that purpose nicely. It certainly feels less forced than AC, where so many villains seemed to be thrown in for the sake of fan service without much explanation.

??

It's a giant prison city where the villains have all been thrown in...does there need to be any more explanation than that?

I was a little disappointed to see the Joker playing such a prominent role again, but if it weren't preceded by two games that were already all about the Joker, I could probably say it's the best story of the trilogy. I wish Baker had the opportunity to lend a bit more of his own personality to the character but he does a good job at imitating Mark Hamil and there are some shining moments where he adds a bit of edgy menace to the role that's not really present in Hamil's portrayal. Bane gets fleshed out more than any characters have in the past two games. But if anything, I wish they had given him more of a role (while toning back the number of Bane boss fights. Christ, it gets obnoxious) instead of focusing so much on the Joker. The boss fights are a bit hit or miss, with some basically being transparent retreads of City fights, but the Firefly sequence is magnificent and I had a lot of fun with Copperhead too. And Batman feels like a character with an actual arc for the first time in the series, rather than a cipher who exists there to just growl and punch things. And this game has the coolest looking of all the obligatory hallucination sequences. Oh, and the martial artists are a neat addition to the combat dynamics. So, all in all, enjoyable stuff, though nothing that will exactly blow your socks off. There are some small ideas that aren't quite there but could really add to the game given a little more polish. There's a narrative quality that Rocksteady could learn a little bit from. Or they could just hire me. I already know how a new trilogy should be plotted out.

Yeah I'm still waiting on that treatment you had for...well, just about every fleshed out for a story idea you've mentioned on the site.

 

[GrEyMAttEr]

Scarecrow? Clock king? I agree that yet another joker filled batman video game would be redundant. But replace him with granduous villains. The Riddler would be more suitable than Scarecrow or Clock king. This isn't Batman: the brave and the bold. This is of more importance. Unlike a cartoon that has "POW" everytime someone gets punched.

 

[DIrishB]

Scarecrow? Clock king? I agree that yet another joker filled batman video game would be redundant. But replace him with granduous villains. The Riddler would be more suitable than Scarecrow or Clock king. This isn't Batman: the brave and the bold. This is of more importance. Unlike a cartoon that has "POW" everytime someone gets punched.

I get the general feeling of being over Joker in these games, and agree with it to some degree. But with Rocksteady's sequel coming, likely next year in Fall (we should probably get an announcement of its release in March or April), that will be a Joker-less game due to his death at the end of AC. I see the Origins game as sort of the untold beginning of the Joker arc, which lasted 3 games. Next game will set up a new main bad guy, and should be interesting for that alone, in addition to whatever interesting gameplay enhancements Rocksteady make.

 

[GrEyMAttEr]

I agree. You're very intelligent.

 

[GrEyMAttEr]

very smart

 

[DIrishB]

I agree. You're very intelligent.

very smart

I appreciate your support. The check is in the mail.

 

[SSJmole]

I've played a bit of the campaign and lots of multiplayer at my friend's house and haven't noticed any problems. What went wrong for you?

Ordered my own copy as a gift to myself for Christmas.

Me and my friends could barely get into game most of time it wouldn't let us and no party system

 

[DIrishB]

Me and my friends could barely get into game most of time it wouldn't let us and no party system

Ah ok. I don't know, we played a few dozen times on multiplayer against people on Xbox Live and had no problems. Are you playing on PS3 or Xbox 360? Could've been a problem with their servers or overload from too much traffic close to its release date. Have you had any problems recently?

 

[SSJmole]

we were all ps3. After looking online i saw we weren't only ones. I assumed that was traffic but tried it a week before ps4 launch here, same thing so based on lazy storymode + non working multiplayer i traded it in when i got ps4

 

[DIrishB]

we were all ps3. After looking online i saw we weren't only ones. I assumed that was traffic but tried it a week before ps4 launch here, same thing so based on lazy storymode + non working multiplayer i traded it in when i got ps4

Lasy story mode? Because the Joker was behind it? Considering it was a prequel and covered Batman and Joker's first meeting I'd say it made sense to use him again, one last time. Essentially it's the Joker's last "hurrah" after the events of AC, unless they do another prequel game (which is a possibility, granted).

 

[Victor Von Doom]

I don't know how I feel about the ninja-based DLC.

On one hand it's cool to play as ninja Bruce and even early vigilante Bruce...but again, being limited to using these 2 options in only combat and predator maps kinda takes the fun outta it since the rest of the skins aren't really worth it to me.

 

[Zombipanda]

Despite trying three days in a row, I have yet been able to get into a match of multiplayer in this game.

What a wreck.

 

[DIrishB]

Despite trying three days in a row, I have yet been able to get into a match of multiplayer in this game. What a wreck.

Xbox 360 or PS3? I never had any problems on 360.

 

[Zombipanda]

Xbox 360 or PS3? I never had any problems on 360.

360!

That's weird.

 

[DIrishB]

360! That's weird.

Obviously God hates you.

 

[DIrishB]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...c-focuses-on-key-relationship-in-comics-canon

Batman: Arkham Origins' big story-stuffed DLC expansion will centre on one of the most pivotal relationships in the series, developer Warner Bros. Montreal has told Eurogamer.

The add-on will be similar in size to Arkham City's enjoyable epilogue Harley Quinn's Revenge, and is likely due for launch some time in the new year.

"It is in line with our angle of the origins - not necessarily of characters, but of key relationships," Ben Mattes, Batman Arkham Origins senior producer explained. "It is a DLC that will focus on one of the most key relationships in Batman canon."

That's interesting. Like the article suggests I think this will focus either on Dick Grayson's recruitment as the first Robin, or an early adventure in Robin's career. If that's the case, it obviously takes place some time after the main game, even if it's only a few months later.

That should be cool, since we didn't get any focus on Grayson/Nightwing in AC, other than his appearance in the Challenge Maps, which didn't offer any story or characterization details.

 

[Zombipanda]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...c-focuses-on-key-relationship-in-comics-canon



That's interesting. Like the article suggests I think this will focus either on Dick Grayson's recruitment as the first Robin, or an early adventure in Robin's career. If that's the case, it obviously takes place some time after the main game, even if it's only a few months later.

That should be cool, since we didn't get any focus on Grayson/Nightwing in AC, other than his appearance in the Challenge Maps, which didn't offer any story or characterization details.

The Harley Quinn DLC was vastly underwhelming.

Batgirl, please.

 

[DIrishB]

The Harley Quinn DLC was vastly underwhelming. Batgirl, please.

Batgirl's a possibility considering Barbara's appearance in Origins and her defense of Batman to Gordon.

 

[Ice]

Mr. Freeze Comes To Batman: Arkham Origins

 

[DIrishB]

Mr. Freeze Comes To Batman: Arkham Origins

Looks like this is heavily influenced by the Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice". And I'm perfectly ok with that.

 

[DIrishB]

So I bought myself AO for Christmas, and I'm about 70% of the way through the story.

The storyline and characterization are fantastic. AO easily has better writing than AA or AC, and it does a great job of setting up the antagonistic relationship between Batman and Joker. I thought I was tired of Joker after AA and AC, but this game does a great job of making him an interesting and dangerous villain.

And the other villains are well done too, most especially the character designs. Only minor tweaks were made, but they're noticeable and work well.

Love the huge city with multiple indoor areas, and it's interesting comparing locations' appearances between Origins and AC.

There's a huge amount of stuff to do, from a nice lengthy main story to the numerous side missions.

My only complaints concern those side missions: there are almost too many and they get a bit repetitive and annoying, especially when the Crimes in Progress pop up while you're trying to do other stuff. Once again they overdid it with the Riddler stuff.

And, the combat suffered. I understand they made it a bit more difficult, and less fluid, to reflect Batman being more of a rookie and less experienced vigilante. And that comes off to some degree, but it results in a fair amount of frustration as well since combo chains will inexplicably end for no apparent reason. They definitely could've spent more time working on the combat, and fixing some of the glitches which make moving across building tops, scaling building sides noticeably rougher than in AC or even AA.

But overall it's a great game, and a worthy continuation of Rocksteady's series. I think lessons learned from the development of this game will serve WB Montreal well in their inevitable next Arkham or DC based game, and fully expect those learned lessons to help translate their next game into a masterpiece, as long as the gameplay is slightly improved and the writing/story/characterization hold as strong as they are here.

The Initiation DLC is challenging and even annoying, but it was meant to be challenging so I can't gripe much.

I haven't touched multiplayer yet and probably won't, as the Arkham games don't naturally transition from single player to multiplayer, even in an unexpectedly pleasant way like Mass Effect 3 pulled off.

So yeah, hoping in the future they focus on more single player DLC that expands the storyline, instead of allocating resources to multiplayer, which doesn't serve the Arkham games well.

Batman has a huge rogues gallery and supporting cast who can be utilized to create interesting and fun DLC expansions to the main games. I'd love to see future DLC focus on stuff like Robin's recruitment, Joker killing Jason Todd and paralyzing Barbara, etc. Hell, I think an entire game covering the Knightfall storyline would be cool, and offer the ability to play as Azrael taking over the mantle while Bruce recovers, which in itself would offer interesting gameplay extensions and a few fun QTE focusing on Bruce's rehabilitation. And it could end with a nice, challenging fight with Bruce vs Azrael. For the first time in the series Batman will have to fight another Batman, who has the same extensive combat training and all the gadgets Bruce has. Could make for a phenomenal ending battle.

So yeah, multiplayer is pointless, the side mission stuff is repetitive, and the combat was jagged around the edges, but the storyline and writing are fantastic, and it serves as a fantastic beginning for the series.

 

[Zombipanda]

Batman has a huge rogues gallery and supporting cast who can be utilized to create interesting and fun DLC expansions to the main games. I'd love to see future DLC focus on stuff like Robin's recruitment, Joker killing Jason Todd and paralyzing Barbara, etc. Hell, I think an entire game covering the Knightfall storyline would be cool, and offer the ability to play as Azrael taking over the mantle while Bruce recovers, which in itself would offer interesting gameplay extensions and a few fun QTE focusing on Bruce's rehabilitation. And it could end with a nice, challenging fight with Bruce vs Azrael. For the first time in the series Batman will have to fight another Batman, who has the same extensive combat training and all the gadgets Bruce has. Could make for a phenomenal ending battle.

Batman: Broken City
Arkham City is still a cesspool and unable to properly control it, the cops have essentially cordoned off the area and surrounding streets. Somewhere in there Harley's holed up with Poison Ivy and her newborn, Joker's heir. This constitutes the classic Zelda-like structure of City and Origins with an overworld populated by just loitering thugs and a series of dungeons to navigate, but with more flexibility in the order of the main baddies (see below) you pursue. With the Joker dead, presumably at the hands of Batman, he's in the GCPD's sights again. They constitute a new threat, both in the area directly surrounded the former AC where they're huddled as a quarantine line and in smaller numbers along the rest of the city, to be eluded or stunned for a retreat. They come heavily armed and getting into melees with them results in reinforcements called en masse. We'd also expand out into Gotham proper, though whether this is a whole city of instanced spaces would depend on how much resources are available to dump into it. One of the big themes is that the death of the crime families was more to do with Joker than with Batman. The old families were business. Illicit, yes, but still businesses, and still driven by profit. And while Batman cut into their bottom line, it was the Joker's manic chaos that made the cost of them doing business too great. With him gone, Black Mask is again moving in to consolidate a corporate structure to organize crime. This would constitute the bulk of side quests, with assaults on BM's front operations opening up crimes in progress like robberies and kidnappings that play with a more freeform and self-strategized approach to gameplay.

But at the heart of it is Harley. Social unrest is bubbling in the city, with the revelations concerning Arkham City, with the shock of the murder allegedly committed by Batman, with the growing disparity between the rich like Bruce Wayne and the poor like everyone else. At the heart of it is Harley and a group of like-minded affiliates, each of course, with their own motives. The stated purpose of the movement they're behind is to transform the former Arkham City into a self-sustainable model of utopian socio-anarchism, but they make no bones about the fact that they're at war with the oligarchs. There's Harley who no longer under the sway of co-dependence to the Joker and in terrifying mama bear mode, has proven a clever and capable strategist and manipulator, intent on creating a new upturned world order for her little prince. She's shacked up with Ivy, who's, well, Ivy, and in charge of bio-engineering a self-sustaining ecosystem for their new society. Anarky, who actually believes earnestly in revolution and ain't such a bad kid. There's Riddler, who's ego has been groomed and maybe half believes the rhetoric, who's good for getting their people into places they shouldn't be. And then there's Scarecrow. He's making bad things. Most of the folks don't know about him. At the heart of it is a plan to let engineered plantlife encroach the greater city outside AC and use the greenlife as a distribution method for a new form of fear toxin. It ends with a city overcome by a brief but eventually averted madness, and Batman and Scarecrow plunging to their uncertain deaths in Gotham Bay.

Batman: Prison City
A series prequel, but a sequel to Arkham Origins. A new form of Venom is flooding Gotham streets, but apart from a brief prologue and maybe an epilogue, the game doesn't take place there. Instead, it takes him to Santa Prisca, the source of the drug funnel, in a game that plays to the epic international adventurer mode of O'Neil/Adams Batman in a structure playing more to the linear appeal of Arkham Asylum, but on a larger scale. As he wages a one man war against the drug empire of Santa Prisca, he untangles a complicated network of dependency and gray morality. The poor of the city are dependent on the production of the chemicals needed for the drug to make a living, as their island is basically a rock with no solid financial infrastructure. The local government is in bed with shadowy US intelligence who, like in Iran-Contra, are trading security for drugs to prop up a puppet government. Batman squares off against the Suicide Squad there on security detail as well as some of the weirder Morrison-era villains as he works his way through the rebel strongholds, the slums, the rich district home to American businessmen and tourists, through Santa Prisca prison and up to El Presidente's mansion. Bane plays a secondary playable role, like Catwoman did in AC.

Batman: Apocalypse City
The Bat-games attempt at a big Bat-family crossover story. It involves an earthquake and the League of Assassins and an older grizzled Batman gone missing and multiple playable characters. Maybe I'll get around to it another time.

 

[Zombipanda]

So yeah, multiplayer is pointless, the side mission stuff is repetitive, and the combat was jagged around the edges, but the storyline and writing are fantastic, and it serves as a fantastic beginning for the series.

Isn't that mostly what I said?

For its flaws, I think it may be the best of the bunch. It far and away had the best story (I had more problems with AC's story than most seemed to) and the only problem I had with it was that it was another story about the Joker, which is more the fault of the games that preceded than its own fault.

Even the combat's grown on me. I've gotten pretty good at the rhythm of it.

But.... Am I the only one thinking that it's a gross oversight there isn't some sort of "boss fight" mode in the challenge maps? It would be pretty easy to implement challenges that feature the boss encounters or some sort of boss rush mode, especially considering how helpful it would be for the new super hardcore mode.

 

[DIrishB]

Batman: Broken City Arkham City is still a cesspool and unable to properly control it, the cops have essentially cordoned off the area and surrounding streets. Somewhere in there Harley's holed up with Poison Ivy and her newborn, Joker's heir.

Wasn't it revealed in HQR that she wasn't actually pregnant? I seem to recall that being an important revelation/sub-plot, even though it wasn't outright stated as such, just alluded to through evidence and conversation.

This constitutes the classic Zelda-like structure of City and Origins with an overworld populated by just loitering thugs and a series of dungeons to navigate, but with more flexibility in the order of the main baddies (see below) you pursue. With the Joker dead, presumably at the hands of Batman, he's in the GCPD's sights again. They constitute a new threat, both in the area directly surrounded the former AC where they're huddled as a quarantine line and in smaller numbers along the rest of the city, to be eluded or stunned for a retreat. They come heavily armed and getting into melees with them results in reinforcements called en masse.

That'd be interesting, sort of taking a page from the GTA series police stars meter. I like it.

We'd also expand out into Gotham proper, though whether this is a whole city of instanced spaces would depend on how much resources are available to dump into it. One of the big themes is that the death of the crime families was more to do with Joker than with Batman. The old families were business. Illicit, yes, but still businesses, and still driven by profit. And while Batman cut into their bottom line, it was the Joker's manic chaos that made the cost of them doing business too great.

That's genius.

With him gone, Black Mask is again moving in to consolidate a corporate structure to organize crime. This would constitute the bulk of side quests, with assaults on BM's front operations opening up crimes in progress like robberies and kidnappings that play with a more freeform and self-strategized approach to gameplay. But at the heart of it is Harley. Social unrest is bubbling in the city, with the revelations concerning Arkham City, with the shock of the murder allegedly committed by Batman, with the growing disparity between the rich like Bruce Wayne and the poor like everyone else.

Careful, the Koch brothers will be after you now.

At the heart of it is Harley and a group of like-minded affiliates, each of course, with their own motives. The stated purpose of the movement they're behind is to transform the former Arkham City into a self-sustainable model of utopian socio-anarchism, but they make no bones about the fact that they're at war with the oligarchs. There's Harley who no longer under the sway of co-dependence to the Joker and in terrifying mama bear mode, has proven a clever and capable strategist and manipulator, intent on creating a new upturned world order for her little prince. She's shacked up with Ivy, who's, well, Ivy, and in charge of bio-engineering a self-sustaining ecosystem for their new society. Anarky, who actually believes earnestly in revolution and ain't such a bad kid. There's Riddler, who's ego has been groomed and maybe half believes the rhetoric, who's good for getting their people into places they shouldn't be. And then there's Scarecrow. He's making bad things. Most of the folks don't know about him. At the heart of it is a plan to let engineered plantlife encroach the greater city outside AC and use the greenlife as a distribution method for a new form of fear toxin. It ends with a city overcome by a brief but eventually averted madness, and Batman and Scarecrow plunging to their uncertain deaths in Gotham Bay.

I'd buy it. I like the themes motivating the story, very topical.

Batman: Prison City A series prequel, but a sequel to Arkham Origins. A new form of Venom is flooding Gotham streets, but apart from a brief prologue and maybe an epilogue, the game doesn't take place there. Instead, it takes him to Santa Prisca, the source of the drug funnel, in a game that plays to the epic international adventurer mode of O'Neil/Adams Batman in a structure playing more to the linear appeal of Arkham Asylum, but on a larger scale.

That's something I'd love to see, as after 2 games Gotham is getting a bit old. Of course there's far more to the city in the distance outside of New and Old Gotham, as you mentioned.

As he wages a one man war against the drug empire of Santa Prisca, he untangles a complicated network of dependency and gray morality. The poor of the city are dependent on the production of the chemicals needed for the drug to make a living, as their island is basically a rock with no solid financial infrastructure. The local government is in bed with shadowy US intelligence who, like in Iran-Contra, are trading security for drugs to prop up a puppet government. Batman squares off against the Suicide Squad there on security detail as well as some of the weirder Morrison-era villains as he works his way through the rebel strongholds, the slums, the rich district home to American businessmen and tourists, through Santa Prisca prison and up to El Presidente's mansion. Bane plays a secondary playable role, like Catwoman did in AC.

I'd love to see that, especially since the epilogue from Origins has Waller recruiting Deathstroke, and the epilogue from Origins - Blackgate features her recruiting Bronze Tiger, etc. There's definitely something in mind for Suicide Squad, whether it's their own game or as a major component in a future Batman or other DC property game.

Batman: Apocalypse City The Bat-games attempt at a big Bat-family crossover story. It involves an earthquake and the League of Assassins and an older grizzled Batman gone missing and multiple playable characters. Maybe I'll get around to it another time.

I'd say set it between Origins and City, since by City evidence of an Earthquake striking Gotham is visible (and even mentioned if I recall correctly), and during that time period Batman can be less of a loner and more open to recruiting allies which allows for the multiple characters thing.

It'd also be interesting to involve the earthquake (or other natural disaster, but I think earthquake works best) affecting the map/world/buildings around you, allowing for dynamic and edge of your seat gameplay as buildings occasionally crumble around you or even under your very feet. Will add a new dimension to grappling and gliding. And since such effects are possible in games like Battlefield 4, it's doable, though may require a whole new engine.

But since the League of Assassins has already gotten appearances in Origins and City, I'd prefer they focus on another group, like the Court of Owls (which I admittedly know nothing about).

 

[DIrishB]

Isn't that mostly what I said?

Who knows? I only selectively pay attention to you anyway.

For its flaws, I think it may be the best of the bunch. It far and away had the best story (I had more problems with AC's story than most seemed to) and the only problem I had with it was that it was another story about the Joker, which is more the fault of the games that preceded than its own fault.

Agreed. But this one certainly did Joker right. Well, not that AA or AC did him wrong, but this one did the character perfectly.

Even the combat's grown on me. I've gotten pretty good at the rhythm of it.

Once you obtain most of the upgrades and shock gloves the combat becomes more in line with the flow/timing of AA and AC.

But.... Am I the only one thinking that it's a gross oversight there isn't some sort of "boss fight" mode in the challenge maps? It would be pretty easy to implement challenges that feature the boss encounters or some sort of boss rush mode, especially considering how helpful it would be for the new super hardcore mode.

That's a good point. Kind of surprised they haven't done so, actually.