Batman: Arkham Origins

"Don't add me to the weight you carry..."

I know I'm not the only one when it goes to saying that Arkham Asylum shocked gamers back in 2009, presenting a dark malevolent atmosphere superhero game like no other. What nobody ever expected was Arkham Asylum, a sequel that pushed the boundaries to both video game storytelling and game engineering. So when they announced that a new prequel game was coming out, I was looking forward to it, but questioned it's success as soon as I heard that Warner Bros Montreal was making it and not the almighty Rocksteady. I feared that Origins would suffer the same fate all superhero video games do: mass advertising yet no game creativity and effort.

When I finally played the game, I was relieved that the game managed to exceed my expectations. No, this is no Arkham City or Asylum if you're wondering, consider it more of a Arkham City 5-6 hour DLC package.

I'll start off by saying that the story is by far the best of the franchise, it feels the most batman like of all three games. We are presented with a darker and deeper storyline, expressing a more humane and vulnerable Batman. In fact the character development is so well done in this game, you can actually feel Bruce Wayne's pain and anger and fears. The interaction between him and Alred is very well done, you can feel the emotion and tension of their parent child relationship throughout the game.

As for the gameplay, I think it was a notch down from the predecessors. While I commend WB for trying to be original and not blindly copying Rocksteady, I think it was a backfire. The combat system and boss fights have been dumbed down to simple and formulaic approaches. It's really just an over kill and bosses can be defeated using the 3 same buttons time and time again. The combat flow has disappeared and now you will experience abrupt glitches and loss in frame rate when combatting large groups of enemies. It's a real shame because the game has so much replay value, but is obstructed by game freezes and massive bugs.

The voice acting in this game is just as good as the previous games. I was a little nervous about Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill being replaced, but Roger Craig Smith (Batman) and Troy Baker (Joker) were great replacements. Smith did a great job of bringing Batman to life, and even seemed to bring more character and emotion to the character.

At the end of the day, if you loved the first 2 games then you'll love this one. As a Batman fan in general, you'll really love this game, just don't expect it to extend the limits of the batman universe we've loved since 2009. For these reasons Batman Arkham Origins gets an 8.5/10.