Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to make sure everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.
Ever since the ’60s the parody song lyrics of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells,” the caped crusader has been forever linked to Christmas. It’s a weak link as it’s not like we see Batman decorations popping up in Walmart around September with Santa and Frosty, though it would make the months when Christmas decorations take over retail displays cooler if they did include Batman. Christmas has been a setting for Batman on a few occasions, and typically these have been good entries in the world of Batman entertainment media, but are ones that are often overshadowed by some of the more celebrated works. This is true of the 1992 film Batman Returns and also true of the 2013 game Batman: Arkham Origins.
Batman: Arkham Origins isn’t a bad game; it’s actually quite good and even flirts with greatness. The problem with Arkham Origins is it’s simply not as good as its predecessors or successor, terrible Batmobile sections notwithstanding. The other three main Arkham games, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight, were developed by Rocksteady Studios who did an amazing job in bringing the Batman universe to life in their games. Batman: Arkham Origins was developed by WB Games Montreal. They still made a good game and taken on its own merits it’s fine, but compared to the other games it had a noticeable B-team feel to it.
Review: Batman: Arkham Origins
Having a different studio at the helm of game development will naturally impact the game overall, but there were other choices that set this apart from other Arkham titles. As the title suggests, this is an origin story, and perhaps the developers thought the familiar voice actors for Batman and Joker, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil respectively, sounded too old for the parts and their talents were not utilized in this entry. Replacing them were Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker, which looking at the credits now, I kind of want Ellie from The Last of Us to try tormenting Joker with dad jokes. No disrespect to either of them as they did a great job in Arkham Origins and have an impressive body of work in other games, but when fans are used to a particular voice and are expecting the familiar voices, any substitution is going to sound off, no matter how good it may otherwise be.
Like every other Batman, well, anything, Batman: Arkham Origins takes place in Gotham City. Set eight years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bruce Wayne is still relatively new to juggling his double life between billionaire playboy and Batman. The police are aware of Batman’s existence and as usual are ambivalent at best toward his costumed vigilanteism. This was also a simpler time in Gotham. It’s still overrun with a variety of criminal activity, but this is before it became the place to be for super villains to hang out. The crime in Gotham was bad enough where someone offering the services Batman does would be of great benefit to its citizens, but the events that unfold one Christmas Eve show that he’s the hero the city needs.
Blackgate Penitentiary houses the individuals in Gotham who have gone above and beyond in securing a spot on Santa’s naughty list, and while not a creature was stirring at Wayne Manor, there was plenty of activity from the rats at Blackgate. Bruce Wayne’s relaxing holiday evening is interrupted by an inmate uprising that forces him to don his bat apparel. Batman’s arrival to the prison is too late to prevent all the inmates from escaping or the killing of Police Commissioner Loeb. After battling Killer Croc he learns that Black Mask has put a fifty million dollar bounty on his head, and that Killer Croc is only one of eight world class assassins now running amok in Gotham trying to cash in that bounty. These wannabe assassins include but are not limited to Anarky, Mad Hatter, Penguin and some mysterious newcomer who goes by Joker.
The gameplay of Batman: Arkham Origins is similar to the other games under the Akrham moniker. Batman has free rein to explore Gotham City, which by gliding and using his grappling hook he can get around more quickly and access many hard to reach building tops. A fast travel system that involves the Batwing is a great quality-of-life improvement that makes getting around quickly even more efficient. Batman still has his usual tools such as the Cryptographic Sequencer, explosive gel, batarangs and smoke pellets just to name a few of them. There’s a lot more to Batman than beating up bad guys, but that’s one of the more fun aspects of his games. Batman is almost always outnumbered by thugs but chaining together free flowing combat can make fighting seem like an art form. It helps that button prompts appear over the enemies to cue the player to what sort of countermeasure Batman needs to take. Straight forward fighting is sometimes necessary, but whenever possible it’s wise to even the odds by stringing up enemies before open combat begins with stealth takedowns.
Perhaps it was the disappointingly low review scores compared to the other Arkham games that tempered personal expectations, but Batman: Arkham Origins was still a good time. Having Joker work his way into being a major antagonist felt forced, as at the start of the game it seems like this could be an Arkham game that doesn’t primarily focus on the clown prince of crime, but making it into somewhat of an origin story kept things more interesting even if it did make the story feel more safe. The fact that Joker is still the major threat to Gotham made the story feel predictable can be applied to the game as a whole. Batman: Akham City and Batman: Arkham Knight used Batman: Arkham Asylum as the template, but both those games strived to build upon what was established and push the franchise to greater heights. Batman: Arkham Origins didn’t have such ambitions, and in a way felt more like a placeholder between Arkham City and Arkham Knight than the next big bat adventure.
Batman: Arkham Origins is considered by many to be the worst of the console Arkham games, but it’s still far from being a bad game. It does lack a certain quality that made the other games so memorable, but dismissing it entirely would be a mistake. The narrative still provides a compelling Batman story, and the gameplay still includes all his wonderful toys and tactics. It may fall short of the high bar set by other Arkham games, but is still a worthwhile game in its own right and should be experienced by fans of the series. As the black sheep of the Arkham family, it’s typically absent from the collections that include the Rocksteady games that are available on more current hardware. As such it’s only available on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U.
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