So I'm back after a long long hiatus (not that anybody was reading this anyway) to say I'm back and will be writing regularly from now on (or Becky will beat me senseless) and to introduce a new feature: Reviews From a Guy Who Likes Everything.
This week's review: Batman - Arkham Origins for Xbox 360.
So to begin with, I just gotta get it outta the way and say Holy shit you're Batman! Like seriously, BATMAN. Grapple-gunning across rooftops and crippling thugs from the shadows and solving crimes and murder mysteries! BAT-FUCKING-MAN!!
Whew. Okay. I'm good now.
So for those of you who don't play video games or know what video games are or live in a cave (or are Amish -- in which case, why are you reading this?); Batman - Arkham Origins is the third in the series from WB Games. Arkham Asylum came first, followed by a hugely popular and successful Arkham City; in which some irreversible stuff happened that forced the developers to go backwards and create a third game that's a prequel to the other two.
Short version: The third game is a prequel to the other two.
If you've never played the other two games you'll be in great shape as the game acts as an introduction to the entire Batman universe. It introduces the villains who are central to the other two games and has some really nice character development throughout - specifically the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Alfred, his ever-faithful butler, and the story of The Joker - arguably the most recognizable, iconic villain in the history of fiction.
If you have played the other two games, you'll be giggling with excitement as you zipline around Old Gotham while it's still a thriving, live city, and seeing the iconic landmarks from Arkham City before everything went to hell and it was turned into a prison (a-la Escape From New York).
Short version: Whether or not you've played the other two games, this one is cool and fun.
The Awesome:
The graphics and animation just get better and better with each iteration of the franchise, and this one is easily the best yet. Realistic battle-damage appears on your costume and armor as you progress through the game (something they've done in all three games now), and the costume itself actually looks like something you'd find a real-life vigilante wearing. A combination of armor and padding that's been put together and decorated into a uniform style with a dedicated theme -- not very different from the armored SWAT guys you'll be fighting throughout the game (early Gotham City cops were largely crooked, so you don't feel bad knocking their teeth out), but with a cowl and cape instead of a helmet.
The fighting (when it works - more on that later) flows very naturally and the animation is absolutely GORGEOUS. As someone who practices and studies martial arts myself, I can say that a good chunk of the fight animation is impressively realistic (which is extremely rare in video games) and it also captures the spirit of Batman incredibly well. Bones are shattered, jaws are dislocated, joints are popped out and twisted, and general maiming all around make it fun to kick the ever-loving shit out of baddies from start to finish.
Outside of fighting, the controls are the exact same as in the previous two games and there are plenty of in-game tutorials and hints so even if you've never played the series at all, you'll be flinging Batarangs and grapple-gunning rather effortlessly in no time.
What's most impressive to me so far is the sheer SIZE of the game. I've put in at good, solid 15 hours of gameplay already and I'm only 30% complete. Granted, the completion percentage takes into account all of the side missions and hidden treasures, but still - 15 hours to get 1/3rd of the way through bodes VERY well for playability. The side-quests are challenging, but not frustratingly so, and the primary storyline has some very nice twists and turns that surprised even me, and I consider myself a pretty die-hard Batman fan and nerd - so surprising me with a story element is hard to do.
Also, while I'm talking about the story, I want to mention the cinematics. ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. Seriously, whoever worked on the cinematics needs to make feature-length films or something because the animation is mind-blowingly beautiful. I can't mention specific ones without spoiling the storylines, but trust me - they're all worth reaching and seeing and you'll wish you could watch them more (which I suppose you can by hitting up YouTube, but it's just not the same).
All in all, I'm looking forward to finishing out the myriad storylines and seeing it all come to fruition and getting to the end-game cinematic... Then loading it back up and playing through challenges and just dicking around the city in different costumes or as different characters.
Short version: It's fucking Batman and it's fucking RAD.
The Not-So-Awesome:
As my wife will no doubt attest to (after hearing me rage at the screen), the controls mid-fight are... Well, they vary. Sometimes they're great and everything works perfectly. Sometimes it feels like someone re-wired your controller so that every button corresponds to something else. Your quickfire gadgets are iffy and require incredibly precise controls to use properly with any kind of consistency and, as such, I find myself somehow using the wrong gadgets or the right gadgets at the wrong time in almost every big brawl I get into.
Then there's the boss fights....
So on the one hand, I gotta hand it to the producers for what I call the "throwback" system where they drop you in a room with the boss and they tell you precisely FUCK ALL on how to beat the guy. It's like the old NES days when you'd get into a boss fight and die, repeatedly, hundreds of times before you figure out that you have to dick-punch the boss when he's facing North and the traffic signals outside the window all have green lights.
That's not as big an exaggeration as you might think.
So while I admit that I spent more time than I probably should have yelling at the screen and calling Deathstroke a cocksucker, ultimately I applaud the developers for having the balls to actually make the players WORK for their godsdamned rewards.
That being said, I must also point out that the difficulty level of the average thugs jumps up exponentially at about 20% completion. One minute you have guys with baseball bats and knives, maybe one or two guys in armor, and you're fighting groups of five or six at a time, tops; then you finish a story element mission and when you get back on the streets the rooftops are lined with snipers and 65% of the random thugs on the street have guns while the other 35% are either armored or carrying riot shields, and you're fighting 10 to 15 of them at a time. Within the span of an hour of gameplay I went from playing Batman as "I'm your worst nightmare" to Batman as "Um, maybe I'll just sit this one out and let them rob that hobo after all..."
The difficulty level of the game itself also causes concern when you consider that the whole "mystery solving" aspect of the game consists of you panning around the area until you see a big red arrow pointing at what you need to look at, then looking at it, then finding the next big red arrow pointing at the next clue. It's a strange dichotomy to try and work into a game - on the one hand, you have Batman: The World's Greatest Detective. On the other hand you have the players: people who may or may not think that putting their cat in the microwave is a good way to dry him off after a bath. So you can't make the puzzles and mysteries too hard to solve or they'd never get it... But just giving up the goods? I'm not cool with that either. Sure, I've sexed some easy/loose women in the past, but they weren't the ones I kept around or introduced to my friends or family. Bottom line - if you want to make that part of the game worth playing or even worth talking about, make us earn it.
There was also one bit of contention with the characterization of Batman and his relationship with Alfred... In the comics it is sometimes touched upon, especially in the "early days" stories, where Alfred has to stand up to Bruce and try to reign him in, lest he work himself to death as Batman. Now in the comics it usually goes: Bruce pushes himself too hard, but refuses to quit; Alfred tells him to knock it the fuck off; Bruce bitches about how he can't; Alfred brings up Bruce's parents and his promise to take care of little baby Bruce; Bruce backs off and realizes that Alfred is the only parent and family he has, and he really does have his best interests in mind.
In the game, however, there was a scene that didn't quite play out that way and it didn't sit right with me. Ultimately Bruce (in not so many words) told Alfred to fuck off and went back out on the streets again to kick the shit outta more bad guys. Not a grievous error, and certainly each iteration of Batman is open to the interpretation of the writers for that project, but this one wasn't right to me.
Short version: Fights get really hard really fast and the controls can suck ass sometimes.
The Final Verdict:
Without inheriting billions of dollars after watching your parents get murdered and then spending two decades mastering every martial art and science known to man, there is no better way to become Batman than by playing these games.
(Say... Is anybody keeping an eye on Bill Gates' children? 'Cause they're halfway there already with their parentage...)
If you're a fan of Batman you simply must play them - they really are that good. Everything you know and love about Batman is there and it's cranked up to 11. It is incredibly exciting to play and live the experience and it is pants-shittingly terrifying at times as well (after all, Batman does have mind-bending bad guys to contend with who will try to break your brain more than once). Being Batman is fun, pure and simple. The bad guys are BAD, so there's no moral grey-area to contend with, and in this game your one-man-war-on-crime is made so much more intense because, as a prequel, you're being hunted by the cops on top of your regular rogue's gallery.
On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, I give it a 4.5 because of the controls and because of the steep learning curve/difficulty level. Nothing that I found wrong with the game would ever make me stop playing it, no matter how frustrated I got, because everything else is just so much more awesome that you immediately forget about the bad shit as soon as it's gone.
Short version: Seriously, it's fucking BATMAN and it's AWESOME. Go buy it, or at the very least rent it for a long long time (GameFly is a great resource if you're low on cash but want to play games). You won't be disappointed.
