5 Things I Dislike About BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS


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Last week I wrote an article about what I liked about Batman: Arkham Origins (if you didn’t read it, click here). Now that I’ve gotten more time in on the game, I think it’s time to break down what I don’t like about the game. Don’t get me wrong, this is a solid game and I give it a 7.8/10. Hopefully Rocksteady is off somewhere creating a next-generation Batman game (I’m praying for Batman Beyond) that will bring the series back to its former glory. But until then, let’s go over the problems with this game.

#5 – TOO MANY GLITCHES

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Since the early days of Playstation and Xbox, players expect one or two glitches in games. Too bad Origins is littered with them. I had the game crash on me twice in a row while fast traveling and I came across bugs that made enemies become untouchable or blew them away. At one point, I needed to restart a mission because a character I needed to interrogate couldn’t be interrogated. I read other players reporting bugs online, such as ledges you can’t climb and out of sync video and audio. Apparently WB Games didn’t spend the amount of time fine-tuning their product as Rocksteady did before them. This sometimes happens when you deal with major companies who have nothing to lose.

#4 – ROBIN IS A WASTED CHARACTER

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One of my favorite things about Batman: Arkham City was seeing Robin appear in the story and challenge maps as a bad-ass character. If you’ve read the comics, you’d know that Tim Drake is that and more. But most people didn’t think that would translate into a video game. But as usual Rocksteady does the impossible. This is where WB Games should’ve completely copied their predecessors and made Dick Grayson just as bad-ass but failed miserably. Robin is only accessible in the multiplayer mode and not the challenge maps, which completely bummed me out. Even though Deathstroke was added to the challenge maps (which was a nice touch), his fighting skills are almost a complete copy of Robin’s. For that laziness alone on WB Games’ part, this game should’ve been $5 cheaper.

#3 – LADY SHIVA FIGHT WAS A LETDOWN

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I’m sure most people had an assassin they were looking forward to fighting before Origins came out. For me it was Lady Shiva. After that awesome battle with Deathstroke at the beginning of the game, I expected to punch, counter, and dodge until my thumbs hurt fighting someone that Batman claims is a better fighter than him. Sadly that fight was more philosophical than physical, with Shiva trying to teach a young Batman how pointless his mission is. Though she was portrayed effortlessly by Kelly Hu (who voices as many DC female characters as Tara Strong), this was one of the less threatening assassins in the game.

#2 – JOKER IS THE CENTRAL VILLAIN…AGAIN

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When I first read about Origins, I’d already guessed it would be about Gotham City’s shift from mobs to psychos as their biggest problem. So when I found out that Black Mask was the central villain, I was excited because he fits into both criminal categories. He’s a gangster that wears a mask and tortures people, but he’s not completely nuts (at least not worthy of Arkham Asylum). Imagine how thrown off I was when I found out that Joker took his place and ordered the hit on Batman. Don’t get me wrong I love the Joker but he is too overused in this game series. I think he should’ve just been a side mission with MAYBE a DLC episode like Harley Quinn’s Revenge in Arkham City. Can someone else in Batman’s enormous rogues gallery get a little more attention???

#1 – JUST DIDN’T FEEL LIKE A PREQUEL

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Prequels are difficult in any type of genre. Origins get a B+ for effort, I didn’t feel like this was a game makes me think this happened years before the rest. If you want to convince fans that this is a prequel, you need to do more than make Jim Gordon’s hair red and have everyone watching box TV sets instead of flat screens. Besides showing a teenage Barbara Gordon, I honestly feel like Star Wars put more effort into their prequels, and that’s saying something.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on this game???