Batman: Arkham Origins

Greetings, Batman: Arkham Origins is the third instalment in the Arkham series and serves as a prequel to Arkham Asylum. Unlike the rest of the franchise, including the up and coming Arkham Knight, Origins was developed by Warner Bros. Games Montreal instead of Rocksteady Studios. A few of the voice acting cast had been changed as well such as Kevin Conroy handing over the role of Batman to Roger Craig Smith. Mark Hamill had also ended his career voicing the Joker after Arkham City and the part was passed over to Troy Baker, who had voiced Robin and Two-Face previously. Similar to Arkham City, Origins has side quests that are centred on villains including the Riddler, the Mad Hatter and Anarky. The open world also provides the player with the opportunity to find hidden Anarky tags hidden throughout the large map and to stop crimes in order to gain experience points that can be spent on upgrades.

The story takes place on Christmas Eve, five years before the events of Arkham Asylum and begins with Black Mask escaping from Blackgate penitentiary. Black Mask, who is actually called Roman Sionis, is Don of the most powerful criminal syndicate in Gotham, facing competition from the Penguin and the Falcone family. After his successful escape he places a bounty of £50 million on Batman’s head, attracting the services of the world’s most notorious assassins. The most notable of the eight killers are Bane and Deadshot, who had appeared in the series beforehand, as well as introducing Deathstroke.

When trying to track down Black Mask and avoiding the assassins, Batman uncovers that the Penguin knows of Roman’s location. Batman then boards Penguin’s ship called the Final Offer, defeating two of the killers sent to kill him and finds out the location at an apartment complex. It appears that Black Mask, along with his girlfriend, had been murdered in that room but Batman deduces that the corpse is actually a body double, suggesting Black Mask was still alive and being targeted by an unknown villain. As such Batman attempts to unravel the mystery of the murder case, find the real Black Mask and fight off the world’s greatest assassins.

While I did enjoy the game I didn’t think it was as good as the two that came beforehand due to the plot being a bit thin. I also thought that while it does provide introductions for characters, including Batman’s future ally Oracle, it was missing the opportunity to provide other iconic characters that were in the other games, such as Two-Face or Poison Ivy, with an origin story. I’m looking forward to how Rocksteady will conclude the series but Arkham Knight won’t be released until 2015. Another issue I had with the game was that it didn’t seem to add any new elements to the series but this might change with inclusion of the Batmobile in Knight.

Plot=7/10

Characters=8/10

Graphics=8/10

Overall=7/10

Quote of the Day

At some point in their lives, 1 in 6 children will be abducted by the Dutch.

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