Batman: Arkham Origins Critique - Vengeance of the Bat

One nice thing I like about the dlc is the switch in how Batman refers to Victor and Ferris, until he sees what happened to Mr. Freeze he refers to them as Fries and Ferris. After the reveal he switches to calling him Victor and calls Boyle by his last name

Since imo the Black Mask quest is the worst imo, I’m going to throw my hat in the ring for how he should be fixed;

For Black Mask, the player should come across some joker thugs mutilated and killed. Batman decides to investigate and discovers the crime scene has markings of Black Masks MO and discovers a small scrap of his typical white suit in a thugs fingers.
He makes note of it and continues on his way but a thugs phone rings, triggering a mini cutscene, he answers the phone and it’s Sionis. He tells him that he’s simply talking back what’s his and that any man that betrayed him is going to pay, he also tells Batman to stay out of his way or else.
Bats goes on to investigate reports of a drug stash being guarded by loyalist black mask men who’ve come to blows with GCPD. Batman drops in and beats them all up then interrogates a thug to learn about or drug locations. He doesn’t know where they are as the men only know where their own stash’s are. But when Bats examines the van with the drugs in it he discovers that they have a unique chemical signature he can track. So he does that in combined with listening out for the GCPD scanner to destroy two more stash’s. At this point Black Mask calls again to tell him that he’s sick of him and to come for an ass-kicking at the Old Gotham Church.
Batman goes and has a short predator encounter on the grounds of the church, about 5-6 guys with guns, then sneaks inside. He watches from a gargoyle, there’s boxes of the drugs all around the room and he listens to Sionis brief his men and tells them what they need to do. Bats can then drop in and have the usual mini cutscene which ends with Sionis putting on the mask and the fight begins. There’s 10 thugs, 3 are armoured, 2 have bats, 2 have knives, 1 has a shield and 2 are normal, Sionis himself has a rifle that he shoot’s at us with.
After knocking down about half of the thugs, player gets a prompt to disarm Sionis who you’ve just being dodging up to this point. You disarm and destroy the rifle and theres another mini cutscene, Sionis compliments Batmans brutality but tells him that he’s finished now. He goes up to an armoured thug and says time for a promotion, injecting him with syringe of Venom and pushing him in Batmans direction. Now Bats has to fight a venom thug until he passes out from a bad dose, 4 thugs and Sionis dual wielding handguns.
After this is done he goes to arrest Sionis but he refuses to get taken in and pulls a flashbang from his coat to throw at Bats, he counters and knocks it away but it detonated and triggers a reaction in the chemical makeup of the drugs.
Sionis freaks out and runs to the back of the room to try save a few boxes, Bats drags the other thugs out into the front of the church and goes back into the room yelling at Sionis. He doesn’t listen and as he reaches the boxes they ignited and explode right in front of him. Bats runs to grab his body and gets him out of there, the Black Mask now fused to his head.

The end of this quest has a scene where Bats talks to Gordon who says that Sionis should be fine but that mask isn’t coming off anytime soon.
That’s my unprofessional overview for how I’d change it a bit.

If you count the number of times Joker fires his revolver during the hotel sequence, it's actually likely it was empty by the time he pointed it at himself.

You know you can punch wooden walls right? You don't need explosive gel for them

AYYYY MY REDDIT POST WAS FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO. I JUST DISCOVERED THIS CHANNEL WATCHING BIOSHOCK CRITIQUES AND FOUND MY POST HERE. BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS IT. WOW

Imagine how many innocent lives were lost cause Batman only arrests Villains knowing FULL WELL the corruption of the Justice system AND Arkham... it's disgusting how many innocent lives Batman is responsible for because he's too scared to scar his own soul

Ah, Arkham Origins. My favourite storyline in the Arkham franchise - by a mile.

I agree with every criticism you make here - including and ESPECIALLY the "Dark Knight" system. Because predator rooms can't be repeated, some of the predator challenges were outright missable if you didn't take care to hit each challenge quickly as they came along. The exotic challenges required the use of vents, hanging ledges and grates, and there weren't many maps which satisfied those requirements. You could complete the Predator mode of the Dark Knight system in a single playthrough - but only if you went in with a plan.

Seriously, there was so much wrong with that system. Not least that completing a challenge didn't count if you hadn't unlocked it yet...

...And yet, I can forgive Arkham Origins for just how damn good the campaign is.

I used to challenge myself to complete "I Am The Knight" difficulty in a single night - and I could do it too. Sit down at 8-ish pm, complete the game's first act before midnight, trigger Alfred's "It's midnight, Sir" dialogue ON THE DOT of 12:00am, and following through into the early hours of the morning, finishing up the return to Blackgate just before dawn. And that's completing every side-quest (but not all Enigma's datapackets and antenna - that'd be too much. Fortunately the game keeps those unlocked between playthroughs).

Bane's boss fight terrified me on I Am The Knight - climbing the Royal Hotel Towers, ascending through the Joker's madness, and KNOWING that Bane was waiting for me. The Bane-Pain-Train was unpredictable, and more than once Bane ended a run SEVERAL HOURS in. And I loved that terror for how it mirrorred Bruce's own dread at witnessing the Joker's depravity.

For all it's faults, this is the Arkham game I keep coming back to. It's the one that really made me FEEL like Batman (there, I said it) - not just feel like I was playing at being the Bat.

Holy shit Bruce is weird looking in this game

My favourite Batman story is that one where the joker leaves a big black bomb with a long fuse and batman has to run all around carrying it over his head.

I actually disagree about the snow. While I can understand the notion that it's kind of bland or colorless, but it's the ONLY arkham game (without the mr freeze dlc) that like has open world snow. And the Christmas vibe isn't even in that dlc so I don't think they can be compared. While I was actively missing the speed and controls of the other arkham games, there was this little kid in me that just kept remembering batman returns and how much that game really did feel like an old school batman movie that Tim Burton made, while the others give me more of a vibe of the Christian bale films. These things aren't necessarily because of the LOCATION setting, but the TIME setting. Aside from Halloween (obviously I mean cmon) I think Christmas is weirdly the only other holiday that works with batman, and unlike Halloween I can't explain it.

Origins was never my favourite. I think it's gone from 3/4 to 4/4 with replays of the series since I've softened to how much Knight slapped up around the face with "Batman can't do shit without his car." I was loving the game on release day until that grim moment when it went from "look at all these obscure villains and unseen plots" to "oh look. It's Joker. Again." That, and game-breaking bugs early on, and completely ignoring events that were already canon in the Arkham universe, made it a much more sour experience than the other Arkham games. That, and while I like the obscure and unique villains, the whole story line of "there's 8 'assassins'" was a really weak plot line to justify throwing supervillains at us.

-100 for using RTA remasterers still the best Arkham retrospectives on the platform imo

No regular dude should be able to take a straight up brain-punch from Bats. Damage spongie enemies are the entire reason I never played this series.

Batman Arkham Orgins, Batman Begins, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm and (of course) Batman: Year One are (and most likely will always be) the best tellings of Batman's orgin and/or early days

For the algorithm

The Cyrus Pinckney mystery and payoff was one of my favorite things in the series. Wish it had a bit of resolution in Knight

My least favorite in the series. Feels like arkham city but butchered, as if all the charm was sucked out of city

A "What-If" story or game (or even mutliple) set in this game and going from there where Bruce recruited Edward Nigma to his side and (maybe) semi-allied with Anarchy and his followers would be quite the thing. An alternate Arkhamverse.

Edward Nigma knows the importance of secret identities as he learned of what happened to Alfred as Bane uncovered the identity of Batman. So he took the name of the Riddler, mainly because he refused to go with a bat or bird theme. He wanted to be his own thing.

As the years progresses, Nigma's mental issues became more severe. Maybe in part due to exposition to various toxins used by certain criminals. Thankfully, he is not alone and he has other to help him keep himself grounded. In-game/in-story, we could have Riddler starts to go on about his genius intellect, only for Oracle/Batgirl to drag him back to earth. And the Riddler calms down after a few shallow then deep breaths and thanks her for it.

Nigma would be terrified of his mental issues because of what it means. He does not want to leave his allies, his friends, his family behind to go elsewhere and get help. Because what if they need him? But if his issues becomes too severe and he is Gotham, it means Arkham Asylum. Near Batman's greatest villains and most importantly, the Joker.

And Nigma is (rightfully) terrified of that possibility. What if he talks and reveals the secrets he holds? And so, he starts shaping his egomania, his showmanship, toward an individual who will not reveal a thing about the secrets he knows to those he deems lesser... and that means everyone except a few that he keeps sharpening the mind of.


Anarchy meanwhile would be a difficult ally to make. He would need guarantees, something to help him trust the Dark Knight. Anarchy says that he (and others) lack Batman's strength, skills and gadgets and thus cannot serve the cause of justice as Batman could. In a parallel of Jason Todd (hell, in such a continuity, Jason could have come to Batman's attention through Anarchy), Anarchy and his group shows that even criminal can change if given the chance.

It would be a difficult and shaky alliance. One that is more established during a version of Cold, Cold Heart. Where Anarchy could collaborate with Batman to take the fight to Gothcorp. Yet at the same time, Batman could challenge Anarchy's view of thing because the reason Fries accepted Boyle's deal was that he needed ressources and money he did not have on his own. And without enterprises, governments, institutions and corporations, how do you finance and work on the various advances in various fields?

Batman provides training and equipment (not to the same quality as his own) to the Sons of Anarchy and in exchange, the latter must not kill and serve justice. They serve as extra manpower that is not directly under Batman's control in times of crisis.

At the same time, Anarchy is eventually confronted with the truth of Batman's identity. Anarchy, who saw Corporations, establishments and the rich as the enemy to be torn down, learns about how Bruce Wayne chose to become Batman. And Anarchy has a chance to help Bruse Wayne better funnel his money in helping the less fortune. And yet, Anarchy has been helped by a corporation for all this time he worked with Batman. A crisis of faith, maybe.

Its a travesty this game was never made available to current consoles. I don't even need a remaster.. just give me a digital download.

Multiplayer is underrated and wish they brought it back somehow.

My favorite game in the series and I still hope this game gets a remaster. City is the best in the series followed by Asylum. To me Origins the writing and characters were done the best in the series here. The game has it flaws the side quests, enigma collectibles, and the shock gloves. They were fun but it makes the fights to easy. The cold heart was very good but bloated with boring side content. I enjoyed Arkham Knight but it was to easily predictable and it managed to take the feeling of being the batman into become the batmobile/tank. Playing Gotham knights now Origins is hands down the better game that WB Montreal has done. Knights the concept of it isn't horrible it's the execution. I agree with your takes on the game but it still is my favorite I can acknowledge Asylum and City are the better games. My ranking of the series is City, Asylum, Origins, Arkham Knight, and Gotham Knights. Though I wouldn't put Gotham Knights anywhere near the Arkham series.

I also like the Cinematography in this game.
It's very handheld & fast paced and feels very unique from the other games.

I absolutely love Batman Arkham Origins, for me I don’t think of the Arkham games as a trilogy more of a quadrilogy.
Yeah it had some glitches but what game doesn’t and Origins is still good to this day even after playing it on the XBX.

Origins had some of the memorable Boss fights such as Death-stroke, Bane, Flyer fly.

This game is 1 of the few good adaptations of Bane.

If this gane came out exactly as it did but with Rocksteady on the title screen, nobody would have bitched about it

Troy Baker was excellent as the joker in this game. I thought that Roger Craig Smith was good as Batman but channeled too much of Bale’s Batman when he gets mad at times

Blows my mind at how many people and rocksteady ignore this game it’s definitely on par with the other games imo

Batman NOEL the comic is great

I love Origins because they finally did Bane justice.

That elevator scene is my favorite scene from the game.

Once again I discovered Monty channel and I know he hates Geoff Johns 3 Jokers, Talia and is bias towards Barbara

Brings back memories working on this game for the last 6 months of its development. It was great fun to add to the open world of the Arkham series, shame the game never really got the acknowledgement it deserved.

Pretty sure the size of the bridge is the primary reason the fast travel system even exists.
It's not like it makes Batman magically teleport. He grapples onto the Batwing and skydives into Gotham.
...
I thought it was cool... :P

comment, to boost engagement

Also, you forgot something cool about Batmans growth. After the fight with Cutioner, Bruce leaves him there like he's some regular criminal and at some point, Tracey announces that Cutioner is awake and after Batman. Batman realizes he made a mistake by not restraining Cutioner and calling the police after the fight. The first thing Bruce does after beating Deathstroke at the end of the same level is immediately tie up DS and contacts Alfred to inform the police. That was a cool detail to me

Crocs designed is based on real life crocodiles. When theyre smaller, their teeth and scales are smooth and sfiter in their features. As they mature, their teeth and scales get more jagged and tougher and menacing. Rocksteady made Croc more and more animal like as the story progressed, so WB Montreal purposely designing Croc to resemble a young crocodile makes sense on the canon

I really liked Origins, and I thought that most criticism was really unfair. Good story, good Art, and GREAT voice acting.

the running joke of brining up roger in bugsnax instead of Sonic makes me laugh every time

I think this game would have been better if they focused on just Blackgate like how Arkam Asylum did with, well the titular location.
Or if it took place over multiple days instead of just one day, and focus more on the corruption of Gotham, not the assassins.

Who voiced Alfred? Stephen Fry?

Comment for the algorithm

Call me crazy but gliding in Pioneer's bridge was relaxing to me, don't know why

"Pull yourselves up by your boot straps" means to put your boots on ffs

Is it just me or does the Arkham series have the most critiques of any video game ever 😂

As much as i love the arkham games, they did overuse the joker, it would of been great to see some of his other rouges to get their time to shine