Batman: Arkham Origins

Batman: Arkham Origins is the BioShock 2 of its series: an obviously publisher-mandated follow-up to a classic game created by a secondary team while the original devs work on the game’s real sequel. It even had crowbarred-in online multiplayer that no one asked for. And, like BioShock 2, despite all of that, it’s still somehow not half bad. Perhaps it’s because the Arkham series provides the best action-stealth hybrid template that we’re likely to ever see, and Arkham Origins plays extremely similarly to Arkham City. There are some new gadgets, enemy types, and game mechanics, but they’re all haphazardly implemented. The new counter-countering martial artist enemies are a welcome addition, and the versatile remote claw is a lot of fun, but it and the shock gloves completely eliminate nuance from the stealth and combat, respectively. Additionally, the new “crime scene reconstruction” feature is basically a flashy contextual button prompt.

While I wouldn’t consider the similarity to be an egregious flaw, it would be reasonably accurate to summarize Origins as a version of City that’s just slightly worse at everything. It repurposes the gloriously-dilapidated map from City but also adds a second half of equal size. It’s still pretty densely populated by open-world standards, though it also inherits the slightly inconvenient construction of its predecessor, because this Batman’s movement abilities were originally designed for the more Metroidvania-like Arkham Asylum. The one area where Origins exceeds the previous titles is its boss fights, which usually focus on a single facet of Batman’s skillset and feel more in line with the spirit of the game as a whole than they’ve ever been. Furthermore, the story, while suffering from the expected comic book logic, is interesting for its depictions of both Batman’s early career and his relationship with his enemies.