Batman’s always made the shadows his ally, but in Batman: Arkham Origins

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Its name, “Arkham Origins,” is a flagrant misnomer - it may be a prequel, but this story is neither about Arkham, nor is it an origin story in any significant way. It’s more of a traditional Batman plot that retreads some of The Dark Knight’s most familiar themes over its roughly eight hours of main story content: a self-destructive insistence on working alone, and how far he’ll go to avoid taking a life - a concept the final battle cleverly toys with. It’s a respectable plot that even concocts a plausible reason for Batman to face so many villains all in one night – a $50 million bounty on his head. But it’s the kind of prequel that screams “What were we thinking when we killed off that incredibly popular character? Undo! Undo!”The actors standing in for long-time Batman and Joker voices Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill do a good job in emulating their predecessors - Troy Baker’s Joker, in particular, is close enough that I might not have noticed immediately if I weren’t listening for it. Conroy will always be Batman for me, but his understudy does well enough.This younger Batman already has all his signature moves and gear, flies a fancy plane, and is on a first-name basis with pretty much every villain but The Joker. So at the cost of really selling the idea that these events happen prior to the other two games, Origins keeps the foundation of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City’s amazing combat intact, including every gadget in one form or another. (Mr. Freeze’s absence from the rogue’s gallery means the cryo-grenades are now concussion or glue grenades.)Two new enemy types add a little extra variety, notably the martial artists who can counter your attacks. But the only substantial change is one of those things that’s awesome for the first time you use it, but quickly reveals itself as a bad idea. The Shock Gauntlets are among the last gear you unlock, which is good, because once charged (by hitting a few guys in regular combat) and activated, they let you completely ignore everything that makes combat interesting. Riot shields, stun batons, armored thugs – Batman just punches ‘em. They’re basically a win button, and the kind of thing that doesn’t work in a prequel because why would Batman ever get rid of them?Meanwhile, in the stealth fights where Batman picks off armed thugs one by one, there’s another somewhat dirty-feeling win button: a remote grapple that strings up thugs without them even having to walk under a gargoyle. I found myself deliberately avoiding either of those gadgets, because I’m not in this to not fight criminals.Even so, I could live in the challenge rooms for days, trying to string together the ultimate, uninterrupted flow that includes each of the dozen or so moves and gadgets in Batman’s arsenal. With the gamepad in the right hands (which every so often, mine are) it looks like elaborate fight choreography. And Predator still makes me feel like a ninja, particularly when playing in challenge mode where I can disable certain gadgets or enable other handicaps.Out in the expanded and snow-covered open world, I found Gotham City beautiful but lifeless. In Arkham City, the excuse is that this part of town has been walled off and given to the criminals. Without that (admittedly far-fetched) scenario, the absence of any hint of civilian life makes Gotham feel eerily barren, especially next to Origins’ open-world peers and their populated streets. It may be the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, but streets teeming with nothing but decidedly un-jolly criminals are still weird.The northern half of the map, which is largely recycled from Arkham City, is connected to a new southern island by a tediously long bridge that your quest marker will frequently make you cross as you chase the next mission waypoint. The bridge stands out as crumby and inconvenient map design and I rushed to skip it with fast travel at every opportunity. Gotham is also full of annoying blockages that seem like Batman should be able to easily grapple or climb over, yet prove frustratingly insurmountable. Also, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions all suffer from framerate problems while gliding around the city. Those slowdowns are most pronounced on the Wii U, where I also ran into mid-game loading pauses. On PS3, I encountered audio glitches that got worse the longer I played – most noticeable during fast-travel animations.What constantly nagged at me, though, is that I spent the first few hours searching every corner of Arkham Origins for the DC Comics-themed Easter eggs that Rocksteady (the developer of the previous games) liberally stashed around the environments of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. But the most I ever saw outside of the Batcave was a Flying Graysons poster. That’s not to say there’s no incentive to explore – Gotham is, as ever, littered with collectable items, some of which are locked behind puzzles you have to gadget your way through – but they’re nowhere near as much fun as finding a hint that Scarecrow was here. Some of the love is missing here.Technically, there’s plenty of things to do around town, as it’s terrorized by a lineup of villains like The Penguin, Mad Hatter, and Anarky. Yet most of their missions boil down to the same “Go here, beat up a group of thugs, and deactivate/blow up a thing,” with variety limited to some of them having a timer on them. The one set that feels interesting are the radio towers, which must be disabled in order to unlock fast-travel locations. Those are mini-fortresses that integrate some tougher fights with light puzzle solving.For visual novelty, the new crime-scene investigations are impressive, and take the “zoom and enhance!” cliche to new extremes. Using the shoulder buttons to scrub through an augmented-reality reconstruction of events looks great, but it’s only barely interactive; all you do is find the next clue (hint: it’s the thing that’s highlighted for you) when prompted and scan it to get the next piece of the puzzle – no decision-making involved. It’s a better, showier use of Detective Mode than Asylum or City came up with, but still, it’s just for show. When using the Wii U Gamepad, you're encouraged (but not forced) to use the LCD as a viewfinder and control the first-person perspective camera with the motion controls instead of the sticks, which is unwieldy and gimmicky.The Wii U Gamepad is mostly useful as an always-on map, but outside of that Arkham Origins is strangely inconsistent about when it's used. The most notable omission being the Cryptographic Desequencer hacking tool. This is a gadget that looks and behaves much like the Gamepad itself, yet the Gamepad isn't used at all.Where Origins does its best work are in its boss fights. With only one exception, they’re all very physical, direct encounters with supervillains. A few stray dangerously close to quick-time event territory, since Arkham games’ combat is prompt-heavy to begin with, but the spectacle of the unique animations makes them feel like a Batman fight should - most notably the Deathstroke duel. Others are simply mob brawls or stealth fights with a particularly dangerous foe mixed in, but the added challenge of having to stay on the move while fighting to avoid bombs, for example, brings something different to it.This is the first Batman game to have multiplayer (on all platforms except Wii U), and the eight-player mode feels like a first draft. Most of the time you’re playing a mediocre third-person shooter in which your three-man team competes for territory control points with a rival gang. The twist is that two other randomly selected players are Batman and Robin (who doesn’t appear in the campaign) picking people on both sides off using Predator mode moves and an extremely clumsy version of the single-player combat. Granted, it’s a fairly clever idea – I do like how when I’m fighting other thugs I have to be fearful of a hero sneaking up behind me, and when I’m looking up at the gargoyle perches trying to shoot down a hero a thug is likely to shoot me in the back. Plus, two heroes working together can dominate using classic Batman-uses-a-minor-as-a-diversion tactics. But given the unremarkable shooting mechanics, the multiplayer mode is a novelty that I wouldn’t expect to get more than a few sessions out of. Wii U owners aren't missing much here.