So I started playing Arkham Origins yesterday to see if the criticisms levelled against it are justified. I haven't got far enough in yet to make an overall judgement but I have noticed (or possibly imagined) a few minor changes to the general combat system which have been frustrating me hugely. I looked it up and found this post on the Warner Bros. Games forum by 'EarthOne' which summarises the issue excellently:
"Before I start I want to say that I don't think this is a bad game at all. Just that unfortunately a lot of bad ideas came from WBM while developing this game. I'm all for making it more challenging, but this isn't, this is just ridiculous.
For God knows what reason, Warner Brothers Montreal though it would be a great idea to add unnecessary and plain stupid tweaks to the Freeflow combat system. I will only be talking about the combat here, as all of you probably already know about everything else that's been butchered in this game.
I've written some of this as a reply in a thread before, but this way an admin/dev might actually see this and pay some attention.
With the combat, I feel absolutely forced to counter all the time. When trying to maximise combo and points, countering is a waste of time unless it's too late and there is no other option.
However for some reason roughly every 7/10 times I evade, peform an arial attack or ultra-stun, I still get hit by an attacking thug while in mid-movement anyway... How is that logical? I'm basically being stopped ever getting great combos unless I make myself paranoid and hold my finger over the Triangle button the whole time, and half the time the counter doesn't even register and I get hit anyway.
Sometimes when countering a martial artist thug, it will just end my combo, even though I successfully countered him. Really.
Batman can no longer cancel his own hit animations anymore, so you're basically screwed if you're attacking someone or performing a move and then someone goes for you.
As well, sometimes when I'm in Freeflow Focus on a nice combo, I'll go to hit a thug who's a distance behind me, and Batman won't fly over and hit him, he just punches the air behind himself ending my streak.
On the flip side of that, the enemies are faster than Batman himself and for some reason can use their own form of Freeflow! If an enemy is going to attack me, the only things I can do are counter or evade assuming the counter actually registers and the off chance Batman actually evades without being hit. If an enemy is standing a distance away from you but is trying to hit you, they fly across the floor at you and hit you anyway. Realistic isn't it.
It is extremely unlikely that you will hit an enemy that is already going for you, even when you're in Freeflow Focus which is really stupid because you're basically being punished for having a good reaction time. Batman hits in almost slow motion half the time, while the enemies straight up smack you at quicker than normal speed.
Literally all the enimies you're confronting take shots at you one after the other straight away simultaneously. This just defeats the purpose of the whole Freeflow system which is designed to let you use the space around you to string a nice, smooth, flowing combo together. Yeah, that's pretty much removed from this game.
When trying to complete challenges like the Shadow Vigilante 15, it is extremely frustrating when your combo is ended by a thug either having quicker speed than the Flash, or them hitting you through every defence you have. Not to mention Batman just being an idiot and not hitting anyone while in Freeflow... /facepalm.
None of this ever happened in Arkham City, it was so much more smooth and logical.
On a side-rant as this has quite a big effect on the combat, why did they feel it necessary to swap L1 and L2's functions around, as well as R1 and R2's functions while aiming? That was such a stupid move.
Why when making the third game in a series would you think it's a good idea to alter the control scheme that everyone is used to, and not even provide an option to revert back?
I know it's not a huge change, but honestly it makes a huge difference. The PS3's triggers aren't great as it is, which just adds to the frustration. It maks it hard to string combos together when trying to use quick-fire gadgets, and I often flick into detective mode rather than using a gadget out of habit which instantly kills my combo.
Hopefully someone with the power the change this game will pay some attention to this and take it into consideration."
Initially I thought maybe I had just gotten worse at the game, having not played in a while, and assumed I was falsely blaming the game however having found a few other people who've found the same issues I'm now curious: Has anyone else noticed these changes and if so have they been as irritating for you as they have for me?
I've read (on this forum) about some people complaining about the slight tweaks to the combat system basically ruining the game. I was kinda worried about the game as it wasn't Rocksteady and it was a prequel. And from Jim Sterling's review to user opinions, I've basically lost all interest in playing it to be honest. It usually is those little tweaks that end up ruining something that was so great (as everything being in proper alignment is what made the thing great to begin with); it's similar to balancing an online shooter, you make the wrong minor buffs and nerfs and it ruins the game.
I didn't have a single problem on the PC version. Maybe it's a console thing. And since it's running at 30fps on a console, things can seem a bit sluggish. But for me Arkham Origins runs so much better than both AA and AC. An the combat, while tougher because enemies don't just wait for their turn to attack, isn't in any way ruining my fun. In fact, I quite enjoy the challenge.
Yeah, i noticed it, pretty much all i do is counter, try something else and get smacked. Maybe i'm just tired of the same combat after 3 games, but it simply isn't fun for me anymore, just repetitive as hell.
Jim's review is a worthless piece of shit if you ask me. He wasn't reviewing the game. He was reviewing the developer, the publisher and the state of the gaming industry. Arkham Origins is a fine game. Once the bugs are fixed it will be an excellent game.
TBH, I've finished AO and while it's a decent game, I feel it's the weakest of the 3 game Arkham games.
It feels more like a really big DLC for Arkham City, rather than a game in it's own right. I know there was a new development team and they clearly didn't want to tamper too much with the formula that made the first 2 games a success. But that being said, they've played it TOO safe and rather than expand on what's gone before they've just added to what's already been done.
Yeah, i noticed it, pretty much all i do is counter, try something else and get smacked. Maybe i'm just tired of the same combat after 3 games, but it simply isn't fun for me anymore, just repetitive as hell.
counter
hit
counter
counter
counter
counter
evade
hit
counter
B/Y (or circle/triangle)
counter
counter
....
Basically almost the entire fight is countering... and more often than not some autolock shit causes me to hit nothing.
I wasn't the greatest at the previous 2 games but at least I could do 60 to 70 hits fairly regularly. Now I can't even go a whole fight against 3 people without getting hit. Five hours in and my max combo is 33. What the hell is going on?
There are a couple of good things about it though. The double and triple counters are nice.
while I love the game (it has the best story of the lot for me) the combat does get on my nerves. I find myself conwtantly countering in most battles, but that doesn't work in battles with shield guys so I lose out of the combo alot because I don't have time to tackle them between the counters.
Jim's review is a worthless piece of shit if you ask me. He wasn't reviewing the game. He was reviewing the developer, the publisher and the state of the gaming industry. Arkham Origins is a fine game. Once the bugs are fixed it will be an excellent game.
I read the review and only the very last bit of Jim's review was complaining about gaming industry. He cited the story wasn't good, the villains weren't good (and the boss battles), the combat just wasn't right (like several forum users here have said), the online sucked, and the glitches. He gave a pretty long list of actual things he didn't like about the game. The flaws don't always have to be major for it to greatly impact a game. Slight tweaks can basically break Batman's combat system (along with mechanics of other games as well), some users have said that (like the post right above this one). I didn't like that they made it so you really couldn't choose what you upgraded or got when you leveled (which was something awesome about the previous games). I don't know if I will have the same opinion after playing it but I wasn't really excited about this game anyways (I want a sequel, not a prequel) and I wasn't going to buy it unless both critics and players just loved the shit out of it citing it's much better than City. I was and probably still will give it a play after the price goes down.
So I started playing Arkham Origins yesterday to see if the criticisms levelled against it are justified. I haven't got far enough in yet to make an overall judgement but I have noticed (or possibly imagined) a few minor changes to the general combat system which have been frustrating me hugely. I looked it up and found this post on the Warner Bros. Games forum by 'EarthOne' which summarises the issue excellently:
"Before I start I want to say that I don't think this is a bad game at all. Just that unfortunately a lot of bad ideas came from WBM while developing this game. I'm all for making it more challenging, but this isn't, this is just ridiculous.
For God knows what reason, Warner Brothers Montreal though it would be a great idea to add unnecessary and plain stupid tweaks to the Freeflow combat system. I will only be talking about the combat here, as all of you probably already know about everything else that's been butchered in this game.
I've written some of this as a reply in a thread before, but this way an admin/dev might actually see this and pay some attention.
With the combat, I feel absolutely forced to counter all the time. When trying to maximise combo and points, countering is a waste of time unless it's too late and there is no other option.
However for some reason roughly every 7/10 times I evade, peform an arial attack or ultra-stun, I still get hit by an attacking thug while in mid-movement anyway... How is that logical? I'm basically being stopped ever getting great combos unless I make myself paranoid and hold my finger over the Triangle button the whole time, and half the time the counter doesn't even register and I get hit anyway.
Sometimes when countering a martial artist thug, it will just end my combo, even though I successfully countered him. Really.
Batman can no longer cancel his own hit animations anymore, so you're basically screwed if you're attacking someone or performing a move and then someone goes for you.
As well, sometimes when I'm in Freeflow Focus on a nice combo, I'll go to hit a thug who's a distance behind me, and Batman won't fly over and hit him, he just punches the air behind himself ending my streak.
On the flip side of that, the enemies are faster than Batman himself and for some reason can use their own form of Freeflow! If an enemy is going to attack me, the only things I can do are counter or evade assuming the counter actually registers and the off chance Batman actually evades without being hit. If an enemy is standing a distance away from you but is trying to hit you, they fly across the floor at you and hit you anyway. Realistic isn't it.
It is extremely unlikely that you will hit an enemy that is already going for you, even when you're in Freeflow Focus which is really stupid because you're basically being punished for having a good reaction time. Batman hits in almost slow motion half the time, while the enemies straight up smack you at quicker than normal speed.
Literally all the enimies you're confronting take shots at you one after the other straight away simultaneously. This just defeats the purpose of the whole Freeflow system which is designed to let you use the space around you to string a nice, smooth, flowing combo together. Yeah, that's pretty much removed from this game.
When trying to complete challenges like the Shadow Vigilante 15, it is extremely frustrating when your combo is ended by a thug either having quicker speed than the Flash, or them hitting you through every defence you have. Not to mention Batman just being an idiot and not hitting anyone while in Freeflow... /facepalm.
None of this ever happened in Arkham City, it was so much more smooth and logical.
On a side-rant as this has quite a big effect on the combat, why did they feel it necessary to swap L1 and L2's functions around, as well as R1 and R2's functions while aiming? That was such a stupid move.
Why when making the third game in a series would you think it's a good idea to alter the control scheme that everyone is used to, and not even provide an option to revert back?
I know it's not a huge change, but honestly it makes a huge difference. The PS3's triggers aren't great as it is, which just adds to the frustration. It maks it hard to string combos together when trying to use quick-fire gadgets, and I often flick into detective mode rather than using a gadget out of habit which instantly kills my combo.
Hopefully someone with the power the change this game will pay some attention to this and take it into consideration."
Initially I thought maybe I had just gotten worse at the game, having not played in a while, and assumed I was falsely blaming the game however having found a few other people who've found the same issues I'm now curious: Has anyone else noticed these changes and if so have they been as irritating for you as they have for me?
To be fair, the "freeflow" enemies that the guy mentions (enemies just sliding across the ground even though they started their attack 10 feet away from where you're currently standing) actually WERE in Arkham City. However, I made a topic last week called "Arkham Origins Final Impression" or something in which I brought up pretty much everything that guy brings up as well. Suffice to say: the combat is certainly broken.
Oh, and lets not forget the bits that the person in your spoiler box DIDN'T mention. Like how the game has a fetish for forcing you to fight 20 guys in enclosed spaces that would be like trying to fight a gang riot in the confines of a prison cell. Seriously, there's one instance after you solve a crimescene where you have to fight two normal thugs, a martial artist, and an armored enforcer on a rooftop that could be no bigger than 5 feet by 10 feet.
And lets talk about the aiming, shall we? I believe "spoiler guy" (as I'm going to call him) at least touched on this with the whole "sometimes Batman just attacks air", but it goes beyond that. Used to be that Batman could, for instance, quick-fire the Batclaw over his shoulder by doing a half-spin to grab someone that was a distance behind him. This was handy because at the right times it could be used to pull yourself out of a group when you do the follow up clothes-line attack on the guy you Batclawed. Well now Batman can apparently only shoot the damn thing in the direction he's facing.
Sticking with the Batclaw, there's also the fact that it used to be it'd go after the nearest person in the direction you were pointing (or maybe the other games were just more accurate at who you'd be pointing at). Now it seems to ALWAYS go for the furthest person in the direction you're pointing...meaning that you'll shoot it right past the guy who's running up to punch you in the face and grab the guy who's dancing around 10 feet behind him...meaning that the first guy is most certainly going to punch you in the face when you pull on the guy you actually clawed.
This leads into the concept of prioritizing targets. Now one of my biggest complaints about this game was that you don't get the Disarm-Destroy move until damn near the very end of the game...in fact it might be the very last thing you unlock (excluding potention bat-challenge unlocks). But when you finally do get it, good luck using it to it's full advantage. You see Batman seems to have a preference for just grabbing the nearest weapon in sight. In Arkham city, lets say you've got four guys to the right of you. On guy's unarmed, two have bats, and one has a gun. When you used Disarm-Destroy while aiming to the right, Batman would prioritize "Alright, there's a dude with a gun, take that out first" and would properly dive between the guys with bats to grab the guy with the gun and destroy the gun. Not in Origins. In Origins, like I said, it's whatever the closest weapon is in the direction your pointing...and sometimes it doesn't even matter what direction you're pointing. Perfect example: I'm in a fight and there's a guy with a gun standing next to a guy holding a fire extinguisher over his head. Fire Extinguisher Man is slightly in front of Gun Man. I initiate Disarm Destroy, pointing at the guy with the gun. Batman instead headbutts the guy with the fire extinguisher, catches the extinguisher as the guy drops it, and throws it across the room....and proceeds to get pumped full of lead by the guy with the gun.
Sometimes Batman just refuses to initiate a beatdown after he cape-stuns someone. He'll just do a regular hit and the guy falls down...but you're expecting to have started a beatdown so you keep hitting the hit button only to start punching the air. Welp, there goes THAT combo...
In generally the game seems designed to prevent you from getting high combos...like...in every way that it possibly can. Like I don't know who's idea it was to make it so that you actually have to beat the crap out of interrogation targets as though they were normal guys, then finish the fight, then walk over and interrogate them, but it was a fucking shitty idea. I like that the interrogations are more than just "Tell me what I wanna know!" "Ok! Ok!", but seriously, any fight that requires you to interrogate someone is pretty much impossible to finish with a perfect, unbroken combo. When you punch the target for the last time, Batman doesn't follow through with the hit and basically just comes to a dead stop...most likely to get punched in the back of the head by the person who's been chasing him around for 4 moves.
Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that the evasive flip-jump usually resets the "agro" for most of the thugs around you...doesn't seem to be the case here. If a guy's coming to attack you and you flip over another guy...that first guy is just going to keep running after you until he gets his chance to actually attack. Then there's the fact that, going back to the whole aiming-thing, Batman will sometimes not bother flipping over anyone and will instead just dive-roll right into the middle of a group of thugs.
Also, the FreeFlow Focus is absolutely pointless. I mean, in Arkham City, you could definitely tell it was having a good effect by slowing everyone else down. Not in this game, all it does is make things even harder because now the edges of the screen are all blurry...if there's any speed reducing taking place for the thugs, it's barely noticeable.
Oh, and this doesn't really have anything to do with the combat, but FUCK the asshole who thought it'd be a good idea to put fucking snipers on every fucking rooftop once you're about 2/3rds of the way through the fucking game.
The only real issue I encountered is that thing where you try to attack someone behind you and he just punches the air.
Other than that I didn't really see any issues with the combat. There was a tendency to throw a bit too much at the player sometimes (10 regular guys with stuff to throw, two knife guys, two guys with guns, a shield user, a guy with a stun baton, 2 martial artists and a guy with armour in one fight felt like a bit much.) but that's more to do with my lack of skill than bad game design.
And that thing about countering a martial artist and it not working, I think it might be because martial artists sometimes do this 'double attack' which you have to counter twice. They get two counter indicators over their heads, but they're quite close together so it can just look like one.
Yeah, the combat's been like that since Asylum, honestly. Counter the fuck outta everyone or risk getting your ass kicked. What always annoyed me, was Batman's slow ass whenever knocking out stunned enemies. It's not easy to do that mid-fight.
Jim's review is a worthless piece of shit if you ask me. He wasn't reviewing the game. He was reviewing the developer, the publisher and the state of the gaming industry. Arkham Origins is a fine game. Once the bugs are fixed it will be an excellent game.
I read the review and only the very last bit of Jim's review was complaining about gaming industry. He cited the story wasn't good, the villains weren't good (and the boss battles), the combat just wasn't right (like several forum users here have said), the online sucked, and the glitches. He gave a pretty long list of actual things he didn't like about the game.
He didn't do the game any justice. He didn't review it objectively at all. The last bit may be directly about the gaming industry, but the entire review is actually about that. He used Arkham Origins as a scape goat to rage about other issues. a 3.5/10? That's completely unprofessional. The story is good, the boss battles are actually better than most boss battles in most video games. Definitely better that all of the boss battles from previous Arkham games.
Jim's review is a worthless piece of shit if you ask me. He wasn't reviewing the game. He was reviewing the developer, the publisher and the state of the gaming industry. Arkham Origins is a fine game. Once the bugs are fixed it will be an excellent game.
I read the review and only the very last bit of Jim's review was complaining about gaming industry. He cited the story wasn't good, the villains weren't good (and the boss battles), the combat just wasn't right (like several forum users here have said), the online sucked, and the glitches.
Except the villains were brilliant. I was kind of skeptical because Mark Hamill wasn't voicing the Joker, but the guy that did him did an excellent job and the relationship between The Joker and Batman in this game was great. The boss battles are one of the stronger points in the game, and were the best probably the best in the series, especially the Deathstroke fight. The combat isn't bad per se, it's just tighter and a bit more challenging, which isn't a bad thing. And as for the glitches, annoying as they may be, they can be fixed. And the only glitch I had was the vent in the tower so I can't really complain about glitches. As for online, I haven't tried it and I'm not going to.
What did Jim give it anyway? I haven't seen his review.
OT: Didn't have any problems with combat on PC, it was a bit more challenging and felt a bit tighter. That's it.
He didn't do the game any justice. He didn't review it objectively at all. The last bit may be directly about the gaming industry, but the entire review is actually about that. He used Arkham Origins as a scape goat to rage about other issues. a 3.5/10? That's completely unprofessional. The story is good, the boss battles are actually better than most boss battles in most video games. Definitely better that all of the boss battles from previous Arkham games.
Reviews are subjective so how are you supposed to review a game objectively? To some people, the change in combat breaks it (like several people have said in this very thread). To others, the change makes it more challenging. The combat in Batman was never about the challenge in taking out all the enemies but the challenge was performing those long ass combos that made you feel like the badass that Batman is. Many have complained that the fights have turned into just mashing counter pretty much the whole time, it's more challenging but much less fun. Several posters here have sighted that Batman prioritizes the wrong enemies just like Jim said in his review as well. The story and boss battles being better are your opinions, not an objective facts. From Jim's review, even without the last couple paragraphs, I knew that the game wasn't going to get over a 5/10, maybe a 3.5 is a bit harsh but Jim does use the whole scale where 5 is average (not 7) unlike the IGNs and Gamespots of the world. Jim felt the game was a below average experience and rated it as such.
Kungfu_Teddybear said:
Except the villains were brilliant. I was kind of skeptical because Mark Hamill wasn't voicing the Joker, but the guy that did him did an excellent job and the relationship between The Joker and Batman in this game was great. The boss battles are one of the stronger points in the game, and were the best probably the best in the series, especially the Deathstroke fight. The combat isn't bad per se, it's just tighter and a bit more challenging, which isn't a bad thing. And as for the glitches, annoying as they may be, they can be fixed. And the only glitch I had was the vent in the tower so I can't really complain about glitches. As for online, I haven't tried it and I'm not going to.
What did Jim give it anyway? I haven't seen his review.
Jim gave the game a 3.5. He actually mentioned that Troy Baker as the Joker was great.
To me, the combat in the Batman games isn't about the challenge of actually winning the fight but trying to pull off long and awesome freeflow combos, that's what makes it fun and challenging for me. It seems from other posters that its much too hard to keep lengthy combos going, which is very disappointing. Regardless if you even wanna try online, it's part of the game and if the online sucks, I'd say you have to at least take a full point off. Yeah, I realize Batman is about the single player so that's why I'd only take a point off. Now if COD's or BF's online sucked, I'd take at least 5 points off because those games are dependent on good online. If you include online in any game, it's part of the game and factors into the final score. Glitches CAN be fixed, but also may not be fixed. I don't have a problem with a review marking down points for current glitches, then adding a point back on if they then do indeed get fixed.
That's the old question, though.
Should the reviewer ignore the bugs and trust 'it will eventually work'?
From what I've read some people played a game that was almost unplayable because of glitches.
I'll personally play this game eventually, but not for a while until I hear the bugs are fixed. (And the prize drops)
To me, the combat in the Batman games isn't about the challenge of actually winning the fight but trying to pull off long and awesome freeflow combos, that's what makes it fun and challenging for me. It seems from other posters that its much too hard to keep lengthy combos going, which is very disappointing.
Well, I have the achievement for getting a x50 freeflow combo, so I'd say to people struggling to keep a combo going that it's a problem with them and not the game.
Also, a 3.5 out of 10 is a seriously unfair score.
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