Zero Punctuation: Batman: Arkham Origins

[daxterx2005]

Pokemon Cameos, I approve.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

and yet Yahtzee didn't answer the hard hitting question that every fan of batman wants to know...

...is the ten-eyed man in this game?

He is not.

Oh... you weren't really asking? Just making a point? And now I've gone and shown my uber-nerd undergarments because I know exactly who the Ten-Eyed Man is?

Dog bollocks.

 

[Falterfire]

That said, I've seen this criticism come up a few times and I have to wonder "why?" What do random people doing things completely unconnected to Batman in any way really add to the game?

The biggest thing they add is context - You are Batman, a hero who ostensibly does what he does to save the good people of Gotham and restore Gotham to glory.

When you only meet two halfway decent people in the entire game and literally every single other person is a gang member you have to wonder if maybe Ra's didn't have the right idea in the first place - Why bother saving Gotham is the only people in it are all felons?

 

[Yuuki]

Humble Bundle [https://www.humblebundle.com/] deal is on for this game right now, you can basically get it for $5 if you want! But you can pay more since it's all going to charity

Is it just me or has Yahtzee REALLY slowed down his talking speed compared to his videos during 2010-2012. Like...really, really slowed down. Sounds just like a regular person now -_-

I'm pretty sure we're just used to him now.

I did expect it to be nowhere near the quality of the first two, but I didn't expect it to be shit.

Bleh, you're probably right.

Still, his Batman: Arkham Asylum review seemed a tad faster: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/926-Batman-Arkham-Asylum

And his Mass Effect 2 review seemed to be even faster than that: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1461-Mass-Effect-2

 

[Thanatos2k]

No Yahtzee, you aren't crazy - they did reuse a lot of assets from Arkham City.

How else do you think they shoved the game out the door so fast after moving it to a new studio?

 

[AgentLampshade]

Maybe that's why the combat seems a lot harder. He's wearing a bigger belt; slowing him down.

 

[Hellfireboy]

So Gotham City is a city of nothing but goons everywhere? Jeez, that sounds like something awful...

Actually, if you listen to the ambient dialogue, is really isn't. Some of the random dudes roaming the city seem to be clearly there because they're homeless. So what we really have is a super rich guy flying around the city in a fetish outfit beating up on the homeless. The guys at WB Montreal should have put more thought into the population of the city. But then again they should have put a bit more though into a lot of things in this game.

 

[Muspelheim]

So Gotham City is a city of nothing but goons everywhere? Jeez, that sounds like something awful...

Actually, if you listen to the ambient dialogue, is really isn't. Some of the random dudes roaming the city seem to be clearly there because they're homeless. So what we really have is a super rich guy flying around the city in a fetish outfit beating up on the homeless. The guys at WB Montreal should have put more thought into the population of the city. But then again they should have put a bit more though into a lot of things in this game.

Welp, that explains Frank Miller's Bat-Boner for Brucey rather well, come to think of it.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Bugs aside, I've had a couple of freezes, I have been enjoying it. It is iterative, but so are a lot of franchises, like CoD, Assassins Creed (The three with Ezio especially) and yet those games get a free pass. It's also done a better job of the boss battles then the previous games so far in my opinion, you fight them more directly then in the other games, with you actually being able to punch some of them etc. I haven't finished the game yet, but I'm also enjoying the story too.

It's not perfect, but for a new studio, at least they didn't fuck it up beyond recognition like some do when they take over franchises. It may not have changed the franchise up like Arkham City did by doing new things, but at least they didn't market it that way. If you want more Batman, I'd still recommend grabbing it at some point, but if you want to wait until it's cheaper, I don't blame you for being skeptical.

No Yahtzee, you aren't crazy - they did reuse a lot of assets from Arkham City.

How else do you think they shoved the game out the door so fast after moving it to a new studio?

To be fair, it's set in the same city, and it's no longer flooded and damaged to heck either, plus there's another half of the map that's completely new.

That said, I've seen this criticism come up a few times and I have to wonder "why?" What do random people doing things completely unconnected to Batman in any way really add to the game?

The biggest thing they add is context - You are Batman, a hero who ostensibly does what he does to save the good people of Gotham and restore Gotham to glory.

When you only meet two halfway decent people in the entire game and literally every single other person is a gang member you have to wonder if maybe Ra's didn't have the right idea in the first place - Why bother saving Gotham is the only people in it are all felons?

Is that all you want? Do the crime missions then. Often they're people being mugged. Not to mention the opening missions of the game where you save a bunch of reporters in the jail. Try the Anarky missions as well. Technically bad guys, but if you slow down and listen to them, there's a fair amount of grey in them as well.

The context is there.. it's just not slapping you in the face.

I picked up on that too, the crime missions seem to have a bit of variance which is nice.

 

[lithiumvocals]

So Gotham City is a city of nothing but goons everywhere? Jeez, that sounds like something awful...

Well to be fair, it is contextualized despite what Yahtzee said. It's just a bullshit excuse to not have to make non-villain AI routines, but still.

Also, not that it's any different in practice, but half the thugs are in fact cops. Which are basically just one of the gangs since this is early Batman life.

Well at least I wasn't hung for my horrible horrible pun.

Wait wha..?

...

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

For shame.

 

[C14N]

That said, I've seen this criticism come up a few times and I have to wonder "why?" What do random people doing things completely unconnected to Batman in any way really add to the game?

The biggest thing they add is context - You are Batman, a hero who ostensibly does what he does to save the good people of Gotham and restore Gotham to glory.

When you only meet two halfway decent people in the entire game and literally every single other person is a gang member you have to wonder if maybe Ra's didn't have the right idea in the first place - Why bother saving Gotham is the only people in it are all felons?

Because the moral thing to do is to beat the shit out of every single one of them until they're in a coma (which I assume is what happens since they don't die and you never see any of them wake up).

 

[EHKOS]

So I heard WB hired that studio to fill in a Batman game to give Rocksteady time for a real sequel, which I hope is true. Because with the

Spoiler

Joker gone

there is only one direction to go...BEYOND.

So I'm really hoping that rumor is true, that ROCKSTEADY is doing it, and it is a Beyond game. Because they already made the suit model, and jet boots could replace the grapple accelerator, and...well...OK so most of the Beyond villains suck, but it would still be awesome.

 

[Spud of Doom]

Really well-spoken video this time. Often I feel like ZP is a bit unfocused, but today's episode had a lot of useful things to say without too much hyperbole.

 

[MCerberus]

So over/under on how many weeks before Yahtzee is unable to delay his yearly trip into spunkgargleweewee town? I say 2 weeks, making the review(s) come on 11/20

 

[VikingKing]

Unfortunately, I didn't run into those kinds of bugs. Mine were nowhere near as interesting and mainly consisted of the frame rating chugging itself to death like a frat boy at a New Years Eve party.

 

[katsabas]

What pains me most to realize is that Arkham City was actually more alive than Gotham. I didn't believe it at first but in Arkham you had Ace Chemicals, Solomon Wayne Courthouse, Sionis Steel Mill, Monarch Theater, Old Gotham, Iceberg Lounge, Old GCPD, Maxie Zeus' Club etc.

The perfection of the game was in its' details and there were none to be found in Origins. Lazy, lazy, lazy all over. Bane as the final boss ? Really ? From first boss to demoted to extra, we get Bane as the final boss ? It all showed such promise with Batman actually being wanted by both the mob and the police.

The police should have played a bigger role and the city should have been more alive ! I mean, Batman Return was on Christmas and every time there's a scene, there are people in the street. There should have been people in the city ! Supervillains causing havok as crimes in progress ! Spiderman 2 did it !

It could have been like: stop a crime but make it easier for the police to find you. Piss em off long enough, they dispatch SWAT, helicopters, tanks maybe, anything. Like the Heat levels in Most Wanted.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Humble Bundle [https://www.humblebundle.com/] deal is on for this game right now, you can basically get it for $5 if you want! But you can pay more since it's all going to charity

That's just for City and Asylum, not this game.

Batman starts off with all his crap in this game because he hasn't yet learned to streamline. City points this out because it was actually a common criticism in both Asylum and City -- "Why do you have to unlock his crap? Shouldn't he have it already?" In Asylum and City he takes as little as he expects to need, and then gets more when he needs it. In Origins, he's toting most of his kit from the get-go. (Which, to me, also helps to explain why combat is so much harder.)

Exactly. Batman is still kind of green at this point, trained but without much practical experience. As a result he doesn't know to take only what he needs and feels like being fancy with his fighting moves instead of just taking his enemies down ASAP, which means he's more susceptible to getting overwhelmed by groups.

No 'normals' are running around because, not only is the city filled with criminals, so the night-life is pretty limited already (listen to the guys talking on the bridge about trying to find something to do), but the cops know about the hit and so have put out a curfew, and on top of that, it's apparently "the storm of the century". So the only ones out are the ones who either fear what their boss will do to them if they aren't, or are getting paid exorbitantly to do so.

That, and lest we all forget, Gotham City is a crime filled hell hole at the best of times, full of gangs, serial killers, and other such thugs. Curfew or not, bad weather or not, unless they were cops or something like that all but the most stupid and/or desperate of honest people would be off the streets, and Batman hasn't been around long enough to really clean up Gotham even as much as he can at this point. Also it's the middle of the night, there wouldn't be many people out to begin with even if it wasn't already borderline suicidal to be out at night in Gotham.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Not sure which is more sad. Those who had to stop the video to check on the villains, or myself. Who didn't. No, not even for Crazy Quilt.

I feel the same way. Every time Yahtzee said that these were all the D list villains it made me cringe a little. Just because they haven't appeared in a movie doesn't make them D list. Deathstroke is fucking awesome, and so is Firefly, so quit banging on about Firefly.