Gadgetory

what's up Internet Kevin here on ticket tomorrow we're covering all the biggest PC games to come out this holiday season and today we're bringing our full review of Batman Arkham origins from the guys at WB games Montreal which is the same team responsible for making the Arkham City remake for the Wii U not the original two games which is made by rocksteady now does this fact hold it back from being as good as the others let's go ahead and find out so to begin with this game is extremely buggy the games been out for a little over two weeks now and it seems as though for every bug they fix about two more get discovered or created in their place these bugs have varied from minor inconveniences and odd events to situations that require you to reload you're safe because you can't make progress or in some extreme cases that have been reported The Lost game progress I myself had to reload save points repeatedly mainly due to some of the fight events not triggering properly like needing to interrogate a gang member and the options simply not prompting now of course problems like this can be fixed over time but a botched launch like this does mean that you're better off waiting to see all the bugs fixed rather than jump ahead and spend your money now now once you get a chance to actually play the game because the bugs are fixed or you just work your way through it right now and hope for no major problems to show up you'll find that it's actually a really solid Batman game visually it's nice and smooth with a decently detailed albeit barren City now in our system which includes a gtx 780 and an i7 4770k processor running on the settings you see here we got average frame rates of 70.8 and 80.2 with physics on and off on 2560 by 1440 and on 1920 by 1080 we got average frame rates of 92 and 124 it's pretty obvious that WB games Montreal took the approach of if it's not broke don't fix it as this game has a lot in common with Arkham City including reusing a lot of the same areas on the map albeit slightly redesigned since its earlier in the timeline as well as we're using a lot of the same combat mechanics and gadgets from the earlier games the free-flow combat system works the same as it did in Arkham City though there are a few new enemies that force you to adjust your tactics a bit including martial artists that can also counter-attack or just big bruiser enemies that you have to dodge the system itself is extremely fluid and still one of the most standout aspects of the game's design offering a stylish combat system that relies heavily on built up momentum and skilled timing of button presses with a good deal of situational awareness one new gimmick I really liked was the updated Detective Mode which has you're not only analyzing clues but also recreating crime scenes which makes the whole activity a lot more interactive and there's a number of main story and side quests that revolve around its use storyline wise this game takes place before the first two and only one year into Bruce Wayne's time as The Dark Knight now I really think WB games did a great job on this because they did a really good job of respecting a lot of Batman tropes and conventions while still doing enough distinct and unique things to make it their own you know because it's so early in Batman's career a number of familiar setting pieces have yet to be established and you see how they develop over the course of origin story line with the current time showing Alfred constantly disapproving of Bruce's career choice the populist thinking he's a myth and the police force in its entirety being a lot more corrupt and directly opposed to Batman's actions they did a solid job writing the story and while it's a bit slow and weak at first once you hit the game's midpoint it's able to stand almost toe-to-toe with Arkham City's now well the story itself is interesting and the game's level designs are very reminiscent of Arkham City's one place where I feel like this one really fell short in comparison is its boss battles while still fun and in some cases quite challenging a lot of them rely a lot more on simple mastery of the games free flow combat system rather than require more unique tactics or gadgets like in Arkham City only two of them in fact really worked that much differently when compared to just fighting regular tough enemies in comparison to Arkham City which had a lot of really flavorful boss fights like Solomon Grundy mr. freeze or Clayface the game is still a lot of fun despite this it's just one of those things that I feel really heavily impacts how memorable the overall experience is when so much time has passed since playing now the one big change in new addition to Batman Arkham origins is the multiplayer mode which is developed by Splash Damage the same guys behind brink and enemy territory quake Wars as well as a few other shooters and multiplayer modes in this mode players fight as a member of one of three teams two teams of three that consist of gang members loyal to Bane or Joker and one team of two consisting of Batman and Robin the two gangs feud by wiping each other out with limited reinforcements as well as a territory control mechanic that helps increase and recover more reinforcements over time while this is happening the Batman and Robin players stalk both teams and try to scare both away by feeling an intimidation meter which is accomplished by mixing up different forms of knockouts getting killed lowers this meter and rewards the game responsible with an immediate additional reinforcement when playing multiple matches in a row players take turns being randomly selected for who gets to be the heroes people can opt out and whoever was playing heroes before are automatically excluded for the next match both games play very similarly at first but feature different special gadgets and one of the most fun aspects of this game-mode is once the match has come so far teams can fight over getting to summon their respective boss allowing one lucky player to turn into the melee powerhouse that is Bane or the more long-range Joker this match type is actually pretty fun though I feel like it needs to offer a better tutorial for playing as the heroes especially since tactics don't work exactly the same as they do in the single-player it also feels like heroes end up having the Tempur time due to their smaller numbers and the fact that the Raptors aren't nearly as safe as they are in the single-player game because human players actually know to look up I also have to applaud the game's customization options as there are a lot of different detailed choices for how your character looks and there are some pretty silly Batman and Robin options like looking like you're from the animated series the only thing that really bothered me with the customization system is that it doesn't make entire sense to me for the two different gangs to level at different rates since so many abilities are shared between them it's a fun side distraction of a mode nothing that's gonna stay in the limelight particularly long but it could take on having a 3-way multiplayer mode featuring heroes and villains and worth at least trying if you're already grabbing the game for the single-player I would like to note though that the multiplayer mode does also have its good share of bugs just like the single-player including some systems being completely incapable of playing them right now until future patches come overall batman arkham origins does a great job of living up to its predecessor with the only thing holding it back right now is its current lack of stability the game is totally worth playing it's just that currently as the pc version goes you're better off waiting to all the bugs are fixed or until you can find it on sale well that was our review of Batman Arkham origins if you guys want to grab the game for yourself right now and not wait for the bug fixes check out the link in the description for pricing and availability and while you're down there if you've been enjoying this content make sure to let us know by hitting that like button if you're not a subscriber yet make sure to become one now because we've got a lot of great content on the way including full reviews of battlefield 4 and Call of Duty ghosts until then I'm Kevin you've been watching tech of tomorrow and we'll see you next time you