It's A New Day In Arkham

Batman: Arkham Origins Takes Big Leap Into Multiplayer

Batman. A superhero with no superpowers...unless of course, you count his bank account having the ability to regenerate at an extraordinary rate.

Still, the Caped Crusader is hailed as one of the most influential and important superheroes around, and I can't help but smile at how respectful the Arkham video game franchise has been to the mythos of the Batman, including the upcoming Arkham Origins game.

Joker can throw a hell of a housewarming!

Starting back in 2009, a little powerhouse developer known as Rocksteady released a beautiful game called Batman: Arkham Asylum. The hype was palpable, but it didn't really start out that way. As the game got closer to launch, I remember how bad I could taste the game. It got a lot of coverage considering they were using the original voice of Kevin Conroy as the Dark Knight and Mark Hamill as the Joker. In some shameful honesty, the game didn't really fly too high on my radar due to the track record of awfulness that previous Batman games have had. I wasn't holding my breath. But then, like a remote controlled batarang to the back of my head, something magical happened: the game was phenomenal. Now, I'm hoping we can capture lightning in a bottle twice with this latest entry of the Arkham franchise.

I don't think anyone ever doubted that the sequel to Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, wouldn't live up to the hype. It totally did, delivering an even grander scale of environments than the first game, and a villain roster that would make Harvey Dent's bad-side blush. However, I don't think the same could be said of this next game in the esteemed franchise, especially because it's a prequel...At least, not at first.

Deathstroke: a stroke of genius

Arkham Origins had a rocky start (pun intended) when it was announced. The main reason? Rocksteady wasn't developing it. The team behind the first two marvelous games decided to pass the torch to another developer, while it goes off to develop some other gem (which may end up being a next-gen Arkham game...just my hypothesis). Instead, Warner Bros. Montreal decided to take the reins and give us a gritty take of the Dark Knight as he starts to make a name for himself in Gotham City. With the idea of a more inexperienced Batman at the helm, this became concern #1 in my book. how could I play as a fallible Batman? And how was an Arkham game going to strive without Rocksteady?

These Two: Bosses

Concern #2 came along when it was discovered that Kevin Conroy would NOT be reprising his role as Batman; well, at least in this iteration. You can click here to learn more about what I'm talking about. Anyway, adding onto Concern #2 was the already well known fact that Mark Hamill was also NOT going to be back as the Joker. For too long both these men have been synonymous with their fictitious counterparts, and it's a little jarring to hear the news that they weren't going to be involved.

My last concern: Black Mask was going to be one of the main antagonists. Now, hear me out first. I'm not saying that he's not worthy of the opportunity to make Batman's life a living hell, but Black Mask was alwys one of those villains who was too cartoonish, never really bringing out major character developments from the Batman/Bruce Wayne the way Joker or Scarecrow could. That is of course, until I saw this initial trailer for the game.



Did you have fun? Are the endless possibilities of this game starting to get you excited? I know it did for me, and this trailer didn't even have the more classic Batman villains in it.

Anyway, my negative perception of Arkham Origins really started to sway after this trailer. Granted, it's a full CG trailer that doesn't reveal any tidbit of gameplay, but it's a great start. The near 5-minutes of awesomeness showed me many things: where the story is going, the mood of the game, the ferocity that is still intact of the Arkham series. But it also showed me one other major thing: a franchise willing to take a risk.

Black Mask looks to play a major role this time around

Arkham Origins is clearly not going to settle with the same formula of its predecessors. Any concerns of the inclusion of bottom-tier villains should've subsided after seeing how brutal Deathstroke was in his scuffle with Batman. My fears were also quelled when I saw Deadshot and Black Mask pull their weight, intimidating fans worldwide. And then it hit me! Holy crap, you can have a full game with these villains alone and it'd still be awesome, and yet, there are still more villains that have been confirmed for the game that we haven't even seen yet, including Penguin, Bane, and the laughbox of terror himself, the Joker.

Roger Craig Smith has a nice resume

And then the good news continued to roll. The voice actors taking over for Conroy and Hamill were revealed to be two very well respected talents in the industry. Batman is being voiced by Roger Craig Smith, who's better known to the world as Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed and Chris Redfield from Resident Evil, while Joker is being voiced by Troy Baker, who's played the lead roles in Bioshock: Infinite and The Last Of Us (seriously...go play this game already!!!).

And then more good news. All of the major gaming sites were able to get their hands on a demo of the game at E3 this year, and they're proud to report the gameplay is very similar to the previous Arkham games and then some! There are said to be some nice improvements to detective mode, gadgets, and combat, as well as another villain reveal, one which I never knew about until recently, Copperhead. And to be honest, she looks deadlier than all of my ex-girlfriends combined, minus the whole contortion stuff. Check out the reveal trailer below.



I don't know if I should feel terrorized or aroused? Anyway, brace yourselves for another youtube video...because this is actually going to be a lot like going to the Olive Garden: it sounds like a bad idea, but my God is it delicious.



MULTIPLAYER!!! The 4-syllable word that forces gamers to gouge their eyeballs and start shooting black-tar heroin. It was recently announced that Origins will include an adversarial multiplayer...but it's an adversarial multiplayer with a twist -- 3 VS. 3 VS. 2 -- You may now proceed with draining the brain ooze.

Three teams of players will be going at each other in a conquest/deathmatch game-type comprised of heroes and villains. Batman and Robin will be perched in stealth/darkness while trying to take down two other teams of rival gangs made up of Joker's and Bane's goons.

Excuse me, sir. You've got red on you

Why am I so excited about this mode? Well, because it fits so well into this universe. And it's also being developed by another team so that way WB Montreal can focus on delivering an epic single player experience. In any case, if you take a closer look at this multiplayer, it seems to resemble another popular game, and one of my favorite Online games, Splinter Cell. The stealth and gunplay of the three different teams makes it appear to draw heavily from Splinter Cell's "Spies vs. Mercs" game type. And that's not a bad thing, because Spies vs. Mercs had the potential to include some of the fiercest and memorable online multiplayer experiences in gaming.

All in all, I cannot wait for Arkham Origins. As we inch close to that October release date of the game, Origins continually impresses me and I don't want it to stop. I'm kind of a pain in the ass to impress, especially when it comes to Batman. But Origins seems to be hitting all the right notes it needs to: Story, Presentation, Originality, Consistency, and Depth. Now all I need is a bat-gadget that makes time slip by faster.

Confessions of an Aging Gamer

8-Bits Bites The Dust 

27 Years old.

That, my friends, is the age of my bones...my sweet, little, video-gaming bones. It's unfortunately a few years away from 30, and that is something I am having a hard time digesting. But this isn't a blog posting about how I am well past the quarter-century milestone. No. Instead, these are the reflections of an aging gamer.

1-99 ... Damn You, Glass Joe

I feel I need to start this particular blog with a flashback. Yea, let's go all "LOST" on everyone. As I've documented previously in my blog, my video gaming started way back in the ATARI/NES days. Really, more of the latter. I was 5 or 6 years old at the time when I grabbed that little rectangular piece of plastic with 4 buttons and a diagonal pad that would come to be known as an NES Controller and started hammering the crap out of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.  That excitement didn't last long as the game's first adversary, Glass Joe, pounded me harder than Paris Hilton at a rave with 12 coked-up dudes. Yes, Glass Joe; the guy who has a record of 1-99, and that one win came at my expense. I still can't live out the shame my brothers and cousin give me for that.

Following that Glass Joe beat down, I honed my Punch-Out skills to take down that milky white, ginger bastard and succeeded. I couldn't tell you what a miraculous moment that was; having a Rocky-esque training montage of getting pounded by Glass Joe over and over again until I learned the controls and figured out my adversary's attack patterns. Learning from your mistakes, sounds a lot like life? Little by little, I'd take out one opponent at a snails pace, but I eventually got up to Kid Dynamite and took him down. End Scene...

Anyway, that's always been my "gaming-birth" moment. It's kind of like that "where were you when Halo 2 came out?" or the "how you lost your virginity" story, but it's always fun to share. Nowadays though, those stories are changing. I guess it's a sign of the times, but the current generations seems to be trending from the "man, I love gaming because of the challenge" to "man, I love gaming because it's cool." All I have to say is, where the f**k were you all when I was in grade school?!?!

Call of Duty with some Stark-Power

I think the point I'm trying to make is that in this day and age, gaming is "in" now -- and for lack of a better word ... that's pretty frickin' cool. There are big budget productions for video game commercials a la Black Ops II's "Tag" spot which featured explosions that would make a Jerry Bruckheimer film look like a PBS show, as well as some celebrity cameos including Mr. Tony Stark himself, Robert Downey Jr. I can't help but reflect back on my years of gaming as a kid when I would go over to a friend's house for the 1st time, and inside the bedroom I'd find a video game console and get totally ecstatic of the proposition of gaming. You see, to me, it wasn't common for other people to be into video games. Nowadays though, it's almost a guarantee you will find a video gaming console in someone's house whether it's for gaming purposes, or, dare I say it, entertainment console purposes. (Cue dramatic gopher music) Dum Dum Dummmmmmmmmmm.

Fan-f**king-tastic is how I would describe this game

Either way, I'm glad gaming is taking its mantle of awesomeness pretty seriously. It's great to see people play video games as a way to socialize as opposed to being the opposite -- a way to anti-socialize. However, I do feel myself slipping away from the gaming landscape. It's not because I voluntarily do so, but rather, life is getting in the way. Whether it's the job, the girlfriend, the family, or just the flat out partying, I don't have as much time as I used to when it comes to sitting my ass down and hammering some games. In fact, I recently bought the absolutely jaw-dropping, hair-raising, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious game "The Last of Us," and I couldn't beat it until a month later due to all the times I had to save my game to head out to my next adult-ish commitment. Mind you, I'm just talking about the single-player experience, which is a solid 14 hours depending on how much you like to explore (Which I do ;D) -- I haven't even started the multiplayer.

It's good to see you again, MMO. It's been years

In other words, I almost fel like that old geezer who passes the baton from one generation to the other. No longer can I spend marathon sessions playing WoW or whatever the MMO of the month is. I can't complete a 10 hour game within two weeks time, unless of course I call in sick to work, which happened a few months back when I beat Bioshock Infinite over a two-day, crap-my-guts-out kind of day. There's a slight sadness I feel coming to this realization. I still try to fight it as much I can, squeezing in a gaming session whenever I can. As it is, I'm trying to play the F2P MMO "Rift" with my younger brother just to re-live those glory days. I almost feel like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite tossing footballs in front of a camera in the middle of nowhere. It's slightly depressing, but oddly relatable.

You mean you didn't kill Ganon with the light arrows?

Just to wrap it up, I guess what I want to say is it's ok to be a grown up gamer. Sure, I'd love to spend a day or two playing a brand new game, but that's what the sick days are for I guess. It's pretty neat to see gaming come so far in terms of shaping social atmospheres. I even get bashful when I can strike up a gaming conversation at the water cooler as opposed to politics, jobs, or sports. No matter how old you are, you gotta admit, it's good to be a gamer.

-Game On-