Recent reviews by nashdashin

Do you know a game out there where you can decapitate gary colemans head and then urinate on it? Yeah i didn't think so.


11/10

At first, I didn't know what Arkham Origins - Blackgate was. I looked at some reviews and I saw that it had a mixed reception. Alot of people said that the combat was bad, and that the detective mode + visuals were horrible. As an arkham fan, playing arkham asylum first and enjoying it very so, I decided to give blackgate a chance and see for myself how it was after beating arkham origins.

So the game takes place three months after Batman Arkham Origins. The basic story is you got a blackgate prison out break, and Batman is trying to stop this outbreak by gaining control of the 3 blocks the prison is divided in by bringing back power to each block. Each block is controlled by a villain. Arkham Wing - Penguin, Administration Building - The Joker, and Industrial Building - Black Mask. Note there is also Soloman Grundy, Deadshot and Catwoman in the game, and you interact with them along the way. The game offers a choice, as you can go after The Joker, Penguin or Black Mask in any order. This does give a new way an arkham game could work, as for all the other arkham games, the order in which you chase your villains changes as the story goes on. (Side quests don't count of course.) There are side quests you can do in this game, but it feels like a big task in doing them, and not very fun like in the other arkham games. Most of these side quests revolve around collecting certain items. They don't expand the story or have their own stories themselves, at least to my knowledge.

So let me tell you some things about the combat. For me personally, I didn't find the combat bad. There were times where I did like it. However, it could use quite a bit of work.

First of all, Blackgate is a 2.5D game, as in its a 2D Sidescroller where you can only move left and right, but you're moving around in a 3D World. This already gives you a sense of why people are not liking the combat. The combat in all the other arkham games were free flow and fast paced, where as in blackgate, its restricting, annoying and slow. By restricting, I mean you can only fight enemies who are close to you, and fighting off other enemies requires you to jump over the one closest to you, and make your way more up with enemies farther.

The controls aren't good as they're are unresponsive and dumb. Preferably, its better to play with a controller for this game as it naturally controls better. It almost pains me to play the game as it more feels like a task. The map itself is very annoying, as you can get lost eaisly, many many times. What ends up happening is that you're spending hours just trying to get to your main objective. The map you get to navigate your way around blackgate is confusing as its a 3D map, meaning you have no idea where you are, or how to go anywhere. On top of that, you need to find upgrades in this map which is a complete pain, for if you don't find these upgrades, the boss battles are unbeatable.

So far for the boss battles, Penguin being the hardest as in one of his guards spot you, they literally shoot you to death which takes about 2 seconds resulting in you dying in the process. Not only is that hard, but its even harder as you're in a small area, and to get the guards away from penguin you must give distractions, and they see you constantly. On top of that, there are drones that scout out the area and shoot on sight which results in a automatic death.

The Catwoman boss battle was a bit challenging as you must time your countering and attacks 100% accurately and perfectly. Getting hit twice results in a automatic death, and there isn't a checkpoint or anything in the battle as its constant dodging every second for like two minutes. It may not seem that hard, but once you get there I wouldn't be surprised if you saw some people did it on YouTube.

Now keep in my mind, this game was originally designed to be on a 3DS/PS Vita. Armature Studies gave a port to give the arkham fans an original feel as all arkham games are for the console (originally made by rocksteady). However, if a game is designed for the 3DS/PS Vita, that same game shouldn't have the same design on console/pc versions. if you do, you get all of what I said before, annoying combat, bad maps, annoying controls, it works but is almost unenjoyable, and it's task to play.

I don't want to recommend or not recommend the game. As an arkham fan the story was decent. Nothing special. Explains a little of what happened between Batman Origins and arkham asylum. So, I will say this. Get this game when its on sale, as its worth the price of 5 bucks. The game itself isn't worth the 20, and I thought this as soon as I got into the game.

What I suggest Rocksteady to do is make a game that is, a sequel to Arkham Origins after they conclude the arkham series with Arkham knight. This game was supposed to be designed to be like that, hence, why it has the name "origins" in the title. However, i think its honestly a bad idea to do this and design the game itself to be on hand-held consoles, and then to be later ported on to regular consoles. In my opinion, its a bad idea.

Lets hope rocksteady can correct this mistake and give us a real arkham game like blackgate, but redesigned for consoles.

Overall, the game deserves a

5.5/10