It's no Arkham City, but this prequel delivers more than it slips.
Most of the gameplay from the first two games remains intact, though WB Montreal has added a few things – some for the better, some not. First off, the new swoop-and-fly tactic, using your grapple gun to gain momentum to stay in the air, is very cool. It's also great to see the Detective Mode taken an extra mile, where you can recreate a criminal act in order to find a crucial clue, like a missing key card.
The Bat tools are also tweaked a bit, with the Remote Claw able to string up bad guys – or draw them into one another – with ease. The Shock Gauntlets are also interesting, but make fights a little easier than they need to be. Chances are rookies will probably use them every chance they get. They probably won't need them too much, as the combat system remains smooth and enjoyable – even with the new enemies challenging Batman to his superiority. Fools.
Then…there's the multiplayer. Like Tomb Raider before it, Origins utilizes an unnecessary and cluttered multiplayer mode, where one team plays as Batman and Robin while the others take on Joker and Bane's thugs. Honestly, I didn't see anything compelling about this mode at all. You're either playing as Batman, or wishing you had. The matches become slow and tedious, and lack the momentum found in other, better multiplayer games. WB Montreal would've been better off scrapping this mode entirely and focusing more on single player content. (For those getting the Wii U version, which doesn't have multiplayer, you aren't really missing anything – buy with ease.)
