Batman Arkham Origins map is twice the size of Arkham City, boss fights explained

“when my bat-thong snaps off”

Double O_O

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Hope it’s not all that he will be wearing when playing :O

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Sould be “that ARE after your cowl”
Unless you are Ali G

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I feel the same way, though I don’t really have another game replacing my interest, either. Love this series, but so much of the information we have of Origins seems to be underwhelming in terms of what’s “new” that it’s really starting to seem more like a COD-like glorified expansion pack to Arkham City than a true standalone game. I have no doubt it’ll still be fun in most respects, but it’s disappointing that the new developers don’t appear to be taking any real chances in terms of furthering the gameplay of the series.
I think you’re right in feeling that it’s a disappointment to not have any other characters to explore the city as; Catwoman’s seamless integration into AC was a really impressive feat, and it’s unfortunate that we don’t appear to be getting anything interesting like that again. This is, no doubt, a BATMAN game, but this is a character who is more often than not just as defined and distinguished by the characters around him as he is by himself. Even if it were only a New Game + option or even a sort of side campaign, it’d be nice to have somebody else available to use, especially since we’re clearly getting at least one other character to use in challenge rooms.
I guess what’s really bugging me most about the game is that it seems like the new developers are missing out on a lot of really great opportunities. The chance to set the game in the whole of Gotham City rather than a sectioned-off area filled with inmates seems like it should provide a reason to populate the game with civilians and other friendly characters rather than having the streets filled with trash-talking bozos and thugs, but the developers chose the very uninspired explanation of it being a particularly snowy Christmas Eve to avoid having to include something like that. Similarly, the Batwing is now a usable vehicle, yet it only serves as a way of wresting control away from the player as a fast-travel option instead of actually being used for some sort of new gameplay. It just seems as though developers have chosen to expand the map size of the game without actually providing any compelling gameplay-related reasons to do so other than to simply make the game bigger. Arkham City wasn’t the biggest open world game by any means, but it was a massive increase in size over its predecessor, and despite that, it remained crammed with tons of details and gameplay-related reasons to visit almost every area. Nothing felt strictly superficial, whereas with Origins, I worry that that’s exactly what the vast majority of tall, looming skyscrapers will amount to. We’ll see how that turns out when the final game is released, of course, but setting the game in Gotham isn’t the only source of missed opportunities that comes to mind, either.
The developers stressed shortly after the game was revealed that they weren’t interested in making Batman any less powerful compared to his abilities in Arkham City, and I understand that. However, it’s disappointing that the combat remains almost completely untouched as a result. Aside from a couple of new gadgets, nothing new has been added to the basic hand-to-hand combat. Even the “new” shock gloves function almost exactly like the boring and overpowered BAT mode from Arkham City: Armored Edition for the WiiU (a port incidentally made my the developer in charge of this game). Considering that most reviewers seemed to agree that that was a poorly conceived addition and one that the game is arguably better without, it surprises me that the developers chose to essentially redress it in a new name and keep it for this prequel. Why not find some more interesting way to expand Batman’s combat abilities while still keeping in line with that idea of a younger, less refined Caped Crusader?
I still think that focusing more on use of the environment during hand-to-hand encounters would have been a great idea; it’s a constant focus during Predator gameplay in the series, and it doesn’t seem like it’d be especially hard to implement considering that both of the previous games included a few environment-related unique animations and abilities. Bringing back Batman’s throw move from Arkham Asylum would’ve been a great start. From there, rewarding the player with increased combo, damage, and XP bonuses for knocking or tossing enemies into walls, each other, or other hazards would add more strategy to how players position themselves and enemies within the combat space. Allowing Batman to pick up and use certain objects like enemies have in the previous games would be great as well; this would also give reason to expand the use of the Batclaw in combat, as the player could use it to snag throwable objects from afar.
On that note, why not expand upon how already-known gadgets can be used as well? Remember that Hugo Strange trailer for Arkham City? As Batman is divebombing toward a TYGER guard, he fires the Batclaw into another before reaching them to set him up for an easy knockout. Using a slow-down method similar to how the player could re-fire the Line Launcher in AC seems like a good way of implementing it. And how about allowing the player to spray explosive gel on a Batarang before throwing it? Or implementing the new Remote Claw gadget in such a way that it can be used with quickfire controls during hand-to-hand combat?
By all means, with all of the huge additions that Arkham City made after Asylum, I didn’t come away feeling like the developers hadn’t pulled out all the stops. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement still, and it certainly didn’t mean that I felt like there were no more interesting opportunities to be explored. That’s what’s so disappointing about Origins to me based on what we’ve seen thus far. It’s nowhere near the massive leap forward that City was, but to a greater extent, the developers don’t seem to have taken advantage of many of the opportunities presented to them. A great deal of work has clearly been done in terms of story, setting, and character design, and I’m excited about those aspects, but the game surrounding it all doesn’t appear to be anywhere near as exciting.

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