1. The Plot is Nonsensical
I bought this game on the premise we were sold, i.e. that Black Mask was sick of Batman interfering and had hired a bunch of assassins to take him out. Well that plot actually disappears pretty quickly, and what we're left with is a confusing convoluted mess. First off, let's address something basic that needs to be gotten out the way: this game wants us to believe Batman met Penguin, Joker, Mad Hatter, Riddler, and Anarky for the first time on the same night (along with at least seven of the other assassins), which, while not impossible, is ridiculous. Now that minor quarrel is passed, let's move on to the serious stuff. Black Mask, the Falcones, and Penguin are the major powers in Gotham, and Batman has spent the last two years damaging their empires and trying to bring them down, an endeavour that has gone so well the Falcones are pretty much completely gone. Bats has made enough of a name for himself for Anarky, a teenager (which is meant to be a twist but is obvious from his voice), knows all about him and where he can be found, as does Mad Hatter. Despite this, we are meant to believe Penguin has never heard of Batman before tonight, with him calling one of his goons a liar when he claims to have seen a giant bat. This makes absolutely no sense. How could a small time business owner (Hatter) know about Batman and Penguin, who the Dark Knight has spent the last two years sabotaging and supposedly has eyes all over the city, doesn't even know of his existence? Again, this is a secondary problem with the plot, but it does add to the pile of illogical dog turd Warner Bros. are trying to pass off as a story. Another major issue is Bane. Batman doesn't know what venom is, we discover later in the game, yet he has clearly encountered Bane before, as we know from when he first talks about the villain and how Bane says he has been after Batman for a long time. This, again, makes no sense. If they met before, Batman would know of venom, as Bane's entire persona and crime syndicate orientates around the damn stuff, but if they hadn't met Bane's obsession and willingness to damage pursuit of Batman make no sense. In conjunction with this rubbish, Bane continues to go after Batman even when the promise of money is no longer available, showing he must have some deeper motivation to break the bat, yet it is never explained what this motivation is. As a result it becomes very hard to be invested in the plot (I use the term loosely), as there is no way to know why he is doing what he's doing, which is a massive issue given he's one of the game's primary antagonists. Without spoiling anything, there's a section where Bane and Joker work together to kill the Dark Knight. Then, for no reason whatsoever, Bane attempts to kill Joker, a move that, if it was successful, would have been extremely harmful to his own plans. The move makes no sense and is only there to allow a major plot point to follow, though the point could have been achieved in countless other ways that actually DO make sense, so why the writers chose to do this I shall never understand. The main issue is, as I said earlier, the assassin plot disappears half way through. There's a period in a bank and hotel that are genuinely enjoyable and round off the story quite nicely, but after this point the game just... keeps going. The side mission villains say things like, "Don't you have a city to save? Why are bothering with me?" despite the fact Gotham is in no danger whatsoever, and nothing that goes on is particularly interesting or makes much sense. There's a point (*spoiler*) where we are supposed to believe Alfred is dead, which is rather like the point in Valkyrie when they tried to create suspense as to whether Hitler died in 1942 or not, as we all know they lived and there is no chance of any effect taking place. It comes across the writers got past the hotel section and went, "oh darn, this isn't long enough for a full game," so added about ten hours of padding to go after. There is no sense of a plan, no sense of the building tension in previous games, with the plot being even more schizophrenic than the characters it portrays. Moving on, two of the assassins are side-missions, which can be completed well after the point they would know no money can possibly be gained, and the rest of the assassins turn up for about five minutes each in the main story and then get knocked out. Even Deathstroke, who is a major poster boy for the game, makes one brief appearance a few hours in then gets a post credits scene, making his prominence in the advertising completely unjustifiable. Troy Baker said on twitter, "There are moments in this game that I think stand shoulder to shoulder with The Killing Joke", which is a great summary of how oblivious the people involved in this project really were/are, along with how little they have experienced of the Batman comics. The Killing Joke is a stand-out piece of Batman history, Arkham Origins is a convoluted, confused video game that fails to achieve the standards of even a Tim Burton Batman movie. As I don't want to only show one side of the story, I should point out the voice acting is pretty good (though it's undermined by the terrible dialogue) and it's not quite as bad as the Batman and Robin movie. If you think those two points outweigh all the others I've made, buy it, if not, do something less wasteful with you money. Like burn it. What are your opinions on the game? Did we miss any issues? Let us know in the comments below.