WB Games have released a new video documenting the making of Monolith’s Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor. I have been looking forward to this since early this year. Many who have played demos have praised the game for its “nemesis system” which has you dealing with the hierarchy of orcs and how the game lets you decide how to take them on including leaving some alive to relay messages to their bosses.
Shadow of Mordor looks to show a new side of Tolkien’s world. Let’s hope they succeed.
Batman: Arkham Origins has had its share of problems since its release on October 25th, including save data losses which is why I will not be reviewing the game. Now WB Games has issued a statement resolving to fix the multiple issues that have plagued the title.
Here is the official statement explaining the glitches found so far:
“Some players have been stuck in an endless loop of falling, making it impossible to complete certain missions and progress through the single-player campaign. We believe we have identified the issue and are currently testing the software update, which will push most players back to their previous save so that they will not be stuck in an infinite loop.”
“Some players can see their story progress in the main menu, but once they choose the story slot they don’t see an option to ‘Continue’ and only ‘New Game’ shows up. This issue should be resolved and the ‘Continue’ option will once again be available.”
“FreeFlow Focus mode not unlocking upon reaching Shadow Vigilante rank 3.”
“Players have reported recurring crashing and freezing while playing the game. We have been working hard to track down and resolve the problem as quickly as possible. We believe we know what is causing these issues and need a few more days to validate before pushing this patch through. In the meantime, some players have managed to avoid the freezing by disconnecting their console from the Internet while playing.”
And the biggest of the bunch it the data on 360 versions of the game being corrupted (like mine).
“Players have reported losing their saved game to data corruption. Specifically, when you try to choose a story slot to continue, it says ‘Corrupted’ and if you select it, an error message appears which says, ‘The save is corrupt. Please delete it.’ We believe we know what is causing this and need a few more days to validate before pushing a patch through.”
When you see just how many problems have been found with this game it is amazing that it got through QA testing. It screams of a studio that had to make a release date no matter what even if that meant shipping a game that was not ready. I feel bad for Rocksteady who has built the Arkham franchise into a gaming giant and entrusted it to another studio just to have this happen.
Long story short; there won’t be a Batman: Arkham Origins review. At least not anytime soon. This is due to the fact that I was twelve hours into the latest game in the series when I got a corrupted data message. The only solution? Delete my save and start anew.
I went online and read story after story of 360 owners who had experienced the same issue. Some had restarted the game two, three and even four times and at certain points their data became corrupted again. As of this writing the 360 version is the only one that seems to have this problem although the PS3 version is having frame rate issues. It looks like the Wii U and PC versions are the best of the bunch.
The only news from WB Montreal is that they are “investigating the issue” which is company speak for “oh shit, we missed something. Find it and patch it”. Now if you know me personally you know how much this hurts me. As the tattoos on my body and shelves of Batman action figures (not toys dammit) and statues can attest I am a bit of a Dark Knight freak. So the fact that this happened stings worse.
Why not just start over and play through the game? I can hear some of you saying. This is a multi-part answer. It will lead into my early impressions of the game which were…meh. The game looked beautiful and the voice acting was top notch. Roger Craig Smith was a good place holder for Kevin Conroy and Troy Baker sounds so much like Mark Hamill it is uncanny. There was something just a bit off about it. While keeping the same combat and control scheme of the previous two Arkham games, the timing seemed different and led to a lot of frustrating fights.
I have played through Asylum five time and City three. I even played through both of them before Origins came out to make sure I had my timing down correctly and to acclimate myself with the controls again. In both previous games, I had no problem with big groups of thugs even while playing on hard. Playing Origins on normal difficulty (for the sake of review) I regularly found myself almost dying in groups of six or seven guys. The counter system, while technically the same as Rocksteady’s games was not reading all the counters I was doing. With a game that requires multiple counters in a row to keep combat flowing you need the game to be able to react to them. I was regularly getting annoyed at the combat in a series where combat is the best thing.
Also, while this is our first opportunity in the series to play in an actual open version of Gotham City, it feels decidedly vacant. I understand the story permits this with it being Christmas Eve and people are asked to stay in there homes because of the danger. So it is just you and thugs galore to occupy the city. I know Gotham City is a dangerous place but damn. If my apartment building had two snipers, two knife-wielding psychos and a guy with a baseball bat I would be calling Two Men and Truck…now. I am still looking for that first true Gotham City experience. I want Spider-Man 2 except with Batman. Bustling streets and patrons. Random robberies to stop. Driving the Batmobile around Gotham.
The second part of my reasoning for not starting the game again is I do not have the time to. Besides this site I have a full-time job and, despite what some people think, do not want to spend every waking moment in front of a television or computer screen. Maybe one day I will give Arkham Origins another chance or I may just wait for Rocksteady’s next installment that will be free of these problems. For now I have to get ready for the next-gen launches and even though I juuust said I can’t spend all my time with video games…I have to review WWE 2K14.
Batman can’t wait on Santa Claus this Christmas. Black Mask is too busy trying to end The Dark Knight’s career before it really starts by hiring the world’s greatest assassins to take him out. The new trailer shows the dangers Batman will face in the prequel to 2009’s Arkham Asylum and 2011’s Arkham City.
[amazon_link id=”B00C7103DO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Batman: Arkham Origins[/amazon_link] releases on October 25th.
http://youtu.be/9k3hi3oGq6A
The new TV commercial for Batman: Arkham Origins goes for the heart showing Bruce’s motivation for becoming Gotham’s savior. We all know what that motivation is but this ad is still very well made and only adds to my excitement.
[amazon_link id=”B00C7103DO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Batman: Arkham Origins[/amazon_link] releases on October 25th.
You would think with all the Arkham Origins coverage we were excited about the game or something. Good guess.
This new video shows off the work WB Games Montreal put into the motion capture for the game. They did not go full face involving the voice actors rather they did body-only as actors matched up their motions to the voice actors performance. It is an interesting look inside the game that is worth a look.
[amazon_link id=”B00C7103DO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Batman: Arkham Origins[/amazon_link] releases on October 25th.
WB Games and Techland have just unveiled the first gameplay for their first-person zombie game, Dying Light and it looks to be a mixture of Dead Island, Left 4 Dead and Mirror’s Edge. With me being a fan of Dead Island and a lover of Left 4 Dead and Mirror’s Edge this video hit all the right points.
We get a good first look at the changes that happen when the sun sets. The zombies become much more ferocious and agile from the looks of it and to help the player out you will have a special night vision that is kind of like what you have seen in the Arkham games and Tomb Raider. At the end of the video when you are racing towards the safe house all I could think of was the hours spent in Left 4 Dead and it made me want to get my hands on Dying Light even faster.
Batman: Arkham Origins is being developed by WB Montreal this go round and so far the game is looking like it will live up to the Arkham name. Now WB Games has announced that Arkham Origins will feature a multiplayer mode with a new twist.
3 vs. 3 vs. 2
One team will be headed up by The Joker while the other will be led by the massive Bane as they fight to control Gotham. The two in this equation are, of course, Batman and Nightwing who will try and take down both teams. Each team will have the latest in high tech equipment and weaponry to even the stakes against each other and The Dark Knight and his partner. They will have their own version of “Detective Mode” called “Enhanced Vision” which can only be used in thirty second intervals. Each team will also have the use of special attacks like Joker gift boxes which can be left as proximity mines.
Batman and Nightwing will have their usual set of goodies to use, but will need to be more cagey in their actions since their opponents are wielding guns and other high end weapons.
This sounds like it will be loads of fun and will definitely add a lot of hours to what I hope will be the next great game in this series. What do you think about the newly announced multiplayer mode? Is it something you are looking forward to?
Check out the trailer below. [amazon_link id=”B00C7103DO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Batman: Arkham Origins[/amazon_link] releases on October 25th.
WB Games has released a launch trailer for Injustice: Gods Among Us. It is not heavy on story (which is great by the way), but it is heavy on punches to the face, tombstones over people’s heads and truth lassos. Oh and Batman and Aquaman get most of the speaking time which is fine with me since Kevin Conroy is back doing Batman’s voice and Aquaman is the King of Atlantis and all. Not an Aquaman fan? You are missing out.
[amazon_link id=”B0088I7L76″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Injustice: Gods Among Us[/amazon_link] releases on April 16th, which is next week! So this is the perfect opportunity to check out our Five Reasons why you should buy Injustice.
Hot off the heels of yesterday’s announcement of Batman: Arkham Origins a host of screenshots have been released by Game Informer. There are shots of Deathstroke, a younger looking Penguin, Black Mask and Gotham adorned in Christmas decorations as Batman looms over some thugs.
In Batman: Arkham Origins, you will control a younger Batman as Black Mask hires the world’s greatest assassin’s to take down The Dark Knight. WB Montreal is handling development of the game instead of Rocksteady this go round, but they have full access to the engine that ran Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.
It was also announced that for the first time in the Arkham series there will be a fast travel option for Batman now that he is patrolling the streets of Gotham. When you pick a point on the map you will get to take a trip in the Batwing to your desired location, although the Batwing is not able to be controlled (bummer).
For the next-gen I would like a fully realized open world Gotham. If I want to spend 45 minutes driving around the city doing nothing but mourning the death of my parents, I should be able to.
Batman: Arkham Origins releases on October 25th.
The first screens for Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate have also been released. The game will be released on October 25th for the 3DS and Vita.
