Here is my review for the main game
And here's my review for the initiation DLC
Welp, this is the final major dlc for Arkham origins and WB Montreal definitely saved the best for last. Continuing the pattern of the Arkham series being heavily influenced by Batman the animated series (including having most of the voices from TAS return to reprise their roles and Paul Dini Co-writing the 1st few arkham games) while being far more mature take on the batman characters and universe, this is a literal adaptation of the heart of ice episode which was Batman's first encounter of Mr freeze.
Only stretched out to an mini campaign dlc expansion only taking place in only the "new gotham" area closing off the "old gotham" and the bridge and burnley were cut off thanks to mr freeze closing everything off to make the map small and tightly constrained to just the one upper area of the main games map. Only thing to do in these is to help out the GCPD who were frozen and stop anarky's henchmen rioting in the streets.
But really you mainly traverse through the main gothcorp building to rescue ferris boyle after getting your new years party crashed by mr freeze, even getting to kick ass as bruce wayne in the beginning before donning the batsuit. Not initiation bruce but more like bruce from arkham city's intro. but you can obviously tell how the stories gonna go, but it does provide some backstory as to the relationship between batman and freeze goes and how they end up the way they are in the later games.
But the building itself is frozen from top to bottom and you gotta go through such negative degrees to the point of even trickling down your health if you stay for too long. Which is where the XE Heat Batsuit come into play. You have this big hulking armored suit which can go through very low temperature eras no problem and has the ability of "heat gloves" which are reskinned shock gloves but for a reskin, its definitely a lot more fun than i initially expected because, not only you can save frozen cops by thawing them out of ice, but also get through some frozen areas by punching through them. This coupled with the "thermal batarang" upgrade makes for a nice lil change up in origins solid gameplay.
You've also have another variant in the armored thugs category, "freeze ray" types where they have a freeze ray like mr freeze and you have to dodge that and have to target them first during combat, otherwise you'd be frozen and have to thaw yourself out via tapping A (or X for PS controllers), They're a nice challenge once you've gotten used to em. Took me a min to know how to properly deal with those and not get annoyed.
Then there's the big bad, Mr Freeze. Whom I must say, has a fight on par with city's with having to figure out different ways to stun and throw a few blows on him. Like using said thermal batarang to knock down icicles on his head, corner take downs, having to do a line takedown, etc. Its definitely a fight that i've had the most challenge with overall with the game, notice how i didnt say bullshit artificial difficulty like my initiation review. because this was actually designed well and not haphazardly throw you in without any care in the world. On top of that, you'd got all your gadgets unlocked from the jump so you can go through this dlc with little to no problems.
Its definitely the best this games got to offer, its more optimized than the base game, more focused in terms of design and its short but its sweet. Sure, the plots predictable even if you didn't watch the TAS series but its definitely worth playing after to see an additional adventure after beating the main game.
And here's my review for the initiation DLC
Welp, this is the final major dlc for Arkham origins and WB Montreal definitely saved the best for last. Continuing the pattern of the Arkham series being heavily influenced by Batman the animated series (including having most of the voices from TAS return to reprise their roles and Paul Dini Co-writing the 1st few arkham games) while being far more mature take on the batman characters and universe, this is a literal adaptation of the heart of ice episode which was Batman's first encounter of Mr freeze.
Only stretched out to an mini campaign dlc expansion only taking place in only the "new gotham" area closing off the "old gotham" and the bridge and burnley were cut off thanks to mr freeze closing everything off to make the map small and tightly constrained to just the one upper area of the main games map. Only thing to do in these is to help out the GCPD who were frozen and stop anarky's henchmen rioting in the streets.
But really you mainly traverse through the main gothcorp building to rescue ferris boyle after getting your new years party crashed by mr freeze, even getting to kick ass as bruce wayne in the beginning before donning the batsuit. Not initiation bruce but more like bruce from arkham city's intro. but you can obviously tell how the stories gonna go, but it does provide some backstory as to the relationship between batman and freeze goes and how they end up the way they are in the later games.
But the building itself is frozen from top to bottom and you gotta go through such negative degrees to the point of even trickling down your health if you stay for too long. Which is where the XE Heat Batsuit come into play. You have this big hulking armored suit which can go through very low temperature eras no problem and has the ability of "heat gloves" which are reskinned shock gloves but for a reskin, its definitely a lot more fun than i initially expected because, not only you can save frozen cops by thawing them out of ice, but also get through some frozen areas by punching through them. This coupled with the "thermal batarang" upgrade makes for a nice lil change up in origins solid gameplay.
You've also have another variant in the armored thugs category, "freeze ray" types where they have a freeze ray like mr freeze and you have to dodge that and have to target them first during combat, otherwise you'd be frozen and have to thaw yourself out via tapping A (or X for PS controllers), They're a nice challenge once you've gotten used to em. Took me a min to know how to properly deal with those and not get annoyed.
Then there's the big bad, Mr Freeze. Whom I must say, has a fight on par with city's with having to figure out different ways to stun and throw a few blows on him. Like using said thermal batarang to knock down icicles on his head, corner take downs, having to do a line takedown, etc. Its definitely a fight that i've had the most challenge with overall with the game, notice how i didnt say bullshit artificial difficulty like my initiation review. because this was actually designed well and not haphazardly throw you in without any care in the world. On top of that, you'd got all your gadgets unlocked from the jump so you can go through this dlc with little to no problems.
Its definitely the best this games got to offer, its more optimized than the base game, more focused in terms of design and its short but its sweet. Sure, the plots predictable even if you didn't watch the TAS series but its definitely worth playing after to see an additional adventure after beating the main game.