Recent reviews by Abi Normal

When the game works I'm absolutely having a blast, but it's hard to have a blast when...

• the game doesn't start up because the EA app is failing (either because it can't talk to the servers or some other esoteric reason, thanks online DRM for a singleplayer game)
  
• the game randomly crashes
  
• not even playing at the highest settings and the framerate spikes from 60+ to 10-30 at random intervals, then back up then down again. It's like seasickness, but the waves are caused by the ebb of my frametime graphs.

I will admit, I was intrigued by the prequel idea, how Bruce rises from vigilante to Dark Knight. However, at its core Arkham Origins is a reskinned Arkham City through and through. The story is alright, the update to the investigation system was welcomed, and combat has lost the polish that its predecessor brough to the table. Despite the many flaws and blatant reskin (the grapnel boost being one of the many offenders, as it was a "prototype technology" in Arkham City) I still enjoyed this game. Perhaps a bit more effort on the dev's part could really make this title shine.