Although I am a comic fan in general, with a reasonably good background across the companies, I will always be more of a DC fan than any others. Pretty much all of my favourite characters are DC characters or from their imprints. Even with parts of the New 52 seriously disappointing me I find myself coming back. Especially to Batman.
Batman has been on a pretty steep rise the last couple of years, which is definitely saying something as I don't think he has ever truly been unpopular. I would say that 2011 is when he has truly started to shine once again, a new renaissance of Batman.
2011 was a big year for Batman. We saw the re-release of Arkham Asylum for Mac OS X. The game nearly everyone claims is the first super-hero/comic book game to actually be good. I'm one of those people making that claim. It saw the release of Arkham City, the sequel, which was even better. Then there's the New 52 Batman, written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Greg Capullo.
Snyder and Capullo made Batman truly compelling once again, if you haven't read Court of Owls yet then I highly recommend that you do. I will be reviewing the title in full at a later date. I will try to avoid spoilers though. Snyder and Capullo together have created truly amazing in their version of Batman. Forgetting no element of the character. We have a Batman who is the detective, the martial artist and brooding. Yet he is also sincere and it's clear that he is truly white knight hiding in the shadow. Unlike Frank "God Damn Batman" Miller who writes him as a violent psychopath, Snyder has created what is probably the quintessential Batman.
2012 had Batman still battling with the Court of Owls and their Talons. It gave us the Dark Knight Rises, the third highest grossing film that year, and one of the highest grossing films of all time. Towards the end of 2012 and into 2013 we had the return of the Joker in "Death of the Family." One of the scariest and darkest Batman stories in quite some time. And this year Snyder has starting his Zero Year story, which gives us the origins of Batman for the New 52. Batman is still on a meteoric rise right now, and all of this is why I am going to be pre-ordering Arkham Origins, and it is the only game I will be this year.
To be fair I do not pre-order games often. I am a PC gamer only, and rely heavily on Steam. I don't even often buy games on their release unless they are budget titles. There is no fear about stock shortages via Steam and the pre-order incentives are rarely that interesting to me.
Arkham Origins however, has me genuinely excited. For starters it will be on PC straight away, I am not sure if it will be on Steam straight away yet (I can find no confirmation yet). I am definitely going to pre-order but I am going to hold off until I am sure about it's Steam release.
Of course Deathstroke is a pretty awesome incentive, and despite what Amazon says, PC and Wii U players do get him. Which Eric Holmes (Creative Director) does confirm for us;
Now there is no denying I was cynical when I first heard that Rocksteady were not at the helm. In fact the cynic in me was kicking and screaming when I heard that it was WB Games, that Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill aren't in it (ok so Hamill "quit" but he has been the Joker since Arkham City), and even more concerned when I found out that Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker had been cast.
The cynic in me has been completely trampled to death at this point though. The E3 footage alone was enough to make me consider pre-ordering the game. Roger Craig Smith (of Resident Evil fame) does a pretty good job of a "Conroy Batman" yet sounds younger. Troy Baker flat out astounds me. Although he played Robin in Arkham City, he is probably best known for playing Booker DeWitt in Bioshock Infinite. Yet here he sounds amazingly like Mark Hamill.
No, we are not talking a John "I Am Going To Butcher This Voice" DiMaggio impression of Hamill. We're talking an impression that in the initial teaser trailer had so many people convinced that Hamill was reprising his role! Although neither voice is exactly like the original cast member, they are both accurate for the context. The game is a prequel, and both of these actors sound younger. Even the physical appearance of Baker's Joker could believable grow up into the Hamill Joker of Arkham Asylum.
The confirmed characters have me excited as well. Besides the Joker, we know we are getting the likes of Black Mask, Deathstroke, Deadshot and Bane. Even Anarky is in there some where. Yet the one thing we know for sure is that's not the entire cast list. The more Bat-History the better in my honest opinion.
The footage from E3 simply looked near perfect. Many people have complained that it looks very similar to Arkham City. Yet I feel that WB have taken the clever "if it isn't broken" approach. The gameplay worked amazingly well for Arkham Asylum and City, so why try changing that. It is like Eric Holmes has said in interviews, they aren't looking to tear down what already works so well. They are simply trying to add even more to it. The gameplay footage seems to be doing just that. A larger map to play with, both in square kilometres and height, more gadgets, a more extensive detective mode. It is not the gameplay footage that put me over the edge though and has convinced me to pre-order.
It is the people involved. Sega proved not so long ago that what a developer shows you isn't always what you are going to get. People have been cynics because it is not Rocksteady making the game this time around. Yet when you see people like Eric talking about the game, you see the genuine amount of care they have for the game. How interested they are in the mythos surrounding it, and how determined they are not to disappoint themselves or their audience. The fact that Eric was willing to look into my queries surrounding the PC release and the pre-order incentives, and other questions. The fact that they are clearly aware of what it is they have to live up to. That is what pushed me over the edge for the pre-order.
It has been a long time since I have been truly excited for a new game release and that is why it is the only game I will be pre-ordering this year. That's remarkably rare, and I hope the death of my cynicism is well rewarded and that Batman's current phoenix style rise has not already peaked.
I'm excited to return to the Arkhamverse. Are you?
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