Batman Arkham Origins: avalanche of information, first pictures
The first details about the story, which takes place during a Christmas Eve years before the two already released titles: for reasons still unknown, the boss villain Black Mask has put a bounty on the head of Batman and Gotham City suddenly becomes a meeting place for all the major villains in the DC Universe. As if that weren't enough, the bat will in hot pursuit even corrupt cops in the city, in the pay of Black Mask. Besides he constantly has to make to get against many enemies, Batman must figure out why Black Mask wants him dead and demonstrate to the honest cops is on their side.
WB Montreal developers have stated that create a prequel allowed him to shape a different view of Gotham in Arkham City, without having to worry about maintaining continuity with the events of the previous game while Rocksteady is working on the sequel (which, Let's imagine, will come at the end of 2014 for next gen). Use a younger Batman also give developers the opportunity to change the character, his moves and his gadgets than seen so far: the combat system will be the one that made famous the series even if we find a protagonist more crude and less refined. In addition to fighting will also return the Predator mode, we will hide and hang between the architectural elements to knock out enemies from above.
The game we will act in a Gotham City larger than the previous title, and to move quickly between areas already explored, we use the Batwing, the famous Batman aircraft. This will not, however, directly controllable over the roofs of the city: we can just set the destination. Speaking of Gotham, the city will consist of two parts of equal size: Old Gotham, similar in architecture and extension to that seen in Arkham City, and New Gotham, more modern and full of skyscrapers. In fact, these two parts will double the size of the map relative to the previous title.
The developers have even offered a plausible explanation to the fact that, initially, the Batwing there can take anywhere: to put a spoke in the wheels to Batman, Black Mask has littered the city, placed on radio towers, able to block the commands of the aircraft but also the Batman himself, so that the map cannot be points of interest. When we enter into a new area we are going to disable its radio tower to allow us to use the quick trip and see all the icons on the map: something very similar, then, to the towers of Assassin's Creed or those Far Cry 3. Disable the radio towers will not be easy, however, as those seen in Ubisoft title: are all different and will require the use of investigative skills and solve puzzles. Some may also be disabled not as long as we do not have special gadgets or upgrades.
Among the new gadgets will have now renewed hooked cable, which will have a function similar to that seen in Just Cause 2: you can attach an object, then aim and hook a second object to merge them together. This mechanism will allow us to develop creative situations such as hanging an explosive barrel beneath an overhang, invoke the enemies with a Sonic batarangs and then cut the cord with a regular batarangs to bring down the explosive on their heads.
As already mentioned, in addition, Batman will have to earn the trust of the police corrupt: it'll have to take part in numerous side-quests in which the cops will save themselves from criminal assaults, come to the aid of informers into trouble and so on. These activities will provide us additional experience points and increase the gratitude of Gotham City Police Department against the masked hero. These are not however the only secondary activities: we may also put suelle traces of criminals searches or undertake missions that will allow us to access a variety of power-ups.
We leave you now with pictures, waiting to be able to provide more information about the game.
