Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Review

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate is a fun and entertaining way to be the Batman in the handheld gaming world, but it falls short of its amazing predecessors on the consoles all due to a 2.5D design. Blackgate kicks off with spectacular fashion in a tutorial where you face off against Catwoman. This tutorial poses to be actually one of the most impressive sequences in the entire game, and is a prologue that seeps you into Batman. Once you finish the tutorial or prologue you go to the place the game is named after, Blackgate. The only other Arkham game to take place even for a few moments was, Arkham Origins, and it’s a pity that there is no connection in both design and location.

The gameplay itself will feel instantly familiar to any Arkham player, since both the combat and predator sequences have been hoarded over quite impressively. It doesn’t fully recapture it however, the combat is significantly less responsive, and sometimes Batman will try to punch nothing, losing your combo. This happens on the console but happens far too often here. Also a crucial part of the console Arkham games have been lost. The collectibles have vanished. The only sitting as replay value is the ability to pick up pieces of armor that you can later use as a brand new bat suit. It was a neat addition and would have had me scrawling looking for silver Wayne Tech crates, but after you complete the final boss, you are no longer allowed to go back to Blackgate, and instead are forced to get all the collectibles in the more previous bits of the story.

Score: 8.3 out of 10