E3 Hands On: Batman: Arkham Origins

Picture this: a dark, air-conditioned room, away from the hustle and noise of the main show floor. There are a dozen stations set up, each with a PS3 and a member of the Warner Bros. Games Montreal team standing by.

(Also a cool, back-lit cooler full of ice and beer, none of which was offered to or consumed by yours truly.)

That was the setting for media and VIPs to get a firsthand look at “Batman: Arkham Origins” this year at E3. The release of a new “Arkham” game is always a big deal, but the latest one is especially intriguing. It’s the last game in the series that will be played primarily on current gen consoles, and it’s a prequel to the previous two games, depicting a younger, less experienced Dark Knight.

There’s also the not insignificant matter of a change in development studios. Rocksteady Studios is sitting this chapter out, with WB Montreal taking the helm – a move that has plenty of gamers anxious.

From the 20 minutes or so that was playable at E3, they shouldn’t be worried. The essence of the “Arkham” series was very much intact, from the visuals to the ways Batman gets around Gotham City. Not much was different about the combat system, which makes sense considering it was already among the best in all of gaming.

Batman’s array of gadgets and crime-solving techniques were all present, but there were some new tricks to go with them. The most promising one was the upgrade to detective vision, allowing the Dark Knight to recreate crimes from clues he scans at the scene.

With each clue, Batman got a snippet of the timeline of the crime in question, which in turn allowed him to “see” what happened in the tradition of the flashbacks in the TV show “CSI.” The demo level showed off this addition by having the player reconstruct a helicopter crash from pieces of the wreckage. Each clue led to the next with the help of a DVR-like feature that helped Batman go forward or backward in time as necessary to figure out where to look next.

Another fun experiment took place in predator mode, where the developer encouraged the use of Batman’s new remote grapple. After shooting it across the room to use as a tightrope, our hero picked off enemies silently by entangling two bad guys and slamming them together or grabbing large objects and pulling them in to knock out foes. It was as much fun as it sounds.

The hands on content ended with a cinematic showing The Joker threatening some Christmas mayhem by blowing up buildings in downtown Gotham. It was just enough to whet the appetite for more, but the main course will arrive worldwide on October 25, when “Batman: Arkham Origins” releases on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC.