Mani-Man wrote:The DLC shows again the good and the bad sides of WBM.

The story and design is great, the small new additions and extras are nice.
But the story would have needed a couple of more cutscenes or something that goes deeper into the story.
They arent brave enough to do more new things, this is what rocksteady does good, they find something new and do it fully, while WBM is to careful and holds back on what they could do.

Also i think the DLC would have worked better, without the "open world" possibility.
Gothcorp looks awesome, the buildings in the arkham series have a strong atmosphere, so having the DLC completley inside Gothcorp would have been a better idea IMO.

Also we have the storywise rushing again, it feels like Mr freezes "transformation" and the whole story happended in a month or less, i dont know how much time passed in the comics from freezes "accident" to his first apperance, but it feels rushed.

I feel that WBM has an extreme problem in general with the timeline and all that, the main game messed up pretty much on some parts......but i digress.

What i really like, is the feeling of the DLC.
It felt like a good old animated show episode.
Not too long and not too short, the overall feeling is really good for the DLC.

I will play the DLC a couple of times, that is sure.

Mani-Man wrote:Also i think the DLC would have worked better, without the "open world" possibility.
Gothcorp looks awesome, the buildings in the arkham series have a strong atmosphere, so having the DLC completley inside Gothcorp would have been a better idea IMO.

HarshFact wrote:Based rather loosely to some extent and heavily on others, A Cold, Cold Heart is an adaptation of the Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice" with the narrative of the DLC focused on the origins of the infamous Mister Freeze. retelling the tragic tale of Dr.Victor Fries as he's life is destroyed when he is betrayed by the gothcorp CEO Feris Boyle.

The DLC opens up with the humanitarian of the year award being presented to Feris Boyle as he's momentarily attacked By freeze after forcing Bruce Wayne to enter the cave and suit up to rescue Boyle from Freeze. the intro section is done with great care and i would go as far as pointing out that it is the most enjoyable section of the DLC with refrences towards Arkham Origins itself and the problems which are caused by Bane's attack on the cave and so on and it is great to see anther entry to the cave which Bruce uses along with recurring characters such as Vici Vale and Alfred which make up for an awesome time in the intro.

however in terms of narrative the pace does get a bit slow and tedious this is particularly sad to see considering the team have really put great effort into designing a building such as Gothcorp but the amount o mini-tasks and complications that present themselves between the final freeze encounter and the very little story there is can be very tedious and unbalanced. the fact that you have to accomplish tasks such as obtaining access codes (which are turning into an Arkham cliche itself at this point) and leaving the Gothcorp building itself twice for very weak narrative reasons does get annoying at times. especially with the addition that you spend the majority of the time of the third task after something called "ice drill" and on contrary to what you might believe is not an actual gadget but rather used for breaking an ice wall and that's pretty much it. it would be a better decision to have the XE suit development suit and other unlockables and narrative happening within a hugely designed Gothcorp and giving a better immersive experience instead of breaking the narrative for very poor reasons.

the gameplay additions of the new XE suit are very great, besides from looking insanely cool it does bring a couple of new moves and sort of does alter some equipment but not to a very impressive level should be pointed out, however for what it is it's actually very welcomed however the lack of freedom in the complete map (like HQR) or being able to return to Batcave the very least and change suits back to free-roam with the default origins suit or any other is a big disappointment to me at least.

The Boss Fight with Mr.freeze felt like a step-down from Rocksteady's incarnation and not on par with the different feeling WBGM pulled off with the remarkable Deathstroke. though to be fair there was really no other way to take this one home, however i would say that i find the addition of thugs entering the room as i do with the two-face and the harley Boss fight in AC and other similar ones quite annoying and the largely designed spaces does take away from the enclosed and therefore more stressful mouse & cat game feeling that AC had and the sense of being psychically not capable of taking Freeze head on was accomplished much better in AC than here. i had no fear of freeze in this DLC simply because vantage points were all available and his health was much more vulnerable to attack than Ac however the final moments of Actually trying to save freeze as Boyle was trying to beat him down had a cleverness to it dues to the fact of working for exactly the reverse and trying to take down Boyle before Freeze's health depletes.

which brings me to he slightly "altered" version of Freeze's own back-story and my main problem with the DLC apart from the mentioned so far. in The animated Series Boyle terminates Victor's research because he's losing funds due to victor working towards curing his wife while in the DLC it's mentioned that Victor made a deal with Boyle and apparently he was tricking him to learn more about his technology in return to do research on his wife. the main issue with this is that the fact that freeze made a deal with Boyle diminishes two brilliant aspect of Freeze as a whole, firstly if Nora was sick and Boyle knew this before actually making a deal with Freeze than the origin loses the stone-cold feeling of Boyle being insanely cruel to Freeze and pulling the plug off on Nora hence the majority of his motivation to take revenge on Boyle in the first place! so basically in this DLC freeze is pissed at Boyle and kidnaps him just cause Boyle bailed out on him in the deal? i may have missed something here so please do correct me if i'm wrong. they try to make up for this in the end by having Boyle beat the crap out of Nora and trying to kill her which seemed like a bit of over dramatic "villain-iaztion" on WBGM's part. also the TAS version adds a grey moral ground since freeze was in no position to make a deal, he was just an old friend who begged Boyle for help and he threw him away and when you think about it although very cruel but for good reasons if Boyle hadn't shut down the project, someone else would it sort of acted as a commentary on industrial companies while in the game they try to make Boyle extra evil by having a secret cryogenic weapon department as well.

As a whole for me it's on par with HQR, however in HQR's defense it actually gave us an insight to a post-AC world we didn't know about (such as Bruce not talking to anyone) plus a more interesting and sinister premise , A Cold, Cold Heart however seems to make most of the mistakes HQR did while somehow losing the moral glory and the brilliance of a classic TAS episode in the process, however DLC is equipped with a very cool looking new suit, the city actually does look much better and has a certain color to it while maintaining the coldness, the designers have simply done great work on both Gothcorp and wayne manor.

my final score on this DLC would be 6/10

HeatScanBatman wrote:

Deathstroke wrote:Do you think this will be the only DLC for Origins? Or do you think there will be another one? We need some more batman before Arkham Knight comes out!

I hope so I want DLC for Robin and Batgirl

Deathstroke wrote:Do you think this will be the only DLC for Origins? Or do you think there will be another one? We need some more batman before Arkham Knight comes out!

HeatScanBatman wrote:Nice review, but I think it's 8/10, for first it's best DLC for Arkham Series, much better then Harley's Revenge.
- 2 from 10 for not adding Worst Nightmare skin, little glitches, not full Gotham City available, and for incompatibility with the main game (no character trophies, no XE Suit in challenge maps). Other everything is just perfect.
P.S. Add Robin origin story, with playable Robin and Worst Nightmare Skin (for main story and challenge maps) in upcoming DLC, and Arkham Origins will be best game in Arkham series
(Bad english, sorry )

TheJester wrote:At its core, A Cold, Cold Heart is a neat little extra to add to the Arkhamverse lore, but fails to add any original gameplay aspects that'll make you get your money's worth. Thankfully, its clear love for Batman: The Animated Series saves this DLC from freezing solid in the ice cold blizzard of unoriginality, and is sure to warm true Bat fans' hearts.

Red_Robin wrote:Surprised to see you rip into this such much considering how much you loved Origins, J. Personally, I found it to be more entertaining that Origins in many respects, and certainly a smoother experience with regards to bugs.