I sweat like a wet little field mouse. Sweat dripping from the tip of my nose, bleeding. My back was also sweaty and my forehead was covered with beads of sweat. I should really relax instead of sitting here stressing about writing reviews. I was supposed to take a nap after wiping off my sweat and drinking a glass of water. Because, as far as I know, there is no game currently available for any platform or format that is more physically demanding than the newly released Meta Quest 3 Batman: Arkham Shadow. I’d say this is worse than the worst workout ever.
I’m not a VR geek. The complete opposite. I was too old to stand with a plastic helmet on my head waving around my living room like a madman. I want to sit down while I play. I want to be able to sit completely still and just move my toes, and I want to look at my TCL 98 ‘without pressing my old head to a VR headset. That said, I really enjoyed Half-Life: ALyx, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, and Asgard’s Wrath II. Great VR experiences, with Beat Saber, Superhot VR, Tetris Effect and Gran Turismo 7 VR proving what the format can offer if games are developed the right way by the right people.
Batman: Arkham Shadow should be placed in the same main category as the games I mentioned above, mainly thanks to the developers having a good taste to get involved in the ever-fabulous Batman: Arkham Asylum, which they actually did just fine. . The studio behind Iron Man VR (Camouflaj) has created a VR adventure that not only excites and amazes, but also belies and sets the bar high. platform for Arkham Origins and Rocksteady’s inventive trilogy about DC Comics’ greatest detective.
Here’s a hint:
Players picked up the mantle here after the events of Origins and before Arkham Asylum. Batman is young, relatively inexperienced, but tough as nails, and as he takes on the evil Rat King, who plans to plunder Gotham through a cult-like revolution, it’s up to you stop the pain and make things right again. Jim Gordon has been kidnapped, Blackgate Prison is on fire (metaphorically at least) thanks to the twisted, relentless warden Bolton, and Scarecrow is as manipulative as ever in this terrifying adventure. ever.
It was clear early on that the main mission of the developers behind Arkham Shadow was to try to emulate Arkham Asylum, turning third-person action segments and detective/stealth moments into something that worked from a VR-based first-person perspective. I have to admit that this was the part of development that took the longest to get right, and the end result reflects that, which I think is much better than I wanted. to hope There is a successful, tight frame of the claustrophobia here that could have been a little too much in Rocksteady when he opened Gotham. I like this. Within the technical confines of the Meta Quest helmet, Camouflaj moves with a deftness that’s hard not to love. The feeling of being Batman is well realized here, and the feeling of being able to move around relatively freely within decent sized environments is better realized ‘ despite the fact that the game is extremely linear in nature.
Just like in Arkham Asylum, you can choose your own approach based on your play style and mood. If you’d rather run past enemies, maybe pick one or two up on the roof and have them hang from the ceiling on wires, that’s fine. If you want to dive in headfirst into every fight and let your fists do the talking – that’s fine too. Structurally, like the first game in the Rocksteady trilogy, this is a three-dimensional metroidvania where you move around a maze-like game world, collecting clues, going back to find things you might have missed, and then moving on. The atmosphere is great, the level design is great, and the pacing is well balanced.
Here’s a hint:
Equally good is the combat system, which I previously thought looked mediocre at best. Handing out knuckle sandwiches, jumping between various melees, and fending off the tough henchmen from Rat King HQ is challenging and rewarding, without becoming annoying or unnecessary. as I usually find this species to be like this. It flows so well, it really feels like the fists are doing the damage, and it requires you as a player to stand in a room with a lot of surface while you spin, shaking, punching and hammering like a maniac. I’m not going to say that it’s playable sitting down, and I’m not going to say that you can go through Arkham Shadow without breaking a sweat. I don’t even think it’s physically possible unless you’re in the best shape you’ve ever been.
The only thing I don’t like about this game is the graphics, although the design is nice (same thing here, it feels a lot like Arkham Asylum) it looks old. Of course, I understand the hardware limitations, since the Meta Quest is a standalone headset and doesn’t require a computer, but still. Arkham Shadow looks old, which ruined some of the experience for me. Especially compared to Half-Life: Alyx, which looked five or even six years older. In particular, it is the cutscenes and the way the different characters move and especially talk that spoil some of the atmosphere, even if the voice acting is very good (Troy Baker and Elijah Wood good work in both Two-Face and Scarecrow exceptional).
In the end, it’s great to see a really successful, well-made and successful blockbuster like this in VR. The format itself needs a large number of these games in the early stages to reach a wider, wider audience. If you have a Quest headset, you can’t miss the Arkham Shadow.
