By Christopher Hardy

When it comes to games in VR there aren’t many good quality games out there on the market currently in recent years before the announcement of the Meta Quest 3. One of the games that were heavily marketed during the Meta Quest 3 launch was the Batman game Arkham Shadow. The game gives the player a first-hand point of view of Batman. Making the game so immersive that some claimed they believed they were Batman fighting crime in Gotham City. In this post I will be going over my experience playing the game even though I have not finished the game, I will give a general grasp of my understanding of it and if the game is good or not from my perspective.

Graphics

Out of all the games that I have played on VR, this game had by far the best graphics out of all of them. When it came to most of the games that I’ve played on VR they always had a rough look to them. However Batman: Arkham Shadow has exceeded my expectations with its crisp graphics and smooth character design. With the advancement of VR resolution quality especially with the quest 3 having a resolution of 2064 x 2208 per eye. Making the game released at this time is the best decision that the company that had worked on the game had made, instead of releasing it early before it would have originally been released on Quest 2 with lower graphics.

Story

The Story begins with Batman fighting some crooks in the middle of a burning Gotham. The beginning of the game serves as a tutorial to show players how combat works in the game and how to use Batman’s gadgets. The Crooks in the game call themselves Rats and serve the Rat King who seems to be the main villain in the game. The goal of the Rats is to destroy the legal system in Gotham. by targeting things like courts and law enforcement, basically any political authority is what they sought to overthrow. The story of the game mainly revolves around trying to find who and where the Rat King is to stop him from committing more atrocious acts with his followers. As for who and what started the cult-like movement I still haven’t found out in my playthrough but will soon as I continue to complete the story.

Gadgets

When it comes to any Batman game the most important feature is Batman’s gear or gadgets and how it is used in the game. The gadgets in the game included Batman’s Batarang, which can be used to attack enemies with or hit switches that you can’t reach. The Batclaw gadget is Batman’s grapple gun and is used to get to certain heights that you aren’t able to climb. The next gadgets are smoke pellets, which are essentially smoke bombs that can be used to “disappear” from enemy lines of sight if you get too surrounded. Lastly, Batman’s Shock Gloves are used to increase the damage of each attack. Most of these gadgets could be upgraded in the skill tree using points you can gain while playing the game.

My Experience 

When I first started to play the game I realized that there would be a lot more movement than I had originally anticipated before playing the game. The combat mechanics in the game got me too invested in fighting the criminals and I sometimes forget about my surroundings and bump into a wall or something. I loved the amount of detail put into the game and making it look realistic with both the movement and how you have to grab the gadgets from your utility belt to use them. I also liked the attention to detail for the detective mode when searching for evidence, having to actively turn it on by touching Batman’s mask added to my immersion. 

Difficulty 

I found the gliding mechanic to be the most difficult feature in the game. Grabbing the cape to glide has been difficult for me the entirety of my playthrough. Other than that the game wasn’t that hard for me to get into since the combat is pretty straightforward. This might be because I’m familiar with other VR games like Blade and Sorcery which have similar combat mechanics.

Overall

I really enjoyed playing this game and how much time and effort was put into each and every detail to make the game more immersive. I would recommend that anyone who has access to a VR headset check it out. However, if you have something like motion sickness then this game probably wouldn’t be the best for you to play. Overall this became one of my favorite games to play on VR.

Comment below your thoughts on this game and if you are willing to check it out.