Batman: Arkham Shadow

I played Batman in VR, and you know, I didn’t expect it to be anything good.

Since it was advertised as a flagship game for Quest 3, I expected the focus to be on graphics to showcase how much better the Q3 hardware is compared to Q2. I thought the gameplay would be super casual, like it often is with AAA games.

But in reality, it’s actually pretty cool. Gunfire kills you instantly (at the start of the game, without suit upgrades), so you have to start fights by rushing towards the guy with the weapon. Even after that, someone might pick up the weapon you knocked out of their hands during the fight, and you need to stop them from doing it.

The arsenal of abilities is also solid: regular punches, enemy tosses, air combos, finishing off enemies lying down, counterattacks, the Batarang (your logo is on your chest, you grab it and throw it), smoke bombs on your left forearm. And there's more to unlock.

There’s stealth: you can crawl through the vents under the floor and quietly take out enemies from behind, or use the grapple gun to pull yourself up on a gargoyle, then stealthily hang an enemy like in a PC game.

In simple combat combos, there are cool elements: it tells you where to swing your arms, and Batman sometimes automatically grabs the enemy by the neck or leg, creating beautiful combos.

And you can grab your cape to glide, or stun your enemies in combat. Although the game doesn't feature an open world to glide in.

I played all the Rocksteady Batman games and I only finished the first one. I should have quit while I was ahead because I realized I did not really enjoy them and making them bigger made everything worse.

Now we get a bit back to basics and make it in VR and the novelty of that alone is enough to make it fun. The story is still forgettable nonsense with probably a tonne of references that mean nothing to me but it keep the game moving.

I will say the boss fights feel extra bulls*** but that was built into how the other Batman games were as well. I think it is a really good game if you are looking for a meaty adventure in VR!

(played on Quest 3)

Dropping this game and lowering my review score to 3/5 stars. Started off well: you're going through the streets, indoors and roofs of a big city, getting new mechanics and gadgets regularly and the story is not getting in the way.

But then, once I got to the prison chapter, it became boring to me:

1. You're often forced to do nothing while characters talk about something.
2. Combat encounters just throw more and more enemies at you, which feels like busywork more than a challenge. Unless you smoke bomb, your combos will be interrupted almost all the time.
3. The environment is just metallic corridors with little to no variety.
4. Handholding is over the top. Stop to look for secret paths for 10 seconds and Batman will tell you where to go and what to do. Explore 10 more seconds, and get a second voice line, with even more obvious explanation of how to solve the very basic puzzles they throw at you.

I was surprised how it suddenly went from exciting to a chore.