AUTISM TIME!!!

SPOILERS FOR ARKHAM SHADOW!!!

Arkham Shadow is the best VR game that I have ever played (not saying a lot, I've only beaten two VR games before) and is now my 3rd favorite Arkham game, above Asylum and City. It has its flaws but overall is amazing.

So first, let's get into the pros of this game. It has an AMAZING plot focused on the backstory of Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, and more. The whole plot is a classic whodunnit that keeps the player engaged with the plot the entire time. Batman decides to find the Rat King, and find out who he is, he has to go undercover as Irving "Matches" Malone in Blackgate Prison. I'm not going to go over the entire plot, just my favorite parts and the parts I thought were worth mentioning. The first thing I noticed was the TYGER guards from Arkham City are the guards in Blackgate. I also noticed the return of Frank Boles, the guard that works with Joker to take over the Asylum in Arkham Asylum. In fact a lot of characters return like Dick Grayson, Howard Branden, and characters that were only hinted at in previous games like The Ratcatcher and Arnold Wesker. We also get a lot of flashbacks to Bruce and Harvey's backstory which is absolutely fantastic. We see Bruce defending Harvey from his abusive father, we get to see them bond and become brothers, you get a real affinity for Harvey Dent during these cutscenes. Of course though, we all know what happens to Harvey Dent. When playing as Matches, you are called to trial in which you end up accidentally spilling an acidic substance all over Harvey. You are about to be gassed for this by the CO you beat up earlier, CO Bolton. Luckily the Rats save you, but then A TWIST! it turns out that due to your actions, beating up CO Bolton, assaulting Harvey Dent, all of these things have made the Rats think YOU (Matches) are the Rat King.

So you have a whodunnit with one of the main suspects being you, but of course you know that Batman isn't the Rat King, so who could it be? You get on the "ark" that the Rats keep telling you about and you realize from Yamashiro (undercover cop that was a huge dick to you on day one) that Harvey Dent is the Rat King. (he just says Harvey's on the ship but it's not a huge logical leap from there). You reach Harvey Dent as Batman to try to talk some sense into him. It is revealed that Harvey is the Rat King, he created this cult to rid Gotham of its filth. He has a huge bomb on his ship and he's going to crash straight into Gotham. You eventually disarm the bomb but the ship still crashes with all of the rats on board, you go to find Harvey. It turns out that Harvey Dent has left a voice message for Bruce Wayne telling him that he found the man who killed his parents, Joe Chill. Joe is the guy working in the commissary at Blackgate, you and him become pretty close but you never catch his last name until now. All of the dots are connected and Batman knows what he has to do. He reaches Harvey who has a gun pressed against Joe Chill's skull. Batman and Harvey argue over the life of Joe Chill before Batman says "Bruce wouldn't want this." Harvey is like "How would you know?". Bruce takes off the cowl, showing himself to Harvey, Joe Chill runs free after profusely apologizing. Harvey Dent first shows off Two Face in this scene before attempting to jump off of a building. Of course, Batman saves him but Harvey is left with fleeting memories of what happened. 

That wasn't even half the plot, but even with that short snippit you can see why this game is so good, it left me shocked, sad for Harvey, it made me feel for the character. 

Now onto combat, and oh my god combat is so good in this game. Unlike previous Arkham games, the VR setup allows you to have a much better combat system. Instead of having to wait for Batman's animation to finish, you ARE the animation. Combat goes as quickly as you are and is an absolute blast. The controls take a minute to learn but are extremely intuitive, I didn't have trouble with them after the initial learning period. Not to mention the quality of life improvements. As I said earlier, you don't have to wait for an animation to play, that includes the ground takedown which is notorious in Arkham games for being super long. You cannot use this move very often in non-VR combat because of the long animation causing you to get hit. The thing with VR is because it's so interactable, that isn't an issue anymore, if an enemy tries to attack you during a ground takedown it is super easy to counter. 

Predator has some losses but also some really good improvements. In VR, predator seems to go so much faster than it did in previous games. I only had one really long predator section (I'll talk about it later in the cons section). However you also have less gadgets because it is an earlier version of Batman, so obviously you don't have things like FEAR takedowns and voice modulators. It makes sense in the plot though so I won't criticize it too heavily. 

The upgrades are much better and more practical than they were in Arkham Knight. Arkham Knight just kind of had too many upgrades, so much so that I couldn't even get them all while 100% the game to get Knightfall, and while to be clear I didn't get all of the upgrades this go around, I also didn't 100% the game yet. 

Now it's time for the cons, there are quite a few but trust me, this is a really good game and these aren't as bad as I make them look. First I'm going to talk about two predator sections. The first is in the very beginning of the game, when you're trying to take down Shrike. Right before you get to Shrike there is a very small predator section with 3 guys and Shrike pointing a sniper rifle at the ground. The issue is, this sniper rifle is really really good because it can see through walls apparently. I tried this section a good 5-6 times before deciding to look it up. It seemed every time I tried to get behind cover, Shrike would somehow see me. Apparently I had to do the predator section very fast, much faster than I was doing it. It just really felt like the game was punishing me for no reason though, as I was doing what I thought the game wanted from me. The second predator section I'm going to complain about is the ark predator section, right before you defuse the bomb. You have 2 snipers and 6 guards patrolling a relatively small space (compared to other predator sections in this game). It was a whole lot of waiting, inverted takedowns and trying my best to not get shot. It was just plain boring (like the 2nd Two-Face section in City). 

The other issue I had with the predator sections were the enemy AI. They would seemingly freeze for no reason, just standing in the exact same spot forever. Especially so when I threw sonic batarangs (which I used quite a few of). I did use this to my advantage a few times (especially with snipers) but it is still a huge flaw with the game.

The other biggest issue I had were the glitches, I came across 3 game breaking glitches in my time playing Arkham Shadow. 2 of these glitches I had to restart from a different checkpoint because of how bad the game was glitched. The first one, and the most minor of the 3, is a glitch I encountered during the Harleen Quinzel section. You have to take out 3 snipers that are aimed at the hallways, I did this pretty easily (on my 2nd try lol) but the issue was, I tried to get back onto the ledge I came from. The game did not give me a grapple point so I landed on the edge of the building (and inside of it a little). I couldn't get back up and had to reload the game from there. The 2nd issue was much bigger and required me loading from a previous checkpoint (not my most recent one). This is the section leading up to Crane's lab, right before the Shadow Batman fight, there's a door leading to Crane's lab that is supposed to open. My game crashed before it could open, so the cutscene was triggered but I wasn't allowed into Crane's lab, I was locked out despite the door being unlocked. I had to listen to Harley yelling at Crane twice before finally discovering that I could reload a previous checkpoint. The last of the 3 was right after Harvey headbutts you. I got up and just couldn't progress, the door just wouldn't open. 

I also have an issue with the plot, a minor issue but still an issue nonetheless. In the middle of the game you have an awesome fight with CO Bolton, you beat his ass but you also get sent to solitary. It makes sense plot wise but we really just waste 2 whole days talking to Joker, then sleeping, talking to Joker, then sleeping. It's just a little annoying to have 2 entire days that could've been filled with content but are instead spent talking (very little btw) to Joker. Like if the conversations were longer then sure, I'd probably be fine with it, but it really seems like they didn't know how to fill space for those 2 days and just decided "screw it, put him in solitary". 

Overall, I love Arkham Shadow. I plan on playing it again, it is an amazing game. 

8/10 WOULD PLAY AGAIN!!!