Batman: Arkham VR Reviews
The best tech demo so far for PlayStation VR, but with some better storytelling it could also have been a good game in its own right.
You can't come up with a more intriguing VR premise than "Batman simulator," and developer Rocksteady has done their best to make it work. But despite how cool it is to simply exist in Gotham, the limited interactions and dumbed-down puzzles make the experience feel much less confident than it should be.
We’d recommend giving Batman Arkham a pass at its $19.99 price tag if it weren’t for how amazingly cool it feels – even if for one brief moment – to feel like you’re Batman. For die-hard Batman fans, this will be worth the price of admission alone, but for everyone else, weigh out that specific moment in your decision-making process. If that sounds like something you must experience for yourself, give Batman Arkham VR a try. If you are hoping for a great-looking tech demo to show off PSVR’s capabilities with an iconic character everyone you know will recognize, give Batman Arkham VR a try. But if you’re looking for a deep, engaging experience, Batman Arkham VR is more laughable than The Joker’s smug grin.
Batman: Arkham VR offers some fun puzzles and use of tools, but its lack of action scenes and short running time keep the game from really making you feel like Batman.
If you're a Batman fan with PlayStation VR, this game is likely already sat in your collection. It's a short, sweet, tour-de-force, tugging on those grapple-hook heartstrings forged from the original Arkham trilogy. For anyone else, it's a great introduction to VR but doesn't do anything to push the franchise or the platform forward.
As someone that doesn’t really mind a short game, I have to admit that I was a bit dismayed by not only its length, but the fact that there really wasn’t any combat involved. At $10 to $15, it would be easier to recommend.
Arkham VR is a limited game but a robust experience, with only some replay value through collectable Riddler trophies dotted around subsequent playthroughs. Like many other VR games it serves well as a showcase for the possibilities of virtual reality, but doesn't offer players an experience with any real depth.
‘Batman: Arkham VR’ is one of the most immediately impressive AAA experiences to launch on the PSVR, but ultimately lacks substance.
Batman Arkham VR comes with the slogan of “be the batman” but without a good storyline and proper VR elements, it can’t go anywhere. You can play “Arkham Knight” and be the Batman thousands more times.
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Rocksteady keeps its reputation intact with one of the finest games to launch with PSVR.
Arkham VR might prove to be an amusing evolutionary dead-end, a one-time theme park attraction that used the best tech available to let us pretend, however awkwardly, to stand around as Batman. It may also represent a step toward a more deeply interactive virtual reality Batman game, one that will allow us to more literally step into the impressive Batman universe that Rocksteady has built. Either way, it’s a start at best. It’s not a destination.
Story is still very important. But I am saying that under VR’s heavy-ish headset, it’s easy to become bored and impatient when a game plods on.