Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Batman: Arkham Shadow Review (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Thanks For The Support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping  - Batman Arkham Shadow Review - Ads  - Greg’s Thoughts - Barr’s Negatives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny games cast. It always gets me. Every once in a while, the gym just has a mind of its own, the camera fix. Barrett, I'm so sorry. I'm so like,

I'm on the show. Everyone's excited for AI until it turns like, well, I wouldn't even watch this shit. It just goes away. I think that must have been programmed for the Sonic one. The camera was just like, I want to go away.

But, yeah, it was scared that the weird image baked in on the wall was going to pop up again, so it wanted to avoid showing that again. I was so weird. to this day, I don't understand how that happened. Yeah, it's really weird.

Again, Andy was saying that there's premiere updates and stuff like that. Something weird came in through the Matrix. That was weird. You know what's not weird? This show, the kind of funny games cast is happening live for Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024. Of course, I am your host, Tim Geddies. I'm joined today by the Big Daddy. Hi, Tim.

How are you? Nice hat. Not. Yeah. I got a dance. I just watched Wayne's World and Wayne's World, too, for the first time in many years. Wayne's World 2 is so good. She's first time ever.

All right. God, I, every day this woman better thank her lucky stars that she met you, and you stole her away from these fucking libraries she was hanging out of it. You know what I know what I mean? I'm culturing her. Fucking didn't know Batman, didn't know anybody. Come there. Marvel, didn't watch Wayne's World?

And let me tell you what, Greg. What does she think of her first Coca-Cola? Up, man. Amish? You know what I mean? For a time. I'm isish. You know what I mean?

There's an energy today, and it's not good. I need to get a fucking It's a great energy. We're on fire. I haven't even introduced the Dark Night himself, Barrett Courtney. Hello, I'm very tired.

I got here at 8 in the morning. We got a lot of fun going on. Round of applause for Barrett. Round of applause. Roger, I love you. Oh shit, Roger's coming in the room. Roger for the software. Just hit ultra slow and hit start.

We're doing our best here. It kind of funny, everybody. We're having a great time doing it. because even when things go off the rails just a little bit, we're still having a great time. And we've been having a great time all day today. And we're going to continue to do that. Earlier today,

what did you do, Greg? I streamed the first two hours of Batman, Arkham Shadow with the devs from Camouflage, a little sponsor stream we did. Fantastic. Did you have fun? I did. Yeah, of course.

You know, this has been one to keep our eye on. I know it's a review over the place, so I shouldn't go too much into and burn too much. But yes, in short, I had fun. And more importantly, I think camouflage, Ryan Payton, that team he's assembled are some of my favorite guests we have on it, kind of funny, because they are the, oh yeah, that last game we made wasn't, didn't do this right, we didn't like that.

Yesterday they launched this game accidentally early, and so he was telling the story of how that happened. It's like, you don't get that transparency from a lot of different developers. And you can watch it all. It's up on YouTube now, so you can check that out. And, of course, if you want to be part of this show, though, you can YouTube super chat. So if you have any question about Arkham, anything about Arkham, any question for Barrett, any question for Greg? fucking any question for me about my hair, about my ice coffee, feel free to super chat in.

Without the beanie, you look like the hair of the way it drops downy and look like one of them TikTok kids. Yeah. Are you ticking and talking? I'm ticking, I'm talking, just a little bit. A little housekeeping, like I was saying, you already got the sponsored stream of Batman Arkham Shadow with Greg, Mike, and the Debs. And then we got games daily that was me and Paris Lily breaking down the Sackarize Super Smash

Brothers teasing next game situation. Got his ass too. You got him. Bald fuck. Oh my God. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Hey. Give up. Give up. Give up. Give up. We did. Shave it. I mean,

but I want to get like, Lex Luther. Come on. I mean. Have you ever been Lex for Halloween? No. I was once Walter White. Or no,

I was Jesse Pinkman. I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. With my buddy Ricky who, you be Lex. And then this is where I started to,

I'm, watch a fucking cartoon. Read a comic book, you dorks. And then, Alyssa be mercy. Your bodyguard? Okay.

Yeah. I have no idea who that is. I do like we do. I can fucking walk in and be like, I remember that guy I made a cheeseburger and my hero. I could be like, oh. Yeah.

This guy. You know, Roger. Shout it to my interview with the voice. I could be, I could be the Jesse Eisenberg Lex right now. You could, you could show me a picture of this woman and I'd be like,

yeah, she looks like any other female from any of the animated 90s. Okay. Okay. With all due respect, sir. I don't know why. Fucking Roger picks the most like, fucking Roger.

one. It looks, here's just, she looks like Loisling. Thank you for showing her from Superman. The animated series, the fucking hit series. Look, you look at that Wikipedia right there. You're telling me, Alyssa wouldn't kill that costume right there? Dude, she looks dope. Number one image. Number one image. Wikipedia. Top left.

Jesus fucking Christ. You know what I mean? I like the liquid snake. There's something ominous about, like, her boots also like pointing downwards. Like she's floating. This looks like invincible shit. Anyways, everybody. Shout out to our Patreon producers. Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twining. If you're a kind of funny member,

have great news for you. You get into Gregway, which today is about. Today's Gregway, I put in the thing. Drive-Bode. Was about core memories. Making core memories. Also, should we save this guy's kid? Not your kid, but this guy on the road. It's a whole thing. Listen to it.

And you can get the October kind of funny happy hour where you can call in and talk to us on Patreon.com slash kind of funny later today. It's going to be a fantastic time. Ignacio Rojas is hyped. We have confirmation. Did he go to the surly? wench in Arizona. It's all we needed to know. I doubt it. He drove by it on the Muti or something or whatever they, whatever they're public transit.

We're brought to you by New World Eternalnum, phasmophobia, Marvel Snap, and Shady Ray's, but we'll tell you about that later. We got to start with the topic of the show. Tots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dot, dot, dot, dot, Stats. Batman, Arkham Shadow Review, so far, first things first, let's rewatch

Barrett's initial reaction. I don't want to hear what he thinks of this game, so I see this. If you don't remember, there it is. This is when we surprised Barry. He didn't know what he was about to see, but we knew we had a new trailer to see. That was by lean back of an excitement and lean forward to fuck.

The lean back I'm so excited when he realized it was Batman and then the Quest logo popped up and he was, then here we go, just the depression. And you're gonna throw up, he says. You're gonna throw up. A lot of thinking. A lot of deep side. A lot of quest, Barrett.

Arkham's back. I guess probably before Suicide Squad, but he'll sound different probably. Arkham Shadow. But Arkham's back. It was weird because the outline kind of looks like more of his Arkham Origin suit, which they don't really do in the other games. So I'm such a fucking dork. What the fuck, man? Like, why are we?

Have you been? Got a lot of Bremenia. Loving James and Joe Joe. Joe. Batman's back. Batman's back. What a fucking flounder of a fucking franchise, man. It's fucking sad.

W.B. Missed me with this shit. Damn, that was your stinging indictment on May 1st, 2024. And here we are. October 22nd, 2024. Did you throw up, Barrett? I did not, I can confirm I did not throw up after, you know, going through the options and, you know, definitely weighing.

You turn up that vignette? Oh, yeah. Had to turn up the vignette a lot and, uh, playing around with either. walking around or sitting, I played mainly stationary and playing around with all the settings and options and all that stuff. So before we get into your thoughts on this whole thing, let me tell you guys that this is Batman Arkham Shadow. The developer is camouflage. The publisher is meta themselves. MetaQuest 3 exclusive. It's bundled with the headset or it's $50 on its own. The official description, it's the 4th of July and Gotham City is under attack by

new threats. The mysterious Rat King and his cultish devotees as widespread rioting and goals to City, Batman races to prevent the so-called Day of Wrath before it all goes wrong. The timeline is between origins and asylum, so Barrett absolutely nailed it there. The cast includes Roger Craig Smith as Batman, who

Roger or Roger. Do you know who that is? Sonic and Sonic Generations, baby. And then the rat catcher. Karie Payton, the legend. We have Dr. Jonathan Crane Elijah Wood. Not his first VR game. He's

I just had like a weird kind of history with doing VR stuff. He helped, like, he was, like, doing development or doing, like, partnering with some studio on a VR game, like, way back when I was at IGN and stuff. I think it's just, like, kind of a medium he is really fascinated by, so. Yeah. And then, of course, we have Harley and Quinzel as Tara Strong, or Terestr Strong as Harley and Quinzel. So now, with that out of the way, Barrett.

Is this a review, or is this a review so far? This is a review so far. I put in about nine and a half hours. We got code for this on Thursday, if I'm remembering that correctly. It was a tough weekend to actually dive in, you know, life stuff, so I wasn't able to actually start playing this game until Sunday. So I put as much time as I could into it between Sunday and Monday. I usually don't love kind of reviewing games in progress and all that stuff.

But I am very close to the end, I feel like. So I think I have a pretty good. kind of grasp of how I feel about this game overall so far. And I would guesstimate that I have maybe one or two play sessions left. Usually a play session for me is like an hour and a half because that's when the Quest battery dies. So obviously you're not going to give a final score on this. But I do want to ask you at this moment, what score do you think you're going to end up giving

this game because that's what surprised me most when we first talked about this? Oh, you know the score? No, but I know the vibes. So I want to jump in because I don't know the score. And I know the vibe, I think, just from casually talking, but not into it. But like it's got an 87 on Metacritic right now. And so I'm very fascinating to know if that's around where Barrett is. So to kind of set up the vibe to go into the score, I want to bring it back.

And I don't want to cut you off. But I do want to point out that we did a sponsor stream for Batman Arkham Shadow today. The stream I was talking about earlier, I think I might have said. But to call it out, it was sponsored. We made sure Barrett ran the board but wasn't. on that as a part of that to have an independent editorial voice. But if for some reason you're out there and like, oh, you can't, I don't want you to think we're hiding

anything from you. Take over the grain of salt if you need to, but also understand that. I will hold back criticisms just because we had the sponsor stream earlier for sure. To set up the vibe, to lead into the score, I want to take it back to Dan Stapleton's review of Arkham Origins for IGN that he wrote 11 years ago,

which is insane to think about. Because I feel like it's fitting to kind of bring that up for the, I would say, the follow-up to Arkham Origins. And it's specifically this line that always stuck with me. I remember very vividly the day Arkham Origins reviews went out. I was living a block away from City College, and I remembered this specific line from Dan's review. Batman games are like pizza.

Even when they're not very good, they're still pretty good. And in terms of the pizza analogy for Arkham Shadow, I would equate Arkham Shadow to a Kall zone. It's the same ingredients given to you in a different method. Some people like calzone, some people, you know, just want their pizza. Ladies gentlemen, NB's, I really like calzones. And I really, really like Batman Arkham Shadow. And so far, nine and a half hours in, I would say roughly two hours, maybe three hours away from beating it. I would give it an solid eight out of ten on the kind of funny scale.

Calzone, man. It's a great Calzone, everybody. Mama Mia! That's awesome. That's great. Yeah, I was so worried. I told you when I gave you the code and you had to review it because of everything, we're going to review it and there's redacting the idea. I was like, hey, if it makes you sick, if it does the thing, don't worry, you don't feel like you have to push through if you hate this experience. Yeah, so going into it, like, I've not really played VR in any significant way, I think, in like three years. Like, I had the original quest. So I have not really

like gone into this world in a in a minute right and so I was a little bit worried uh with like motion sickness and all that stuff uh I was able to kind of find settings that like helps me kind of uh feel not too crazy in the the VR space so yeah like after like an hour of uh playing I was like okay I think I think I can actually like sit down and play this as much as I can uh for the next couple of days for this review and yeah I like it really struck me in that first like hour or so like, oh, the vibes are back. And like the Arkham World feels back in a very genuine way that I was really

taken a back by, right? Like, this is from Camouflage Studio. We just had some of them in earlier today. Ryan Payton directing the game. And I was, it almost felt like if you told me that WB Montreal had like kind of helped out a lot

with this game, or if this was a WB Montreal project that they worked specifically for VR, I wouldn't have bat and I. It really feels like a genuine follow-up to Arkham Origins specifically. And, you know, our origins definitely has its ups

and downs. And, you know, this game, I would say, has some similar things that I would kind of, you know, ding it for for some of the downs, but it really feels genuine in what they're doing, being part of the Arkhamverse, in terms of adapting, you know,

the Batman gameplay to VR in terms of brawling, in terms of stealth. The, the story and the characters I think are really fascinating so far. And I really like that I am this deep into the game. And I don't, like, I know that there's still probably going to be some twist. There's probably going to be some reveals. And I don't quite know where that's going still.

Where as for other Arkham games, I feel like once you get to like kind of the first story beat, you're like, okay, I know who the Arkham Knight is. Oh, okay. I know what the story is really about and all this stuff. And I think they've done a really good job at like putting in their kind of like own take on an Arkham story. And like also in terms of the formula, right?

Something that they talked about on the stream earlier was that this is the first game in the Arkham series that's not taking place in just one night. And I think breaking that mold I thought was really, really smart and something very fresh. And I think that's one of the few examples that I think, you know, we know that, you know, there's possibilities of Rock City going back to the,

to the Arkhamverse and all that stuff. I think there are some really smart decisions that this team made that if a flat screen developer ever goes back to the Arkhamverse, they should be looking at this game of, you know, how do we shake up the Arkham formula to make it still feel fresh and to make it still feel exciting? Bear it with that. I think that it's an important question asked,

because I do know that there are some VR enthusiasts in our audience, but I feel like the majority of them are not. there's been a Batman Arkham VR game before. And I would say that that is probably the majority of people listening to the shows, one of their touchstones to VR of, oh, like, what's the best experience in VR? Batman Arkham VR. Everyone enjoyed that when it first came out on PSVR for what it was.

Yeah. How does this differ than that? So I never got to play Batman Arkham VR. I remember watching it and like watching like a playthrough on YouTube. And that felt definitely, like that was in the early stages of VR, right? That was 2016, I want to say. That was a launch of PlayStation VR. Yeah, and so that definitely felt more of like a tech demo showing off the technology.

It was definitely, I believe that was Rock City themselves as well, as like a passion project. What fun things that they can do in a Batman VR type of game. And this one feels more like a full-fledged Arkham game, right? Obviously, it's not open world. They've said that they've taken more inspiration from Arkham Asylum. and I would say even it doesn't feel like a full on Metroidvania

like Arkham Asylum. This feels a bit more linear. Instanced. Yeah. In like kind of the progression of the story and all this stuff.

But I think they've made some really smart things to kind of give a little bit of the flavor a little bit of a Metroidvania akin to Arkham Asylum where you're still getting gadgets throughout like,

oh, I saw this thing back over here. Now I can unlock this little great or whatever to get to this. item, all this stuff. So, sorry, what was the question? I love to take the great thing. Yeah, yeah, because again, two hours of this, but back in the day, it played

Arkham, VR, right? Batman Arkham, VR originally, yeah, launching in October 2016, that was much more, again, first steps into VR, and it was very much like, you are static, you are standing there as Batman, you are detective moating, and then you're teleporting over there, you're doing this. There was no combat

to that. That was investigations, it was throwing batterangs, it was putting on the column, being in a mirror, and, you know, the marveling at being Batman, whereas Arkham Shadow is the VR counterpart to everything that would be, you expect from Arkham. And I, you know, can't believe they nailed it the way they did. The story I told on the stream that I've told before about Iron Man VR, but then to jump in here to Arkham, right, Iron Man VR being what camouflage's last game before this, right,

was the idea that at that first demo after they revealed it at Gamescom, Iron Man VR, I went and did it downtown and Ryan was there. And when he's like, do you want the tutorial? I'm like, yeah, he's like, how does Iron Man shoot? And I went like this. He's like, okay, how's Iron Man fly? And I went like this. And he goes, great, you know how to play the game.

Like, that's how simple it was to translate that. And so with what an amazing demo that was of like, hey, this is how you do it? Like, holy shit. To then jump at the announcement of Batman Arkham VR or Arkham Shadow, it was like, how are you going to have me gliding around, punching all this stuff, and not getting horribly sick? And the way they counteract all of it and make it work is so impressive, I think, where it is, you know, the adage that Ryan Darcy, the dev who's been on our stream twice now,

I always uses that Batman doesn't walk across the room, right? He punches across the room, yep. So it is the idea of your punches are your movement. So you're getting around doing that, which gives you such a sense of control on where you're going that I think when you're initially thinking of traditional movement in a VR game of moving the stick and having, you know, the vignette coming into, then mix in also punching sounds nauseating. Whereas when you do it this way, it's like, oh, that works.

so well. And the same thing of gliding from rooftops in these instances, it is okay, I'm in control of it. I know what I'm doing. I know what that feels like. They've done such a nice job with that. You brought up the word instance a couple times. What do you mean by that? It's to what Barrett was tiptoeing on, right? It is an open world. So it is that, you know, you're coming

into an area, the door locks behind you and then you're working the problem in this room or this area. It doesn't need to be one small room. It can be an area. There's a moment in the first hour we did today that I had done in my initial behind closed doors demo of, you know, you're fighting through the shoe or doing all this stuff and then you get out and you are, there's the bat signal and there's Gotham City and you

drop into the street of Gotham City, right? Where it is like you're on a very specific street that you're working your way around that's been closed down by rat catcher, bad guys, or explosions or whatever, right? So it isn't that you're Arkham City. I can go anywhere anywhere I want, but it is that, holy shit, I'm in Gotham, I'm doing the thing. Yeah, and I will say like a pass, I don't want to get too much into like, spoiler stuff. I know the game's out, but I just- Bruce Wayne. Yeah.

But I still want people to kind of be surprised if they're playing through the game. I will say like the kind of opening chapter that you were playing, like after that, there are instances where it does, I would say, open up a little bit more than just like an instance where like, okay, you're going straight and then you can't go back.

There's a little bit, again, not fully Metroidvania, but there's a little bit of them playing around with that type of stuff for sure. Yeah, I think, you know, again, to what Barrett was talking about, and what they've been so adamant about is making this game feel like Arkham, right? And making it feel like the Arkham series.

And like that first time I walked into the room and looked to the right and there was the grate on the wall. And I was like, ah, I hadn't thought about a fucking Batman great in forever. And you go over there and you grab it and you move. And I'm like, this is, this feels like Arkham. This is what it is. And the Easter eggs and the posters and the rat trophies and the rat propaganda things to go get,

the little secrets to get you off the beaten path. So Barrett, you're the biggest Arkham fan that I know. and you know, Greg's here talking about a lot of the Easter eggs, gameplay and all that stuff. But Calvin Perez, Superchats in Zane Barrett. I always love your insight on overall narratives and themes across the series. Does this game feel like it's adding something interesting to Arkham? I mean, I love that question specifically because you had your whole series,

the Arkham files where you did deep dives into all of these Arkham games. Talk about that a little bit about how you feel about the narrative threads of this. It's hard to speak on that quite yet just because I don't feel like I've seen it all come together to really get to the core of what this game is about, which is like why I wish I could have beaten by now to be able to like really dive deep into that. But yeah, my Arkham series was kind of each game kind of,

I feel like focuses in on a certain aspect of fear in one way or the other. I kind of see possibly where they're going with that story-wise. But yeah, it's kind of, it's tough a little bit right now to kind of see where. exactly they're going. But does it feel like they're going somewhere? Do you think at the end of this that you're going to be able to put this? Would you be able

to make a video essay about this? I'm not asking you to do it. But does it have the meat there? I think so. And honestly, I know the other games are very focused in on fear, but I think I haven't quite gotten the angle with this game yet, if there is one, but there are so many other

things I think this game is doing story-wise that I find very interesting in terms of themes, in terms of character work. in terms of like really cool, interesting lore stuff that I think adds a level, a deeper level to some of these characters more so than I would have thought about from the other Arkham games, which I find very impressive. And so, yeah, I think there's definitely stuff to chew on here. And yeah, that's like, again, it's hard to talk about it without talking about some of the specifics because, you know, I don't want to spoil the game. But there's definitely some character work

that I'm very interested to see how that comes to a head with some of the relationships between some of the iconic characters that you would see from other Batman games and all that. So yeah. I think even for the demo I did here, right, like I'm a lapsed proponent of VR, right?

Where I've talked so many times, we did the PlayStation VR show, right? We were very all about it. And then since then I feel like so many of the games have continued to be arcade-like experiences, right? What I talk about all the time, where it's like you play it,

four or five minutes you play for two hours, you do whatever, and then you're like, cool, I don't need to do this. I always do it to the, it's Dave and Busters. I go and I play the arcade cabin and I have a lot of fun,

but I don't need to come back to it. The two hours I did today dropped enough story breadcrumbs where I'm like, oh, I gotta get back to this. I gotta see this. Like, there's the whole, you were watching, I don't know if you were part in the room for this,

but like, these bulletin boards are like, who is Batman? And then there's a bulletin board. Such a great nod to the Dark Night movie where it's like one of the suspects is Bigfoot and like all that stuff. So funny.

And there's another one over there that I won't get into. But I was like, oh my God, is that who I think it is? At which point I'm like, I want to see them meet. If that's what they're teasing in this game, I got to go see that. And then to get to the actual parts of the narrative, right? I played further today than I did in the gamescom demo. And to get there and have it be that there's Jim Gordon, there's Harvey Dent, played by Troy Baker, of course. Awesome.

You know, shake Harvey Dent's hand or not shake Harvey Dent's hand. Like, I shook it, but I didn't know, I couldn't shake it. So now I'm not going to shake it. So now I'm not going to mean, that kind of thing. And then just the narrative and the performances and it, like, I think VR has sometimes struggle so much in storytelling. And so just to be there as Batman,

listening to these two bouncing back between Harvey leaves and Jim's like, meet me out here. I have something to say. And then what happens out there, I did something instinctually, right? We always, in these VR things, we always go back to,

or at least I had to go back to blood and truth, right? The first time I ever did a demo for Blood and Truth, took cover behind a casino table. They threw a grenade at me. I grabbed, I reached up, grabbed it through it back at them. And then I was like, that just worked.

That was just natural. The thing I did on stream today outside with Jim Gordon, which sounds horrible. But you know what I mean? Like the devil's like, we've never, oh,

it's interesting to see how people handle that. Like I did it not as a bit, not as like, oh, I'm just like, oh, I'm in this video. I'm feeling like like, that's the kind of shit I want out of VR. Those are the experience

that I want out of VR. Yeah. Yeah. To kind of bounce off of you of just like the, uh, story, world building characters and all that. I do want to shout out the,

the one tradition that I don't know if camouflaged it on purpose, where every Arkham game has a different voice actor for James Gordon, which I find very funny and I don't think has ever been done on purpose. I forget the voice actor who voices Gordon in this game, but they mentioned that it was the same voice actor who played Deathstroke in Origins. They do a really good young Jonathan Banks, who many might know is Mike Erman Trap from Breaking Bad. He voiced Gordon in Arkham Knight.

Mark Ralston. Mark Rolston. And they do a pretty impressive, like, young, younger Jonathan Banks, and I thought that was really cool. And then I think something that feels so genuinely Arkham about this game that I'm, I continue to be impressed by, is yes, the little Easter eggs. Whether they're lore or just like funny little things, like the one goof that I think you might have missed, probably around the first time you get, like, open a crate to go into the air ducts is like, there's a book you find that's like big air ducts, uh, production stuff. Yeah, that's like a funny, like, tongue and cheek lorbit of like, why are the air ducts so fucking big?

And there's just like little things like that that I think, honestly for, I would say, a follow-up, a sequel to Arkham Origins is something that I really missed from Arkham Origins is I think, like, that game, I think they bit off a bit more than they could chew where, you know, they wanted to double the size of Arkham City and all this stuff. And then in turn, I felt like exploring Gotham City in Arkham Origins wasn't as interesting because there was less

of that, but because this is a more linear experience, they're able to get into the crevices of adding little Easter eggs and little goose and stuff like that, that really feel like genuine to more so Arkham Asylum. And jumping into that and talking about that. But before you jump

in, Greg, let's hear a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Phasmophobia. The genre-defined horror game is finally coming to consoles on October 29th, 2024. What did you see?

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Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Again, ShadyRase.com, use code Kind of Funny for 50% off two or more pairs of shades. Tim, yeah. I know we got a busy rest of the day, but can we just clear it all out just so I can play this game. Finish it? Finish it? Yeah.

Hey, dude, I would love for you to get back in there. There's a happy hour happening where we just take questions. Come back here and play. Just play it all the time. Maybe we got a question that's happy on the shoulder. I want to get into something about that in a second,

but Greg, before the break, we got to say something. No, no, it's a small one, but again, I think it speaks to why this game is something I will play at home and I will actually invest my time in, right,

versus the VR games that I play and enjoy. Again, I'm not talking shit about other games, but it's just for me not a, oh, I must play. It's the idea that I think there's this part in the demo that we ran into where Mike was interviewing the developers and I picked up a pay phone, Tim, and then it had a thing and I started putting in 415, like I was going to call someone an SF. And then you were like, do we have to unmute this or take you off the screen? They were put a real phone number in.

And then they were like, oh, this is a fun thing we did actually where there's like a bunch of numbers to find and random things to call. And I looked on the thing and there was a Vicki Val line. And I put that in. I listened to Vicki Mail's message. I hung up. That's fun. 9-1-1 and I hung up.

It is fun. I think so many VR games do stuff like that and have that be the actual meat and potatoes of the game. Got it. Like we have all these goofy experiences and jokes. And I think that works for like a, you know, a high on life kind of thing. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it was VR eventually. Yeah. What am I thinking? I'm trying to think of the one before it that I really like, accounting plus. Accounting Plus. Yeah. Trevor saves the universe as well.

There's so many games that do that kind of stuff. And that's like the schick. it's VR, it's interactive, whereas this one feels like a real Batman game where I'm doing the Predator stuff, I'm doing the Freeflow stuff, and then all of a sudden there's also these little VRE Easter eggs that are, oh, I should remember

that phone number, oh, I should scan that phone number and call it eventually. And while they, like, the phone thing isn't like a direct Arkham thing from the other games, it feels genuine to it because of like the little like Arkham City, one of the big things for years after City was like finding the little kind of, uh,

codes to listen to different frequencies and then there's the secret frequencies that we're kind of teasing the next game and all that stuff like those kind of like fun Easter eggs feel again genuine to the series which I'm really impressed by and you can just dial a number and call people like numbers that you shouldn't have like Vicky Bales or Sonic the Headchalk Greg LV in the chat says the fact that Greg has Sonic the fucking

headchog in his phone as a contact is wild yeah I saw that one go through and I wanted to toss in there Roger Craig Smith of course Sonic the Hachog of course Batman in this game and, of course, friend of the show. Roger Craig Smith came by the original spare bedroom and hung out with us way too long and the exclusive podcast, yada, yada, yada. But when I saw that, I was like, I wanted to save it for the end

of the show because it's just a non-sequitur, but who cares, we're here. Like, you all need to understand how great Roger Craig Smith is. Because we are lucky enough to know a bunch of different voice actors, and actors in general, who are all amazing people and great people. Roger Craig Smith, for me, went to a different level. Obviously, when he came over it in the old days,

but there was a time where me and Jen, went to our friend's house and he had two boys and we walked in and they were watching Sonic the Hedgehog and at the time uh,

geez eight and six we'll say maybe a little bit older maybe nine and seven I don't know but they were young and they were watching Sonic the Hedgehog and I was like oh man

do you guys like Sonic the Hedgehog and they're like yeah we watch it all time and I was like okay cool cool and I busted out my phone I texted Roger and I'm like dude just so you know these kids are here watching it

and they love Sonic the Hedgehog and didn't miss a beat didn't stop Roger text back, he goes, what great are they in? What are their names? What are their favorite? You know, like,

just ask these questions that I then got from them, sent back. And within five minutes, I sent it to their dad and they played it on the speakers. And it was, hey,

it's me, Sonic, Don, yeah, thanks for watching my show. I hear you like PE class a lot, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was the funniest shit because the littlest one

was like so into it. And the big, the big boy, nine, nine or eight or whatever he was, went from the front of the couch, backed up to the wall. Like he was. terrified. How does Sonic know these things?

Sonic and a hedgehog knows about me. It was like the best thing, but it was like literally that shit where it's just instantaneous. And even today I call him on the stream to give him shit, but he was flying up to, yeah, he was flying. And as soon as he landed, he called me back to be like, what's, what I'm, I'm like, Roger Craigson. He's the, he's the, he's the only homie. The match. All right. Barrett. You've been talking very glowingly about this game, which I think most of us are

surprised about because your initial reaction said something different. Yeah. What are your criticisms? So yeah, I was in between, again, review so far, like an 8 and an 8-5. And I think the big thing for me is, you know, again, authentic to Arkham Origins maybe a little bit. Games pretty buggy. I find myself getting caught on, you know, what is it just not... Geography.

Geography and stuff like that. Geometry. Geography is a math class. Geometry. No? Geography. No, geography. Geometry. You know or Vermontes? Yeah, it's next to New York,

Roger. Is it a state, though? And so, yeah, I'm getting stuck on geometry. You know, the grapple up to, like, ledges, I feel like is always a little bit awkward. And I would say, like, the combat feels good

in, like, those first, like, five hours and they start, like, kind of slow, rowing you different enemy types. Things you've seen from the Arkham series. You know, you got your electric baton guys. You got people with, you know, guns and all the stuff. You've got the shield boys. You've got the heavy dudes that you have to like kind of stun with your cape and then do a bunch of quick attacks on. And I would say like the game does a pretty good job at onboarding you to a lot of the different fighting styles or fighting, you know, mechanics that you would see in an Arkham game. But I think it gets a little bit too chaotic. And I think like input.

kind of stuff doesn't register all the time that can get pretty frustrating, especially when you're fighting 10 people at once, and you've got like three shield people and a hemie armored dude, and I'm trying to do the cape stun thing, and it's not registering, it thinks I'm taking out my battering,

and I'm like, God fucking damn it. So I think there's a lot of like little things like that on a technical side that I think are frustrating, especially after like nearly 10 hours or that kind of adds up. Sure. But I would... And especially playing the way we have to,

play for review. Yeah. It's 10 hours and it's not a leisurely tan. You're like, I gotta beat this. I gotta do this. God damn. The quest running out of battery every fucking hour and a half. How physical is it? Uh, it's, I'm sore. Uh, but I'm also like, I'm not like the normal VR player. Again, I have not played, uh, in really in three years. So like, when I'm throwing punches,

I'm throwing punches, but I was, I saw Greg streaming earlier and he's just doing this. And I'm like, I could probably just be playing that. But I'm, I'm fucking I called it on the stream today when I was playing of like, you know, It's always been the Arkham Freeflow combat. And there's that flow of jumping and hitting. And this one, it was very much in my head of like, let's stay in the flow here.

Because it was like, I was initially, I thought going too fast where this one was like, ding, ding, okay, boom, you know what I mean? Like, I don't need,

and I'm sure if I increase difficulty that changes timing windows or something of that effect. But I was just like doing it, enjoying it and learning the moves here. I did make a video of Barrett playing this game. And before I goes, I want to make sure we are on the same page. No one looks cool playing VR.

So this is not me mocking, Barrett. This was not me mocking Barrett. It was just I always love the idea of when I walk in the studio to get a Coke and then someone's doing something in here like VR. It's just Barrett sitting in a chair all by himself. And we have such a great studio space for VR by the way. Yeah. And like I

initially kind of wanted to use like the big space to be able to walk around. But again, like my first session with it, I kind of quickly understood of like oh no, actually walking around this in this game physically is very like unsettling physically for me. Sure. So yeah, the setup I've had is like I get a swiveled chair.

I love the swively. Yeah, stationary because like I love still being able to kind of like move around, but then also use the quarter turn when I need to. And so yeah, it's been a it's, but yeah, I'm, I'm tired. I'm tired. Yeah. I feel it right here. Yeah.

Yeah, that's hilarious. I love that so much. So obviously you're going to finish this game. Great, do you see yourself completing this? 100%. I had such a good time with these two hours. And I shouldn't even say that because I had a good time with the original demo. Another thing I called out from going from the gamescom preview to review is the little quality of life they added.

Where it was like in the gamescom preview, it was take the battering off and throw it. But you thought, and most time it hit where it needed to, but sometimes it wouldn't. Whereas now when you take the battering off, you have a reticle attached to your eyes. So you move it and there is. So then you can throw the battering however you want at that point. It's going to go where it's pointed. I thought, oh, that's just one instance of something they've added. where it's like, yeah, it feels like Batman Arkham.

I love that. Again, it'll be the where am I finging in in a very crowded review season or whatever, but I am enjoying the game enough that I definitely want to get back to it. Yeah. And I think for Arkham fans that have access to a MetaQuest 3, I think. I was... Yeah, I was so excited to tell Roger

yesterday, because I know Roger is also as big of an Arkham head as myself, I would say. You know, one of the... How I discovered Roger was you, y'all posting that Arkham Origen's video essay he made years ago. I don't understand who Batman is. I was so stoked to go to Roger yesterday and be like,

yo, like, I don't know if you have a meta quest, but if you don't, like, once I'm done, like, with my playthrough, you need to, like, borrow Greg's metaquest and play this. And he was like, oh, no, I already got one. You going to play Roger? Yeah, I'm going to play this game. I've already told Lanzah, like, hey, you got to move out of the living room. That's my, that's the VR space now.

I'm going to play that game for this entire weekend. Yeah, I'm trying to, that's why I'm trying to beat it today because I already felt bad last night, like, taking up like an area of our apartment last night and, like, telling Alyssa, like, hey, I'm going to be awkwardly in front of our, like, TV, a safe distance away from the TV. So you can't really watch anything in, like, a comfortable way. And so, yeah, that's why I want to beat it today. So she doesn't have to deal with that. You would be able to tell me better, but, you know, I rarely do this sitting to play VR because I've had so many experiences. is where it is. Now reach down and like, oh, that, and I'm definitely thinking of original PlayStation VR, which is what got me off of it, which is what moved me to standing. Hit the ground,

do this in my, my basement ceilings are low and that's where my entertainment center is. This one I didn't feel like I was reaching above my head ever. I felt like I came, I come up, you click on detective mode like Batman. It's just the fucking, it's like such a little touch where it's so fucking cool to reach up here, you know what I mean? Like, ah, that's cool. But it was like, you know, you saw me with the flow combat and that's the most active. It's like a little. and even for like the double smash. I didn't feel like I was bringing my hands up like Hulk and smashing down. I was doing that a lot.

I'm confident I can play this on my couch. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, there's a little bit of climbing and stuff like that. But I thought even with the climbing, most of those climbs, not all, most, you can do the grappling hook. And again, the grappling hook was another one. I was like, I feel like my stomach's going to, it's going to be, you know, I had that Riggs, mechanized combat PlayStation VR experience. I'll never forget whether I was in it.

The first time I ever got horribly motion sick. Loose stool. No, loose guts where I was going up in an elevator. And the elevator stopped and my body felt like it kept going. And that's when I was like immediately sick to my stomach. And so like the fact, I don't know. I don't know. And again, I've VR legs.

That was my first few experiences of the VR. The ability here to grapple to something and not feel like I'm continuing to fly is great. Yeah. Another compliment I want to give the game. I couldn't find a place to put it is right before the title card hits. after the, near the end of the first chapter. There's a moment that happens, like, a little bit before it that, like, got me to pop, like, and yell, holy shit in, uh, in our apartment.

And I, I think, again, like, the way that they're able to play around with, uh, characters and lore and add more depth, uh, to the Arkhamverse, uh, in really fun, interesting ways that make me go, damn, now I want to see, like, what this threat is that I know is probably not going to be followed up in this game, but like somewhere, like, I need more. And it's like, this game is definitely reawakened my like, oh, fuck, I like, I love this universe so much. And so, yeah, again, I think there's so many little tidbits that Arkham fans are, you know, really going to chow down on and really think about for years and years and years until whenever we get another Arkham game, question mark, question mark, question mark, question. I bet you get another one of these before you get another Rock Steady or whoever official Arkham entry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Honestly, this is like, it's so heartwarming and amazing to hear that this game, despite all odds is as good as you're saying it is. And to you, Barrett, like as such a big fan of that franchise. Like, yeah. And it's just, I feel like you are, not to put words in your mouth, but like a VR doubter. Like, you're down for good experiences, but like you were not looking to like VR. And for this to kind of like get past that and be a game, a full game, an Arkham game that you were enjoying this much. it's like I feel like that that is

I mean literally when you told me your thoughts on it a couple days ago like it warmed my body like I was like excited for you yeah I'm down on VR less so because of the experiences like you said like I'm down for good experiences it's more so just like the viability of the market and like how

niche and small it is and all the stuff that's mainly my question and kind of like the accessibility in terms of like fans of series being able to get to experience these games and shelling out another few hundred dollars to get a new platform to play these games on. And like that's an interesting one because like the more the more I played this game, guys,

the more angry I got. Because obviously I'm enjoying my time, but I'm like, how the fuck has it been 11 years since we've gotten Arkham Origins and it's been 11 years and finally we're getting a sequel to Arkham Origins? It's been eight years since Batman Arkham VR. Like, why has it taken so long to get us? back to the story, specifically Batman, and do something with it, especially with like origins, feeling like it was teeing up another trilogy led by WB Montreal,

and then that kind of going nowhere and that turning into Gotham Knights and all that stuff. It's almost like WB doesn't know what they're doing. Not WB. Montreal. Wonder Brothers Interactive. Yeah, and it was just like, where the fuck's Wonder Woman? It's just really, it put me in this kind of existential, like, while I'm also high on the game, on the game, it was also putting me in this existential state, and that was more so of, like, why I had the reaction that I had from the initial reaction, uh, video from the announcement trailer, right? It was less so of the pedigree of camouflage. It was less so that it was,

a VR Batman game. It was more so of like, what are we doing with this franchise and why is it taken it so long, uh, WB so long to figure out what they want to do with it and why is it a VR game? And that's like, to the point of like, if you're an Arkham fan who does not have a quest, like, I don't know if I could, like, if this is a must, like, you got to buy, you got to pay 300, how much a Quest 3S or whatever is. Like, I don't know if it's worth, I think it's worth the time. I can't tell you if it's worth the, you know, entry point, which I find very frustrating, just for the Arkham fans in general of what WB is kind of, again, I would say, still kind of

floundering with this, I would say, really interesting universe for Batman. So in that aspect, I don't know. It's got me into this weird, like, I'm having a great time, but at the same time, I'm like, oh, what? Like, why did it take so long? Why have we, why was this game not, like, out 10 years ago? And it, you know, being a flat, flat screen game or whatever. It's just like, it drives me insane.

Hopefully they hear you, right? That would be the thing. I mean, I think, obviously, with a reaction to suicide squad, the rumors Rock City is trying to make another Batman game yeah they do but it's just like and it's crazy that it's not an internal studio that like did this to show like to kind of prove

with the review scores and all this stuff of like hey fans of this series just want what the series was not to have the devs who originally worked on the series to make different types of games that nobody's into it's just like what are we doing any final thoughts on this Greg

I can't wait to play more I'm stoked for I'm still working on redactin. I got a couple of the redacteds after that. But I'll get to it. I'm going to enjoy myself. Yeah. You, are you just doing anything for you?

No, I mean, I don't remember what your read were in the Arkham games to begin with. Never played? You're a piece of trash. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Sicken me. They sicken me. Atlas puts out of JRP. This guy's like, I can't play it. Stop everything. You don't sicken me. You know,

you only kind of see me. Yeah, that's fair. That is fair. Barrett, any final thoughts on it? Honestly, really impressed by this game. I forget if I said this at the top but like this has a shot of being in my top 10

at the end of the year. And like I know I'm giving it a date but I'm such a big Arkham head and my love for the series and like you know like Arkham Origins is my you know it's a mess but like whatever year that came out like that would have been in my top 10 just because I love Batman. I love this universe.

I think what camouflage made here is really really impressive. So again if you have access to a Quest 3 or Quest 3S or what have you definitely I would say like this is and you're an Arkham fan. This is a must play. Hell yes.

Thank you so much for an excellent review, Barrett. You crushed that. And everybody watching, thank you for hanging out with this all day. We've been live all day, but we're not done yet. We still have right now. If you're watching on Twitch,

you can stay where you are. If on YouTube, you're going to need to make the jump over, fear the spotlight. That's you and Nick. Blumhouse. You and Nick, Blumhouse games, new little horror game.

We're getting spooky. It's Halloween season. So have some fun there, get some good scares. and then if you are a kind of funny member in a little bit, we're also going to be doing the monthly happy hour where you can actually call in. We're all going to talk together.

It's a great time every single month. But stay where you are. Keep watching us. Thank you so much. Goodbye. I love you.