Recent reviews by Phazed

To be honest, it isn't awful. But I definately don't get why it's "Overwhelmingly Positive". It technically speaking, achieves the stuff it lists out in its description. And it doesn't do it badly, but it also doesn't do anything particularly well. If I had kids that enjoyed shooters, this might be the perfect game for them though (cheap, very kid-safe themes+visuals, simple enough gameplay loop to be easy to pick up). But if you're looking for a good example of the genre, this doesn't do it. Here's why:


1. Everything is very heavy on MMO-style stat-padding, which is simply not nearly as fun as how great rougelike treat progression & unique runs. Progression along the talent tree is nothing more than a bunch of boring HP%, DMG%, etc increases. The scrolls you get while playing (run-specific bonuses) are just even more stat-padding. Sometimes it sounds like the bonus you are getting might be something a bit more interesting, but it ususally isn't. For example, I got a scroll that gave me +15% max ammo after killing an enemy, and then 5 seconds after not killing an enemy my max ammo would slowly count back to +0% max ammo. A lot of the "interesting" abilities are just this - more numbers being increased somewhere, just with obscure conditions. It makes it hard to quantify how good things really are, which makes it hard to clearly define your build, which in turns make it so the entire run progression feels meaningless. There's nothing that dramatically *changes* how you play the game from run to run, and that's a problem in a rougelike. You pretty much just need to get more stat boosts to win. What makes this extra painful is the only way to meaningfully change up how things play run to run appears to be locked behind characters that you can only get to after you've leveled up a ton (also, there are only 3 characters you can play so far, so it's not that much variety anyways).

2. Far from "borderlands like" weapons & looting, which the reviews & description imply. On every run I played, I reliably ran into the same 3-4 weapons, every time on the first zone. The only real difference between runs was sometimes the weapon had fire damage, or shock damage, or minor affixes like that. Perhaps it varies much more dramatically in the end-game zones, but when you get the same "piercing sniper rifle" 5 runs in a row as one of the first two weapon drops, it isn't a great sign.

3. The core gameplay works very similar to Hades, in that you clear a stage, pick one of 3 boons, then go to the next room. What makes this work so beautfully in Hades is the boons you get dramatically change how a run plays out, and each room is cleared quickly. You're constantly making build decisions as you play, and then constantly being tested on that decision in the next room. Clear room, get boon, clear room, get boon that hopefully synergizes with the last one, its very fast paced and fun (not to mention the massive amount of written content the game has that keep runs feeling fresh). Meanwhile here, the boons are signifigantly less interesting. Many are just some level of stat padding, a handful of them add power to one of your two abilities in indirect ways (like adding an explosion after it wears off), nothing really changes how you play the game. Especially since the rooms are much more of a grind to get through.

4. Poor level design & boring enemies. Most of the enemies are paint by numbers, play it safe tropes not only in artstyle but in how they work. Most enemies are just a bullet sponge. Within their enemy class, they all kind of look the same, they all kind of attack the same. There's really not much variety in how each room, each zone, or each run plays out - it's all very formulaic. The level design feels very lazy - the random generation might as well not exist, because you're just going from square room with stairwells to nowhere to another square room except this time the cover is in a slightly different position.

5. This is likely due to early access, but there's a lot of bad translating in the game and sometimes untranslated chineese characters that appear in menu descriptions. It can be hard to understand what certain affixes do because the grammar is unclear/poor at places. That said, it's far from poor, most of the translation is good enough.

Despite me scathing it, it really isn't that awful, especially for under $10. A certain kind of player is really going to enjoy this game. If you love MMO-style stat padding, and just want something a little mindless to shoot enemies with, this does that very well. But if you're looking for an interesting rougelike, or even an interesting cheap shooter, there are many other better options. It just wasn't that fun or interesting to play, and everything from the art style to the gameplay choices feel like the devs are playing it safe with "painting by numbers" design rather than really doing the concept justice.

Boy, I have to say. This game really isn't that good. It's the product of what happens when nobody on a dev team is a designer and everyone is an engineer.

But at the same time, I'm not upset I spent $30. Solid price for what it is. There's some real meat to this game, and when it works - it works, especially when you get used to it's quirks. It's a pretty neat extended tech demo. It basically looks and feels exactly like H3VR (mixed with a hint of Blade and Sorcery) with more going on than just shooting ranges/arenas. Great! But it comes at a cost of having worse execution across the board and none of the depth of those two titles.

Other games like Blade & Sorcery, Onward, and (ironically) VRIK for SkyrimVR have much better IK solutions than this game does - your character moves around as if every animation is entirely procedural and wasn't touched by an artist. It's incredibly uncanny and it adds this bounciness to every action that doesn't exist for other games. You thought Bethesda physics were fun to make fun of? Try Boneworks, where it's just as bad but your character (that the camera is attached to) is also affected! A feature that was designed to immerse you ends up taking you out of the simulation more often than not due to the over-engineered physical nature of your body, its unbelievable interactions with the world around you, how it moves your player camera around, and the complete lack of design and finesse put into its system. Worst case, it makes you nauseated, best case you feel like your controlling a heavy puppet and have to work around that. Interactions that feel intuitive in other VR games (that "magic" feeling of opening a door or loading a gun in VR) feel completely unintuitive in this one.

I really don't know why they didn't reference mechanics/designs that games in the past two years of VR have already been doing. Gun mechanics feel great in Onward/Pavlov. Climbing feels great in Climby. Weighted weapons feel great in B&S. This game aimed to "solve" the physics problem of VR but managed to do all of its core elements worse than games that have been solving that problem for a long time.

That said, it's still the only game where you can do all of that in one title, and that's neat. And when it works, it works. But it doesn't work with grace and it doesn't handle edge cases in it's physics well at all. None of this is even getting into the C-grade writing/level design, borderline using WIP assets passed off as "Lol it's an under construction simulation guys" that wouldn't have even passed in the early gmod days, lack of enemy/challenge variety, completely absence of a save system (because the devs couldn't figure out how), the odd emotionless synthwave soundtrack that sounds like it came off a free music resource site, or the pretentious assumption that they've created some kind of ground breaking leap in VR with the entire theme of the narrative and the museum segment at the beginning.

Again though, it's not awful and is totally worth $30. There is meat on the bones of this game and it is neat to play with when it works. But man, they desperately need to hire a designer.

"Fly through things in a cool way: the game"

Excellent fast paced action where your manuvers matter as much as your ability to aim. Give yourself two hours to learn how to not crash, not die at the hands of the enemy, maybe kill here and there yourself, and finally play some good music and then it'll all click. Once you get past that first hump, the addiction sets in and it grabs you. Mostly because you'll feel like the most bad-ass player in any game out there.

Some of the best looking levels on ANY multiplayer game I've played as well - and its not just fluff. Every piece of level geometry demands you fly through in a cool way, avoid crashing into, and use to your advantage to try and get people on your tail to crash. Or to hide. Some levels feature vast expanses of open sky - perfect for high speed thrusts and chases. Other levels take place on a firery-brimstone close quarters assembly line that are more home to the close calls and close quarters - flying through narrow corridors and getting up close and person with a rocket launcher. Some levels make you feel like you are on the deathstar or in an Anime. Either way every level is fun, beautful, and plays totally different. Its refreshing to see multiplayer level design done this way. It's also one of the few games where their in-game levels exceed their concept art in my opinion (and its some really good concept art).

Loads of different weapon/ability/etc combonations. Part of the fun of playing this game is switching up your loadout on the fly to suite your mood or the situation.

It may seem slightly expensive, but look out for sales if you are on the fence. I think its worth the price of admission, because the devs have been updating the game constantly with free content (recently two awesome maps and a CTF mode), and plan to dole out constant free updates as time goes on. You also get everything from the get go - there is no unlocking system like you expect to see in many free to play games to date, and that is its strength.

Even if you aren't the greatest fan of arena shooters or that style gameplay (I personally am not the biggest fan myself), the feel of bad-assery and the excellent level design more than makes it into something much more than that for me.