Recent reviews by DarkUnderlord

I paid $80 for this and $40 for Boneworks.

I feel like I overpaid for this and underpaid for Boneworks.

The story is much better here and it gets you into the action but it's the usual highly linear, small narrow corridors, shoot the next enemy that pops up, enjoy scripted moment, FPS you've played before. Only in VR. And with added "hunt for ammo" exploration.

There's not much physics. You can't grab the head crabs and throw them around, only shoot them the requisite number of times until they die. Climbing is limited. And gun-play so far feels meh to me. Maybe it gets better but the core game-play compared to Boneworks (where I can shoot halls full of Zombies in larger open spaces, melee them, and even grab their heads and push them off walls etc..) feels like it's missing something.

Still, I'm sure there's some enjoyment here. I'm just having more elsewhere right now.

Fun, but with some janky inventory controls that'll trip you up. A nice "tech demo" in some senses but really the first decent Half-Life 2 / Portal knock-off in VR.

Using the Oculus Rift S.

INVENTORY
You have 2 over the shoulder slots for big things, 2 smaller slots on our sides that only really hold pistols, along with an additional lower side slot. You access them either by pressing B and choosing inventory, at which point you can see what you've got and easily select it. Alternatively, you can reach for either shoulder or either side to pull out whatever you've stashed there - but this is where things get janky.

Especially when you're in a fire fight, figuring out exactly where "in space" you're supposed to hold your hands to select a weapon from your inventory can be hit and miss. Going for your pistol and pulling out some random junk instead, or your melee weapon, only to then die as a result can be frustrating as hell.

What SHOULD happen: Is when your hands are in the requisite spot, a 'holographic' image or icon of some nature showing whatever you've got there should appear so you know you can go ahead and pull it out - if that's what you want. Likewise if the slot is empty, and you're trying to put something away, when you've got your hand in the right spot, it should show a 'Right Shoulder Holster" indicator, or a "Left Side Holster" indicator icon etc.. depending on the position.

Selecting weapons was also frustrating because on the Rift S you need to:
1. Find the right magic space without any indicators to guide you
2. Use only the TRIGGER to select a weapon (no other button works).
3. Then while holding the trigger, also hold the weapon with the side button of your controller.
4. Then release the trigger, so you can FIRE the weapon with the trigger...

It's an unnecessary double jank. It really should use the side button to select and pull out the weapon, so that you can then immediately start firing. Maybe this is configurable, I haven't checked. But by default it means you hold down the trigger to pull out a gun, then have to hold down the side button to "hold" the gun, so that you can then release the trigger and then pull the trigger again to fire it. Because if you let go of the trigger before holding the gun, you drop the gun. Again, this just feels unnatural and janky - and is a PIA during a firefight.

At the moment, you will also drop weapons you're trying to holster because you missed the magic space. And you'll pull out the wrong weapon, even ammunition, at really bad times. Having to press B and manually choose to open your inventory just to check that you stashed your weapon properly is annoying, but I found it necessary. The sound effect played when you holster something also plays if you drop it on the floor because you missed the magic space... Meaning there's no real clear clue that you've holstered something vs dropping it on the floor. Many times I've put away a crowbar or a gun, only to try and pull it out later, realise it's not there, and have to back track through the level to find where I dropped it on the floor back when I was trying to holster it.

Also frustrating is B opens up a "scene select" option, which allows you to jump between parts of the game you've unlocked. Really great when you hit the wrong key, open the B menu, press trigger because you're trying to shoot something, end up selecting an option in the scene menu, and then have it start loading a previous part of the game - subsequently losing all of your current progress and having to start the level you were just on all over again from the start.

What should happen: A confirmation. If you're in-game, and you want to change scenes. Pause the frigging game and have an "Are you sure? Yes / No" pop-up.

SAVE / LOAD
The game has no save / load, just a respawn system. When you die, you respawn at some random point (it's the same point, but you won't know where it is until you die) previously in the level - with everything still as it was (EG: You killed 3 Roller Ball Holodudes and dropped your gun fighting inventory jank only to die to a 4th one, and the guys you killed are still dead, with your gun where you dropped it). There's no health bar, but your health quickly regens if you crouch behind a barrier / hide before dieing.

This helps give it that tech demo feel because death doesn't really matter, you're just having a bit of fun. Which is cool and all, but I was looking forward to something with a bit more game in it. Enemies also feel a lot like a re-skinned Half-Life, with the requisite head crabs and crowbars. In fact the whole game feels like Half-Life 2. Which is a pity, because it would've been nice to really see something new.

Still, it's a lot more fun then yet another arena based sword fighting game, and so far there's enough game there to keep it more interesting than the usual simple VR gimmicks. The physics are also relatively well done. There's some jank with moving boxes, especially if you're trying to twist something to place it a bit more specifically but it's a lot better than other VR games. Puzzles so far are mostly simple but even then you can see a few ways to "break the game" and get through - which feels like a deliberate choice on the developers part and works well. EG: Instead of pressing buttons to bring a floor up, just use some planks you can move around to place in such a way that you can walk across the gap instead.

Inventory janky issues aside, I definitely don't regret buying it on day one. For roughly $40 Australian dollary-doos I think it's well priced compared to the competition.

YES! OH GOD YES!

This game is pretty good. It's like chess only different.