Review – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

March 20, 2023

‘Not For Broadcast VR’ Review – The Dystopian ‘Job Simulator’ for Aspiring Propagandists

Not For Broadcast VR isn’t just about live-mixing camera feeds and making sure the National Nightly News airs without a hitch—that’s the gamey bit you’ll have to contend with if you want to keep ratings up and make sure the audience isn’t switching channels. It’s also a dark and brilliantly satirical take on modern politics and how broadcast media has become intertwined with entertainment. And it’s no surprise the propaganda simulator’s big buttons and full motion video (FMV) action translate pretty well to VR too.

Not For Broadcast VR Details:

Available On: SteamVR, Quest 2
Release Date: March 23rd, 2023
Price: $TBD
Developer: NotGames, Babaroga
Publisher: tinyBuild
Reviewed On: Quest 2 via PC Link

Gameplay

Not For Broadcast VR is exactly what is says on the tin: it’s basically the VR-ified (re: separate) version of Not For Broadcast, which indie studio NotGames released in 1.0 early last year on PC.

Here’s the basic setup: you’ve stepped up from your janitorial duties to run the production control room of a national TV station in an alternate timeline in 1980s Britain. The far-left Advance party has won the big election by a landslide and is bent on making sweeping changes with an authoritarian flair.

In your live-mixing booth you expertly sync in commercial breaks, cut between four camera feeds, and keep the ratings high by combatting frequency disturbances. Although outwardly you’re nothing but a cog in the propaganda machine, you can intentionally affect outcomes in the game which lead to multiple endings. With your ability to sway public perception, you can either shame or exalt celebrities and politicians, and even decide who lives and dies in some of the more gripping chapters by focusing or omitting certain shots. Please or anger your Advance party overlords, and find out how life changes.

And as you’d imagine, the game is intentionally overwhelming, offering up a series of contemporaneous stuff that will drive you to mechanically execute tasks as you struggle to actively listen to some of the most asinine things to come on screen.

Things to keep the ratings up include interesting editing, getting reaction shots and people talking right, censoring foul language properly, and making sure the signal is clear of interference. Alternatively, you lose ratings by messing all of those things up.

You’ll probably want to pay attention and watch the bizzarro world in disbelief, but really you can’t. The show must go on and the eternal plate-spinning is the only way to make it continue, lest you lose watchers and eventually draw the ire of your employer and the channel’s large and influential sponsors. The conflict of interest is writ large at the end of each broadcast session too. You are directly funded by the ruling party.

Mess up too much and you’ll make less money, which makes replacing key bits of kit and buying luxury gadgets, like automatic censor buttons, much more difficult.

It’s not all about ratings though. Non-broadcast days are interspersed with text-based interludes that test your decision-making skills—essentially morality vibe checks. Do you help a family member flee the country, which may put your job at risk? How do you deal with mounting bills and family tragedy when your day job is to act as a party mouthpiece? You are a team player, aren’t you?

Confession: I’ve already played the flatscreen version, and my love for the underlying game is undeniable. Thankfully there is very little material change between the two, and despite a frequency toggle that doesn’t work terribly well in VR, most everything is well translated thanks to the game’s user-friendly interface which make for good physical interaction models, including stuff like VHS tapes, switches, nobs and big red buttons. More about that in Immersion.

Having the ability to keep an eye on everything more naturally is also a big help, as the flatscreen version forces you to switch views manually to keep an eye on all three main terminal areas.

That said, the game is best taken in bitesize pieces since the main story can take anywhere from 8 to 10 hours, with broadcasts typically lasting 20-30 minutes a piece. Considering the game packs in nearly 43 hours of FMV though, you may find yourself replaying broadcasts just to see where you went wrong, and how outcomes might change as difficult situations come your way.

Variable difficulty is available, but only on the start of a new game. Thankfully the difficulty levels are spelled out plainly before you start, letting you pick between five levels. The lowest level is for more narrative enjoyment, while the highest level is super unforgiving when it comes to editing efficiency and signal clarity.

Immersion

Whenever I play a flatscreen-to-VR port, I always ask myself this question: does it need to be in VR? And to be honest, Not For Broadcast feels only marginally more at home in VR than on flatscreen, kind of like how Friday Night at Freddy’s is amped up in-headset versus on a flatscreen thanks to impending doom.

Still, like FNaF, all game UI is a direct translation from the original flatscreen game, which isn’t bad, but not nearly as ‘VR-native’ as it could be were it designed specifically for VR headsets and motion controllers first. Hitting a button or manipulating toggle are plain binary actions which don’t really engage you to the fullest potential like you might see in games built for VR headsets from the ground-up, like I Expect You to Die. Still, there’s no denying the underlying game is provocative, fun, and more disturbing in VR than flatscreen.

Not For Broadcast’s full motion video (the star of the show) works particularly well in drawing you deeper into the game’s lore too.

Acting is surprisingly good for such a bootstrapped project; it’s suitably hammy, but tight and witty enough to peel your attention away from your mounting list of tasks.

Granted, if you do miss something, you can review your finished product after each broadcast, including the raw signals for candid dialogue and full adverts so you don’t have to worry about missing any narrative flavor after the fact.

Comfort

The game can be played standing or seated, although either way you should make sure you have at least a meter of space in your periphery, so you don’t smash your coffee table, monitor, small child, whatever. Otherwise, there is no artificial locomotion to speak of, making it perfect for first-timers or sensitive users. You should note the game features strong language and violent themes, so plan accordingly.

Not For Broadcast VR’ Comfort Settings – March 20th, 2023
Turning
Artificial turning
Snap-turn
Quick-turn
Smooth-turn
Movement
Artificial movement
Teleport-move
Dash-move
Smooth-move
Blinders
Head-based
Controller-based
Swappable movement hand
Posture
Standing mode
Seated mode
Artificial crouch
Real crouch
Accessibility
Subtitles
Languages	English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Russian
Dialogue audio
Languages	English
Adjustable difficulty
Two hands required
Real crouch required
Hearing required
Adjustable player height

March 20, 2023

‘Not For Broadcast VR’ Review – The Dystopian ‘Job Simulator’ for Aspiring Propagandists

Not For Broadcast VR Details:

Available On: SteamVR, Quest 2
Release Date: March 23rd, 2023
Price: $TBD
Developer: NotGames, Babaroga
Publisher: tinyBuild
Reviewed On: Quest 2 via PC Link

Gameplay

Mess up too much and you’ll make less money, which makes replacing key bits of kit and buying luxury gadgets, like automatic censor buttons, much more difficult.

Having the ability to keep an eye on everything more naturally is also a big help, as the flatscreen version forces you to switch views manually to keep an eye on all three main terminal areas.

Immersion

Not For Broadcast’s full motion video (the star of the show) works particularly well in drawing you deeper into the game’s lore too.

Acting is surprisingly good for such a bootstrapped project; it’s suitably hammy, but tight and witty enough to peel your attention away from your mounting list of tasks.

Comfort

Not For Broadcast VR’ Comfort Settings – March 20th, 2023
Turning
Artificial turning
Snap-turn
Quick-turn
Smooth-turn
Movement
Artificial movement
Teleport-move
Dash-move
Smooth-move
Blinders
Head-based
Controller-based
Swappable movement hand
Posture
Standing mode
Seated mode
Artificial crouch
Real crouch
Accessibility
Subtitles
Languages	English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Russian
Dialogue audio
Languages	English
Adjustable difficulty
Two hands required
Real crouch required
Hearing required
Adjustable player height

March 19, 2023

No Man’s Sky PSVR 2 Review: Jumping to Hyperspeed

No Man’s Sky added PSVR 2 support to coincide with the headset’s launch last month, but how does the space sim hold up on the new headset? Read on for our full No Man’s Sky PSVR 2 review.

After a rocky start with its initial launch in 2016, Hello Games’ procedurally generated space sim No Man’s Sky has become the poster child for video game comebacks. Hello Games worked tirelessly on update after update, not only bringing features that people were expecting at launch, but later vastly expanding beyond many players’ wildest dreams.

No Man’s Sky PSVR 2 Review – The Facts

Platforms: PSVR 2 (Also available on PC VR, PSVR)
Release Date: Out now
Developer: Hello Games
Price: $59.99

In 2019, Hello Games added full VR support for No Man’s Sky, which we reviewed on PC VR headsets and the original PSVR for PS4. In February 2023, Hello Games launched the latest update, codenamed Fractal, bringing support for PSVR 2 to the PS5 version of the game. With that in mind, we’re here to give you our updated thoughts on what’s been added to the game over the past few years and how No Man’s Sky runs on PSVR 2.

For those who aren’t familiar, No Man’s Sky is a space adventure and survival sim, taking place in a procedurally generated infinite galaxy. You start out as an amnesiac astronaut, crash landed on an unknown planet. Your first goals are simple: charge up your life support and fix your equipment. Shortly after, you have a small ship to repair and then you can get out into space and visit other planets, space stations and then start to hop between solar systems. During the opening hours of the game, you’ll also be introduced to the base-building systems, alien races to trade and communicate with and much more.

I played and enjoyed No Man’s Sky at launch, but ended up putting the game down after around 20-30 hours as it started to get a bit same-y. I was just jumping from solar system to solar system, winding my way towards the centre of the universe and the current end of the basic story. Returning to the game for the Next Generation update at launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X, I found that the game was packed to the brim with new things to do, new features and new possibilities. It still felt like the same game at its core, but with a lot more polish.

New Frontiers

The latest Fractal update brings PSVR 2 support, but also an increase in texture quality, draw distance and added reflections when playing in VR mode for both PSVR 2 and PC. Hello Games has also added some PSVR 2 specific features, such as haptic support for the Sense controllers and headset itself. You can also now use the capacitive sensors in the trigger and grip buttons to perform gestures like pointing, waving or giving a thumbs up when in multiplayer. It even makes using the menus in PSVR 2 feel very natural – you can point with one hand a new wrist-mounted menu that, so you stay immersed in the world and feel like a proper sci-fi explorer. The vibration on your headset is great for immersion too, subtly rumbling when you leave planetary atmosphere or when a large animal or vehicle is moving close by.

Something that’s been added to all platforms with the Fractal update is new VR-specific interactions, like physically pulling open your canopy to exit your ship or grabbing and pulling various plant life and organic matter out in the world instead of just simply clicking on it. The grabbing interaction is especially forgiving on distance too, so if you undershoot your teleport you don’t have to re-position to interact with an object.

There’s been other updates along the way to the Next Generation and Fractal updates, adding everything from walking mechs, living ships for you to fly and animal companions for you to tame. They’ve also overhauled many aspects of the game, completely redoing the story and new player experience. Safe to say it’s a hugely different game, even when compared with the original VR support from 2019.

The biggest change for me was the new story experience and the redesigned space stations. My memory of space stations in No Man’s Sky was a sterile and small environment that might have one or two NPCs sitting behind desks. Coming back after the updates, I was immediately impressed to see much more going on in these stations. At one point, I even came across an abandoned capital ship drifting in space, looking like some sort of Aliens-style horror story in space. I didn’t have the right gear to get very far, but it’s encouraging to see opportunities like this arise naturally during exploration.

Touch The Sky

While not a complete VR novice, I had mostly played party games or smaller, more contained experiences before PSVR 2, so booting up No Man’s Sky in VR for the first time was an experience like nothing else.

In basic terms, No Man’s Sky’s gameplay loop is unchanged between flatscreen and VR – saves are even compatible with both VR and flatscreen mode, so you can take an old save and start it up in VR or vice versa. However, it’s the added immersion that’s the biggest change when playing in VR. People often talk about the PS4 Spider-Man game as being a game that made you really feel like Spider-Man, but it wasn’t until playing No Man’s Sky on PSVR 2 that I really felt like I was on another planet. There’s a pretty instant wow moment when you log in for the first time – I just stood still and spun around looking at the starting planet that the game had generated for me. While exploring my immediate surroundings, a massive capital ship warped into orbit above me and slowly flew across the planet. Details like that really ground the experience and make the world feel alive, giving the procedurally generated planets more of a sense of place than other PSVR 2 experiences I’ve tried.

No Man’s Sky PSVR 2 Review – Comfort

No Man’s Sky on PSVR 2 offers a teleport movement system as default, with snap (or smooth) turning mapped to the right analogue stick. There’s also the option for artificial stick-based movement, as well as options for vignetting to minimize nausea. When you land in water or use your jetpack, you will have to use the stick-based artificial movement, as there’s no teleport option for those situations.

Compared to other PSVR 2 launch titles, one of the biggest things that No Man’s Sky has going for it is the simple lack of boundaries and the abundance of open space. You truly can point at a mountain, and then go there. It might take you several hours on foot or a few seconds in your ship, but everywhere from the top of the highest mountains to the bottom of the ocean is accessible. It makes No Man’s Sky stand out from prettier but more guided and linear experiences like Horizon: Call of the Mountain.

While I am pretty much in love with the experience of playing No Man’s Sky on PSVR 2, it is a little graphically disappointing. I was hoping that the power of the PS5, combined with PSVR 2’s OLED screen and foveated rendering capabilities, would help the game look just as incredible in VR as it does on flatscreen. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case.

Visually, it is nonetheless a huge step up from the PS4 version for PSVR and the game still looks good, but it can sometimes seem a little blurry. Specifically, texture quality and the game’s resolution is sometimes quite low in-headset, meaning it’s just not as good to look at compared to the regular flatscreen mode. Hello Games seemingly hasn’t taken advantage of the PSVR 2’s foveated rendering capabilities at all, though there has been some outreach from the community requesting it. In terms of performance, I never had any issues while playing on PSVR 2, though I would say that’s to be expected from a seven year old title.

No Man’s Sky PSVR 2 Review – Final Verdict

Everything we said about the original VR version of No Man’s Sky is still true on PSVR 2 – you get an essentially endless, infinite universe to explore and a sense of scale that’s really hard to match in VR. While it’s still an upgrade compared to the original PSVR release, there’s nonetheless room for improvement in the visuals department. However, new enhancements for PSVR 2 make the game more immersive than ever, resulting in one of the best space survival sims available in VR. .

If you’ve ever wanted to leave your universe behind and have a space adventure from the comfort of your living room, I can’t think of a better way to do it than with No Man’s Sky on PSVR 2.

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March 17, 2023

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR Review – Rolling Arcade Horror On PSVR 2

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is an exclusive title for PlayStation VR2, available now for PlayStation 5. But does this rollercoaster shooter scare us to death or hit the bullseye? Read on for our full Switchback PSVR 2 review.

Typically, rollercoasters aren’t the best fit for VR experiences. They’re fast moving yet physically stationary experiences that can quickly create a recipe for motion sickness in VR, especially if it’s a first-time experience. Despite this, I came away quite impressed with The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, a new rollercoaster-based horror shooter and PlayStation VR2 exclusive. It features a 4-5 hour campaign that’s an entertaining and arcade-y romp through some fantastic horror scenarios, with engaging combat and spooky scares.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR Review – The Facts

Platforms: PSVR 2
Release Date: Out now
Developer: Supermassive Games
Price: $39.99

Switchback is a VR-exclusive entry in The Dark Pictures anthology series, but as someone with zero prior experience with the franchise, I can assure you context isn’t needed. The basic premise is that you’ve been in a train crash and in between intermittent flashbacks, you’ll be transported onto a mystical rollercoaster to trudge through some scary scenarios. There’s a very basic story that plays out across each level, but it’s nothing to write home about and that’s fine. The concept is, by and large, acceptably ridiculous – you’re on a horror-themed rollercoaster with magical guns, so anything goes.

Getting Comfortable

The levels in Switchback take you through a couple of different settings – a decrepit boat, a creepy hotel, an underground ancient tomb and more – which you’ll explore across one or two levels for each. The entire experience is seated and on-rails, with the coaster varying in speed and intensity. Some sections are fast moving, but most are fairly slow. The cart will also often stop at sections of the map during combat or for other environmental interactions.

So while it’s not quite a fun-blown, intense rollercoaster simulator, Switchback is nonetheless a game with near-constant artificial movement. That said, as someone who can be fairly prone to nausea in VR, I felt fine for most of the experience and was able to play for hours at a time with no problem.

This has been a common experience for me when using PSVR 2 and I suspect it’s thanks to the 120Hz framerate offered by many experiences on the headset, including Switchback. There is a subtle (and very tolerable) ghosting effect during lateral movement, suggesting the game runs at 60 frames per second reprojected up to 120Hz. Everyone’s tolerance is different, but running at 120Hz (even if reprojected from 60fps) should hopefully help make this a comfortable experience for as many people as possible. However at present, there’s unfortunately no comfort options, such as vignetting, available at all.

Delightful Terrors

If you feel you’ll be able to play comfortably given the above, then it’s time to sit back, relax and get ready to shoot. On your journey, you’ll be confronted with a plethora of creepy zombies, monsters and undead beings. The variety in enemy design is really fantastic, themed perfectly to each area and often genuinely terrifying in nature. Some enemies will even use eye tracking to determine when you blink, only moving when you’ve got your eyes shut. It’s a well-implemented mechanic, clearly taking inspiration from the terrifying Weeping Angles in Doctor Who.

To combat enemies, you dual wield a pair of pistols with infinite ammo. To reload, all you have to do is shake your guns, which it confirms with a delightful and elastic-y reload animation and sound. It’s incredibly satisfying to use and the first indication that, although this is a scary horror game, it also has many fun arcade elements to it. There’s three difficulties to choose between and during each level, your current score will be displayed in front of you on the cart. Levels can be replayed to achieve a high score and there’s leaderboards to compare with friends online.

The environments themselves are well-designed and offer the player a few extra challenges to deal with while staving off enemies. Obstacles will require you to lean left, right or forward to avoid damage, while pentacle-marked items are scattered across every area and offer a bonus score if you can shoot them before they’re out of sight. Across the campaign, you’ll also come across red boxes that, when shot, transform your pistol into a different weapon type with a limited set of ammo. These range from the basics – shotguns and submachine guns – to more original weapons, such as stun guns or fuse guns that can be used to solve puzzles or enable environment aids.

While the horror elements of the game are quite unsettling and dark, the gameplay itself is a thrill and the guns are super enjoyable to use. Unlimited ammo means that you can go wild and the aiming system is generous. There’s often a rush of enemies in your face or rapidly approaching the cart, meaning that precision is less important than shooting as much as you possibly can. That said, headshots will take down enemies quicker, so there’s some value in taking your time when you’re able to.

The Good, The Bag and The Ugly

Switchback isn’t the longest game, coming in at around four or five hours for one run of the campaign, but there’s likely lots of replayability for those who want to chase high scores across different difficulty levels. That said, even at a fairly short four hour length, the horror elements do start to wear a little thin and feel more predictable as you get towards the end.

In our Resident Evil Village review for PSVR 2, we said that its focus on bursts of high-tension moments and terrifying monsters was VR horror done right. In the case of Switchback, it isn’t VR horror done bad by any means, but it is often a bit cheap. Expect lots of sudden jump scares, classic horror strings building to shocks, and moments where you’re terrified purely through being overwhelmed with enemies all around you. This is horror in its most basic and raw form – those whose heart can’t take sudden scares will definitely want to sit this one out. At the same time, there’s also a fair share of horror moments that don’t quite land, feeling a little underwhelming and not quite as spooky as the game thinks they are.

The gameplay itself remains mostly engaging throughout the campaign, if also a little repetitive in the latter stages. Likewise, the environments feature some items that can be interacted with or will respond to being shot, but only very specific and clearly marked ones. It would be nice to have more dynamic interactions with the levels that weren’t so clearly signposted. As it stands, the environments often feel like static movie sets, but that’s also part of the charm – the experience is often reminiscent of a Disneyland dark ride mixed with The House of the Dead arcade games.

In terms of visuals, Switchback puts out a presentation that is pretty good but not absolutely stunning. The stylized environments work well and everything feels cohesive, but it’s not the most visually impressive PSVR 2 game we’ve tried by any margin. While performance is generally solid, I did notice quite a bit of pop-in during fast-moving sequences and textures often visibly resolve from low to high resolution as you move along the track. There’s also loading screens in between the limited cutscenes and each level – they’re fairly quick, but it’s somewhat strange to see on a platform where they otherwise rarely exist.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR – Final Verdict

The main hurdle with Switchback VR remains the question of comfort. While it’s not as hectic and intense as a fully-blown rollercoaster simulator, it is nonetheless frequent artificial movement without any comfort options to reduce potential nausea. Whether that’s acceptable will vary from person to person.

However, the experience itself is good fun and a mostly engaging horror shooter from start to end. It blends together arcade gameplay elements with intense horror action, bringing some fantastic enemy designs and brilliant settings into the fray. While the visuals might not be the most stunning we’ve seen on the platform, it’s nonetheless competent and what lacks in fidelity it makes up for in style. Though probably not a system seller, The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is a good PSVR 2 exclusive and an easy recommendation for fans of horror and arcade action.

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March 10, 2023

Before Your Eyes VR Review – Sublime Immersive Narrative For PSVR 2

Before Your Eyes is a sublime narrative experience for PlayStation VR2 that leverages eye tracking technology to tell an emotional story about life, death and everything in between. Here’s our full Before Your Eyes PSVR 2 review.

Before Your Eyes is a truly unique experience. At around 90 minutes long, it’s closer to an immersive movie than a fully-fledged game, but it packs a hell of a lot into a small package. Not only does it feature a gut-wrenching and poignant narrative, but it presents that narrative via an eye tracking mechanic that is completely unlike any other use of the technology.

Before Your Eyes Review – The Facts

Platforms: PSVR 2
Release Date: March 10
Developer: GoodbyeWorld Games
Price: $14.99

You begin aboard a mythical ship in the afterlife, traveling alongside a ferryman who wants to learn about your life. You’re then transported back into the memories of the protagonist Benny, experiencing them from his first-person perspective as they happened. The catch is that you control the story entirely with your eyes – specifically, your blinks.

When you blink, the scenes will change and the story will advance forward from one moment in Benny’s life to the next. You’re literally experiencing his life flash before your eyes, one blink at a time. Sometimes you’ll jump forward a few minutes, other times a few years. Your blinks become a tool to shorten, lengthen and heighten the story being told around you, which deals with themes of life, death, ambition, creativity, family and so much more. It’s absolutely captivating to behold and completely original in its execution, bringing you closer to the characters and connected to the world in a such a visceral manner.

Before Your Eyes

Before Your Eyes is played completely controller-free, making it an incredibly accessible and intuitive experience. There’s a small cursor tied to the centre of your field of view in each scene, which you can position over interaction points by moving your head and selecting with a blink. At set moments in each scene, a small ticking metronome appears, indicating that the next time you blink, you’ll open your eyes to a new scene. You can choose to blink straight away or try to prolong the inevitable.

The blink mechanic is compelling as a storytelling device because it forces you to constantly progress onwards and yet also makes you savor each moment as it happens. At the start when Benny is a child, you’ll often be happy to skip forward to the next scene, keen to see what’s next. As he gets older and the narrative progresses, you start to feel time slipping away. You’ve formed connections with the characters and would be happy to spend a bit longer in each scene, but you’re constantly battling against the marching pace of life. There’s only so long you can stave off a blink.

There were points where I blinked completely by accident, tragically cutting a beautiful moment short. There were points where I was crying, making it much harder not to blink. There were points where I just wanted to blink as soon as possible to skip through a difficult scene.

Before Your Eyes

This intersection of cutting-edge technology and well-written immersive narrative results in an experience that is both beautiful and confronting at the same time. It’s hard to speak more in-depth about the narrative, because it’s best to go in blind – no pun intended – but suffice to say that it’s engaging, touching and tragic. It does deal with some heavy content matter surrounding death and illness, but also presents an experience that feels representative and parallel to how we remember our own lives.

Before Your Eyes Review – Comfort

Before Your Eyes should be comfortable for most users. It’s a seated experience that remains stationary, spare for a handful of sequences with very slow artificial movement. Scenes are faded in and out around the player and the entire story is played without a controller, making it quite an accessible experience.

Before Your Eyes originally released as a flatscreen experience for PC in 2021, using a connected webcam to track the player’s blinks. While I haven’t tried the original, there is nothing about the VR release that feels like a port of a flatscreen game. In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was made for VR first, because it’s such a natural fit for an immersive platform. Regardless, the presence of the blink mechanic in the original PC release proves just how integral it is to the narrative. It isn’t just a novelty, but a mechanic that is essential and thematically connected to the story. It’s one of the most interesting uses of eye tracking technology we’ve seen to date, without a doubt.

Before Your Eyes Review – Final Verdict

Before Your Eyes is a narrative experience unlike any other. It’s a perfect example of how virtual reality can tell a story in ways that movies, games and other media can’t. It’s a visceral, emotional journey that is best enjoyed in one sitting and with a box of tissues nearby. The controller-free setup means that it’s accessible to an incredibly wide audience and the lack of artificial movement means it should be comfortable for most players.

There’s a wealth of blockbuster campaigns and arcade games for PSVR 2, but there’s nothing else quite like Before Your Eyes. This is an essential experience for the platform that leverages eye tracking technology to tell a compelling story that simply wouldn’t work without it.

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March 9, 2023

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom Quest 2 Review – Step Into The TV Show

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom is an action-adventure game available now for Quest 2 and PICO 4. This tale from the criminal underworld by Maze Theory attempts to transport you into the world of Peaky Blinders with mixed success. Read more in our full Peaky Blinders VR review.

After releasing Doctor Who: The Edge of Time for VR platforms in late 2019, London-based studio Maze Theory is back with another franchise tie-in VR experience, this time centered around the gangster world of Peaky Blinders. This new story puts you squarely in the middle of a power struggle between rival factions, featuring an all-around engaging tale of crime, loyalty, and retribution that has some interesting plot twists along the way.

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom Review – The Facts

Platforms: Quest 2, Pico 4 (Review conducted on Quest 2)
Release Date: Out now
Developer: Maze Theory
Price: $29.99

Similar to an episode of the show, the plot of The King’s Ransom involves a perilous journey to retrieve a stolen briefcase in a bid to clear your name as a deserter and become an honorary member of the Peaky Blinders gang. Progression is linear, taking players on an unswerving path from one scripted sequence to another with some gameplay in between. You also carry a journal that will update with character bios and provide opportunities for personal reflection that flesh out the narrative beyond the game’s central plot.

Peaky Blinders

If there’s one area where Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom excels, it’s in capturing the gritty streets of 1920s Birmingham. The bustle of heavy industry and soot-covered period-style buildings give that grimy feeling of early 20th-century working-class Britain conveyed so well by the TV series.

The character models are less impressive when compared to the surroundings but this is somewhat forgivable given the limitations of standalone hardware. That said, the voices of leading actors Cillian Murphy (Tommy Shelby) and Paul Anderson (Arthur Shelby) add nicely to the authenticity and made me feel like I had just stepped onto the set of the award-winning crime drama.

One particular sequence at the beginning gave me goosebumps in anticipation as I made my way along the cobblestone streets toward The Garrison Pub and the show’s theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, began to play. Despite the promising start, however, things go downhill from there.

The gangster vibe was strong as I strolled through the twilight streets, puffing away on my cigarette, and watching Arthur Shelby go berserk on more than one occasion definitely brings back welcome feelings from the BBC/Netflix series. Unfortunately, these moments were usually let down by awkward animations, performance slow-downs, or one of the many glitches.

Peaky Blinders

Rough Around The Edges

Listing all of the jankiness I experienced in Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom would take up the rest of this review, so I’ll keep it to a brief summary. Glitches ranged from small annoyances – such as my hand getting stuck in the game’s geometry – to more serious bugs where I needed to reload the game. One of the more memorable buggy moments came while fighting a communist soldier, who was shooting from behind an invisible, impenetrable wall, leaving me no option but to run for my life. So expect jankiness, expect it often, and expect a lot of it.

That said, Maze Theory confirmed that a series of extensive bug fixes will arrive in an update early next week on March 13. Among the many changes listed are fixes for buggy animations and issues with hands getting stuck inside the environment. Hopefully, this means we can expect most of the big issues to get resolved, but for now the experience has its fair share of bugs.

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom Review – Comfort

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom can be played either seated or standing. While the action can be fast-paced at times, there are settings to reduce discomfort. There are options for both teleportation and smooth locomotion movement, with a non-adjustable vignette available too. Players also have the choice of either smooth or snap turning, and can use a button to crouch if preferred.

Predictable Shootouts

Much like the rest of the game, Peaky Blinders’ combat encounters are highly scripted and the result is largely lackluster. During combat, enemies occupy a pre-determined position behind cover and stay put. They do not seem to react dynamically to the situation and will not try to flank you, switch spots or advance on your position. This makes shootouts predictable and altogether too easy, even with aim assist turned off.

Beyond the bad enemy AI, there are other aspects that take away from the immersiveness and realism of the shootouts. You are unable to carry ammunition, for example, so firefights always involve conveniently placed crates of ammo and Molotov cocktails en route. Your pistol (the primary weapon used throughout the majority of the game) also reloads automatically when a new magazine is placed near the grip.

There are some fun moments to be had when fighting alongside the Shelbys or watching a group of enemies light up after lobbing them a Molotov cocktail. However, like with many aspects of the game, those moments are often let down by simplistic mechanics and the game’s pervasive issues.

Peaky Blinders

A Casual Experience

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom took me about 3 hours to complete, with a lot of hidden collectibles to encourage exploration along the way and broken radios scattered around waiting to be fixed. Once you finish the campaign, you can roam the world to retrieve any you’ve missed along the way.

However, players looking for a challenge won’t find it here. Tasks range from fetch quests to solving simple puzzles, with hints provided as you go. There’s no option to up the difficulty either, making the game suitable for those wanting a casual experience but not much more.

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom Review – Final Verdict

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom is authentic to its source material and it’s good to see Maze Theory create an original in-universe story that leverages new material recorded by members of the original cast, such as Cillian Murphy. However, the many issues and simplistic gameplay mean that The King’s Ransom is probably only of interest to the most hardcore fans of the show. Gorgeous environments, an engaging story and quality voice acting aren’t enough to lift the game beyond what is ultimately an average VR experience.

UploadVR focuses on a label system for reviews, rather than a numeric score. Our reviews fall into one of four categories: Essential, Recommended, Avoid and reviews that we leave unlabeled, such as this one. You can read more about our review guidelines here.

March 3, 2023

Per Aspera VR Quest 2 Review: Civilization Building At Its Finest

Per Aspera VR is a narrative-driven terraforming sim available now for Quest 2 and Quest Pro. Does this flatscreen port survive its jump to VR? Find out in our full Per Aspera VR review.

In Per Aspera VR, Earth can no longer support life, so mankind has committed to making Mars its new home in a bid to preserve humanity. That’s where you come in, playing as a sentient artificial consciousness called AMI. You’ve been sent to transform Mars from a barren rock into a flourishing bounty by overseeing a planetwide terraforming operation.

Resident Evil Village Review – The Facts

Platforms: Quest 2, Quest Pro (Review conducted on Quest 2)

Release Date: Out now

Developer: Tlön Industries

Price: $24.99

The game greets you with an outer-space view of the Martian world just ten days before your arrival. A rocket-propelled structure lands on the planet’s surface and becomes your home base, revealing resources in the immediate area and supplying enough power to get your mission underway.

From here you begin by building mines to tap into some of the planet’s limited resources like aluminum, iron, and silicon. Then factories need to be constructed to refine these raw materials into usable products – for example, an electronics factory will convert one unit of aluminum and silicon into one unit of electronics.

Per Aspera VR

The products you make from the factories are used to build a range of additional structures from scanning towers that reveal nearby resources to colonies that will eventually become home to scientists. With each new structure comes a power cost so creating energy generators is something you’ll need to do early on to stop production from grinding to a halt. Another essential to invest in early are worker drones – these are the mechanical laborers that shift resources from place to place and construct new buildings.

You begin with access to only one worker drone at the start, which proves to be a major bottleneck for production. Because of this, I found the first half-hour of the game excruciatingly slow – even on 8x speed. Once you have the ability to produce more workers, however, things start to ramp up and get more interesting.

Extensive Strategic Simulation

As your colony expands, you’ll need to be managing resources, ensuring operations run at peak efficiency, maintaining your structures, and exploring the planet. Trying to make the right decisions to manage your growing settlement and watching it slowly take shape is a genuinely satisfying and addictive experience.

Per Aspera VR

Then there are tech trees that unlock upgrades using points obtained by bringing scientists to the planet to do research. There are three main categories of research each with its own benefits; the Engineering tree provides advances in construction and power generation; the Space tree upgrades abilities to build new bases and import resources to Mars; whilst the Biotech tree improves colonies and planet terraforming abilities.

Expanding your operations to explore more of the red planet is a big part of the fun, with ancient and sometimes dark secrets waiting to be discovered. You’ll quickly realize the large scoop of the game when you zoom out to see the city you’ve been steadily building for the past 2 hours constitutes just a dot on the Martian surface. One playthrough took me about 17 hours in total but with multiple endings, different difficulty levels, and a free-play sandbox mode, there’s a lot more potential gameplay to be had.

Science Fact Meets Science Fiction

Per Aspera is a hard science fiction game that blends scientific fact with fantasy. The topology of the planet is based on real NASA maps of Mars and you will come across actual Martian sites and locations throughout the game. The harsh alien environment will also throw up challenges from time to time – from dust storms that play havoc with your solar panels to meteor impacts that can destroy entire buildings.

Per Aspera VR

Per Aspera Review – Comfort

Per Aspera is best played seated. While there are no comfort options, I found the game to be a comfortable experience on the whole. However, there is some potential for motion-based discomfort when zooming or moving across the planet.

Per Aspera does hold your hand somewhat and will use objectives to guide you, but there are some things that the game leaves you to figure out for yourself. For the most, these are intuitive enough to discover yourself, but some elements are not so clear.

When trying to cancel a shuttle flight to Mars, for example, it wasn’t obvious why clicking the big red ‘X’ did nothing. Only after consulting Google did I find out that colonist migration cannot be canceled while in transit to Mars. A pop-up box with an explanation would be good in situations like this.

Dynamic Storylines

One of my favorite aspects of Per Aspera was the rich and engaging narrative woven throughout the game. Mission control will contact you occasionally to test your AI capabilities, get updates on your progress and provide objectives that build toward your terraforming mission. You get to choose how you respond in each interaction, which can lead to different endings based on your selection.

Per Aspera VR

The story will have you questioning the existence of mankind and exploring the depths of your digital sentience. Plot twists to keep things interesting and I found the story to be both unique and engaging. However, it also takes a non-linear approach and I noticed that some narrative elements occurred in a different order from how they were supposed to unfold, which made it fragmented at times.

Flatscreen To Virtual Reality

Per Aspera is a flatscreen game that has been ported over to VR. While it’s a fantastic sim on many fronts, I also couldn’t help but feel like more could have been done to make the most of its transition to VR and differentiate itself from the flatscreen version.

Per Aspera VR

One common concern with simulation VR ports is how menu and charts navigation will work using a motion controls. Per Aspera solution is a simple user interface that can be navigated with radial menus that neatly organize large selections of options. Still, there are times when the limitations of the Quest controllers become apparent. Some actions that only take a single keystroke on the flatscreen version require drilling down through menus with trigger presses on Quest. Even if it only takes a few more seconds to select certain features on Quest, it adds up over time and impacts the game’s flow.

Per Aspera VR Review – Final Verdict

Per Aspera VR is a slow burner but if you have time and patience to invest, you’ll find a uniquely engaging base-building strategy sim. Breathing life into the red planet is as absorbing as it is rewarding and the rich dynamic narrative is a welcome addition that’s not often seen in games of this type. While I feel this port could have done more to capitalize on the immersive nature of VR, it still works to deliver an amazing science-fiction tale that is sure to delight fans of this genre.

Upload VR Review Recommended

February 21, 2023February 22, 2023

PSVR 2 Specs & Technical Analysis: Displays, Lenses, Reprojection, And More

PlayStation VR2 ships today. Here’s our technical analysis of it as VR hardware.

PSVR 2 offers major upgrades over the original 2016 product. PSVR 1 required an array of cables connected to a breakout box and a PlayStation Camera, while PSVR 2 connects via a single USB-C cable and has onboard cameras for inside-out tracking. It also features significantly higher resolution HDR displays, wider field of view lenses, eye tracking, head vibration, and ergonomic controllers with thumbsticks & high-fidelity haptics.

	PlayStation VR	PlayStation VR2
Released	October 2016	February 2023
Compatible Consoles	PS4 / PS4 Pro / PS5*	PS5
Connection	HDMI + USB + AC Power	USB-C
Lens Type	Aspheric	Fresnel
Field of View	100°	110°
Screen Type	OLED	HDR OLED
Pixels Per Eye	960×1080	2000×2040
Max Refresh Rate	120 Hz	120 Hz
Lens Separation Adjustment	𐄂	✓
Positional Tracking	Camera Bar Required	Built-In Inside-Out
Passthrough	𐄂	Black & White
Eye Tracking	𐄂	✓
Headset Rumble	𐄂	✓
Controller Thumbsticks	𐄂	✓
Controller Haptics	Low Fidelity	High Fidelity
Weight	600g	560g

You should read our full holistic review of PSVR 2 if you want help deciding whether you should actually buy the product. This article is specifically looking at the hardware and technology behind it, including comparisons to PC VR and standalone VR headsets, divorced from the pricing and value proposition.

HDR OLED Panels

PSVR 2 is the only released VR headset with OLED panels since the 2018 Samsung Odyssey+. While the original Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (and even the original Quest) used OLED, LCD has almost entirely taken over the VR market since then.

Why did that happen? In some ways it’s a matter of cost. Those early modern VR headsets rode the wave of increasing OLED smartphone panel pixel densities, but phone resolution plateaued at around 1440p, as the incredibly minor advantage of 4K there didn’t justify the added power consumption. For VR resolution to improve headset makers had to acquire custom panels. Setting up a production line for LCD is much cheaper than for OLED, and thus LCD display makers could offer custom high pixel density panels for newer VR headsets, as seen when HP delivered the 2K per-eye Reverb in 2019. This is probably a major reason for PSVR 2’s surprising price.

OLED panels have a major advantage though. LCD pixels require backlighting, while OLED pixels are self-emissive. OLED pixels can completely turn off, whereas an LCD needs to keep the backlights to illuminate other pixels. That’s why OLED can display true black and deliver a near-infinite contrast ratio.

If you’ve only used LCD headsets, this will be immediately apparent when you first put on PSVR 2. Gone are the murky greys approximating black – virtual darkness actually now looks like darkness, and thus virtual nighttime actually looks like nighttime.

The colors are also more vibrant and intense, lacking the washed-out feeling of most LCD headsets. Combined with the high dynamic range (HDR) capability, the contrast and colors on PSVR 2 are nothing short of stunning.

There are some disadvantages of OLED that affect sharpness and clarity in VR though, one minor and the other major.

The minor issue is that OLED subpixels tend to be smaller, so there’s more space between them. This usually results in a more visible “screen door effect”, but that’s not the case here. Sony appears to be using some kind of diffusion filter to avoid that. The tradeoff of such a filter is that the image looks somewhat soft, not entirely crisp, so PSVR 2’s image appears slightly less sharp than even LCD headsets with lower resolution.

The major issue is that there is a non-uniform fixed pattern noise over the entire screen, called mura. It’s incredibly noticeable and distracting in loading and transition scenes, or when looking at a skybox or other low detail region. It’s not as noticeable in typical gameplay, but it’s still there, and it might leave some people missing LCD.

Overall, PSVR 2’s panels offer incredible colors and unbelievable contrast, but with a softness and noise on top. Resolution-wise, Sony’s marketing calls the headset “4K”, but it’s really dual 2K panels, providing 2K per eye.

Lenses & Field of View

PSVR 2 may be the last major headset to release with fresnel lenses, arriving at a time when all the other big players are moving to pancake. Pancake lenses have a shorter optical path and thus use smaller panels to enable slimmer and lighter headsets, while also offering improved clarity and a wider swee spot. However, they are significantly less optically efficient, requiring much brighter panels to achieve the same viewed brightness.

Sony’s fresnel lenses are a mixed bag. They have a remarkably small sweet spot, meaning you have to position your eyes almost perfectly in the center to get a clear image. Outside of this small area, you’ll see both blurring and color fringing (chromatic aberration). When you do manage to get your eyes into this sweet spot, the image is clear and focused to near the edges of the lens (though not all the way to it). Provided you’re in the sweet spot, it’s the best clarity I’ve seen from a fresnel lens – but still a noticeable step down from pancake lenses.

I suspect Sony stuck with fresnel because they wanted to keep using OLED at all costs. While there are plenty of LCDs suitable for pancake lenses, it may not have been possible to affordably mass-produce OLED panels with the required density to be small enough. Further, OLED panels are typically less bright than LCD, so getting a panel bright enough to overcome the low efficiency of pancake lenses may not have been possible either.

PSVR 2 has eye relief adjustment, meaning you can adjust how close the lenses actually are from your eyes. The closer you bring them the larger the field of view, but the harder the padding will be pushing into your face and nose. When you bring the lenses as close as possible the field of view is impressive, noticeably wider and taller than Quest 2, but that does come at the cost of comfort.

Separation adjustment is the another lens control, and wasn’t present on the original PSVR. This allows you to align the PSVR 2 lenses horizontally with your eyes, as everyone’s eyes are a slightly different distance apart. Given the sweet spot this was a crucial addition and should make PSVR 2 suitable for a wide range of people.

Reprojection Blur

PSVR 2 has three modes for developers to choose from: native 120Hz, native 90Hz, and a third that reprojects 60FPS rendering to 120Hz output.

The reprojection mode is the easiest to achieve, as it only requires 60 frames per second. It enables titles like Horizon Call Of The Mountain and Resident Evil 8 to offer modern AAA graphics. But it has a horrible, incredibly noticeable side effect. Some call it double imaging, while others call it ghosting.

When moving your head around, you’ll notice a motion blur along the edges of every object, and you’ll notice the same on your hands when moving them too. When I first tried PSVR 2 I thought this was a glitch with the game or the unit, so actually asked for it to be rebooted to see if it would be solved. I was shocked to discover it was normal.

Graphically simpler games use the native display modes, completely avoiding this issue. They play as smooth as butter and make you long to have the same feeling in the likes of Horizon.

It’s perhaps possible that Sony can improve its projection algorithm in a software update to improve this, as neither Valve’s Motion Smoothing nor Meta’s SpaceWarp are anywhere near as bad as PSVR2’s reprojection. If that’s not possible, I’d love to see developers of high fidelity titles offer a graphically inferior “performance mode”, as I’d choose it every time in a heartbeat.

Tracking & Passthrough

PSVR 2 ditches the clunky and limited camera bar tracking of its predecessor for onboard inside-out tracking via four cameras, Quest-style. You no longer have to worry about facing the TV or staying within a limited tracking volume, as you now have the freedom to move where you like.

The headset tracking doesn’t have any constant jitter, no matter the environment, but it frequently exhibits minor shifting into position when in anything but ideal conditions, as if to correct itself. This is particularly apparent near strong artificial or natural light sources, such as a window or PC monitor. This was something I noticed in my September hands-on too, so it’s worrying to see it hasn’t been improved on yet.

The controller tracking on the other hand is essentially flawless for me. Whether I was reaching behind my back, moving them rapidly, or even occluding one controller with the other, it just didn’t matter. I’m confident these controllers can handle any VR game Quest 2 can. The impressive performance is probably thanks to the sheer size of the controllers and thus their infrared LED rings. They’re bigger in real life than they appear in images.

The same onboard cameras are also used to show you the real world, for setup or when you just need to see your surroundings. It’s black and white like Quest 2, but significantly higher resolution, sharp enough to make out small details. However, it’s clearly not perspective-correct. There is distortion over the entire view, and walking around the room in it made me feel queasy. Sony isn’t pitching this as a mixed reality headset though, so that’s not a big deal.

Performance & Foveated Rendering

Performance in VR isn’t akin to regular gaming. Outside of VR, dipping below the target framerate is a minor annoyance, but in VR dropping even a few frames makes people feel physically sick and appears as if the entire virtual world around you is juddering.

On PC-based VR platforms, the wide range of different PC components and background services mean you can never be sure what kind of performance you’ll get. Ensuring a smooth experience requires a lot of manual tweaking of settings and resolution.

One of the best things about PlayStation VR is that performance is far more stable and consistent than on any other VR platform, with no tweaking or experimenting required. The console situation of developers targeting known hardware and tightly optimizing around it to maintain performance is ideal for VR. This is also theoretically the case for Quest and Pico, but in practice their mobile processors mean that sometimes dropping frames is simply unavoidable, no matter how hard the developer tries to avoid it.

The PlayStation 5, on the other hand, has sufficient horsepower that I saw almost no frame drops in any of the games I tried. This is probably helped by foveated rendering, but even when I disabled eye tracking it didn’t affect performance – though it did appear to lower the visible resolution.

February 16, 2023

‘Horizon Call of the Mountain’ Review – A Visual Feast That Takes VR Climbing to New Heights

With Horizon Call of the Mountain, Sony is hoping to have an exclusive big-budget VR game to entice players to the new PSVR 2. Does the title succeed? Read on to find out.

Horizon Call of the Mountain Details:

Available On: PSVR 2
Release Date: February 22nd, 2023
Price: $60
Developer: Geurilla Games & Firesprite
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Editor’s Note: The clips in this review that were captured from PSVR 2 do not look correctly saturated due to incorrect HDR downmixing on our part. Rest assured, the world of Horizon Call of the Mountain is quite vibrant!

Gameplay

The first thing you should know about Horizon Call of the Mountain is that at its core, it’s a VR climbing game. While it’s obvious from the name that climbing would be part of the experience, I can’t say I realized that it would make up about 50-60% of the gameplay. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing; climbing in Call of the Mountain is well executed and creates perfect situations to showcase the game’s stunning environmental art.

The second thing you should know about Call of the Mountain is that it really is a full game and not just a collection of mini-games or one-off experiences. That includes a cast of characters with performances that developers Guerrilla and Firesprite clearly spent a lot of time on, with results that challenge the groundbreaking portrayal of virtual humans in Blood & Truth (2019).

Climbing is the central pillar of gameplay in Call of the Mountain; at first you’ll be using just your hands, but later you’ll find new tools that do a good job of mixing up the climbing gameplay just enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, though I wish the later equipment felt less redundant.

While the climbing systems work very well throughout, I found a near complete lack of challenge in the climbing gameplay; I don’t think I fell to my death a single time during the game. The only ‘challenge’ is occasionally needing to look around to find out where to make your next move, but there’s barely any real ‘threat’ during climbing segments, which would have served well to emphasize the game’s otherwise daring climbs.

The climbing may not throw any real challenges your way, but it certainly creates effective opportunities to see the beautiful world of Call of the Mountain. The environmental art and lighting direction in the game is seriously top notch and of a quality scarcely seen anywhere else in VR. You’ll come across vista after epic vista as you climb to new heights, and it always felt worth it to me to take a minute to soak in the views. From most vantage points you can make out other major landmarks in the game which helps make the whole thing feel like a cohesive world.

While climbing is a huge part of the game, you’ll also be doing a lot of bow shooting, which is also well executed in function and feeling. To that end, the combat is where the game really challenges players, and I was actually surprised just how difficult it can be. While I only died from a single encounter in the game, the combat definitely put my skills to the test in a way that I expect would be fairly difficult for inexperienced VR players. While there’s options to tweak the difficulty, unfortunately they’re somewhat hidden in the Accessibility menu which means some players might not find them given that they may be looking for a more common ‘difficulty selector’ as some games provide.

Instead of throwing enemy after enemy at you, combat in Call of the Mountain most often consists of very specific encounters with a set number and type of enemies. The game also takes on a totally unique form of locomotion when these fights start, where the player can swing their arms to quickly rotate around the outer edge of the combat space as they avoid attacks and look for new angles to attack from. While it might look strange from the outside, the overall concept works well, especially when you’re fighting some of the game’s biggest and baddest beasts.

Granted, I found it difficult to read and time the enemies’ melee attacks, and I didn’t feel like the ‘dodge’ mechanic (where you swing both your controllers to one side to do a quick strafe) worked particularly well. While I applaud the developers for building a unique and thoughtful combat system that’s specific to VR (and impressively comfortable, I should add), it could use a bit more refinement to really shine.

The same goes for the combat overall. While it’s definitely fun to fight the fascinating machine creatures from the world of Horizon—thanks to their excellent looks and sounds—combat never felt particularly strategic to me. For the most part you just need to keep lobbing arrows down range. That’s especially strange considering the game allows you to craft several different arrow types (like fire and ice), but all of them essentially just felt like extra damage rather than a strategic choice. That’s compounded by the fact that the game provides the player with more than enough resources to usually have their special arrows maxed out—which further meant that actually finding those resources didn’t feel very exciting.

While Call of the Mountain is a linear adventure, you’ll return to a hub area between missions where you’ll get to talk to the game’s small cast of characters. Although there’s unfortunately minimal character development and intrigue, the characters themselves are impressively rendered across the board, from the way they look to the way they move to the way they sound. It’s a shame they aren’t more involved in the game because they’re so technically compelling.

When you’re on the trail but not actively climbing or fighting, there’s usually loot to scavenge for. The game does a good job of leaving extra bits of loot for those that go looking, but since the only gameplay reward is ingredients for different arrows (which as we established, don’t really make the combat more unique) or a small upgrade to your health it can be a bit of a let down to keep finding the same stuff that you’ve already got plenty of.

Even if you’re full on arrows though, the game still peppers its pathways with little collectibles to find for those who are looking more closely at the world around them, as well as hidden targets for you to shoot (which I appreciate because this gives players another good reason to take in the environment at large). Some of the game’s levels also have optional (and sometimes hidden) ‘Legendary Climbs’, which are longer climbing segments that usually lead you to another awesome view, and these feel like a good reason to replay a level if you didn’t find them the first time around.

Call of the Mountain is a fun adventure with tons of VR native gameplay taking place inside one of the best looking virtual worlds seen in VR to date. I can’t say the story really grasped me—I completely missed why the protagonist and his brother are at odds with one another—but at least it’s all well delivered and ties the gameplay together. It took me about 7 hours and 30 minutes to complete the main campaign while finding roughly 60% of the extras like trophies, collectables, and Legendary Climbs.

While it isn’t particularly comprehensive, the game also has a small challenge area where you can test your bow and climbing skills with some timed challenges. And last but not least, there’s also the ‘Machine Safari’, which is an extended version of the opening sequence which shows off the game’s great looking creatures and animations in a non-interactive way (great as a short demo to show friends who aren’t gamers).

Immersion

Call of the Mountain is definitely easy to get lost in thanks to its beautiful visuals and solid-feeling world. Yes, you’ll come across a bunch of epic vistas to soak in, but the game also does a great job with the smaller details too. You’ll see nice touches like moss growing between rocks, glints of crystal flecks in some of the rock faces, and a ton of foliage and environmental decoration, all backed up by great lighting and art direction.

While it was a bummer to find that only some of the foliage was interactive, it did make me smile when I could naturally use my hand to push a vine away from my face, see fuzzy moss bend under my hands, and watch leaves move realistically as I grazed them while looking for my next hand-hold.

Overall, Call of the Mountain might have the best visuals of any VR game I’ve seen to date. Though I’d say Half-Life: Alyx still has the more technically proficient graphics, those graphics are largely in service of realizing a dirty, broken, dystopic city. Call of the Mountain, on the other hand, offers up a rich world full of natural beauty that’s a delight to see.

Beyond the interactive foliage, the developers also scattered lots of interactive props throughout the environment. While they have nothing to do with gameplay, they’re certainly tempting to play with. Though I can’t even recall the name of the game’s main antagonist, I do recall playing a tambourine, drums, a pan flute, finding various hand-made dolls, smashing a table full of pots with a hammer, ringing huge gongs with a mallet, throwing snowballs, and shooting vases off a steep ledge with my bow. All of these various props are detailed with their own sound effects, physics, and generally tight hit-boxes.

While it was great to see that all of these items were physically interactive and could be pushed appropriately with your hands, the physics would sometimes freak out when items interacted with each other (ie: putting a stick in a mug).

Also relating to item interactions, I was a little disappointed to see that Call of the Mountain lacks a proficient force-grab system (which is essentially standard in VR games today). While you technically can grab things with a bit of range, it was really hard to see exactly which item you are targeting, which would sometimes mean grabbing something other than what you had intended. And then there’s the fact that when grabbing distant items, your floating hand in many cases would fly away to meet the object, which certainly doesn’t look right. And all of this sometimes makes picking things up from the ground an annoyance.

A more thoughtful force-grab system would have been welcomed; it’s easy to imagine emulating the gravity glove system from Half-Life: Alyx, and either explain it away by saying it’s advanced technology from the Old Ones (the futuristic lost civilization of the game), or by creating an (admittedly contrived) version of the gloves using string and pulleys. I also would have liked to put items over my shoulder to stash them in my inventory instead of having them magically teleport there after touching them once.

One place where Call of the Mountain really went above and beyond in the immersion department is with its characters. Yes, they look great, they’re well voiced, and the facial capture is very expressive, etc., but the thing that really impressed me is the way the developers dealt with players reaching out and touching the characters.

In many games if you reach out to touch a character nothing happens (maybe your hand even clips through them), which breaks immersion. Other games will just keep the characters 10 feet away from you, but that can also kill immersion because they’re outside of your ‘personal space’ (making you feel less connected with them).

Call of the Mountain keeps the characters in that personal space, but if you reach out to touch them they will lean away from your hand while sneering at you in a way that feels really natural. And when I say natural, I mean the expression on their face—and the way they first look at your hand and then back at you—very effectively conveys a sense of ‘what the hell is wrong with you, why are you touching me’ without using any words at all. It’s such a minor detail but it’s incredibly well done, especially considering that this system is fully dynamic so it can happen regardless of how they’re gesturing, looking, or speaking. Whoever worked on this system and the accompanying body language and animations, bravo, you’ve set a new bar for the ‘players touching characters in VR’ problem.

Comfort

Though there’s plenty of motion in Call of the Mountain, the game is clearly designed to take comfort into consideration.

First and foremost, the game has a solid ‘arm swinger’ locomotion option which is the default for two of the three pre-configured comfort profiles. I found that it kept me more comfortable and felt more immersive than using pure stick movement—though it was just a little bit annoying that it slows you down so much when you come within a few feet of stationary objects like walls or rocks.

In addition to the arm swinger movement, the game has a dynamic blinder system that kicks in when there’s lots of motion, like when you’re jumping, climbing, ziplining, or falling, and I found that it did a great job of keeping me comfortable.

In addition to offering up three pre-configured comfort profiles ranging from lots of comfort accommodations to fewer accommodations, you can also go into the menu and fine-tune the settings to taste. The game also thoughtfully includes an ‘Arm Reach Multiplier’ option for anyone that needs it, either because you don’t feel like reaching as far, or because there’s a physical reason you’re unable to.

As with any VR game involving climbing, when you clasp a handhold you can effectively shake your own body around by waggling your arm; some of the very sensitive folks are likely to find this movement inherently uncomfortable, regardless of blinders. So if you are particularly sensitive to motion in VR, you might want to give this game a shot but be ready to take advantage of Sony’s PlayStation Store refund policy if you can’t handle the motion comfortably.

Below you can find the full list of comfort options in Horizon Call of the Mountain.

Horizon Call of the Mountain’ Comfort Settings – February 16th, 2023
Turning
Artificial turning
Snap-turn
Quick-turn
Smooth-turn
Movement
Artificial movement
Teleport-move
Dash-move
Smooth-move	(with optional ‘Arm Swinger’ mode)
Blinders
Head-based
Controller-based
Swappable movement hand
Posture
Standing mode
Seated mode
Artificial crouch
Real crouch
Accessibility
Subtitles	Yes
Languages	English
Dialogue audio	Yes
Languages	English
Adjustable difficulty
Two hands required
Real crouch required
Hearing required
Adjustable player height

February 15, 2023

‘The Light Brigade’ Review – The Gun-toting Spiritual Successor to ‘In Death’

The Light Brigade is a roguelike shooter that I would mostly describe as a spiritual successor to In Death: Unchained, the critically acclaimed bowshooter from Sólfar Studios and Superbright. While at times a little less visually polished than In Death, the game’s variety of upgrades and array of WWII-era weaponry gives it a definite Wolfenstein bend that fans of the shooter genre will instantly be able to click into.

Available On: SteamVR, PSVR 2 & PSVR, Quest 2
Release Date: February 22nd, 2023
Price: $25
Developer: Funktronic Labs
Reviewed On: Quest 2 (native), Quest 2 via PC Link

Gameplay

There’s a definite story in The Light Brigade, although past the opening scene I really couldn’t remember what was actually at stake up until I completed my first full run. The game doesn’t chock too much story your way (or over tutorialize either), leaving you to just fight the bad guys while you save the culty good guys. Really, all you need to know is the demon-eyed, Nazi-adjacent baddies aren’t friendly, and the hellish fantasy-scape composed of discrete and sequentially connected levels must be cleared out and scoured methodically for loot.

It’s just pure action-adventure fun, as the meat of the game presents plenty of interesting upgrade paths which not only prolong your current run, but importantly give you enough reason to come back for more upon your inevitable death.

The Light Brigade feels forgiving enough to really keep you grinding for that next gun mod or class upgrade too, which gives you access to cooler-looking and more powerful versions of each weapon. Meanwhile, the game is busy serving up a good difficulty ramp that means your next run may not be necessarily easier despite progressively wider access to guns, magic, and upgrades.

That’s all well and good, but what about the guns? Thankfully, The Light Brigade really gets its WWII weaponry right, providing physics-based rifles and pistols which each come with their own immersive reloading mechanics. Loading and shooting the M3 submachine gun requires you to grab its stick-style magazine and chunk back the charging handle to chamber the first round, while shooting a K98 rifle is totally different, making you jam down stripper clips to feed the bolt-action rifle.

Practically speaking, sticking to a single class isn’t a terrible strategy as you get your grips with the game, as you’re probably looking to maximize your rank and unlock permanent upgrades since they don’t sync across classes.

In practice though, you’ll probably do a fair amount of class hopping once you progressively unlock the next available class, taking you from the starter Rifleman class with its semi-automatic Gewehr 43 rifle all the way through the other iconic WWII weapon-wielding classes the game has to offer, including the Sturmgewehr 44 submachine gun, the M3 submachine gun (aka ‘Grease Gun’), the powerful K98 battle rifle, and even a class that has dualie Colt 1911s for some John Wick-style madness.

As for enemies, the world’s baddies come in a pretty standard range, starting with your standard goons, which include shooters and archers. You’ll eventually come across shielded goons, tanks, and versions that fly, snipe, and lob bombs too. There always seems to be a new type added to the mix after each attempt though, so there may be more I don’t know about.

By this point, I’ve already made it through one full run, although that was after many (many) failed attempts spanning over about eight hours of gameplay—another thing that makes The Light Brigade a little more generous than In Death, which is probably there to keep it a little more of a fast-paced experience.

Levels are fairly linear, although there’s plenty of cover to hide behind as you make your forward march. That also means finding the remaining enemies can sometimes be tough, but thankfully prayer actually works in this universe, helping you to locate remaining loot and baddies. Enemies are revealed by showing you small red dots while chests are yellow.

And once you’ve finally cleared out the level’s baddies—you get a big ‘LEVEL CLEAR’ popup—then it’s time to scour for loot, oftentimes hidden in breakable vases and chests.

Here, you can find gold to buy consumables, weapon upgrades like scopes and magical trinkets, souls which increase your rank level, and the occasional key, which can open locked chests.

Mostly though, you’re looking for souls, the whispy white things that you’ll earn after killing enemies or finding soul containers. There’s also cards that give each run a unique set of possible upgrades. Choose one of three presented to you, and you might just significantly increase the damage you can deal, injecting a bit of luck into each run’s loot haul.

It’s not all WWII guns and demon Nazis though. The world is also magic-based, giving you upgradeable magic wands that can do things like provide shields, shoot fireballs, etc.

All of this effectively combines to offer a good selection of gameplay styles, letting you attack the world as you want.

Still, I have my gripes with The Light Brigade, the worst offender being its inventory holters attached to your belt. In practice, this makes reloading quickly and consistently an absolute pain. Instead of having a fixed area where you can reliably train muscle memory, shifting your body around physically or virtually with any of the artificial locomotion schemes has a funny way of shifting the belt holster around your waist in weird an unpredictable ways.

I get it: you should be covering and assessing your ammo situation at all times so you don’t run dry during critical moments, but having to crane your neck down every few seconds to make sure your hand is actually hovering over the right area is decidedly a dull spot on an otherwise shining example of great VR gaming.

I’m still working on getting the last remaining achievements and consistently beating the first boss as I attempt my successive runs. Considering the array of gun upgrades and magical weapons to explore, it’s safe to say I’m nowhere personally finished with this well-crafted roguelike. I won’t talk too much about bosses, although they are hard, and offer up unique bossy ways of dealing out damage—pretty much what’d you expect from a fantasy shooter, i.e., they can shield, do magic, and surprise you throughout the encounter, so they aren’t just glorified bullet sponges.

Immersion

I get it: The Light Brigade is all about bringing light back to a dark and corrupted world, but it is very dark. At times, I felt it offered less visual contrast than Quest 2’s LCD displays can rightly handle, making some levels appear more muddy and generally more difficult to resolve visually.

Road to VR has a PSVR 2 in hand, although I don’t personally. I have had a chance to preview the headset though, and its OLED displays with HDR will undoubtedly be more capable of serving up better visual contrast. Still, if you’re playing on Quest 2 natively, or any number of PC VR headset running the Steam version, you may find later bits of the game very difficult to resolve visually.

Were it not for the beady red eyes that shine in the darkness, enemies would be maybe too difficult to make out in the ever-present fog of war. Still, it’s a fairly muddy palette any way you slice it; level design and variety as you move forward are always interesting at least.

The star of the show though is inevitably the game’s weapons, which provide subtle articulations that really make it feel more of a realistic experience. For example, you can cycle a magazine’s worth of cartridges just because you mechanically can. You don’t need to, but the fact that The Light Brigade’s guns functionally work like real guns means the player should be able to if they want to. See my magazine empty as I eject unfired bullets:

Another immersive touch is the gun’s physical weight, which affects how you hold and steady it. A pistol requires a steadier hand because it’s lighter and easier to swing around, while a rifle is more forgiving with movement since the game registers as it being substantially heavier in the player’s hand. Suitably, some guns let you steady with your non-dominant hand, providing discrete attach points to do so.

I was hoping for some amount of melee, although there’s none present to speak of, meaning if your gun runs dry, you better find cover and reload, or pull out your trusty sidearm.

A note one positional audio: enemies provide good spatial audio cues for their relative locations—something important once levels start getting more claustrophobic, like in the sewers.

Comfort

The Light Brigade has a good swath of standard comfort options which, include optional smooth or snap-turn, and smooth locomotion or teleport.

Playing seated is possible, and the game comes with a seated mode, although it’s not advisable since your belt holster may be awkwardly positioned at any time, making standing play the least encumbering way to interface.

The Light Brigade’ Comfort Settings – February 15th, 2023
Turning
Artificial turning
Snap-turn
Quick-turn
Smooth-turn
Movement
Artificial movement
Teleport-move
Dash-move
Smooth-move
Blinders
Head-based
Controller-based
Swappable movement hand
Posture
Standing mode
Seated mode
Artificial crouch
Real crouch
Accessibility
Subtitles
Languages	English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional) , Korean, Japanese
Dialogue audio
Languages	English
Adjustable difficulty
Two hands required
Real crouch required
Hearing required
Adjustable player height

Not For Broadcast VR Details:

Gameplay

Immersion

Comfort

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Turning

Movement

Posture

Accessibility

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Immersion

Comfort

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Turning

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Posture

Accessibility

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HDR OLED Panels

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Tracking & Passthrough

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Gameplay

Immersion

Comfort

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Turning

Movement

Posture

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Gameplay

Immersion

Comfort

The Light Brigade’ Comfort Settings – February 15th, 2023

Turning

Movement

Posture

Accessibility