Solaris: Offworld Combat is coming out this week for Rift and Quest and we’ve already gone hands-on with the team-based sci-fi VR shooter. Check out our preview for more details and watch the graphics comparison below to see how it fares on Quest vs Rift.
Since this is a multiplayer shooter, we won’t be syncing up footage, however we’ve got two rounds side by side. On the left is the Quest, which you’ll notice has slightly longer loading times compared to the near non-existent loading for Rift. We’ve shaved it down a bit for timing sake, but not by much.
Once the games begin you can see some clear lighting and color differences, with Quest being much more basic and chunky with distinctly less glow while the Rift can afford more blended and complex aesthetics.
Overall, the Quest version compares to the Rift version very favorably all things considered and looks much more similar to the PC counterpart than a lot of ports we’ve seen. All of the gameplay and content is the same so there is actually a lot of parity between the two.
Your weapons have about the same amount of detail except for the previously mentioned elements, however when it comes to shooting animations there are far less details on the Quest version, making it look a little more basic in comparison to Rift’s firework-style display. Either way, I don’t think any of these differences should affect your gameplay on Quest, and it holds up wonderfully even in this pre-release build.
In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that personally I prefer the Quest version due almost entirely to the wireless nature. With how fast-paced of a game Solaris is, being able to spin around quickly is a godsend that really improves how effective I can be in a fight.
Solaris Offworld Combat is coming out on September 24th for Rift and Quest as well as PSVR eventually after its initial launch but there’s no date on that version yet. You can definitely expect a new graphics comparison when that version comes out.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Solaris: Offworld Combat is the next multiplayer shooter from First Contact Entertainment and we got the chance to go hands-on with it for the very first time last week. During my session I played the game on both Rift S and Quest and came away excited to see more!
From the very first moments of gameplay, it’s obvious that Solaris takes heavy inspiration from the likes of Quake, Unreal, and other classic arena shooters. And remarkably, it actually runs and looks strikingly similar on both Quest and Rift — as you can see in the video below.
Now, let’s dive into what it’s like it play it.
5 Ways Solaris Channels Quake And Unreal For Old-School Shooter Fun
Fast-Paced Gameplay
In Solaris you’re a cyber athlete from the future that battles it out against others on virtual battlegrounds. It’s a pretty meta premise that’s a bit like VR-within-VR and the presentation absolutely nails it. What this means functionally is that you spend very little time standing around waiting. Load times are incredibly quick, you move around maps at a quick pace, and can even slide across the ground for an evasive speed boost.
Just like in Quake and Unreal, it pays to stay on the move. Standing still is a great way to get shot so you’ll want to learn maps fast so you know the best cover points and hallways to sprint down while getting the drop on an enemy.
No Reloading Necessary
Solaris doesn’t have a reload button. I know, that seems weird. With the popularity of modern military shooters and the “realism” VR affords in games like Onward, it’s a bit odd to think that you won’t need to actually reload your gun at all. But in the future cyberscape of Solaris, where they’re going they don’t need reload buttons.
And if you played old-school games like Doom, Quake, and Unreal, then you’d know those don’t have reload buttons either. All reloading does is slow you down and Solaris is all about the speed of immediacy of combat.
Walk-Over Item Pick-Ups
Speaking of the immediacy of combat, in Solaris you don’t need to manage an inventory, manually pick up weapons, or switch weapons at all. You run full-speed over item spawn points and you just automatically pick them up. Everyone begins each match with their standard semi-auto pistol and within each map you can find a rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and assault rifle weapons, in addition to a deployable shield cover and proximity mine. Shield and health power-ups round out the offering.
In some older shooters you could cycle between various weapons, but you don’t do that in Solaris. Instead, whatever improved gun you find is your default weapon for a short time until you’ve used it up, then it just auto-switches back to your pistol. You need to take advantage of increased firepower when you’ve found it.
This one I expect to be a bit divisive, because in some ways it smacks of the taste of dumbing things down, but I don’t think streamlining necessarily means dumbing down. From what I’ve played Solaris is still an immensely fun, challenging, and deep shooter with a lot of nuance, but it sidesteps pain points that don’t translate smoothly to VR by simplifying things that get in the way of just having fun.
Teamwork Is Key
Since Solaris only has one game mode that’s basically like King of the Hill, called Control Point, it encourages teamwork above going rogue as a solo player. Technically you can still get XP and rank up to unlock new cosmetics even if your team doesn’t win, but being on the winning team nets you a big XP bonus so it’s worth playing cohesively.
Solaris has in-game voice chat, but unfortunately it won’t have a party system or friend invite system at launch. At launch it’s only going to be “Pre-Season” and then the standard Season of rankings will begin shortly after. It’s my understanding that as new Seasons begin, new cosmetics will roll out, and likely other changes like new weapons and maps too.
And yes — all maps and weapons that are added will be included for free.
Easy To Learn, Difficult To Master
Solaris is the kind of game you can quickly hop in and play with little to no fuss (assuming at least seven other people across PC and Quest have the same idea) and it’s a lot of fun. However, there is still depth here. Learning the maps, working with your team, getting the hang of shooting each gun, and developing strategies takes time and means that the entry level for playing is quite low but the skill ceiling for being really, really good is very high.
Similar to games like Quake and Unreal, virtually anyone can play those games. They’re pretty dead simple. But if you watch pro-tier players it looks almost like they’re playing a different game altogether due to how fluidly they move. Solaris has that same flexibility.
Solaris: Offworld Combat Additional Details
This article was called 5 ways Solaris is liek Unreal or Quake, but there are actually a bunch of other things I want to talk about. Thus, you get a small brain dump at the end here:
Progression
If you played Firewall Zero Hour you might remember in that game that you not only unlocked new things like guns, equipment, and skins by ranking up your level, but also by spending the in-game currency that you either earned slowly by playing or by spending real money to buy it. Solaris is rank-based progression only and all weapons are just map-based pickups.
From what I’ve seen there aren’t many cosmetics yet, but thankfully the outfit models like the shape of the helmet and style of your armor are separate from the color skin that’s applied, so you can mix and match pretty freely. It just takes a while to unlock anything, so hopefully they add a lot more.
Dedicated Servers, Fast Load Times
Another thing to mention as a key point is that Solaris is launching with dedicated servers rather than peer-to-peer and load times are really, really quick.
No Party System
I mentioned this already, but just to emphasize: you cannot join up with a friend, make a party, or invite anyone to a game — yet. That is coming as the first major update, but for pre-season it’s not in yet.
No Bots, No Solo Play
When I pressed the developers for an answer here they basically just said, “We never say never,” but at this time there are no plans for anything other than strictly 4v4. That means if only seven people are online, you can’t play. There is no training mode, no bots to fight against, and no solo options at all. Hopefully they reconsider and add something, even if it’s just an option to have bots fill empty slots and balance teams.
No Map Selection Or Lobby System
The main menu has a play button or you can put the helmet on — those are your options for joining a match. Behind the scenes the game then slots you into a match and starts the game. There is no map selection, it’s just always random, and you can’t tweak options or anything yet. I’m under the impression that private lobbies with settings to tweak and filters to set are coming, but aren’t there yet.
No Jumping
Sorry, no jump button. However — you can slide! And that’s pretty fun.
Solaris: Offworld Combat releases on September 24th for Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift with crossplay and crossbuy. There are plans for a PSVR release later, but there’s no date for that yet. Keep an eye here on UploadVR and our YouTube channel for more coverage. You can also preemptively join the developer’s Discord server.
Let us know what you think of Solaris down in the comments below!
It’s no coincidence that Facebook is killing the Oculus Rift S VR headset on the same day it’s announcing the Oculus Quest 2 at Facebook Connect. On paper, the Go, Quest, and Rift families were supposed to be different devices for different markets, but they’ve coalesced over a much shorter period of time than people expected. Just as that meant the end for Go earlier this year, the death of Rift was a long-premeditated killing, arguably more a matter of when than whether.
The VR market was different when Facebook segmented Oculus products into three families. Go was a cheap 3DoF media viewer with minimal gaming potential, designed to appeal to people who didn’t want to spend more than $200 on a standalone VR headset — Walmart was a big Go customer. Quest was a $400 6DoF standalone alternative that was better than Go in every way, and highly capable of gaming, but not equivalent to a VR-ready PC. Lastly, Rift S was there as a $400 headset solely for PC VR purposes, with marginally better performance than Quest when connected to a Windows machine, but no ability to be used on its own.
Over the past year, Facebook has worked aggressively to make Quest a viable replacement for the Go and Rift. To win over Rift users, Oculus Link turned Quest into a Rift alternative that worked nearly as well for tethered PC VR. As a nod to Go users, the Quest 2 drops from $400 down to $300, closer to Go’s original $200 price point, and reaching the “magic” price point that typically leads to hockey stick growth for compelling products.
Make no mistake: Quest 2 is compelling. Thanks to its Snapdragon XR2 chipset and massive display upgrades, Quest 2 will be a better standalone VR headset and a better PC VR headset than its already capable predecessor, at a lower price than any Rift. Its inside out tracking and screen resolution should run circles around HTC’s competing Vive Cosmos, and that’s before taking into account Quest 2’s convenience, size, and weight. Assuming Facebook can get enough units into stores — and that people don’t object to the latest Oculus/Facebook account policies — there’s every reason to believe this new model will be a smash hit.
It’s hard to picture where Rift S would have fit into the Oculus lineup after Quest 2 showed up. Rift S wasn’t so much a step forward as a step sideways when it was announced, focusing on improved comfort and convenience rather than major visual or other spec improvements. In retrospect, Facebook set the stage for Rift to disappear at this point. The company made clear that while it was working on next-generation Rift-ready innovations, it didn’t have any immediate plans to commercialize them, and planned to test them in its own offices — perhaps with enterprise applications — ahead of any general release. For consumers, the message was not to expect Rift 2 anytime soon.
Facebook has declared that standalone VR, not PC-tethered VR, is the future of virtual reality technology. While killing Rift S and offering Quest 2 at an aggressive price suggests that Oculus is already betting everything on standalone VR, the reality is that the Quest family is capable of covering both the standalone and tethered bases — at a better price than Rift S, besides. That means there’s no need for PC VR fans to abandon their software libraries or give up on tethered experiences, though my best guess is that Facebook will spend the next two years making standalone experiences as appealing as possible.
Whether Quest 2 will be enough to fully displace HTC’s Vive, Valve’s Index, and other vendors’ headsets remains to be seen, but this was the right choice for Rift S, which didn’t have a viable future given its features, specs, and price point. At some point, there may be an Oculus headset with higher-end innovations that millions of people would actually pay for, but for now, focusing on improving VR’s appeal to the masses is exactly the right move.
We’ve been waiting patiently to hear more about Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, the well-established franchise’s first VR game. Now Oculus Studios and Respawn Entertainment say you’ll be able to storm the beaches of Normandy and finish the war all in time for Christmas.
Today at Facebook Connect, Respawn Entertainment announced that Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond will be launching on SteamVR headsets and Rift via the Oculus Store simultaneously on December 11th.
As if that weren’t surprise enough coming from an Oculus Studios partner, this will also include crossplay between the Steam and Oculus Store versions for the multiplayer portion of the game.
We can only surmise this is due to Facebook’s total 180 on PC VR headsets, as the company is retiring Rift in 2021. In fact, there’s no mention of the game coming to Quest outside of the obvious Link integration.
It makes more sense from a content perspective to recuperate as much money as possible now that PC VR is no longer a priority for the Oculus vis a vis Facebook. When it was first unveiled last year, Facebook was still very much gung-ho about Rift as a product class, so it may be that developers incapable of slimming down PC VR projects to fit into Quest 2 right away may be given the sort of leeway we’re potentially seeing with Respawn.
Any way you slice it though, it will sure be strange seeing ‘Oculus Studios’ listed as a publisher on Steam.
Admittedly, you’d be forgiven for thinking that because this newest trailer shows an image of an Oculus Quest at the end just before mentioning this in small print at the bottom:
“Compatible PC required. Link cable required for Oculus Quest.”
Honestly if you blink more than once you’re liable to miss it, but if you look really closely you can notice a cord draped behind the Quest there too. Naturally, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is compatible with Oculus Quest via Link when plugged into a VR-ready PC because, well, everything is. You still need the PC and Rift store to access the game, it’s not a new platform.
Other than the arguably misleading end to the trailer, it’s actually quite fantastic. There’s a less campy tone to it all when compared to the original announcement, visuals seem more polished and sharp, and I notice a bit more emphasis on blood spatter from gunshots, which makes sense, this is World War II after all. Still a bit surprising given past comments on violence from the developers.
We didn’t really learn anything new about the game other than getting a feel for its cinematic nature. The team at Respawn, some of which have worked on past Medal of Honor titles, seems to be tapping into the roots of the franchise by aiming for a more immersive movie-like experience over the gritty, grounded take that most modern military shooters go for these days.
For more details on Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond make sure and check out our past coverage on the game such as this detailed hands-on impressions from a year ago. There are still no details on the multiplayer offerings at all, but Facebook and EA have confirmed that more details on Medal of Honor are coming soon at Facebook Connect next month.
Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is still slated for this holiday season as an Oculus Rift platform exclusive. Stay tuned to UploadVR for more information as it’s available and in the meantime let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Solaris: Offworld Combat, the upcoming cross-play sci-fi VR first-person shooter for Oculus Quest and Rift, is delayed until September 24th on the Oculus Home store. It was originally slated for later this month.
The delay was announced today on the official First Contact Entertainment Twitter account with the following message:
— First Contact Entertainment (@firstcontactent) August 13, 2020
There is no reason listed in the tweet other than wanting the day 1 experience to be as good as possible. In a follow-up tweet First Contact also confirmed that PSVR is still slated for later this year, including PS Aim Controller support, but didn’t clarify a date or release window. A SteamVR release is also planned eventually.
We haven’t had the chance to properly play Solaris at all yet, but we got to see what it looks like finally during the UploadVR Summer Showcase a couple of months ago running on Oculus Rift. If you can imagine something super fast-paced like Quake or Unreal Tournament mixed with the sci-fi stylings and premise of something like Tron, you’re on the right track.
We have a bunch of details about its gameplay and concept in this feature from last year or watch this interview from our Summer Showcase. Following the release of Onward, it’s a good summer for Quest owners that dig competitive first-person shooters. Solaris should be a great foil to Onward’s realism and slow pace, offering something very fast and sci-fi instead.
Let us know what you think of the news and if you plan on playing Solaris next month down in the comments below!
Karnage Chronicles is now out of Early Access. Does this VR dungeon crawler hold up years after initial release? Find out in our Karnage Chronicles review!
Despite having braved the wilds of Early Access and survived unscathed, Karnage Chronicles seems to be flying a little low on the radar in the PC VR scene. True, it sticks close to Vanishing Realms in tone and gameplay, but you’d think a meaty dungeon-crawling campaign with up to four-player co-op would be enough to raise an eyebrow.
If not, allow me to raise it for you, because there is enough to Karnage Chronicles to warrant a look, especially with a friend or three.
On paper, there’s a lot to love; Karnage Chronicles offers a fantasy world of ghouls and goblins with the expected, swiftly-dismissed lore and, more importantly, a winding series of corridors littered with fiendish foes off all shapes and sizes to slay with gradually improving gear. There’s a significant amount of content to Karnage Chronicles – I’ve spent six hours hacking and slashing my way through its really rather pretty world and I’ve still got plenty to go back to. Not only that but it’s impressively polished, with lush vegetation decorating complex caverns and grueling, imaginative enemy designs.
Even with a scope bigger than most VR games, though, you might still consider this something of a lite dungeon crawler. There are only two classes to speak of and only specialties in swords or archery to separate them. Even then, whichever class you pick, your secondary weapon will cater to the other weapon type to make sure you can still snag out-of-reach enemies and fend off swarms in close proximity.
Having released in Early Access a few years ago, you might expect the game’s combat to be pretty simple and, well, it mostly is with a few appreciated intricacies. You could survive most encounters with the dreaded sword waggle, but melee action definitely responds better to more considered, heavier swings and, right from the start, enemies are miraculously — and annoyingly — good at last-minute arrow dodges. Plus there’s a welcome dash of strategy, like shooting an enemy in the leg to momentarily slow them down and deal with closer foes. It’s pretty standard VR fantasy action — and I would have loved to have seen a more experimental mage class — but it does have its own little quirks to enjoy.
What raises Karnage Chronicles above a lot of other VR dungeon-crawling adventures, though, is its attention to detail. On top of the excellent visuals, there are really nice touches like having to pull arrows out of hands when you’re hit, and levels are peppered with occasional variety like puzzles or some surprisingly fun boss fights.
Even with those considered, though, Karnage Chronicles’ long stretches of minion murder can get repetitive pretty fast. The vast majority of the game boils down to running backwards while firing arrows in an attempt to separate enemies from the pack and picking them off one-by-one. Plus developer Nordic Trolls is fond of cheap tricks, like spawning enemies from behind in areas you’ve already cleared to surprise you in the middle of a fight or simply piling the odds overwhelmingly against you. It’s forgivable right up until the game starts dropping exploding mushroom people on your head without warning, creating sudden and frustrating trips back to the moderately-paced checkpoints.
The more difficult the game gets — and it gets difficult pretty quickly — the more of a slog this becomes. Deep into the second level I really began to tire of the endless shooting gallery, especially when so many smaller minions became so adept at either blocking or dodging my arrows.
Plus, progression in the game is tied entirely to the loot system, meaning if you kill a bad guy and don’t get any money or extra items, you really don’t benefit. When I reached the second environment, I immediately bought the best bow I could find, but I didn’t get a better one for the entirety of the rest of the level, meaning my main weapon was only inflicting a tiny amount of damage by the end of the level and there was nothing I could do about it. It would have been nice to see a leveling system that boosted your chances even incrementally to help fuel the big chunks of gameplay between upgrades. That guilty draw of pushing on in hopes of better loot is ever-present, though, even if upgraded bows and blades only change in look and not feel.
All of this makes co-op practically essential to the Karnage Chronicles experience. Even with increased enemy numbers, the game feels much more manageable and alive with a friend and, with support for up to four players, there’s no denying that this is one of VR’s most robust cooperative experiences. If you have three other friends looking to kill hours together inside a headset, then the game’s an easy recommendation. I did encounter some issues with lag while playing; mainly that players joining the host might experience a very minor delay between their attacks being performed and them landing, however, which is something to be aware of.
Karnage Chronicles Review Final Impressions
Karnage Chronicles impresses with its wealth of polished content, offering hours of rock-solid VR dungeon-crawling action that really comes alive if you have a friend or three to play with. Ultimately the game’s combat is too simple, its progression too sparse and its tricks too cheap to stave off repetition but, if you’re wanting to form a Fellowship and wage war with your friends, you won’t find a much meatier option than this.
This year’s Oculus Summer Sale is now live with alluring discounts on some of the best VR games for the Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest headsets. The sale lasts until August 9th at 11:59PM PT.
Do you plan on getting anything in particular during this year’s Oculus Summer Sale? Let us know if anything stands out to you down in the comments below!
Five Nights at Freddy’s is one of the most popular VR games of the year and according to developer Steel Wool Studios, it’s the fastest selling game on Facebook’s standalone Oculus Quest headset yet.
Recently we conducted an email Q&A with Andrew Dayton, CEO of Steel Wool Studios, and decided to ask about the games’ sales numbers. He wasn’t able to go into specifics, but did reveal some surprising tidbits:
“FNAF VR Help Wanted has done amazingly well,” says Dayton. “We can’t speak specific numbers but we are free to share that we broke Oculus Quest’s 1-Day sales record as well as its 1-Week sales record.”
Following that, we followed up to ask how Five Nights at Freddy’s VR on Quest is doing compared to other VR platforms like PC VR and PSVR, but he wasn’t able to share any specifics in that regard:
“FNAF VR Help Wanted has performed exceptionally well on all the VR platforms,” says Dayton. “I can’t really compare them as they are all different ecosystems really. Between the PC-based VR, Sony’s PSVR and Oculus’ stand-alone Quest, there is an option for almost everyone who is interested in Virtual Reality and the user base is just getting larger.”
VR games getting ported to the Quest after already releasing on other platforms, then selling incredibly well, is not a new trend. We’ve seen similar reports from developers of games like Red Matter, Superhot, Waltz of the Wizard, and several others. Additionally, FNAF VR saw a massive surge of user reviews within 24-hours of release, so the strong sales aren’t a huge surprise.
We were big fans of Five Nights at Freddy’s VR on Oculus Quest too. In my review I scored it 4 out of 5 stars, a ‘Great’ rating, and called it a “masterclass in suspense” thanks to the creepy atmosphere and unnerving jump scares. This certainly bodes well for the likelihood of eventually getting another FNAF VR game.
Check back tomorrow to see the entire Five Nights at Freddy’s VR Q&A, including details on how they brought the iconic horror series to VR. Let us know what you think of this news down in the comments below!
Zulubo Productions’ VR debut gets a tune-up, but should you revisit this campaign four years on? Find out in our Vertigo Remastered review!
There’s a bit in Vertigo Remastered when you board a tram. It pulls away from the station, ready to ferry you to the next section of Plank Industries, a sort of multiversal prison currently experiencing a ‘this is fine’ fire emergency of robot coups and alien outbreaks, the latter of which you are a part.
The track stretches out in front of you but the tram suddenly veers off to the left, firing you down a rollercoaster path of steep climbs and plunges before you arrive, dizzied and frazzled, at your next destination. It perfectly encapsulates what Vertigo is, a tribute to and parody of a series it’s so clearly in love with, taking most of Half-Life’s staple features off in similar tangents throughout.
Crucially, though, Vertigo Remastered stands on its own two feet once removed from the lens of Gordon Freeman.
Vertigo Remastered Review –Comfort
Vertigo offers both smooth locomotion and a Budget Cuts-style teleportation system. The latter is a bit of a chore to use at first, but you can upgrade it further. Even then, though, the game has a fair few sequences in which you’re dropped or catapulted, but there are plenty of comfort options to help you adjust.
‘Remastered’ is actually a bit of an odd way to sell this one. It’s more of an expanded remix; yes there are some updated environments and visuals, but Zulubo Productions — almost entirely manned single-handedly by the 19-year-old Zach Tsiakalis-Brown — has also gone back to flesh out the story, refine mechanics, add in new segments and give the experience a lot more context in building towards the upcoming Vertigo 2. Some ideas have been trimmed, too, resulting in a package that’s still of similar size to the original.
The roots of its humble beginnings are still very much apparent, but Vertigo Remastered makes for a great single-player romp all the same. A physics pass gives its combat a bit more Boneworks-y heft, with an electric rod that batters hovering, smiley-faced drones with satisfying weight and guns that require precise control to fire and accessible interaction to maintain. A late-game machine gun first proves to be an unwieldy beast until you discover that, by simply sliding a switch forward, it transforms into a powerful sniper rifle. Though the game is surprisingly difficult — even as you advance through the new upgrades system — that solid core of Star Wars-style laser deflections and meaty shooting keep it fun to play through repeated attempts. There’s a VR-first philosophy here that plenty of others could learn from.
Perhaps the most important design element lifted from the book of Valve, though, is pacing. In fact, Vertigo Remastered joyfully hops from one idea to the next so often, it sometimes feels more Half-Life than even Alyx, at least in spirit. A string of walkway-hopping battles high above a giant venue tells you where the game got its name from, and later on, the experience plays with scale in some really entertaining ways. An incredible soundtrack, that echoes the energetic pump of Black Mesa’s most hectic scenes to the point of pure nostalgia, also helps hammer home that atmosphere.
That’s occasionally true in execution, too. A frantic cat and mouse game between yourself and an oversized oil monster named Frank is brilliantly inventive, getting to you climb ladders to avoid tsunamis of black goo as you hop between floating platforms. It’s exciting and coherent in a way that other VR setpieces often struggle to establish, even if its production values are a fraction of those in other titles. Not every such sequence is a hit, like a protracted underground bug battle or some cumbersome underwater navigation, but there is at least always something weird and wonderful to see. It’s a properly surreal exploration of VR in some truly strange ways.
Vertigo Remastered Review –Bugs
I played a pre-release version of Vertigo Remastered on Oculus Rift S and encountered a fair few bugs that I reported to developer Zulubo. An issue with using the teleporter was fixed as I played but, I experienced odd bugs with saving and chapter select that sometimes meant I had to replay long sections after dying. Also the skill tree would reset for me every session. Hopefully you won’t encounter these issues or they’ll be fixed as soon as possible, but just be aware.
For all those exciting highs, though, Vertigo remains more of a snackable, lighthearted campaign than an epic adventure on the scale of its inspirations. Its campaign is a breezy treat, partly down to how short it is (it’ll probably take between three to five hours depending on your difficulty). Sometimes you wish it would slow down a little and explore a few more of its concepts; like a hand-operated mine cart that could be used for some great cover-based battles but never gets the chance.
There’s a mounting sense, as you play, that much of this is laying the foundations for what’s to come; something confirmed by the game’s cliffhanger ending and, I would add, the slightly more grandiose scale of last year’s Vertigo 2 demo. Never was I ever once bored by it, but at the same time there were many moments I wanted to see pushed further.
Vertigo Remastered Review Final Impressions
Make no mistake, then, Vertigo Remastered is still very much a 2016 VR game at its core, even with an impressive number of new bells and whistles. But there’s a beating heart at the center of this always-entertaining campaign that fuels not only some brilliant, affectionate parody of Valve’s beloved series, but also its own string of thoughtfully-designed concepts that would fit right at home in it too. It’s Half-Lite which, for a game that wants to celebrate a series’ cultural impact as much as echo its philosophies, is high praise.
Vertigo Remastered is available on PC VR headsets via Steam from July 21st for $24.99, or free if you own the original game. For more on how we arrived at this score, read our review guidelines. Agree with our Vertigo Remastered review? Let us know in the comments below!
