A lot of awards ceremonies we’ve seen over the past year have had pretty uninspired recognition of VR content, seemingly only knowledgeable of the big PlayStation VR titles. It’s refreshing, then, to look at the nominees for the Best VR/AR Game at the upcoming Game Developers Choice Awards.
The awards, hosted by Double Fine’s Tim Schafer, are set to take place on Wednesday, March 1st at the 2017 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Nominees were announced this week however, and it’s the first year that VR and AR games are getting a nod.
The category has a surprisingly strong list of nominees. The one nomination we would have bet money on being there is Enhance Games’ Rez Infinite [Review: 8/10], the PS VR launch game that brought the beloved music-based shooter into the virtual realm. It’s also unsurprising to see Owlchemy Labs’ Job Simulator [Review: 8/10] up for the award. Both titles are popular among the VR community and the nominations are deserved, as far as we’re concerned.
More interesting nods on the VR side include Superhot VR [Review: 9/10], the recently-released (but absolutely excellent) Oculus Touch FPS that just about everyone seems to love. Northway Games’ excellent Fantastic Contraption [Review: 8/10] is also on the list, meaning non-PS VR games are getting a good amount of attention at this ceremony.
If we were to guess a winner, though, it would more than likely be the one AR game on the list: Pokemon Go. Niantic’s worldwide phenomenon wasn’t just one of the biggest reality-altering games of 2016, it was one of the biggest games full stop, getting people that never play videogames back into the lovable world of pocketable monsters and sending them off into the big wild world to explore and catch ’em all.
There’s also a solid list of honorable mentions for the category, including Thumper, Superhypercube, Batman: Arkham VR, Space Pirate Trainer, and The Lab. Drool’s Thumper [Review: 9/10] in particular has done well for itself; it’s also nominated in best audio, and best debut categories, while it gets more honorable mentions in innovation and visual art. Pokemon Go is also up for several more awards including best mobile/handheld and the innovation award. Between that and the recent Pokemon Sun/Moon, we think Pikachu has a good chance of walking away with an award in March.
Do you know what I would do if I was really in The Brookhaven Experiment? Run. I would run faster than I have ever run before, probably throwing my weapons to one side to help increase speed, screaming as I go and almost certainly crapping myself. Screw fighting to the last bullet, I want to live.
But I can’t run, I have to stand my ground (and still crap myself). It’s with good reason, of course, as room-scale tracking has its limits on Vive and is non-existent on PlayStation VR, but it leaves me wondering what type of game we might have gotten if Phosphor Games had let us roam free. The answer is probably something close to Kill X.
Created by Vivagames, this was one of thirteen games Sony announced from Asian developers earlier this year, and a demo is currently available on the Chinese PlayStation Store (which you can access by making a free Chinese account). It’s a spooky shooter that uses two PlayStation Move controllers and has you creeping through a network of tunnels as an inexplicably beefy protagonist, whose fascinatingly muscular arms awkwardly stretch out in front of you as you hold a flashlight in one hand and gun in the other.
I couldn’t tell you the story since I don’t read Chinese, other than that our hero finds himself trapped in this desolate environment with a series of slimy humanoid monsters (that look a little too similar to The Clickers from The Last of Us). The rest is pretty straight forward; illuminate the occasionally branching tunnel ahead, aim and shoot at enemies before they take chunks out of you.
The last time we saw full navigation with two of Sony’s motion controllers was Loading Human [Review: 4/10], which had serviceable if imperfect integration. Kill X is much the same story; you hold the trigger on the left Move to walk in the direction your facing, and then press the square or triangle buttons to make slight turns. The right trigger, meanwhile fires your gun, and shaking it reloads. Despite having arms the size of boulders, you can’t use melee attacks, presumably because the force they would deliver would shatter the earth itself.
Intentional or not, the inescapable stiffness of these controls invoke classic survival horror games, which were both hated and loved for the ‘tank’ control schemes. You can’t use the quick turn buttons when moving, and you can’t really defend yourself from behind thanks to PS VR’s limited tracking. It’s an annoyance to some extent, but there’s also a nostalgic panic to seeing a monster circle around you and having to cumbersomely turn to get it in view. Firing a shotgun blast and watching them fly relieves that stress in an instant. It’s a bit of a thrill.
In the space of the 10 minute demo you’ll get a pistol, shotgun, and machine gun to defend yourself with, along with occasional ammo drops too. Your ammo count doesn’t feel restricted, more calculated to give you just enough to take out the set amount of enemies in the level, though one nice touch is not actually showing the ammo display, leaving you guessing how many bullets you have left. There’s a final showdown with an enemy that crawls on the walls too, and he takes up a lot of your ammo count, making the pressure mount deliciously with each bullet gone.
That said, I don’t know if Kill X is crafted with the kind of mechanical precision to build this solid foundation into something more meaningful. Things quickly get messy when a flood of enemies swarm around you, and you have no hope of surviving, and the level design is bland. There’s no verticality or unpredictability to its world, and no methodical systems to its combat. It’s all about spotting the next corner that enemies will likely spill out from and blasting away. That detracts from any sense of fear gained in those first few unknown moments in which you wonder what lingers in the dark.
Kill X might end up leaning more towards the blander side of horror shooters, then, even if its freedom of movement sets it apart from other PS VR games right now. A fun distraction in these early days of VR, perhaps, but Farpoint and Resident Evil 7 might have more to offer in the long run.
According to the demo, Kill X is coming soon to PS VR, though a western release has not been confirmed.
We are officially in the post-Touch phase of Oculus Rift, meaning that releases are going back down to their usual consistency. A bunch of stuff will hit Steam each week and Home will get a few things here and there to pad out libraries. Let’s take a look!
Create t-shirts and model them on fully poseable mannequins. Take pictures of your products to share and get the shirts printed/delivered or sell them through Shopify.
Recommendation: Grab this free, responsive tool and see what you can put together.
Counter Fight, from Tricol Co. Ltd.
Price: $7.99 (Rift)
In Counter Fight, you run the ramen shop and prepare various dishes for customers. You score points for each positively impacted customer, but you must beware the robber that randomly appears.
Recommendation: Lot’s of fun with occasionally spotty physics that will likely be fixed.
ROM: Extraction, from First Contact Entertainment
Price: $14.99 (Rift, Currently Discounted)
This arcade wave shooter lets you occasionally slow down time while shooting and throwing orbs at the enemy robots, adding a degree of originality to the experience.
Recommendation: Great mechanics and visually striking. Multiplayer will be added for free, but only get it if you’re not tired of wave shooters yet.
House of Meditation, from Cerevrum
Price: $4.99 (Gear)
Another challenger to the throne of Guided Meditation, House of Meditation has eight different environments with six different meditation sessions to help you relax inside Gear VR. It looks well produced, though we’ve seen a lot of these now.
Recommendation: If you haven’t already gone with another meditation app, this one looks good.
Magic Table Chess, from Experiment 7
Price: Free (Rift and Gear)
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a game launch on both the Rift and Gear VR in the same week, but Magic Table Chess has done it. This is a single player preview of a new take on VR chess, with multiplayer support to come.
Recommendation: Free Chess is better than premium Chess, no?
Dark Days, from Parallel Studio
Price: $7.99 (Rift)
Dark Days is a fully 3D adventure with a fully fleshed out story complete with voice acting. In other words, it’s a scale of game not often seen on Gear VR. We were quite fond of it in our review, though those that don’t like jump scares might want to keep away. Now it’s on Rift.
Recommendation: If you haven’t got Touch yet then this is a nice bone to chew on until you pick them up.
Siege Hammer, from MyDream Interactive, Inc.
Price: $12.99 (Rift)
As the tiny, armor-clad protagonist Blip, players engage in an intimate game of tower defense. You’re able to set up your turrets and react as invaders maneuver through a maze you explore on its outer rim. The game is 100% gaze-based gameplay.
Recommendation: Still on the fence with this one. There are better games in this genre out already.
Sanctuary VR, from Newgrange Games
Price: $2.99 (Rift)
In this first-person atmospheric puzzle-solving adventure game you’ll search a lost spaceship for signs of life. Through the narrative, you’ll uncover what happened to a traveling group of refugees. Only episode 1 is available now, but at least 2 more are planned to complete the narrative.
Recommendation: It’s short, but it’s fully voice acted and has more overall polish than most in this price range.
inVR, from inVR, Inc.
Price: Free (Rift)
inVR is a platform where creators can publish and display their many 3D art installations. The app claims to currently has work from over 200,000 members of the community — it works outside of VR too according to the Steam page.
Recommendation: Cool look into 3D art in a virtual space. For exactly zero dollars.
Cosmos Crash VR, from Viriver Network Technology Co., Ltd.
Price: $4.99 (Rift, Currently Discounted)
Cosmos Crash VR brings a sci-fi feel to the casual match-three genre. Quickly match the colors in 10 different areas that require different strategies to clear the marbles.
Recommendation: Simple, but good fun if you’re a big puzzle game fan. Not a terribly inventive use of VR.
Old Friend, from Tyler Hurd
Price: $2.99 (Rift)
Old Friend is a quirky, vibrant, and psychedelic dance party where you essentially participate in the music video with various dance routines.
Recommendation: Snatch this up and dance with no shame.
Holiday Simulator: Wacky Sleigh Ride, from Hyperator VR Innovation Labs
Price: $2.99 (Rift)
Wacky Sleigh Ride is a Christmas theme on-rails shooter where you toss presents from your sleigh into houses. Do as much as you can before the sun comes up and work up the leaderboards.
Recommendation: Casual fun but nothing amazing. Lacks staying power.
Brian’s High Velocity Research Center, from Zach Tsiakalis-Brown and Raul Bravo
Recommendation: Lots of fun but be careful if you’re easily susceptible to motion sickness.
TacoFace, from KLNK Inc.
Price: $0.99
This pixelated casual shooter gives you rocket launchers for arms and lasers for eyes as you take down waves of flying objects while eating as many tacos as you can. Climb the leaderboards in Survival or Time Attack modes.
Recommendation: A steal for the price. It’s Taco Tuesday every day with this one.
Quizality – Christmas!, from UV Games Ltd
Price: $3.49 (Currently Discounted)
This Christmas themed game presents festive trivia set across 3 rounds in a winter wonderland.
Recommendation: Inexpensive themed grab. If you’re not compelled just yet, see if more content is added in Early Access after the holidays.
Chunky Orbits, from Don Whitaker
Price: $1.33 (Currently Discounted)
Chunky Orbits is a sandbox where players can experiment with gravity in their own section of space. Fill your area with boulders, stars, comets, and more.
Recommendation: Cheap pick-up-and-play distraction to come back to on occasion.
Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter, from Croteam VR
SwingStar VR, from Computer Lunch and Zero Eden Games
Price: $7.19 (Currently Discounted)
In SwingStar players user a sticky hand to grappel and swing around the cartoon word. Includes 24 levels, mysterious doors to secret levels, and 72 stars to collect to unlock a new world.
Recommendation: Reminds of classic platformers at times. We recommend picking this one up if you don’t get motion sick.
Drone Hunter VR, from VR VISIO
Price: $8.99 (Currently Discounted)
It’s time for someone to defend the world against an alien invasion. Your reflexes will be pushed to the limits as you embrace the role of a robot and take down waves of drones as you prove you’re worthy of the task.
Recommendation: A fun wave shooter if you have room for another.
Spacecats with Lasers VR, from Bitten Toast Games Inc., Guilherme Cunha, Daniel Snd, Thiago Adamo
Price: $7.99
In this game your VR controllers are spacecats firing lasers as you dodge and take on waves of enemies in outer space.
Recommendation: If you need another reason other than there being cats with lasers, it’s pretty fun.
QuiVr, from Blueteak
Price: $15.99 (Currently Discounted)
Even in Early Access, the developers of QuiVR are trying to produce the definitive VR archery experience. Finally releasing outside of the free demo, the game features drop in/out multiplayer, customizable gear, spectator mode, and more.
Recommendation: Great physics and lots of fun. Definitely a must have.
Deisim, from Myron Software
Price: $6.79 (Currently Discounted)
Play as the god of this virtual world and reign over your AI villagers as they build a society…or destroy everything with natural disasters. Totally your call.
Recommendation: Perfect genre to take advantage of the VR perspective. Keep an eye on it in Early Access.
Binary Trigger, from One Lives Left
Price: $7.64 (Currently Discounted)
Binary Trigger is a wave shooter with precise controls where you utilize your hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes to boost your high score to its peak.
Recommendation: See how it evolves while in Early Access before purchasing. Pass for now.
Mass Exodus, from Polymerse
Price: $6.29 (Currently Discounted)
Mass Exodus adopts a similar multiplayer experience utilized in games like Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th, tasking a PC user with shutting down four generators to escape the factory while the VR user seeks them out.
Recommendation: Great 1v1 multiplayer experience. Grab it.
Random Journey, from Nova Dimension
Price: $5.99 (Currently Discounted)
In Random Journey, players fight against more than 40 characters by choosing from mysterious plates.
Recommendations: Not very fun considering every single decision is luck based. It’s also keyboard/mouse only.
Every time a new VR shooter is announced or shown off, people want to know if it supports full locomotion options. “Enough with the nausea hysteria!” comment sections cry out. “We want full movement with our joysticks and trackpads. It works for most people without making them sick in games like Onward or DOOM 3: BFG Edition, so why not all games!?” Releasing seemingly out of nowhere, Croteam and Devolver Digital have arrived to not only bring Serious Sam into VR once again, but also to deliver on the wishes of intrepid early adopters of immersive VR headset technology.
Earlier this year, Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope released on Steam Early Access, as well as on Oculus Home, to deliver one of the most intense, high-quality, wave shooters we’ve seen in VR yet. There is zero locomotion in that game — not even teleportation — and the entire experience can be played within your 180-degree front-facing view. Point and shoot; that’s about it. What it lacked in depth however, it made up for with a ton of gore and bombastic fun to push it through as a veritable good time.
Now with Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter, we’ve got something a bit different. For those unaware, let’s take a quick history lesson. The original Serious Sam game, known as Serious Sam: The First Encounter, released back in 2001. The most accurate comparisons you could draw would be to that of the Duke Nukem, Unreal, and Quake franchises. The games were all about speed, intensity, large arsenals of weapons, and lots of gore.
The Second Encounter followed it in 2002, with Serious Sam 2 releasing in 2005. The First Encounter and The Second Encounter each got remastered in HD in 2009 and 2010, respectively, before the release of Serious Sam 3: BFE in 2011. Fans are still waiting on Serious Sam 4 and there have been several spin-offs across a variety of developers and genres, but the core competenicies of over-the-top action, humor, and violence run true in them all.
When The Last Hope released earlier this year, it was met with positive results, even for a rather simplistic wave shooter. We came away quite impressed from our E3 preview and recent hands-on of the Early Access iteration. But today, Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter has launched in Steam Early Access as a full VR port of the 2009 HD remaster of the very first game. That means all of the single player campaign, the cooperative multiplayer, and the competitive multiplayer is fully playable in VR, with motion controllers, and fully functioning locomotion or teleportation movement.
In total there are 15 campaign levels to play through, 10 different weapons to choose from, dozens of enemies, and several different difficulty settings. On the multiplayer side of things, you can play with up to 16 total players in the campaign mode, or wave-based survival mode, as well as competitive matches. Competitive play consists of many classic match types, such as deathmatch and team deathmatch, last man standing, and capture the flag. That’s a lot of content to cram into a single release and may offer the most variety of any VR shooter we’ve seen yet.
Additionally, for the first time in the original escapade, The First Encounter, you can now dual-wield weapons. Two chainsaws, two miniguns, a shotgun and a revolver — whatever you want. You’re no longer limited to a single weapon as each tracked motion controller gives you firepower.
Since this is a fast-paced VR shooter, movement is a big talking point. With Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter, you can either choose teleportation-based movement, or full trackpad locomotion. Teleportation works much like it would in any other shooter you’ve tried, moving you in small increments. This is preferable if you’re prone to motion sickness, but in all honesty, if you are, then this is just probably not the best game for you.
When using the trackpad or joysticks for movement, it feels a little bit like you’re skiing across the ground. For the Vive, simply placing my thumb on either trackpad while holding my guns out in front of me would cause Sam to move in that direction. I could slide my thumb to the side or down to strafe and change direction. Rotation either up, down, or from left to right I was only able to accomplish by moving my head in 360-degree space. It’s a game that essentially requires at least a standing 360 space for optimal enjoyment, if not full roomscale to achieve the best results. Using the Oculus Touch controllers felt more natural, as the control stick was a much more intuitive movement device than the Vive’s inaccurate touchpad.
And since I’m not one that’s typically susceptible to VR sickness, it was surprising that I did feel myself start to get a bit dizzy at times. Particularly during multiplayer matches on levels like the Desert Temple, which feature a lot of launch pads, my legs got wobbly. But that’s what the optional teleport method is for. I also found it incredibly awkward to use the grip button to jump on the Vive controller.
During matches, players that were using teleportation movement often appeared to be glitching across maps when they were in fact just using their preferred teleportation method of movement. As a result, it was often difficult to track them while shooting, which felt a bit silly and unfair from the perspective of a player using full standard locomotion.
The core of the game is about what you’d expect from something that originally released 15 years ago. Levels are mostly linear with some hidden secrets here and there, enemies often resort to the ‘run directly at you while screaming, shooting, or exploding’ strategy of early 2000s AI technology, and the textures are flat and bland, even for something that was remastered in 2009.
Visually, it’s not the prettiest thing I’ve seen in a VR headset, but I don’t think it needs to be. Right now in the VR market, if you want a fast-paced shooter in the style of Unreal, Quake, or Serious Sam, there aren’t many options.
Most of the prominent competitive shooters on VR devices are either platform exclusives, such as RIGS on PS VR, take place in space, such as EVE: Valkyrie, or feature an obtuse control scheme, such as Hover Junkers, or the teleportation-only format of Arizona Sunshine. Onward has full movement, but scratches a very different military simulation itch, and Battle Dome is more like Splatoon than an action-packed shooter like this. It’s a far cry from the breakneck speeds and gratuitous violence on display here.
What you’ll find with Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter is a 15-year old game with a relatively fresh coat of paint, new control methods, and the same rip-roaring intensity you remember. It’s not really new or inventive, but it fills a void that VR gamers have been craving for quite some time.
Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter is now available on Steam Early Access with official support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with tracked motion controllers required. The full price is $39.99, but there is currently a 10% discount until 12/27. Additionally, if you own Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter on Steam, you can earn an additional 10% discount, as well as another 20% discount if you own Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope.
Digital gaming marketplace G2A remains a controversial figure in the industry for selling second-hand Steam keys, but next year it will try its hand at selling something new: its own VR game.
G2A is developing Blunt Force, a new shooter that’s set both during the second world war and shortly before it. In the former, you’ll use position-tracked controllers and fixed teleportation points — a little like Epic Games’ Bullet Train — to gun down enemies across a simplified arcade mode and a more complex challenge mode, where players will find aiming harder and use weapons that require manual reloading.
Intriguingly, the portion of the game set before the war is intended to be an exploration experience. We haven’t gone hands-on with the game yet but you can see from the images above and below that the visuals seem to be shaping up very nicely. It also looks like you won’t just be aiming and firing a gun all the time but also interacting with the environment around you, loading shells into a tank during the WW2 section and pouring yourself a hot drink in the earlier campaign.
From the sounds of it, these campaigns will run simultaneously, though G2A declined to provide more specific details such as story information at this time.
G2A did tell UploadVR that the game was currently in development for the Oculus Rift, though it wouldn’t rule out the possibility of support for other devices like the HTC Vive. The team behind the game has previously experienced working on projects like Sniper: Ghost Warrior, Enemy Front, The Witcher, and The Lords of the Fallen. It appears to be the same team behind VR amusement park, G2A Land.
Blunt Force will be released episodically starting next year. The number of episodes has not yet been determined. It certainly looks like this is one shooter fans will want to look out for in the new year.
Everyone’s got their own ideas on how to solve locomotion in VR. Climax Studios’ is to tie a bunch of balloons to a chair and give you a virtual joystick to control yourself as you float through the air. They’ve also given you a gun so that you can shoot down other player’s balloons and cause them to hurtle to their deaths. It’s like Up, only instead of tying balloons to your house and seeing the world, you fix them to your seat and go on a rampage.
That sounds alright, doesn’t it?
Balloon Chair Death Match is better than alright, though. Based on a few early rounds of this new first-person shooter, it’s one of the most fun and frantic multiplayer games coming to VR headsets right now and totally unlike any other FPS yet seen.
Though Climax has already worked on four VR games, this is its first to land on the HTC Vive, as well as the Oculus Rift. It’s also only releasing on Steam for now and not on the Oculus Store, where all its previous releases have hit. As such, there’s a sense of the developer taking off its VR training wheels and going at it alone here, which is exciting territory for a team that also handles ports and spin-offs for publishers like Sony and Ubisoft, such as with Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China.
Not too surprisingly, Balloon Chair Death Match was born from a joke. “We were looking for VR ideas based around a moving character, but with emphasis on user comfort and reducing motion sickness,” Designer Russ Earwaker tells me. “In one of these sessions, we had a few really nice ideas and the discussion was going well. At the end of the session I threw in Balloon Chair Death Match as a bit of a joke to try and get the guys laughing.”
As you can tell, the joke went down pretty well. Six months on from completing a tech demo, Balloon Chair Death Match is ready for release in Early Access. It features a cityscape map that up to four players can dart around in. The aim is to rack up kills by causing other players to crash into floors, bridges, or oncoming vehicles. Instead of aiming at other players, you’ll instead shoot their balloons. Each pop brings them closer to the ground below, though they’ll also be able to refuel with a gas meter that can be topped up with pick ups.
Balloon Chair Death Match is a brilliantly vertical shooter. While being closer to the floor means increased risk of death, you might also find it easier to sneak up on opponents from below. To that end, you can even shoot your own balloons to manipulate your height. Having fewer balloons also makes you harder to hit.
In fact, aiming is one of the game’s biggest challenges. While it’s easy to get the first few hits in on a player with lots of balloons, the less targets you have the harder you’ll find it to hit them. This is especially true when moving, as you’ll often find that looking down your sights with your target in view isn’t as effective as anticipating where your target will be next. It takes a lot of getting used to, but it ends up making direct hits much more rewarding and Earwaker says they find players quickly improve.
These combined elements make Balloon Chair Death Match a very different beast from anything that’s come before. Though matches might start off quiet as you skim the skies for enemies, the building tension literally bursts a few seconds in as one player spots another. It can be tricky to locate where you’re being attacked from, but that’s because Balloon Chair Death Match is one of the first VR games where you really could come under fire at any angle. You’ll twist your head around in desperation, and then hopelessly return fire as you begin to descend.
Over time you’ll learn to become more aware of your surroundings and hone in on sounds that might give away the enemy’s position. You’ll know when to go into fight mode and when to go into flight mode, making a quick escape so that you can get some breathing room and come back for more. More often than not you’ll either be grinning as you gun one player down, or biting your lip as you struggle to survive.
All of this is possible from the comfort of a seat, not using room-scale. Earwaker points out that this means more people will be able to play the game, rather stripping down the already small VR install base to just those with big enough play areas for a chair.
Besides, Balloon Chair Death Match is more about going up and down than it is walking around a room. “We want the verticality of the map to make a notable difference to gameplay and strategy,” Earwaker says. “When you’re down to your last balloon and the enemy is raining bullets down on you, you want to be able to escape. A city level naturally has more cover low down, so players in a disadvantaged position will have a chance to dodge and weave, to flee and prepare a counter-attack.”
Players with more balloons will also travel slower, giving those on their last legs a real advantage over others. Get low, and you’ll be able to duck and weave through the city to make a hasty retreat.
Another way to get some practice in is with the single-player challenge mode, which lets you take on time and score-based trials. It’s a neat extension to the base multiplayer gameplay, though Climax is potentially considering other types of single-player content at the moment.
Going forward, Climax plans to add more maps, modes, and weapons to the game, with a full release aiming for around mid-2017. Earwaker expectedly tells me that the team would like to bring the game to PS VR, though it’s focused on the PC version for now.
There are plenty of multiplayer VR shooters available, especially with the arrival of Touch last week. Based on what I’ve played so far, Balloon Chair Death Match is still one that deserves your attention, especially if it’s to grow into the game Climax wants to to be. I, for one, hope it gets that chance.
Balloon Chair Death Match is currently available on Steam with official support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift at a discounted price of $14.99/£11.39. The standard price from December 20th is $24.99/£18.99. Tracked motion controllers are required to play.
I duck behind the control panel, spawn an orb in my left hand, toss it over the top of the console, slow time, and pop up from behind cover to shoot the orb, exploding it amidst the group of sinister alien robots. It’s so satisfying, I almost want to hold the gun up to my lips and blow away the smoke like an action star, but I refrain.
ROM: Extraction, a game we revealed last month from new game studio, First Contact, is a visceral arcade-style shooter that’s all about making you feel like a badass. The core gameplay loop involves throwing small, glowing orbs, slowing down time, then shooting them out of the air to cause massive explosions of light and energy. The game calls it “throw, slow, shoot” and it’s dead simple, but it’s incredibly addictive and fun.
In the new gameplay trailer above, you can finally see how this works in action. The build that’s releasing today on Steam is the first iteration of the title and is not being labeled as Early Access, even though it’s clearly not the fully-realized game. Instead of waiting until everything was finished, they’ve instead shipped the basic gameplay on a single map and will release new updates over time as a mixture of paid and free DLC.
Early next year that will include a free multiplayer update, which you can already see as a locked option in the main menu. Details are scarce at this time, but it is aimed to be a cooperative asynchronous form of multiplayer. Currently, you can enjoy some lite-coop elements due to the fact that when the game is mirrored on your computer monitor, it actually displays a top-down map of the level (shown below) so people outside of VR in the room can see where enemies are spawning and give you help if you’d like.
Currently, there is only a single game mode on one map. You load into the world, standing at the center of a control panel, and alien-engineered robots start to swarm in on you. You throw orbs, slow down time, and shoot your way through the 3-minute long mission, fighting off wave after wave, until the time is up and you’re able to escape down into the floor via the descending platform. You can’t move from your spot other than simply dodging and ducking in roomscale, as there is no teleportation or other form of locomotion in the game.
It’s unclear which DLC will be paid and which will be free down the line, but there is a mixture. Content will include new maps, weapons, enemies, and levels. The multiplayer update though, specifically, will for sure be a free inclusion early next year.
ROM: Extraction is a highly-polished arcade shooter that asks you to compete on the same level over and over to climb up the leaderboards. It’s addictive and fun, but will likely grow old quickly for most VR gamers that have spent time in more advanced experiences already. Raw Data, for example, while more expensive, offers a similar experience with significantly more content and a sprint-based teleportation mechanic. Other wave shooters like Blasters of the Universe or the horror-themed The Brookhaven Experiment feature much more variety. Island 359 has a massive island to explore with varied dinosaurs to hunt and Arizona Sunshine even has a full campaign on top of its wave-based horde mode.
The most applicable comparison would be Space Pirate Trainer, a game that launched with only a gun and a few firing modes, plus a shield, and a slow-down mechanic that you could trigger in some situations. Mostly the same enemies, a single level — it had a lot of similarities to ROM: Extraction when it first released in Early Access with the Vive’s launch. However now, several months later, it features a tremendous amount of variety, while building upon that foundation.
Clearly First Contact has the talent to make something hyper-polished and engaging, but I’m mostly looking forward to see how they expand on this early mold of ROM: Extraction. They’ve told me about the lore of the orbs, how they’re actually alien eggs, and all of the mining operations that led you to the mission you play in the game right now, but none of that backstory comes through in what’s available today on Steam, unless you opt to read the paragraph-long ‘Prologue’ in the main menu.
Multiplayer will be a great addition, as will more maps and content, but until then ROM: Extraction is just a wave shooter with a single 3-minute long level. Judging from the quality though, I am excited to see what they make next.
ROM: Extraction is now available on Steam for $19.99 with a 15% launch discount and official HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with Touch support.
Standing back-to-back with my fellow zombie slayer, UploadVR’s very own Joe Durbin, I peer down the barrel of my pistol at the walking corpse that’s stumbling toward me. I glance down at the ammo belt around my waist and notice I’m running low — only about 4 shots left after this clip is done. The hulking mass of a former human is only a few feet from my face now, so I level my sights at its head and squeeze the trigger. Click. Out of shots. I frantically release the magazine, then slam a new one into place by bringing the gun down to my belt, and raise my arms again just in time to blow a huge chunk of its head off, dropping it to the ground, just before it gnaws on my face.
Wave completed. I take a deep breath and get ready for the next onslaught.
This happened in Arizona Sunshine’s multiplayer horde mode — a small slice of the game that would have been enough for most developers to sell as a standalone product. Instead, with Arizona Sunshine, Vertigo Games have packed in not only a single player and multiplayer horde mode with endless waves of zombies, but they’ve also thrown in a robust campaign mode that can also be played both alone and with a friend. It combines together into a deep and diverse overall package that leaves me wanting more as I write these words.
Before approaching this review, I had to ask myself: What really makes a good zombie game? Obviously, zombies are at the core of the experience. They’ve got to be scary, first and foremost. In Arizona Sunshine there are a handful of moments that raised my hairs and gave me goosebumps, but it wasn’t as frequent as other games that bill themselves as primarily horror experiences. Instead, just like its approach to everything, the horror elements are only a small part of a much more complex puzzle.
You’ll hear them shuffling toward you, growling and moaning with each step, and you’ll feel the terror as an entire horde of them comes pouring over a gate or down a mine shaft after you. That’s all here. But what you won’t find is the inability to escape, or reposition yourself, or at least move out of the way. So many other zombie shooters in VR right now are obsessed with either locking you in place, neutralizing your ability to move other than what your room allows, or location-based teleportation to pre-defined areas. Luckily, Arizona Sunshine’s movement system offers flexibility, even if it’s still a form of teleportation.
By pressing forward on one of the Oculus Touch controllers’ analog sticks, or pressing the touchpad of a Vive controller, and then aiming out in front of me, I can choose where I’d like to teleport in the world, which results in a blink of the screen to simulate the movement. You’re faced with managing an endurance meter so you can’t just endlessly teleport across entire levels. It’s an effective solution to the movement problem, one popularized by Cloudhead’s The Gallery, and it avoids motion sickness. However, it would have been nice for the option of a more traditional control scheme for those that don’t suffer from motion sickness.
Even though the zombies in Arizona Sunshine retain a lot of what make zombies so scary in pop culture, it loses some of that effect once you realize how simple the A.I. is in the game. They either slowly walk around until noticing you, crawl on the ground if shot in the leg, or sprint toward you. One thing I really appreciated is that, regardless of the type of zombie, they’re lethal. If you make the mistake of letting one get close enough to hit you, they’ll start wildly flailing their arms making it tough to shoot their head and dealing severe damage very, very quickly. Within seconds, a single zombie can drop you from full health to death without much trouble. Luckily, there’s no risk of turning from a bite to worry about that I noticed.
Throughout the campaign mode I grew fond of the main character’s wit and humor. I began the journey waking up inside of a cave, presumably a hideout location. A zombie head rolls into the cave after getting lopped off by a bear trap — a safety precaution the main character took before resting. Jokingly, he refers to the dead monstrosity as ‘Fred’, a comical moniker he uses to refer to any and all zombies throughout the game.
After exiting the cave, I hear a human voice over the radio for the first time. I set out on my mission to find the source of the transmission and, ideally, a safe haven from all of the madness. It’s a simple story that never veers off track and has zero twists or turns, but it gets the job done. The focus isn’t so much on the overarching narrative, but more so on the world and the main character’s relationship to the apocalypse that makes it so pleasurable to play through.
Over the course of the 4+ hour campaign, the character’s humor is effective at offering a foil to the otherwise horrific hellscape of the Arizona desert during the apocalypse. Between scavenging for food and ammunition it’s refreshing to hear the protagonist remark about how ugly one of the Freds appears to be, or how the horde of Freds is ruining the intimate get-together he had planned for the single dead zombie in the middle of the room. Hearing my character exclaim, “You just had to invite your entire damn family, didn’t ya Fred!?” is much more entertaining than the stock grunts and complaints.
That personality shines through in the end, as well as his anger and frustration mounts and all serves to mark the ending of the campaign in a huge climactic battle. That personality was enough to make it an adventure worth taking, but it never ascends to he heights of other narrative VR games, such as The Gallery, in its storytelling. The utter lack of any other characters, or at least diversions in the plot, make this a very by-the-numbers story of the zombie apocalypse, one that we’ve all heard before, even if it’s exciting to play again in VR.
Which is what a lot of the experience boils down to. In terms of game design and mechanics, there isn’t a whole lot to make it sound very exciting on paper. You can move around large environments, point flashlights in the dark, shoot zombies, and fight for your life — but that’s been in games for years. The difference between a game like Arizona Sunshine and anything you’d play on a 2D display is that in this game, you feel like you’re part of the world. You embody the character, rather than piloting them through the window of your television.
My memories of playing the game feel more like I visited this place and vividly recall getting lost in the mines, scared for my life. In this way, it’s much more than just a simple video game. By crafting a full campaign mode that lasts several hours, Arizona Sunshine effectively transports you to this other world in such a convincing way that you feel what your character feels much more so than you would in any other traditional game.
Playing the campaign in multiplayer offers the exact same experience, but increases the difficulty in just as many ways as it decreases it. While you have a second pair of guns and pair of eyes in the world, you don’t have twice as much ammo to go around, forcing you to share and ration out each stash. The dark levels also require immense teamwork as only person is afforded the use of the flashlight. You better trust whoever you’ve asked to watch your back.
Then going one step further, Arizona Sunshine also offers a dynamic horde mode as well. You can play this endless wave section of the game either alone or, as we would recommend, with up to 3 other people, scaling it from either 1-4 players total. Each time we tried it out the zombies came from different locations, in different quantities, and different styles. Just like in the campaign mode, some of them were wearing helmets, while others were not. In later waves they started running and pouring into the arena in larger numbers, amping up the intensity even further.
Each time we tried to plan out our positioning, watching each other’s backs. It never panned out how we’d have liked. Eventually we got overrun, chaos ensued, and we died. But hey — at least we put up a good fight, right?
The horde mode is great, addictive, and immensely exhilarating, but I came away wishing for more. There only appears to be a single map with the same layout and time of day settings. There’s no progression system other than spawning newer and better guns as the rounds go on, and once you play it a few times, there isn’t much else to see. I’d love for some unlockable customization options, the ability to increase rank, acquire abilities, place environmental defenses like walls or barricades, or at least try out more than a single level. Those would make for great additions in an update.
Final Score:8.5/10 – Great
Vertigo Games proved that even in the most saturated genre we’ve seen for VR games this year — shooters with zombies — there was still room for something fresh. Arizona Sunshine combines the narrative power of a fully-featured 4+ hour campaign mode, with the intensity of a wave-based horde mode, and then adds multiplayer to both experiences. The protagonist’s witty humor make it worth recommending on his charming personality alone, with enough depth and variety to keep people coming back for several hours. By doing so many things so well, Arizona Sunshine quickly rose to the top of the pack as the best overall zombie shooter we’ve seen yet in VR.
Arizona Sunshine will be available on Steam for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, as well as on the Oculus Home Store for the Rift. You can also find more purchasing options on the game’s official website. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
