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‘vampire:-the-masquerade-–-justice’-review-–-iconic-kills-in-unexpectedly-shallow-waters

‘Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice’ Review – Iconic Kills in Unexpectedly Shallow Waters

The latest VR entry into to the World of Darkness universe lets you loose on the streets of Venice as a bloodsucking ghoul in search of your master’s killer and a stolen relic. Although it takes cues from stealth games like Hitman and Assassin’s Creed, Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice—let’s just call it Justice for short—takes a decidedly more linear approach to missions than I thought it might from our initial preview. This isn’t a terrible thing, although it manages to also feel pared down in a few other ways that’s just unfortunate. Read on to hear my full impressions.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice Details:

Available On:  Quest, PSVR 2

Release Date:  November 2nd, 2023

Price: $30

Developer: Fast Travel Games

Reviewed on: Quest 3

Gameplay

It’s your job to uncover the mystery behind your sire’s murder and reclaim a stolen relic, all of which is set in the claustrophobic alleys and sprawling sewers of Venice—yes, the world-famous sewer system of Venice. You know, the Italian island-city built on wooden stilts. With canals. And no basements. Because of the water. Ok, you’ll need to suspend disbelief only a tad more than you might normally for a fantasy world filled with vampiric factions, but not by much. After all, you can suck blood from people (and rats!), teleport around, and shoot mini-bolts formed from your own life force out of a Fisher-Price crossbow. What’s a sewer level or three? It’s all gravy.

Like pretty much all World of Darkness stuff, Justice is pretty pulpy when it comes to the narrative. If you’re not already an acolyte of the universe, the game does a pretty good job of introducing you to a few of the main vampire factions that come to a head. Still, you won’t need to absorb much of it, as it leads you by the hand through some pretty well-trodden territory which will probably feel like home for anyone who’s a fan of the gothic-punk vibe in general. That said, the suitably schlocky narrative spends a little too much time in the foreground for my tastes, especially considering it’s such a cookie-cutter tale with some pretty interchangeable villains and objectives.

For a game that mostly nails the ethereal feel of apparating onto the ledge of a building and blasting through an unsuspecting bad guy, I was really hoping it would provide me with a sort of Hitman-esque challenge of solving missions with my own creativity. Instead, it all feels a little hemmed in. Levels are typically large, although missions are entirely linear, meaning you’ll have to complete specific objectives that are force-fed to you by Pietro, your vampire pal and chief quest-giver. Don’t let that dialogue box fool you. You’re doing whatever Pietro says, even if you decide to be a little snotty about it. Anyway, that’s how it is with everyone you talk to in the game though, so it’s fine I guess?

Image captured by Road to VR

The game is pretty intent on taking you by the hand to do most everything. By default, objectives are highlighted automatically, providing you with a far-off direction to point towards as you navigate through whoever and whatever is your way. You can see the little yellow geometric icon through the walls, which is more convenient than having to constantly refer to a map, but significantly less satisfying since it comes at the cost of exploration. I know that’s a thing in traditional gaming, but it feels just a little too abstracted in VR without giving me some sort of reason. Some cool AR glasses maybe? Nope. Vampires can just see objective markers.

Additionally, you can also activate a vampiric sense that gives you a whispy trail towards intermediary objectives, which most often times are keys to open doors. You can abuse it as much as you want, which is a clear temptation when you’re just looking to get to the ‘Mission Complete’ screen.

Image captured by Road to VR

That said, the game’s combat is a high point, offering you several ways to dispatch baddies. Kills feel iconic and fun, although the skill difficulty is almost comically low since bad guys just never look up—not even if you call attention to yourself by dropping a brick or beer bottle. You can saunter around ledges and scurry up drainpipes to your heart’s content, never being in any danger, save the two or three times in the game when there’s a sniper.

And yes, the game’s singular way of getting from ledge to ledge is teleporting, which may disappoint anyone who was looking for a parkour experience. Still, it feels right here since it’s actually a vampire superpower, although I can see why some people may miss hitting ‘A’ for jump.

Image courtesy Fast Travel Games

It’s not all rooftop-trawling at midnight though. When you need to move among them at street level, you really have one of two real options: go ham and kill before you catch two or three bullets, putting you back to your last automatic save point, or use some of your life force by turning invisible and walking right on by. Enemies seem to have radios, but it doesn’t appear they know how to use them very well, as you’ll kill a dude, his friend will come over and be like “oh no!” and then he’ll wander away eventually because you’re sitting on a ledge just above his head.

You can also always see where baddies are in level, since your vampire abilities not only provide a yellow highlighted heart icon, but also a cone that indicates which way they’re looking at any given time. Basically, the only way to be caught off guard is to close your eyes.

These aren’t the only ways to skin a cat, although you’ll probably land on your favorite method pretty quickly, as all enemies are basically the same, save three bosses you have to contend with. Different powers can be purchased in-game via XP, which includes things like that invisibility cloak ability, but also powerful and noisy attacks that boil the blood of victims until they explode. You can also set a something called a Shadow Trap that opens a pit to hell, but I found my own method pretty much the only real tactic for quick and easy kills. Using the crossbow, you can fire sleep-inducing bolts into everyone but bosses, and either knock them out to sneak by, or keep them still so you can suck their blood. It’s a pretty handy little device that feels well designed in terms of VR interactions, as it requires you to craft bolts, load individually, and cock back manually. You really don’t need anything else to beat the game, which took me about eight hours.

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In the end, Justice has some really solid footing in terms of combat and level design, but it doesn’t really know how to leverage both of these things to make enemy encounters continuously feel fresh and engaging since baddies are fairly dumb and easy to kill. Besides some environmental puzzles, there aren’t a lot of objectives out there that I really used my brain to complete, as most of it’s a breadcrumb trail to the next thing and some dudes in the way.

Immersion

Justice feels like it wants to be an open-world game, but as we all know, that’s an order of magnitude more costly to build, which just isn’t in the cards for this decidedly more cheap and cheerful $30 adventure. While there is an ‘over world’ that you can freely prowl around, simply called ‘The Streets’, it really only serves as an intermediate area between you and the actual mission at hand. You can kill a dude to get some health before heading in, but there’s really not much going on.

Image courtesy Fast Travel Games

That honestly doesn’t bother me, since the game never promised that. What does bother me though is unreliable object interaction. Like we noted in our preview earlier this year, object interaction feels flighty and not nearly as solid as it should be. Manipulating levers and other puzzle elements is a crapshoot, and picking up a rat-sized snack is basically like doing surgery with mittens. This does a great deal to hamper immersion, as it feels like the game really isn’t at home with up close interactions, preferring instead to relegate most of its interactions to superpower moves, crossbow shooting, and force-grabbing.

While a little rough around the edges, its set pieces and level design are both very good, providing a constantly changing environment that feels like it’s modeled after the real-world Venice (save the sewers). Justice is mostly awesome-looking, and I only wish there were more of it to explore and interact with, as it does an excellent job of creating a believable underworld in a fantasy version of Venice.

Comfort

You’ll be zipping around a lot in Justice, although since it entirely relies on teleportation to move from plane to plane, it does a lot to mitigate confort issues. Playing for hours on end wasn’t an issue for me, and that’s coming from someone who never uses smooth turning as an option for the fear of the dreaded flop sweats. Both lateral and forward motion can be mitigated by variable vignettes, which is a neat little extra that will make sure most anyone can play Justice from start to finish without issue.

‘Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice’ Comfort Settings – October 31st, 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, German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese
Dialogue audio
Languages English
Adjustable difficulty
Two hands required
Real crouch required
Hearing required
Adjustable player height

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‘Beat Saber’ Surprise-drops new Rolling Stones Music Pack

Beat Saber continues to reel in top tracks for its now classic VR rhythm gameplay. The latest drop is the Rolling Stones Music Pack, bringing 11 of the game’s most classic rock tracks to date.

EDM not your style? Well Beat Saber has come a long way with its DLC music packs, which by now offer quite a bit of variety across 18 different albums. And today that selection gets a little bit wider with the release of the 19th music pack featuring the iconic classic rock group, The Rolling Stones.

Priced at $14 for the complete pack, or $2 per track, the Beat Saber Rolling Stones Music Pack includes the following tracks, including new songs from the group’s latest album:

  • Angry — New Single
  • Bite My Head Off (feat. Paul McCartney)
  • Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
  • Gimme Shelter
  • (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
  • Live By the Sword (feat. Elton John)
  • Mess It Up — New Single
  • Paint It Black
  • Start Me Up
  • Sympathy For The Devil
  • Whole Wide World

The Rolling Stones Music Pack is now available on all platforms where Beat Saber is sold: Meta Quest, PSVR 2, and PC VR. And if you’re looking for more rock, check out the Queen and Rock Mixtape Music Packs.

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‘Arizona Sunshine 2’ Coming to All Major VR Headsets in December, First Gameplay Trailer Here

Vertigo Games finally revealed the release date for its upcoming sequel to Arizona Sunshine (2016), which is set to bring us back to the dusty post-apocalyptic desert for another tango with the undead hordes. Also: the first gameplay trailer.

Arizona Sunshine 2 is slated to launch on all major VR headsets on December 7th, which the studio has confirmed will include a co-op mode as well as single player campaign at launch.

We’ve also got our first look at actual gameplay, which admittedly doesn’t look terribly far off from the previous CG trailer released back in May. There seems to be plenty of opportunities to blow up, dismember, and roast the hell out of the shambolic enemies—all in the search of ‘Patient Zero’, which is supposedly the game’s main objective.

Coming to Quest 2/3/Pro, PSVR 2, Pico and SteamVR headsets, you’ll find Arizona Sunshine 2 is also now available for pre-order as a Standard Edition and Deluxe Edition, with each edition including exclusive digital items. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Standard Edition ($50): Pre-orders include the Biker Bark Vest, Worker Watch, and Ducky Weapon Charm in-game exclusive bonuses.
  • Deluxe Edition ($60): Available at a 10% pre-order discount. Includes everything in the Standard Edition, plus the Freddy Hands Skin, Doggy Weapon Charm, and Undead Buddy—turning your loyal four-legged friend into an undead killing machine.

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‘Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord’ Review – I Ain’t Afraid of No VR Ghost!

It’s been a while since we first busted ghosts in VR, but this time around veteran VR studio nDreams and Sony Pictures Virtual Reality are serving up an at-home co-op game for Quest and PSVR 2 that will finally let you strap on a proton pack and go head-to-floating-head with a good variety of belligerent specters. Check out our review below to see if it’s worth getting the whole squad involved.

Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord Details:

Available On:  QuestPSVR 2

Release Date:  October 26th, 2023

Price: $35 (Standard), $55 (Full Containment Edition)

Developer: nDreams

PublisherSony Pictures Virtual Reality (SPVR)

Reviewed onQuest 2

Gameplay

Here’s the breakdown: you’re busting ghosts in San Francisco (as you do) and the Ghost Lord shows up to wreak havoc on the city. Work your way through a bunch of random missions and periodically report back to HQ for a few drips of the game’s narrative, presented via a TV screen where you’ll learn what happened to some obviously evil billionaire type who totally isn’t an evil Ghoul King, Specter Sovereign, Poltergeist Potentate, or anything of the sort. Ok, so it’s pretty clear the narrative isn’t the star of the show here, as it really only sets the scene for casual drop-in, drop-out co-op matches, which last anywhere from 10-15 minutes each.

Of course, you can go it alone in offline mode with the help of the game’s admittedly competent AI, or team up with friends or strangers for more fun and firepower. That said, you really should consider banding together with a few buddies (from two to four players) and tackling it all the way through together.

Image captured by Road to VR

It feels very much in the same vein as After the Fall (2021)which we called “VR’s best stab at Left 4 Dead,” although I think there’s an argument to be made for keeping pace with your friends in the game as you all earn successive upgrades, letting you form a real team that makes the most of each upgrade path. That feels more like Ghostbuster’s intended sweet spot, as opposed to randomly dropping in with whoever’s online, quietly grinding missions for money and maxing all upgrade paths indiscriminately, and then beating the titular Ghost Lord a bunch of times. There is some competition in there to get more points, but in the end it’s really a team effort.

Image captured by Road to VR

Although I compare it to After the Fall, this isn’t really the same sort of horde-based shooter, because frankly the proton pack isn’t really a gun. There’s also no ammo pickups and no loot to pick up besides some random ecto goo that gives you the ability to upgrade stuff later, such as unique weapon attachments for things like single-use shotguns blasts and short-lived turrets. You can fire your proton stream continuously if you want, and then lasso the poor ghosties forever too—provided you learn how to properly operate the thing. More on that below.

The game also doesn’t really expect you to fail that much either since anyone in your party can always revive you once you’re down with a simple high five. Instead, your main focus is earning cash by completing missions which are placed across seven massive and circuitous maps, each of which allow you to play a random mix of four mission styles: Exorcism, On the Clock, Giga Trap Retrieval, and Harvester. In order, it’s basically a wave mode with the same mini-boss, a timed wave mode, a bomb escort mission, and a wave mode with light puzzle elements.

The big question I always ask myself in these sorts of random mission-driven games is whether both the action and upgrades will be enough to bring me back for more on a consistent basis. I felt the game doled out an okay assortment of both, although it all feels like it’s missing an overall structural direction to keep me engaged in the long-term. You only get three missions to choose from at a time, which are then shuffled randomly again once you’re back at HQ, making it difficult to get a sense of how you’re progressing, save a computer screen that really doesn’t do a great job of making you feel like you’re moving toward an actual goal besides “DONE”.

Image captured by Road to VR

Despite the increasing mix of standard baddies as you move through to 100 percent completion, which means you’ve beaten 42 missions, about halfway through things start to feel a little samey. There just aren’t enough mini-bosses, and it just isn’t clear how long it will take to get to the main boss; you just have to keep playing random missions until the game decides you’ve had enough and can actually move forward.

That said, I generally liked the assortment of regular enemies, although I wish there were a greater variety of mini-bosses to provide a bump in difficulty beyond just having ‘more of everything all at once’. Normal enemies include a conventional assortment of ranged and melee types, with smaller types usually zapped into oblivion with a few seconds of the standard blast from the proton pack. The larger, more often ranged types require not only a constant blast from your proton pack, but also need to be lassoed into your handy dandy trap.

Melee types are typically smaller and weaker, and are mostly just annoying to deal with as you go in for the real ghosts worth nabbing in any given level.

Here’s how lassoing works, which is key to dispatching larger, more deadly ghosts: a shield bar on the right of ghosts depletes with a standard blast, while the health bar on the left indicates how much the enemy needs to be jerked around with your proton-lasso in order beat it unconscious and then drag it into your trap, which gobbles it up automatically. Wear out the specter, shoot out your trap nearby, and let the wonders of technology do the rest. This is actually pretty satisfying as a VR specific thing, as you wildly follow the ghost as he helplessly flails around looking for a hiding place to recover health. Springing the trap with your left hand and shooting the proton pack with the right is about as Ghosbusters as you can get.

Image captured by Road to VR

About an hour into playing, I also figured out I could just point my proton stream at the floor to spam the game’s most important tool: the boson dart,which is basically just a big blast that keeps your proton pack from overheating and being inoperable for a bit. Activating the boson dart didn’t feel intuitive at first—something I chalk up to some pretty aggressive pop-up messages in the early game that made it personally difficult for me to concentrate on the task at hand. I ended up just jogging through whatever was asked of me in the tutorial so I could figure it out later in my own time. Really. Pop-ups are so big and offputting.

I digress. Using the boson dart is actually pretty simple, although easy to ignore at the beginning since you don’t really need it until you meet the game’s main mini-boss, the Bruiser. Simply mash a button right before your proton stream overheats to activate a powerful blast that knocks ghosts down a bar or two on their health meter.

Once you get a handle on each enemy type, you start to see colored variants that have slightly different powers. Whatever the case, I found that strategy really only boiled down to constantly strafing around the map, keeping the trigger down, and blasting boson darts until everything—regardless of ability—was toast. Avoid shit flying at you and don’t stand in one spot too long. Everything else is gravy.

Image captured by Road to VR

Protip: If you like playing random missions every once in a while, and aren’t really concerned about getting to the final boss, you can probably just invest your cash in all of the upgrade pathways just to see what’s out there. If you’re looking for more focused playsessions though, it’s probably better to pick one specific upgrade style and max it out from the onset.

Once all is said and done in a mission, and all of the ghosts are trapped or otherwise zapped to dust, your only choice is to keep playing random missions, or maybe the single-player mixed reality mini-game, Mini-Puft Mayhem, which is a fun little boss battle against a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s worth a few minutes of your time, if anything just to see a giant marshmallow rip the ceiling off your house, but not integral to the rest of the game.

Again, if there were any such game, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord would definitely be the one you and a few other friends would buy and exclusively play together—not because you really need a bunch of active communication to play, but that the game is pretty random enough without having a good buddy by your side to give you a reason to drop back in, and keep grinding until you get to the massive Ghost Lord battle.

Image courtesy nDreams, SPVR

Immersion

Is Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord perfect? No. It has enough variety and fun, provided you’re with a good group of people. Playing alone is the worst-case scenario though, and probably isn’t advisable if you don’t want to hit a wall halfway through when missions start to be a little bit a trudge. Still, it’s actually a pretty solid basis for what could be some interesting DLC, which I hope will help minimize some of the weaker points I mentioned above. So don’t get me wrong: Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord is basically a fun and well-made game that just lacks a little bit of scaffolding and boss variety to be a real winner.

One thing it definitely has out of the gate though is looks. Even with the humble Quest 2, the game is pretty dang awesome looking. It has a swath of dense and richly decorated set pieces, and character animations are expressive, feeling straight out of a cartoon. Ok, so there’s no Slimer, but there are Slimer-adjacent characters that mostly do the job.

Image courtesy nDreams, SPVR

It’s more than looks though. You’d be surprised how many VR multiplayer games there are out there that really don’t understand that players instinctually want to interact with other people naturally, like, say, handing something to someone without having to throw it on the ground first, or being able to give them a high five for a job well done. That’s all here and then some. Playing in co-op mode, Road to VR’s Ben Lang stepped into something of a mine in the form of a Stay Pufft mini-marshmallow bag that explodes the little buggers everywhere when you get close, rendering your equipment inoperable until you pluck away the pests.

He still had three on his proton pack still jumping around and squeaking about. My first instinct was right. Just grab the little suckers and toss them away like picking lice from a fellow chimp! Or crush him with an iron fist and hear revel in their tiny, diabetic lamentations.

A small-ish sore spot is the games avatars, each of which only have three unlockable looks a piece, with no individual customization as such. I would have also liked to see a more customizable HQ, which would make hosting a game much more immersive since you could show off trophies or decorations to your friends when you invite them for matches.

Comfort

As a veteran VR studio, nDreams knows the score. Offer everything, including snap-turn, quick turn, smooth turn, teleportation. The list is below. It has it all. The only advisory I’d give is the game naturally makes you strafe a good deal, so if you’re particularly susceptible to motion sickness, experiment with the game’s variable blinders to make this less jarring.

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