| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 5 | 4.50 |
| Overall | 4.50 |
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The flagship game for the PSVR2 might be a preview for the devices history as a whole. An amazing piece of tech that shows excellent potential but the game itself is shallow with no depth and no reason to ever play it again. It’s a damn shame cause the horizon world is so rich, and it has bows and arrows as its main weapon, that’s VR 101. Instead this is a climbing simulator in disguise, it feels like a first generation VR game, one that I have played plenty of times before. Let’s do the good first, this is a technical showcase. It is jaw dropping with its beautiful environments, vistas and high quality models. When you come face to face… well more like face to foot to a thunderjaw every little bit of detail in the model is noticeable. The game runs perfectly too which is something many PCVR games have difficulty doing if it’s a high end game like this. Outside of HL Alyx there is no VR game that looks as good. Part of that is playing to the strengths of the PSVR2 which after going back and forth between it and Quest 2 I think PSVR2 wins hands down as the best VR set on the market. Not only is the display so good, but the controls work so damn well. Again Call of the Mountain does a fantastic job of showcasing these controls with fun interactive items that have full physics. You can pick up any object and interact with them as you’d expect. Get a hammer and break a glass cup with it. You can get a sledgehammer and wack a gong. You can play on some bongos, grab a small mallet and play the xylophone. You can get a paintbrush and paint the walls of a cave. These were all things HL did as well except in that game they found actual gameplay uses for those things… in horizon it’s ALL POINTLESS. It’s just there to be there so you can go “ohhh I can rotate a bucket!”. The actual game part of Horizon is climbing, so much climbing. You will see clearly marked hand holding spots on a wall and you will move your arms up and down simulating climbing a wall over and over and over and over and over again. Now they mix it up as you gain all kinds of gadgets to make your climb more varied like using pickaxes to climb on ice. Or having a grapple hook to latch onto far points and swing to the next thing to climb. None of these things really add much to the gameplay, at the very least it allows for some minimal variety but it’s never really used in an interesting way. I think maybe in one or two areas you might have an optional path that you don’t have the tool for and you can replay the chapter later with that tool to access it, this is the extent of using items cleverly. In between the long stretches of just climbing there are combat encounters. This should be where the game shines, horizon was made for VR! Well it shines only if you liked being trapped in some imaginary ring where you can only move in a circular motion around a circular arena where your enemy will be. So let’s say you are fighting a thunderjaw, it’s in the center and you need to pelt with arrows and your defense is using the stick to auto strafe around the circle. In some areas in the circle will be say a wall you can get behind to avoid big area attacks. Some health items and powerful arrows are also scattered around this circle of movement you are stuck on. So the battle is just move side to side, shoot arrows and try to hit weak points. You do have different arrow types, which to make them you have to physically put a few parts together, a wasteful VR a thing to do. You got shock, fire, tear and precision; they all do what they do in the game. The same way you can tear down pieces of the enemies works the same here, but you can’t pick up the parts that become weapons when detached. Oh you also get the slingshot which has fire and ice bombs which are very powerful and put enemies in stasis quick. The limited movement and weapon selection greatly reduces the options that made the fights in the main games so much fun. In here they turn into glorified shooting galleries where your main decision is just which stasis effect to use to get enough openings to damage the weakest parts. No matter how small or big the enemies get the strategy is mostly always the same. The most creative fight in the game had these electrical lures you had to get to and pull a switch which in turn distracts the thunderjaw so you can ignite the fire canisters at the lure. That’s the extent of the combat variety you get in this game. You could do so much with VR combat and so much with the wide variety of robots horizon has and this is the best they come up with?! As for the main quest it’s like 10 hours long which is a fine length for a VR game. The story is totally throw away, the main character is just a former shadow carja warrior who was imprisoned and now given a second chance to redeem himself and find his brother who is chasing a group who plans to attack the capital city. What I learned is I don’t care at all about the politics of the horizon world when it’s not Aloy trying to uncover the real events happening in the world. At least the story takes you to varied locations and it has some exciting moments where there are chases that break up the quiet moments where the main character is talking to himself nonstop. One of the best moments is the first thunderjaw meeting as it hunts you down as you navigate the inside of old human structures. He is bursting through walls, you can see and hear him stalking you through windows. It’s all scripted but that’s how you use VR effectively. There are too few of these moments, later on there was some great parts with a storm bird. I am so upset this wasn’t more the focus. There are a few secrets to find, the main one being targets off in the distance, or hidden in odd spots of which you shoot with the arrow. There are multiple ones per stage; do they unlock anything… no but it’s just something to do outside the norm. Oh and there is what is probably the intriguing use of VR which is build a rock cairn, so stack rocks. This is where full hand control is needed, you pick up different sized and shaped rocks and try to stack them to a specified height. At least this made me think and actually use the physics in an interesting way. Do you get anything for doing this, again no, just another completionists mark to fill in. Outside the main quest are two activities, one is a jungle cruise little experience which is a great VR showcase. This is like a river Disney ride through the horizon world and you will see every robo dino up close and personal. I actually really liked this , felt like a virtual tour and it was kind of excited, you don’t do anything but look, still there was combat and scary moments. Then there is a challenge area which sadly is just two different challenges, one climbing and one target practice. Target practice is what you thing, shoot arrows at targets and go for a high score. There is just one game, one version… come on. The other is an obstacle course where depending on what items you have unlocked in the main game you can use to reach many alternate paths to get better score. If the main quest had some kind of scoring system or any decision making with multiple paths in climbing then climbing might be interesting. So it’s a cool little course but again it’s just one course. It’s the most minimal of extra content they could put out. Not even a combat arena where you can pick which robot you want to fight. I’m actually really hard on this game because I’ve done this kind of VR already. This was the first VR kinds of games where just the act of interacting in a VR space was so impressive it could hide the pitiful gameplay. So if this is your first VR experience you will enjoy it way more than I did. I’m already over all this, HL, RE, Walking dead and many more already showed you can translate full incredible games into VR and not limit them to boring mechanics. Horizon VR is a good showcase for the technical side of the PSVR2 but a poor game like so many early VR games. |
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Posted by Dvader Wed, 16 Aug 2023 06:20:14
Mon, 21 Aug 2023 14:59:42
I saw a video of this. Looked quite shallow.
Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:31:33
That combat does sound like a missed opportunity. Maybe they didn't want to overwhelm those playing, but something like that does break up the promise of being in a fully realised interactable world.
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