With the release of PSVR2, you’re probably going to be reading a lot of VR-related content over the next few weeks. It’s not just PSVR2 though, as we’re looking at two new games for the Quest today – and one for PSVR2.
Drop Dead: The Cabin review (Quest)
A VR game with both “Dead” and “Cabin” in the title – it wasn’t hard to our minds to wander to the Evil Dead franchise as a possible source of inspiration for this one, which only fueled our interest in this Soul Assembly-developed VR shooter, which is out now for the Quest 2.
Sure enough, the game’s premise in which you’re stuck in a nightmare scenario as you enter a creepy cabin and find yourself getting overrun by monsters/zombies isn’t too far off from the original Evil Dead premise, but gameplay-wise this is more of a Zombies mode in Call of Duty mixed with a strong co-op element and some roguelite progression – and it’s a mix that tends to work well.
Attacks tend to come in waves, and over time will feature different types of zombies – from ones that explode to real bullet sponges that can deal a lot of damage. To take them down, you can use guns or do in for the melee kill – which sometimes will be your only option. But rather than just a simple wave shooter, Drop Dead: The Cabin challenges you to escape this nightmare, and to do that you’ll need to survive long enough. This means keeping the generator powered up so you can call for help, and spending Research Points and XP on much-needed upgrades. In other words, prepare to be on the move, and prepare to be overrun as you try to multi-task your way out of there.
Drop Dead: The Cabin is best geared towards co-op play as it’s initially an uphill battle where several tasks need to be done at once and it helps to have an extra pair of hands to do them. Progressing towards an escape can feel slow as there’s only a single map to play on and it’ll take a while before you gather enough permanent upgrades to stand a real chance – and that process will only take longer as a single player as the game doesn’t scale down very well in terms of challenge. In other words, it’s extremely hard for single players have to juggle all the different tasks at home, and pairing up with a friend will keep frustrations at bay much better. It might be a bit too much of a grind solo, but it’s a blast in co-op.
Gun Jam VR review (Quest)
Gun Jam VR, from developer Jaw Drop Games and Raw Fury, takes a few popular VR concepts and fuses them into one. Combining the action movie-like action sequences of games like Pistol Whip with the rhythm-based gameplay of Beat Saber is certainly an interesting prospect, but how much fun is it to fire away and dodge bullets to the rhythm of a soundtrack?
The short answer is that it’s fun, but it’s not the finely choreographed action sequence you might picture from movies like The Matrix or John Wick. That’s mostly down to gameplay mechanics and design, as Gun Jam VR’s main mechanic is that your shots deal more damage when fired in sync to the beat – and there are visual indicators to help you with this. That’s fun and satisfying once it clicks for you, but without well-known songs it’s much harder to get into a flow like you can in games like Beat Saber.
Another element that takes away from the “epic action movie fantasy” is that the levels themselves, and the way the enemies move and attack in them, don’t feel as finely choreographed to the music as your own shots might, creating a bit of a disconnect between the two where it’s almost like you’re playing two games at once – firing away in sync to the beat but also dodging incoming bullets that seem to not care about the music.
Gun Jam VR is still fun to play, even though it doesn’t feel as refined as the sequences in Pistol Whip just yet. It’s a good concept, and we’re hoping that we’ll see some post-launch content with some finely choreographed sequences that will really let us live out our action hero dreams.
The Last Clockwinder review (PSVR2)
The launch line-up for Sony’s PSVR2 headset definitely feels like it’s got quite a few ports of existing VR titles in there, but luckily one of them is one of our favorite VR titles of last year: The Last Clockwinder by Pontoco, which we previously reviewed when it came to the Quest back in June of last year.
The Last Clockwinder is still one of the best VR puzzle games out there, and bears some similarities to We Are One as well, an upcoming puzzle game that we previewed after going hands on with it a few months are we checked out The Last Clockwinder. If the idea of ‘programming’ clones by having them copy your movements in order to automate a process sounds intriguing, then both of these games should be on your radar, with The Last Clockwinder having the benefit that it’s already available.
Pretty much everything we mentioned in our Quest review holds true for the PSVR2 version, and because the controllers on the PSVR2 are much closer to the Quest ones than the Move controllers were the transition is rather seamless for anyone who’s played it on the Quest before. Differences are negligible, as both versions have smooth performance and the same content. The new PSVR version does look a tiny bit sharper by comparison though, but at the same time it also is a wired version. That’s ultimately the trade-off here, but whichever way you play this we’re still convinced that The Last Clockwinder is a must-play puzzle game for VR enthusiasts. The new PSVR2 version is certainly welcome from that perspective, as it’ll open up this gem towards new audiences.
Press Play Media 