Flailing about in 4 new PlayStation VR2 games
+ comparing a fiery scene in John Wick: Chapter 4 to a certain video game
I was blown away by the creativity of the action set pieces in John Wick: Chapter 4 but the scene that most stuck with me was the overhead view inside an old mansion. Keanu Reeves is equipped with a shotgun loaded with incendiary bullets (“dragon’s breath”) as he effortlessly rolls and blasts his way through countless goons, setting them on fire.
It was the most video gamey scene in the film in a film brimming with elaborate action sequences. The scene lasts a good chunk of time too, an impressive feat, shown as a single take. It took me right back to the blood-soaked Hotline Miami, the first game coming out only a couple of years before the first John Wick.
In Hotline Miami you enter a room and take out each goon in one shot before they can attack you, all scored to a sick electronic soundtrack. The scene in John Wick, however, is what you would call a perfect run. Attempting levels in Hotline Miami took multiple defeats, learning the enemy patterns so you can take them out systematically. Only then do you truly become John Wick.
In films and TV, the 90-degree top-down view is rarely used in this manner of following a character through a series of rooms because it’s probably expensive and a pain in the ass to shoot. Plus you’re mostly stuck with one angle as it needs to be in one take to be the most effective. And effective it is, though I will be forever making video game comparisons.
Before John Wick: Chapter 4’s premiere there was news of the sudden death of Lance Reddick. It shocked me. He’s been such a stalwart in TV shows like The Wire and Fringe, and in games like the Horizon Zero Dawn series. There’s a lovely post on his lasting impact in the Destiny series written by Nathan Brown.
In the relaunch of this newsletter, I wrote about my initial impressions of the PSVR2 and a few of the games. Now I’ve had the device for a few weeks I’ve jumped into some of the other (admittedly limited) experiences available to me.
C-Smash VRS
C-Smash VRS isn’t out until June but they’ve just released a rather generous demo. I’m not usually a demo guy but I’ve tried every PSVR2 demo I can get my hands on because I’m curious to see the different types of experiences you can have in VR.
C-Smash VRS is actually a throwback to an old arcade/Dreamcast game called Cosmic Smash. The developer Wolf & Wood got the license from Sega and it’s really just the perfect use of a relatively unknown IP in a new context. Cosmic Smash is basically a futuristic squash game where you hit a ball to destroy various blocks, Breakout style.
Using a racket to hit a ball is a simple premise but bring it to VR and it just makes sense. You move left and right with the left thumbstick, shrinking your field of view, to curb any nausea or weird feeling of being whisked away. Not being a Squash player I’m unable to tell if it’s harder to hit a ball in VR than in real life or if I’m just bad at Squash. But the ball did not always go where I wanted it to go.
I wasn’t able to find a match when I tried to jump into multiplayer. Being a demo of a VR game, it’s a subset of a subset, and when I play VR the world is still sleeping. Unfortunately, there’s no bot to play against. I’m not sure if that will come in the full release or if I will be stuck playing Squash on my lonesome.
The Last Clockwinder
The Last Clockwinder is probably the most game-like VR game I’ve played, one that makes use of VR but is also a puzzle game in its own right.
You find yourself in an infinite tree house. A control panel brings up a series of warehouse floors filled with machines and garden equipment. There’s a story told through conversations with your colleague and audiotapes the previous inhabitants left behind, but I still felt a bit lost at what’s going on. It’s all rather abstract. Fortunately, the puzzles themselves are relatively straightforward, but as you have to put yourself in them, it creates a new layer of difficulty.
You happen upon seeds, which quickly turn into plants when planted in the dirt, producing their own unique fruit that instantly replenishes. A whiteboard will give you a rough idea of what fruit to stick together with sticks (kind of like a chemical formula) so a machine spits out tokens you can use to buy more seeds.
In other levels, you just want the most efficient way to get the most fruit collected. Each puzzle requires you to record your movements and then a robot worker will mimic your movements exactly in a loop. Meaning you can do neat things like passing seeds from yourself to yourself and creating an assembly line of robot workers. With all the turning, this VR game in particular meant when I took the headset off I often found myself standing in a place in my living room I wasn’t expecting.
The thing I like about The Last Clockwinder is, it all feels of a piece. While presented as a series of disparate puzzles, they all relate back to each other. For instance, you might have to travel back to an older level now that you have more seeds, so you can generate more fruit to unlock the next area. And there is a story, which might add up to something once I reach its conclusion.
Synth Riders - Remastered Edition
I thought Pistol Whip was filling that Beat Saber hole, but Synth Riders is probably the closest thing yet to such a dance rhythm game. Pink and blue orbs float towards you with the beat, Guitar Hero style and you need to hit them with your left hand or right, or both hands together (orange), depending on the colour. The closer to the centre of the orb, the more points you get.
It’s simple but gets you moving, at least your hands. Your feet are up to you. Though feeling rooted to the spot and waving your arms around feels a little awkward. It’s probably the most active I’ve been in VR and wearing a headset means it’s easy to get a tad sweaty. Like Pistol Whip it has you occasionally dodging walls but you quickly enter a sort of flow state where you move without really thinking about it. My ideal exercise.
As a Muse-head, I purchased the Muse pack including their most well-known hit, Starlight, labeled as an “experience” offering a mode without scoring to truly experience the new visuals on display. As a techno-rock band, they’re the perfect fit for such a game. There’s also a Gorillaz pack if you’re so inclined. There’s a decent amount of tracks included in Synth Riders, they’re all synth music (obviously) so I didn’t recognize any of the artists, but there are certainly some bangers.
Before Your Eyes
I attempted playing Before Your Eyes when it first came out in 2021 on the only webcam I had access to, my partner’s budget laptop PC. For some reason, I stopped halfway through always meaning to return to it. I have heard it is best played in one sitting, and I finally listened. It’s about a 90-minute experience and it certainly helps to have your entire field of vision enveloped.
Before Your Eyes has a unique control mechanism; your blinking. While the game is available on other platforms (including on your phone through your Netflix subscription), VR is the most immersive way to play.
A foxy ferryman is taking your character to the afterlife and asks you to look back on your life. A scene will play from your memory and a ticking metronome indicator will appear, letting you know that if you blink now you will advance to the next scene. The thing is, the scene playing isn’t necessarily over, and you will strain yourself wanting to juice every last possible second until you can’t take it anymore. And you blink. And years pass. It’s a powerful thing.
You can make the odd choice here and there. I won’t spoil the story, but once you get to the end of the game, it gets emotionally brutal. One of the story beats sees your mother realizing you are gifted at the piano and pushes you hard to make a career in the arts where she never could. But then there’s a girl next door…
The Resident Evil 4 remake just arrived. This is one I’ve been eagerly waiting to get my grubby mitts on. I’ll have more to say on that in the coming weeks.