At PAX West 2022, we had the opportunity to meet with Tripwire gifts to preview the upcoming VR shooter Aspire 2.
Although virtual reality is still considered a niche in the video game industry, it is starting to gain some ground. After we finished our previous show with deceive inc. , we moved to Aspire 2.
Aspire 2 hands-on
Aspire 2 It was my second experience with virtual reality games. As a tall player, headphone calibration and controls for one’s height added an extra layer of challenge. Once the system was calibrated, I felt as if I was playing as a robot in the game rather than an observer.
The game allows players to choose whether they want to shoot or play through the level stealthily or not. Once I got through the tutorial part of the game, I decided to basically go shoot the enemies until I ran out of ammo.
Killing enemies in the game was fun but it took a long time to adapt to the virtual reality aspect of gun shooting.
Shooting felt unnatural compared to shooting from a handgun in real life. Whenever I was trying to play stealthily, I was required to crouch and move slowly.
Enemies can be eliminated with the repair tool. The repair tool can also be used to heal the character after it has been damaged.
I have found that using the repair tool can cause some issues when trying to use other features but this is due to player error rather than game error.
Trying to modify your body to move a character beyond the atmosphere of the standard console took a while to get used to, but I can see that the game is a lot of fun once you head into the gameplay. Fortunately, there was a button on the Meta controller that I could push to bend over without having to bend over in real life.
This curvature feature made it easy to hide dead or unconscious corpses and pick up ammunition. I can also hide by moving through the air vents instead of running straight towards the enemy. This ultimately saved me on exiting the facility by shooting from behind cover.
last thoughts
As someone who is not familiar with VR, you play a game Aspire 2 The demo was very interesting. The developers did a great job at reducing motion blur and creating a smooth transition when in motion.
Once I understood the basics of combat, it was very easy to eliminate the enemies. Although the game was fun, it wouldn’t be able to convince people to pick up Meta Quest 2 to play it. Hopefully, the game will be released on a different platform at a later date.
Aspire 2 It is launching later in 2022 for Meta Quest 2.