Developer: ILMxLAB
Platforms: PlayStation VR 2 (Reviewed)
Genre: First-person shooter
Publisher: Disney Electronic Content
A new VR immersive experience for the Star Wars fan has dropped for the PSVR2. In Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Enhanced Edition, you take the role of droid repair technician who crashlands on Batuu. You will take on a series of missions involving infiltrating a First Order facility, fighting the Guavian Death Gang, and traversing galaxies.
The game is a whole VR experience, where the controllers are your hands in the game, and you use the two VR controllers for puzzle solving and first-person action. You carry various items, including tools, health aids, pouches, and weapons.
The gameplay is a first-person RPG shooter where you are in a beautiful Star Wars with voice-acted characters. Landscapes, environments, music, acting, the score, and sound effects would be fitting for the film. I can’t fault the Star Wars experience and the world. The gameplay and mechanics are straightforward first-person shooters but use; the VR headset and controllers to make the experience immersive. Tracking and getting used to a VR game is a learning curve, especially when new to VR.
The first few days I played the game, I found the recognition of the VR controllers clunky and unresponsive in parts. Your torso has a pouch in the centre of your body with tools, holsters, and health aids scattered around your arms. The pouch constantly obstructed me from grabbing the item I wanted, the multi-tool, which you will use to solve most puzzles. The holsters had similar issues. I would reach for a gun but ended up holding my multi-tool. These issues were due to my adjusting to VR and getting used to the learning curve of VR games.
I found movement quite clunky using the teleportation mode alone, so I used the analogue stick, which improved the whole movement through the game experience immensely.
It’s hard to judge if this being my first game in VR was a mitigating factor in my experience; however, I did play other games and came back to it, and I got nauseous playing the game. I adjusted settings and changed the speed of character movement and whatever settings I could find, but I; could only play for 20 minutes before quitting the game. The nauseousness made the gaming experience strange; as I was getting over the teething control issues I had when I started, I physically found it challenging to play the game.
I love the gameplay elements of picking up a shooter and firing it and killing enemies in the distance, using cover, dodging, and the sound effects as the shots whizzed by your head were fantastic. I got used to using the jetpack and teleportation, which made the gaming experience vastly richer and thrilling. Bang, the nauseousness would kick back in, and I had put the game down. It was a melancholic; experience overall.
It’s tough to give a full review of the game due to issues I have highlighted while playing it—the nauseousness. When I overcame the teething problems of holding items and my gun, I did enjoy the character interactions, the devices you interact with, and the puzzles. The actual gameplay and mechanics were fun. I couldn’t play for more than 20 minutes without feeling sick. I had to give it a 6 out of 10 as I enjoyed one. I understood how to use VR but couldn’t progress far enough to provide it with more than a 6.
Overall: 6/10
Enjoys more than the odd game, long time gamer, somewhat a technologist and everything else in between.
Also enjoys a good solid game of FIFA online. Currently PS4, XBOX 360 and STEAM.
