If there is one thing that is slowly taking hold within virtual reality Sony are video games: because we cannot define such short and almost demonstrative gaming experiences, often seen in the first years of this technology's life. After seeing games like Superhot VR e Firewall: Zero Hour, now it's the turn of the platformers. You may be wondering: how is it possible to offer a VR experience with a platformer? If you want to find out, keep reading, knowing that Astro Bot: Rescue Mission is one of the games that owners of PlayStation VR they will not have to escape.
The canons of the genre
The game starts from a very bland premise, which will see us firsthand helping the little robot to safety (his and his companions). As in VR playroom, headset and pad become interactive, and will serve their purpose as the game progresses. The title consists of 26 levels, 6 boss fight and a difficulty tending to easy: this will not be a problem at all since the real novelty of the game is the interaction between VR and platform, something that hardly finds a practical solution in our head, but that actually in Astro Bot: Rescue Mission works damn well.
Some of the game objectives, including finding the other robots scattered throughout the game (8 for each level) will require familiarity with the three dimensions, and will often engage your sight and brain for a few minutes, making your head spin far and wide in search of them. So if your visual becomes vital for the game to progress, the DualShock 4 it will acquire additional functions depending on the gadget attached to it: from water jets with various uses to metal cables to be exploited to join platforms, you will have to interact not only with the robot, but also with your pad and the camera. All while moving this Astro Bot.
The game will take you to travel to 5 different worlds, and level after level you will find yourself in the most fun 6 hours ever wearing that helmet, thanks to the smile that will escape from your mouth every time you will notice the ingenious ideas used for level design and for player-game interaction.
Hidden in plain sight
If at first glance Astro Bot: Rescue Mission might seem like a game in the norm, the challenge taken by Japan Studio and ASOBII Team! was to take one of the most famous genres of all time and adapt it to a diametrically opposite technology. It's easy to bring an FPS or a strategy game into virtual reality, but how can you make a platformer fun when camera interaction often counts for nothing? Astro Bot: Rescue Mission he explains it without doubts, in a whirlwind of jumps, laughter and well-structured boss fights (despite the ease).
To fully enjoy the title, you will certainly have to fully open your valves of amazement, but once you enter that colorful and well-defined world, you will hardly want to leave it.
One small step for platformers, one big step for VR
Let's face it: if it were any platformer, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission it would be an average title. Challenges in the norm, duration reduced by about 6 hours - which with the challenges is extended by about another couple of hours - and a banal story. But the VR, as if by magic, adds nuances never seen in the genre and exponentially elevates the title, shaping it as one of the best ever seen for virtual reality. PlayStation VR boasts many high-level productions, but where all of them used the “trick” of focusing the game from the player's point of view, this one instead dares and gives birth to an unexpected but functional combination.
The budget price justifies the duration, but after the game you will find yourself wanting more (and we hope that the guys who created it will satisfy us). Anyway, let's talk about games: just interactive experiences, mini-demonstrations or other. The time has come to take risks, to innovate and mix the cards on the table: if you wonder how, then play Astro Bot: Rescue Mission.
