Bottom Line:
Great program; buy it.
Now for the good, the a-little-less-good, and the even-less-good.
Overview:
If you’re looking to shoot zombies, this is not the program for you; move on. If you’re looking to improve your shooting game, then this is where you need to be. This is a training tool. And an exceptionally good one at that. But it’s far more than a game: it’s also a serious simulator that does much more than just entertain; it educates and trains, and represents a fine example of the practical application of virtual reality as applies to real life.
The good:
Having spent my share of time on the Skeet and Trap ranges, I can say that this program really does accurately simulate real world shooting. The physics appear to be accurate, reliable, and predictable. As a training program, the player has the option to spend endless time on any shooting station or stand, working on it until the sight picture and personal responses can be burned into their mental engrams, and the muscle memory for target tracking, lead, and follow-through is firmly established. This will definitely translate into higher scores when they head out to the real world of the sports. In addition to practice and training modes, the program allows the shooter to play full match rounds, developing the shooter’s sense of real-world game flow, eliminating some of that newbee feel at the range of “what do I do next??”. Note, however, that you’re the only one there; there are no avatars, no other sim players on the field.
The graphics in the program are outstanding. I’m driving an HTC Vive with an Alienware i7-7700 with a GeForce GTX1080, and, with in-game native supersampling pushed to 2.0, the program runs faultlessly. The interface is intuitive and simple to use and can easily be used right or left handed. There’s a real sense of presence within the game, with the sounds of the breeze, the grass waving, and the sharp reports of the gun immersing the player completely into the environment. You even hear birds and frogs, and I think I even detect road traffic in the far distance!
As an added bonus, the program and the individual games load extremely fast.
Upon entering the program, one selects one of three games: Skeet, Trap, or 5-Stand, or a short tutorial. After selection, the player is transported into the selected game and is presented with three guns: two over/unders, and a side-by-side. They appear to be pretty generic, though they look very familiar to anyone who has spent time with these types of guns.
Once in the game, having selected a gun, the shooter selects game-play mode: either training or competition.
There are a couple of training options. In one, the clay is led across the sky by a bright green icon showing exactly how much lead to apply to that shot. All the shooter has to do is follow that lead marker as the point of aim, squeeze the trigger, and poof – target explodes! Very helpful and easily turned off as the shooter gets the feel for the lead required at a given station.
Another useful option is the “freeze-frame” in training mode. If you miss, the program freezes for a few seconds and puts an “X” on the place in space where the point-of-aim was when the trigger was pulled, basically telling you what you did wrong with your lead and aim.
The program can be set to throw clays continuously so that the shooter can bang away until they get good, or tired, or both. The player simply picks the station they want to practice, clicks the “pull” button on the menu and the clays start automatically flying. There’s also the option of swiping a thumb up on the controller touchpad to initiate a pull. In addition, the training mode has an optional barrel laser pointer that projects the muzzle-line out to the sky helping the player learn how holding the gun affects point of aim.
In competition mode, the player is subject to the rules of the game as far as sequencing goes. For example, in Skeet the player starts at station 1 and successively moves through each station up to number eight. Shots are taken as in standard American Skeet, such as station one beginning with a high house, followed by a low house, followed by a double, with the doubles appropriately missing from stations 3,4,5,8. When a station is completed, the program moves the player to the next station in the sequence. Once a round is complete, the shooter’s name and score are presented on a scoreboard with (presumably) other Clayzer shooters.
Finally, the shooter has the option to pattern their guns on a patterning target. Based on my hold, I consistently get a 60/40 pattern which is what I like for Skeet. Yours may vary.
The A-Little-Less-Good:
I do have a few minor issues, such as the interval time in practice mode in 5-Stand. In both Skeet and Trap, the intervals between throws are around 3 – 9 seconds. However, the interval between pulls in 5-Stand averages around 14 – 17 seconds, an interminably long time when practicing. Plus, each trap station will stop pulling after as few as only 2 times to as many as 10 pulls before it just stops. For example, station 7 consistently has a 17-second interval and repeats only 2 times before stopping – varies from shooting station to shooting station.
The player will always enter the game next to the gun table. He or she then reaches for the desired gun and squeezes the side buttons on the hand controller to pick it up. But, sometimes in the excitement of the shot, the shooter might squeeze the grip a bit too much and the gun drops back onto the table. Since this is only an issue when standing next to the table (station 4 in Skeet, station 1 in Trap, and station 3 in 5-Stand), it’s, not a major problem in MOST cases. There’s one important exception: If the shooter squeezes too hard at station 1 in Trap at the 27 yard handicap line, the gun does reappear on the table. However, the table is now 11 yards away and there’s no way to get there to get at the gun to point it at a selection on the menu to continue!
This is something other reviewers have commented on: add voice recognition, at least recognition of the word “pull”, if nothing else. From what I understand (currently it’s Nov. 7, 2017), the developers are working on it, so major kudos to those guys. That will be a real plus when it happens and I hope it happens soon.
The Even-Less-Good:
As a firearms instructor and retired Federal investigator, I have bit of heartburn with training shooters to point at things other than targets with the muzzles of their guns! And pulling the trigger to select items is an even worse paradigm. The shooter’s finger should NEVER be on the trigger except when actually shooting the target. Maybe I’m just over-cautious (is that possible when dealing with firearms?), but I’ve seen a lot of things out there and habits are habits. This “feature” of the program could easily be changed and should be. Activating the laser pointer with the off-hand controller trigger (which doesn’t do anything anyhow) is just as easy to program and use as using the gun itself as a pointer.
Summary:
As I said in the opening line: Great program. Buy it. It’s cheap money and worth every nickel. The issues I identified in the program are minor, some to the point of mere nit-picking. None of them should give anyone even momentary pause in purchasing this program if they are seriously looking to improve their real-world game, as well as have a whole lot of shooting fun that doesn’t necessitate a bunch of dead zombies lying around all over the place. The program feels finished and refined, but has huge potential for expansion. Major kudos to the developers for rising above the zombies and giving serious shooters a truly useful program. Bottom line bears repeating for the third time: Great program. Buy it.
