Played since open beta.
(I'd like to preface this with the fact that I recieved the game for free due to the Play to Own campaign and that this is the first VR shooter I have ever played, as such I'm not very familiar with the genre as a whole.)
**=EDITS/UPDATES AFTER MORE HOURS IN THE GAME:
Cons:.
- **The AI is bad. When playing against bots it can get really frustrating. On some objectives (namely B on bunker) the bots will rapidly spawn making it impossible to move on the OBJ. Considering you are also playing with bots against another human player this becomes annoying real fast. Doesn't help that on occasion bots will have ridiculous aim, killing you in 1-2 shots (Probably a headshot) and its frustrating to be at full to only get destroyed by the bot at the other end of the room. The PvE aspect is extremely underwhelming. You could remove the PvE aspect and most games would play out the same. A lot of the time I just end up kiting them around, as the next enemy to come to an objective is likely to kill them, giving me that extra awareness needed to get the kill, they aren't much of a threat. Lastly, team mate AI. Good lord its the worst. The worst part about it is that the devs will be having kill leaderboard events for prizes, and the bots will kill a downed player for 100% accuracy. I trust I don't need to explain how annoying that is during a competition for kills. They will literally avoid shooting ANYTHING ELSE but the downed player. So the other player in the objective doesn't matter at all to the bot, even if they're right in front of the downed player, they will shoot for the downed player with 100% accuracy EVERY TIME.
-Small playerbase: Granted Oculus store users are NOT able to play as of right now so the player base might be a bit larger.
-**Not new player friendly: Playerbase is so small you will run into veteran players very often, and with no team balancing mechanics you're simply ♥♥♥♥♥♥ unless they switch teams. Yes it's an issue in a lot of FPS/Shooters and just vr games in general, but there's not even a system to shuffle the teams around after your team gets ♥♥♥♥♥♥. You're likely to keep facing them game after game and face loss after loss as you fight from your base in a futile attempt to push outward and cap your home point. This either forces those who are skilled at the game to either: A. Switch teams if the game allows you to. or B. Just play it out until they inevitably leave lol.
Oh and before you say "Well they're skilled players they should do well!" I agree with you. However there needs to be a system in place to at least try to balance it out better because I've been on teams where 3 skilled players were on the same team and all 4 people on the other team just leave because there's no chance. No comeback mechanics or anything. They need to git gud but since most playing atm are beta testers/"Open Beta Test Champions" they can't play against anyone similar to their skill level to get good efficiently. There's no way to play against bots to get the hang of things. The tutorial is frankly pretty poor as well. It'd be better if it were in the shooting range area.
- **MOST OF THE TIME it feels more like a VR CoD. However, the game drastically changes when you have a full 10 v 10 game. It truly does become more tactical and as such more fun as a result. Sadly those 10 v 10 and 5 v 5 games are really few and far inbetween, so 9/10 times expect the whole vr CoD thing I mentioned before. There's also no real reason to use the other more "tactical" tools except if you find yourself in very specific situations where they might shine. Even then you'd probably be more effective just getting good and shooting them. When you spawn in game, you spawn in a room with weapons on the wall. Grenades, Healing Injector, Healing Grenade, Shield, and a knife sit on one wall. What's worth taking? Grenades? Nah they're kind of a pain to use since you have to holster your weapon to use it (excluding detonator). Healing Grenade? Rarely sees use but can be useful in some niche situations. Shield? You ideally want to shoot at their feet, but if they're using the very accurate energy weapons (or the DMRs) and know how to aim, GG. They can also crouch preventing you from shooting the feet. I've had to start carrying a shield myself to counter this. Knife? LOL No. Healing Injector? YES. It's literally the best thing worth taking in every situation. It has 4 charges. Infinite reloads so you can just fall back and reload it for the next firefight. Only 50 scrap and easily usable if you put it in the pouches of your dominant hand. You can also take TWO if you bought armor. All these benefits without holstering your weapon UNLESS you need to reload it. Why would anyone take a one use grenade that you have to holster a weapon to use especially when people move fast as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Sonic in this game, so they can literally just rush you and you will die while trying to use it. Why would you use a healing grenade when people mostly already have the injector? (Although in its defense it is an aoe effect that can revive downed players.) The game mostly revolves around map knowledge and knowing how to aim. Based on the trailer, I would have thought the pace to be more slow, but people literally run around like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ olympic runner with an LMG in their hands. It'd be nice if weapon choice affected move speed. (The reason most people take the 250 armor over the 500 armor is for the frankly ridiculous speed boost. Its hard to track someone that fast.)
-**Bugs. Sometimes during gameplay my hands and by extension weapon will glitch out and go flying off to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ narnia. Happened rarely but the times it did happen, it was a really frustrating experience. Headset was still tracking, but my hands in-game were not. There's also been a few times where I will put a rifle on my back and not be able to unsheath it because the weapon has moved to the other side of my body or something. When getting into firefights sometimes, if you go to hug a wall your screen will turn yellow - indicating you ran INSIDE the wall. There's no physics or anything on the weapons when they're in your hands either so if you get in a fight and your gun pokes inside a wall...it stops shooting completely. Hit registration needs some work. Frankly I've only noticed this with the AK-47 mostly, but I have put my whole clip into someone and it does nothing. No kidding, I will see blood come out of them and everything and its as if I did nothing at all. Player guns point up in the air wildly, sometimes the guns are just clear over their head as they're running. The devs maintain a known issues list open for all players to see, and they also take bug reports and feedback on their discord server that you can join. So while there are bugs, the devs seems to be listening and making a good faith effort to fix them.
Now onto the good things about the game:
- A no brainer, the graphics are good. Environments, models, and weapons are all extremely detailed.
- The weapons are fairly unique. You've got your standard AK all the way up to a Laser Rifle.
- The atmosphere of the game is pretty good. The audio of the areas really sell the feeling that this is a hostile land with a scifi feel. Really good job there. (Gun audio hit or miss.)
- The maps are fairly varied when it comes to design, However they all share a similar theme so they can seem similar at times.
- The devs are supporting the game and listening. Even drop in to play some rounds. Really, they're pretty active in the discord server showing that they're still here for the game, which means a lot and makes me pretty hopeful for its future.
TL;DR:
I got it for free but gotta be honest here. I love it, but it's clearly unfinished. Would have been better released under early access. I can't recommend it currently at full price. Wish there was an inbetween recommendation. Wait for sale.
