Some games or experiences just seem perfect for VR. Recently I reviewed Crytek’s The Climb, a first person rock-climbing experience that is pretty great in VR, but it’s an experience that simply would not be as valuable in non-VR gaming. ADR1FT is kind of like that too, and you can actually play this game in Desktop mode if you’d like. It’s obviously going to be a much more engrossing experience in VR though, which is how I played it.
The experience begins with a short training module that gives you a glimpse of some of the impressive 460Km above Earth views you’re going to see in the main game. You’ll also learn the important functions of your EVA suit, including what’s positioned where in the HUD (radar, status messages, oxygen meter), and the all important movement controls. Given that you’re floating about in zero gravity, the EVA’s suits propulsion system has to be understood and used to navigate around efficiently. Opens to propel forwards, backwards (neat seeing your legs and feet kick out as you do this), to the sides, up and down, and even barrel-roll are all controlled from the comfort of your gamepad.
Comfort being a relative word here because if it sounds like ADR1FT could make you motion sick, you’re probably right. You can pause the game anytime with the Start button and also tunnel-vision yourself by pressing and holding B, which limits your scope of view to a narrow 2D circle and blocks out everything else. This has been of aid to me and it’s a lot better than just taking off the HMD and setting it aside for several minutes. While ADR1FT is not perfectly comfortable, it’s also not as bad as Dreadhalls when it comes to motion sickness. Part of this has to stem from the initially-surprising fact that ADR1FT does not do full head tracking and that’s because your character is inside a space suit and you can’t see behind you anyway. You will have to make some head adjustments to look at the HUD, in fact I would often close one eye to get a better read of the information because it felt too close to my face otherwise. But yes, actual turning of your view is done with the right stick of the gamepad. I think minimizing head tracking movement helps keep motion sickness issues down which keeps me playing longer, which is the ultimate goal.
More specifically in ADR1FT, the goal is to escape and get back home. You awaken suddenly in space, your ankle tethered to a part of the space station you were commander of. Thankfully, you were unable to drift aimlessly into space due to being tethered, but even though you survived the catastrophe that caused your crew and space station to be destroyed, your problems are only just beginning. The EVA suit is damaged with various functions needing repair, including a pesky oxygen reserve leak that requires you to find, navigate to, and snatch floating oxygen canisters all around the destroyed base. Other than the potential motion sickness if you really even want to count that, it’s the constant threat of suffocation that makes ADR1FT more than just a ‘walking/zero grav simulator’ or casual affair. You don’t have to worry about fighting off aliens or anything like that, but you do have to worry about your oxygen running out and colliding with objects strewn about in the area to avoid further damage to your suit.
Balancing propulsion (which, due to the initial state of the suit, requires shared oxygen from life support) and your ability to breath is a good design element that keeps players moving, but moving efficiently. The oxygen leak will keep you going forward because you have to find more O2, but, you can’t move too fast or too inefficiently or you burn yet more oxygen. Getting right up to the floating oxygen canisters takes just enough effort to be a little bit tense; as you get close to it, you hold X to have Alex reach out and grasp for it as you coast into it. The oxygen gets applied within seconds, but the intensity of running out, especially as you’re crossing over open space towards another part of the space station with Earth below you, is unique and awesome.
ADR1FT has twenty-five collectibles in the form of IDs of your crew that you can keep an eye out for and snag as well. Your primary goal though is to prep the escape pod and get back to Earth, but doing so requires traversing around the space station for different components needed to get it going. Terminals with additional back story can be accessed to and these provide a brief respite from the 360 degree world as well as these terminals fill up your screen while you’re accessing them.
Overall, you can expect a four to six hour adventure here and one that is almost equal parts intense as it is oddly relaxing. There are times in ADR1FT when things feel more under your control than others, and it’s during these moments that you can relax just a little bit and enjoy the impressive spectacle. In any event, ADR1FT is a great launch VR experience that gets a lot more right than wrong.
To the summary…
