The virtual reality platform has seen its share of good games and bad. Some of those good games provided a profound experience that reminded people how wonderful VR can be. Iron Man VR showed us that we could take off with Tony Stark’s suit and fly high in the sky and become that superhero that we always wanted to be. Then there are games like Detached that showed us how to properly fall over in VR and potentially get a hefty amount of motion sickness as our brain is convinced that we can spin 360 degrees. Regardless of which type of game you may run into, VR still has a place in this industry, even with a finite number of games that show off what it’s about in an entertaining way.
Of course, there are games like Crossfire: Sierra Squad that sit squarely in the middle, where a good experience can be had but there are some elements of its gameplay that bring it down just a bit. The game sports a low-key Call of Duty personality that puts you in the scrum of things without all the unnecessary over-the-top drama that typically comes with CoD titles. It sports that low-key personality and reveals itself as a VR arcade shooter driven by a minor amount of intensity, backed by a helluva lot of weaponry, and on occasion puts the PlayStation VR 2 to some good use. Where it falls short is story, longevity, and performance.
So, dear readers, let me take you into the danger zone with this review. Lock and load, peeps.
Virtual Reality done well, but on a base level
The setup for Smilegate Entertainment’s Crossfire: Sierra Squad is that things have gone sideways for some soldiers, and they must fight their way out of bad situations while testing new weaponry as they progress through the game. Nothing terribly over-the-top going on and nothing too revolutionary when it comes to shooters in general. Simply put, this is a game that ‘is’ when compared to other arcade shooters of its type. The rub is that this is in VR, which puts the player in the middle of the scrum.
With a VR experience, you want to feel what is happening in the game, which is part of the journey with the platform. Feeling the need to pull a grenade pin, pull back your arm, and throw a grenade instead of hitting a button is being squarely in the VR space. Even having to worry about reloading during a firefight by reaching for an ammo pack and placing it where the ammo goes in a gun (and in different places for different weapons) is what makes the VR experience just a bit extra. In this respect, Crossfire: Sierra Squad works well. It does what it says it will do with the player and brings a VR experience along with a solid shooting experience that makes you work for the end-level completion. No doubt it does a fantastic job of making the VR part of this experience cool.
Now, just because it is in VR and wants you to feel like you’re on the battlefield having to worry about surviving doesn’t mean that it gets there with a full firefight experience. I’m sure if it got to that level of realism, most people would not want to play it. Anyway, Crossfire: Sierra Squad is akin to playing a VR version of Lethal Enforcer. You essentially don’t stray too far from a single ranged area, and you shoot enemies coming from all directions. The game gives you some hope here and there that you will be moving into this vast world comparable to CoD but it never quite gets there. That was disappointing, especially after the first mission in the game where I felt like we were going into a city and taking out some bad guys. My guy traversed a few parts of the same street, even hiding behind walls, but in hindsight, the environment was small, and not wanting to give too much space for the player to roam. It isn’t a bad decision because it is in VR, but it is still disappointing.
The positive view here is that the restrictiveness places Crossfire: Sierra Squad back in the arcade shooter family. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with being in that family. It brings quick bursts of fun and encourages you to replay the experience and do better, just like old arcade shooters in the 90s. The only knock is that the experience is restrictive and may not go far in the long run. That knock is also expected, as VR in general really isn’t meant to be a long-term, 60-hour experience. It’s digested in small doses, mainly due to the real VR fatigue that the platform knowingly carries with it. So, the type of game Crossfire: Sierra Squad is perfectly fits that typical VR bill, as the overall body of work is broken into small missions that are just enough for players to come and go as they please.
Beyond the small bits of missions, the game does its best to help break that story/campaign multi-mission gameplay up by offering up a Horde mode and a Squad mode. The latter of the bunch is self-explanatory. The Horde mode is essentially a game of survival that is driven by a leaderboard. You basically fend off soldiers relentlessly and do your best to be the last person standing. I played this mode a couple of times and while I didn’t last long, it changed up the experience enough to make this an actual second mode of entertainment for me to enjoy. I personally enjoy zombie-esque modes for shooters, so this helped to expand the value of this game. The rush of reloading, pointing, shooting, and reloading again was in full swing with this mode. It truly was a good additional mode to the overall package.
Overall, the gameplay with Crossfire: Sierra Squad isn’t anything unique for the arcade shooter genre. I think that the VR aspect makes it more than typical, but not too far from typical. This game offers enough to be entertaining but not much beyond what you would expect from a VR experience.
Weapons
A couple of impressive parts of the game are how the player interacts with weapons and the number of weapons at the player’s disposal. Before we get to the former, let’s discuss the latter. Right from the beginning of the game, you’ll be introduced to a firing range. At that range, you will find a bevy of guns to choose from, each reacting differently and properly as they should. You’ll find automatic, semi-automatic, shotguns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and even a box full of throwables. The range allows you to have fun with these items and shows off the game’s knack for arcade accuracy when using them.
The developers of Smilegate Entertainment did a superb job of designing these individual guns and how they react in-game. While I’m pretty sure that only a fraction of it is accurate to the actual weapons, it’s still a nice way to make the experience with these weapons different. For example, when firing a grenade launcher, you must put a good amount of arc on it to get it to go far. If you’re using a sniper rifle, you must push the trigger down lightly to get the character to take a breath, then shoot when the crosshairs are where they need to be. The game even goes as far as making you tilt your head and bring the sniper scope to your face to see down sights. All of it is done smoothly, accurately, and all while not causing much fuss for the player. Trying out the weapons is a huge positive for this title and one of the main reasons you want to play this game. How the player interacts with the weapons and what physical interaction they must do to get the most out of them is what makes this portion of the game incredibly cool.
Visuals are somewhere in the middle
The presentation value for Crossfire: Sierra Squad is mixed. On the good side of the tracks, the weapons and first-person view are outstanding. It feels like you’re holding a gun or throwing a grenade, and you can even see minute details on weapons to give that chef’s kiss to the shooting experience.
Now, on the NPC side of the tracks, it’s all bland models mixed with bad AI. The models seem to blend during firefights, almost losing all their uniqueness. The people firing automatics look like the people firing rockets. You can argue that this is an arcade shooter, so repeats are bound to happen, but if the game is good enough to provide detailed weapons that look fantastic, thus bringing up realism in the experience, then why couldn’t it push the NPCs a bit further? The PSVR2 is more than capable of doing both and I would have loved to see a bit more presentation go into the enemies you see more than the weapons. Having the enemies be a bit smarter than running out during a gunfight would have been nice as well. I killed so many enemies because they didn’t hide behind cover. Give the player a challenge and make them work for the kill.
Anyway, the only other issue with the presentation was the script and acting. While not Resident Evil bad (from the 90s), it still was a bit goofy in some areas. Again, this is an arcade shooter, so my expectations were not high for this piece of the presentation puzzle, as I just needed a narrative reason to shoot, so it provided one. Still, it was worth throwing it out there because it was noticeable.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Crossfire: Sierra Squad from Smilegate Entertainment is an arcade shooter that works in VR with its intense firefights and short stints of gameplay. While the gameplay is finite, especially with its linear backbone and restrictive areas of play, it still contains some charm that may remind VR owners that fun experiences are still out there.
