All of the gameplay design choices made by First Contact Entertainment seem to be more on the good side of the scale rather than the bad. The menus could use some improvement and simplification, and maybe the eventual addition of a campaign, but nothing that can’t be corrected in post. What you get with the design is good controls, lots of room for error during the game, intense gameplay with a smooth vantage point, and maps to get lost in when you want to get lost in them. The loadouts, the options of how to conquer your enemy will be the driving point to the gameplay. That’s never a bad thing when those options are in the positive.
I have never played a first-person shooter in VR before, so it was quite a new experience when Sony sent us Firewall Zero Hour via email for the PSVR. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from it because most of what has been pushed out for VR in general lately has been short experiences without much substance. The new modern VR makes this understandable as you don’t want VR to be a bad experience, and you don’t want to get potential customers sick in the process. Taking it nice and slow is probably the healthier way to establish VR-based gaming.
Anyway, let me return to the subject at hand, Firewall Zero Hour. Typically, as most of you know, because you love FPS games — otherwise why would you be reading this review, having a third-person gaming/couch viewpoint for an FPS experience (because you’re staring at a television) doesn’t necessarily put you into the game. Yes, you’re looking through the eyes of your character, but it’s far away from your face. There is still a disconnect there. You get there from a distance, but not really engulfing your senses into the eyes of a hero or villain with a gun. Again, it’s technically more of a third-person vantage point than it is first-person. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but for comparison sake, it’s a different experience than what you’re going to find in VR.
Firewall Zero Hour takes you further with that vantage point. It puts you in those eyes, up close and personal, and the way you know how to play FPS titles will change because of this new perspective. That was the first jarring part of this experience. Knowing that I’m looking out of my own eyes into the space in front of me without any additional space left me and my television. I’m in the freaking game, as there is no other way to put it. Of course, that is the experience we’re all looking for when we play VR. That’s what separates this medium from the previous. That’s also what makes FZH so good because developer First Contact Entertainment really does a great job of keeping you focused and engaged with the environment, as well as making you depend on your sense of danger because of how close that FPS vantage point is now in the gameplay experience. It’s impressive to see in action. That’s the core gameplay of this design and the reason why you want to put yourself in that scenario with the PSVR.
On the technology side of the tracks, I know that PSVR gives you limited options when it comes to head tracking. With an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift, you have motion sensors placed in the room that cover your body and head movement. It’s easy to move and have your movement mimicked because of those sensors. The PSVR depends on the PlayStation camera to help track you. Due to that, there is some limitation on movements, typically, as not all sides of you are covered. For some reason, First Contact Entertainment has figured out how to perfect the movement on the screen, even with these limitations. I’m not sure how, but Firewall Zero Hour works really well when it comes to doing simple things like movement and when it comes to pulling off quick aiming down sight and signaling one’s teammates, even when the signals are simple. My point here is that the technology works really well for this game. It does a good job of using the strengths of the technology without being held back by the limitations of it. In short, I’m impressed.
As for other gameplay design decisions, the game is a bit hit and/or miss in some important aspects. The biggest complaint I have for the game is the confusing menu system, which can be updated and corrected. Good design equals out to two big things:
1) Users not getting lost within the menu system.
2) Users not getting confused by their choices.
The first in that list was a big problem for me with FZH. Since the game is PvP only, going into the lobby, selecting your loadout (which is amazingly deep), and then going into the game should be pretty simple. I can say that two out of three is simple, but getting the game to launch isn’t as obvious. There is no ‘Ready’ button, rather ‘Ready’ is based on a certain set timeframe before the game launches. Literally, there is a clock above the character select screen that is counting down. I can dig that, but locating that time isn’t obvious onscreen, and the font is not huge characters. It also blends into the background a bit as well, which is probably initially what had me lost. Anyway, because the countdown is not readily obvious, I found myself backing out of the game several times (and probably pissing off the other players in the process) in hopes of trying to find how to communicate that I was ‘Ready’ to go. I honestly didn’t know how to launch the thing. When I found the time, I felt incredibly dumb, but at the same time, it could have been located in a better place. Long story short, you get a set time to get ready before the game launches. Remember that and don’t be embarrassed if that wasn’t obvious.
The second point on that list above is equally vital to the gameplay experience. The menu needed to have some girth to it, so I get why First Contact Entertainment did what they did with their menu system (labeling everyone thing from tutorials, training, challenges, and PvP), but the game felt like it should have had some more to it than it did, as my expectations for what type of game I was getting into was dashed when truly the only real selection of gameplay was PvP. There wasn’t a campaign, which made me sad. There wasn’t a lot of tutorial to go through over and over. The challenges aren’t individual challenges, rather a collection of things to do. So, the girth of the list was diminished because the only thing to actually choose was PvP. Just knowing that PvP is the main body of work in the game would have been visually easier to understand without the unnecessary additional options to get my hopes up. At this point in the VR medium, I’m not sure you need to convince your players that your game is bigger than what it is, as people are more interested in short experiences that are fun, rather than big experiences that are bulky and meaningful. As I have found out in the last 2-3 years with VR headsets, the experiences rarely last an hour at a time, so while I would have liked a campaign, I would have liked less filler.
Anyway, all of the above criticism aside, these things are fixable through an update or future additions to the game. I’m not incredibly worried about them at all, thus they will not impact the final review score heavily.
What will impact the score is how much fun the game is, and it is quite fun. The maps are huge, as they should be, some multi-tier. I’m not talking about Battlefield huge, more like half-CoD map sizes, but big for VR experiences. The multi-tier depth of the maps is impressively fun. For example, there is a map where it’s a staged battle indoors, literally fake walls, but a giant staircase hovers over the entire map. The staircase, which is cheat-y as hell (I’m bitter because I get nailed from there all the time) allows for a bird’s eye view of the entire map. Regardless, I love the map and think it’s creepy/cool. Most of the maps I experienced are great. The first one I played was a giant mansion where the enemies came from the outside to within. The mansion was detailed, huge, and you had to be aware of the window areas because that’s where people generally came through before killing you. The environments take on an entirely new set of experiences from map to map, as their construction is a lot more important to the gameplay in a true first-person viewpoint.
As for the actual gameplay, and first-time users will need to take some time to get used to it, especially if you’ve never been in the military and have never experienced trying to find armed individuals in real life, it’s quite intense. Moving around corners methodically, checking your six, and making sure you’re in the best possible spot when the enemy arrives is more real than you think in a game like this. The game allows you, through some decent tracking of the headset via the PlayStation camera, to peek around corners, adjust your arms and aiming, as well as provide multiple solutions to taking down your enemy. The latter includes special items such as grenades and items such as motion mines that you can plant on walls. There are a lot gameplay design decisions that lead you to a richer experience of being in the situation handed to you in FZH.
Now, one concern you might have going into the game, especially with all the options of movement and the girth of the maps, is if you’re going to get motion sickness. When your brain is firmly attached to the visual scenario in VR, you’re going to convince your brain that you’re in that scenario. It expects certain amounts of movement and doesn’t take too kindly to things like quick turns and running — at least not yet. The game does a good job of keeping you from getting motion sickness by using the right thumbstick to move quickly from angle to angle, but not in a smooth manner, rather a popping into a certain viewpoint manner (it’s all the rage in VR gameplay design now). The left thumbstick will allow you to progress (running, walking, crouching), and your head movement will also dictate direction, if you let it (you can use it or the right thumbstick). Regardless of your choice, the movement of the character is spot on and impressive and does its best not to get you sick. That’s incredibly vital for the longevity of a VR experience.
All of the gameplay design choices made by First Contact Entertainment seem to be more on the good side of the scale rather than the bad. The menus could use some improvement and simplification, and maybe the eventual addition of a campaign, but nothing that can’t be corrected in post. What you get with the design is good controls, lots of room for error during the game, intense gameplay with a smooth vantage point, and maps to get lost in when you want to get lost in them. The loadouts, the options of how to conquer your enemy will be the driving point of the gameplay. That’s never a bad thing when those options are in the positive.
If you own a PSVR and you’re dying for an FPS experience, then you should really check this one out.
