This is dumb. No, that’s not right. This is dumb fun! Actually, Racket Club VR isn’t dumb fun, it’s intelligent fun. When a game can nail the physics of a variety of sports so well in virtual reality, you know that you’re going to have that stupid MQ3 headset strapped on for a while. And let me tell you, the physics are so good that the game worked me out to the point where the headset almost pushed a permanent indention into my noggin.
Now, it has been a while since I broke a sweat during a VR game, so let me congratulate developer Resolution Games for making a game of addictive tennis, pickleball, and everything that requires a ball/paddle game. It’s one of the more fun Meta Quest 3 games I have come across in 2024. Hell, this past year.
So, get those paddles and rackets ready, and make sure you have a firm grip on those balls. Let’s head right into the Racket Club VR experience.
Lots to play, addicted to the experience
In all honesty, I’ve been trying to make room for this game for the last two weeks. I received the code a good chunk ago but was playing catch-up on other games. This past week, I finally got around to it and, yeah, I’m kicking myself now for having played order of operation with my reviewing. I should have gone with the ‘intriguing’ order of operation. I certainly would have been a lot happier.
Anyway, reviewer guilt aside, this game is the real deal with about everything it does. Racket Club VR offers a large variety of different racket-based sports and all of them are an absolute blast. The game that I was hooked to for the majority of my time with it was confined to a one-on-one court that had me bouncing a ball off the walls to somehow out-duel my opponent in a game built on multiple sets with each match stopping at 11 points. The game is an easy structure and easily replayable should you quickly lose. And I can tell you from my end, the competition ain’t easy. Honestly, that’s just as well because I would rather play a game that gives me a game than not. Many sports games generally have a one-trick structure where it doesn’t flex its difficulty at all and tends to show its cards, but Racket Club VR ain’t one of them.
For more than a few hours, I was in a single-player, one-on-one tournament, and I couldn’t figure out the cracks in the armor of my opponent. And it wasn’t for a lack of trying. When I played the game, my opponent was various things, including kind and vicious. Those two AI measurements shifted in the blink of an eye. Most of the time when the ball was being hit back and forth, and when I specifically became aggressive during a match, the computer-based opponent matched it. When I decided to smack the ball back, they did it right back. When I decided to go easy, they went easy. What’s even more remarkable about the competition is that the opponent would detect my moments of comfort and disrupt them, which was something that most sports games simply do not do. It was impressive and I enjoyed the shift, and yes, it was frustrating, but damn, it was good. It took me around an hour and some change to get through my first two opponents in the game and when I finally won my first tournament, I felt very accomplished.
All this said the game had me coming back as much as it had me sweating. This VR experience worked me out. I haven’t worked out this much since reviewing BoxVR eons ago, and that was torture, but this was fun torture. Trust me, I’m all on board with finding a game that works me out, while not feeling like it’s work. It’s weird, there is a thin line between those two VR experiences, but this game stays on the good side.
Racket Club VR also got me in a mood that I had long since forgotten, where I wanted to press myself and do better in a sports scenario. I found myself wanting to get better, develop strategies, and come back in hopes of dominating my CPU opponent. It was weird wanting to come back over and over again to a game that kept handing me my ass, but that says a lot about how the game is constructed and how it works. It was built so well with its gameplay that you get hooked quickly and want to get right back in the game once you lose. You couldn’t ask for a better sports game in virtual reality.
Speaking of virtual reality, let’s talk about that aspect, which is vital for creating all of what we just went through.
Unmatched Physics
The physics in Racket Club VR are brilliant. You can spin a ball, you can hit perfectly at an angle, much like you would in real life if you were swinging a racket, and it just feels like everything is spot on where it needs to be to deliver a perfect VR experience. And I can’t express that enough because getting a VR experience right is not an easy task. I’ve played some great VR games in the past and there have always been some VR mechanic oddities during gameplay that took me out of the experience. Most of the time it was controls and physics. Catching, shooting, whatever the VR mechanics might be, but there have been few VR experiences that stand out as something that was perfectly done.
Racket Club VR is perfect with its mechanics. I’m not sure if it’s the MQ3 hardware the developers, or both (probably this), but it took me about five minutes to buy into racket movement, angles, and power. The racket movement dictated how hard you hit the ball, what type of spin you put on it, and the angle you could fire the ball back at the CPU. Nothing felt like it was off in these categories, which is a huge plus when it comes to emulating a racket-based sports VR gaming experience. I loved it and never had to worry about the game malfunctioning with mechanics. I just had to worry about how horrible I was doing.
Anyway, all of the mechanics and physics of the game felt accurate. They didn’t get in the way of the experience and this might be the first big VR game I will return to regularly not called Beat Saber. It was honest-to-God that good.
Now, there were some issues with the opponent animation at times, though none of it affected the match. Once in a blue moon, the CPU animation would get twisted and turned the wrong way and kind of get stuck. They were still able to return the ball just fine, but they looked odd doing it. Most of it was humorous, though once in a blue moon I couldn’t predict how and where they were trying to swing. It doesn’t mean that it hurt the gaming experience, but it was weird to look at when it happened. Is it a problem enough to affect the gameplay? Nah, but it was odd.
Overall, the gameplay mechanics for Racket Club VR were perfect. I enjoyed them, which helped sell the experience in VR. While some will complain there may not be enough to do, the amount of time I spend in VR on any given basis was satisfied with the Racket Club VR experience thanks to the mechanics and competition.
Anyway, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Racket Club VR from developer Resolution Games nailed the racket-based sports VR experience with perfect mechanics and equally good physics. This game was built for the competitive sports type and did a great job of bringing the racket-based sports experience to life in virtual reality. One can only hope that more Meta Quest 3 games take this type of care in their design.
