Alexander Davidson

Having played Zero Hour from release, hearing that the sequel was coming for the VR2 I was beyond excited especially with the new features that were announced. With how well the first was done, particularly with the limitations of the first headset, it could only be an improvement. Unfortunately, it fumbled at the starting blocks. My biggest issue is that it does little to justify itself as a VR game. The Aim controller for the first was amazing but it tied the use of both hands to one controller, so button presses to interact could be excused. Now with the freedom to use each hand independently you would expect to be able to interact with the environment as VR is supposed to be 'tactile'. Pretty much everything has to be done with buttons; ADS (L2) in a VR game...Seriously? Opening doors (L1), reviving (L1), picking up crypto (L1) - L1 also really gets in the way of gripping you gun, so oftentimes you are doing an action that you don't mean to do - holding a face button to bring up the weapon wheel, etc A lot is also controlled with you eyes. Sounds great, but it is overused in a gimmicky fashion. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it were just menus but when you're selecting weapons from a weapon wheel with your eyes instead of actually reaching to your hip or shoulder to grab one or throwing a grenade with your eyes whilst trying to keep an eye on the action - it's just not intuitive. Pavlov proves it can be done well The other biggie for me is that the game is not rewarding to play. There is a progression system but it is excruciatingly slow. You barely build up any experience or crypto in each match and it is insanely frustrating, especially given how expensive items are meaning you are stuck with the basic loadout for hours upon hours. I know 'assignments' are on the way, but how much they'll help I don't know The other issue was getting a match. The servers are slow at matchmaking and the time between matches was silly, although I know this has now been partially fixed with 30 seconds between matches On the positives, it looks good and firefights can be intense proving that there is potential there. The groundwork has been laid but it feels as if it was not ready to be released yet. I do have faith in FCE though and do think they'll massively improve the game but initial impressions have been disappointing