Battle Zone VR Preview

The original Battle Zone game released back in the 1980’s and gave influence to movies such as Tron, and now with the new PlayStation VR the latest incarnation doesn’t pull any punches with its tron like graphics with the added depth of immersive gameplay provided by the PlayStation VR headset.

This years EGX event I managed to play the six minute demo to get a feel for the next generation of gaming and I was not disappointed. The demo puts you in the Cobra, a medium class tank with weapons such as the Gatling gun and Missiles at your disposal to eliminate enemy tanks and gun placements.

Graphically you may look at Battle Zone and think it’s just generic bulky looking high resolution retro grade graphics, but you would be wrong as the attention to your cockpit and the surrounding environments is stunning and enhanced even more with the lighting effects as they reflect of surfaces, you really have to take a close look at the subtle details within the game to appreciate how good the visuals are.

Another aspect of Battle Zone that really had me excited was the Tank Movement, it was fast and fluid and felt responsive when you wanted to change direction, even though it was into the path of an enemy tank, you could easily retreat behind cover and plan your attack, this didn’t break up the gameplay and it helped you to survive a little longer.

I spoke to Robbie one of the PR staff for Rebellion games and he provided a great amount of facts that will appear in the final game, first of their will be no competitive multiplayer but the final game will not just have the campaign, but a four player campaign mode as well.

Battle Zone will offer gamers plenty of customisation options from the weapons on your tank to combining your Tank Classes to overcome the waves of enemies, meaning if four players go for Light tanks for fast movement will allow gamers to dodge incoming fire but will struggle if up against vast amounts of enemies, but the downside if you reverse that and all for players select the Heavy Tank class you may be slow but should be able to absorb more enemy fire, so most likely the best is to combine a mixture of Light,Medium & Heavy tanks to take on what is thrown at you.

The level design uses a Randomised Hexagonal zone system to plot out which route you want to take this will allow for some well designed non linear gameplay as you can choose what zone you would like to enter whether it’s to progress the story or gain more powerful weapons.

Even though it was only a six minute demo it felt very enriching and I was privileged to have a go at Battle Zone, during the demo there were moments that I almost died and even though you had infinite lives the challenge will be harder in the final game where you will have only three lives to work with.

SUMMARY

This years EGX allowed me to get my hands on the PlayStation VR for the first time, and I know there has been interactive games in the past, but the VR headset takes it to an all new level providing an even greater immersive experience what we have come to appreciate in  3D movies and similar Technology.

Even though these are Launch Titles for the PlayStation VR, you can expect the attention to detail in games such as Battle Zone will take a while to surpass.