Not unless you want that inheritance a litter early.Crossfire: Sierra Squad Release Date, Gameplay, Story, and Details Put it this way: This isn’t the game to put on for your nan to show her what VR is all about. Of course, the “being there” nature of VR helps with this, but Supermassive deserves credit for relentlessly going for the throat. I’ve played an awful lot of horror games over the years, and I can say without question that this is the most scared I’ve ever been. These criticisms aside, I’d still very much recommend Switchback VR if you think you can stomach it. The environments seem low-res with textures and detail that pop in, the enemies often aren’t animated well, the load times are atrocious for PS5 standards, and the general level of polish is such that I couldn’t help but feel this came out the oven too soon – a post-level screen showing your route on the rollercoaster is so ugly I could barely believe my eyes. ![]() Switchback is rough in comparison, even by VR standards. The studio has had some issues with quality over the years, but at its best the games have looked pretty marvelous. Despite the immersion on offer in Switchback VR I felt the overall presentation was under par for the platform and Supermassive. It’s not all rosy in this prickly bush of an on-rails shooter. ![]() I had to have a nice walk around my garden for five minutes after that. I really don’t want to spoil things, but one scene that removes guns from the player and plays on the haptics in the headset was truly grotesque. The sense of being on a roller-coaster is also top notch, to the point that certain steep track sequences left my stomach feeling rather vulnerable, made even more precarious by some scares that ripped right through me. The tension is superb, the pace is excellent, and the shooting works as you’d expect. Fans will certainly get more out of this than everyone else, but I wouldn’t call it an essential play as the core gameplay is so wildly different to what those games offer.Īs a thrill-ride, Switchback VR succeeds. The Curator, the only regular across all the games, appears here, but more like how you’d occasionally see the G-Man in Half-Life – mostly off to the side, in the background, not really doing much. In fact, even the links to Dark Pictures aren’t brilliant. How this roller-coaster ride through the various themed zones fits with the overarching story that’s centered on a train/subway crash isn’t entirely clear, but it’s fair to say that the story isn’t the reason to play Switchback VR. The rollercoaster-style setup really works. Some even react to blinks, moving to new locations when you open your eyes again – an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. An ungodly cast of horrors will come at you from all angles, leap from doors, erupt from pools of blood, and generally just do all they can to mess you up. While there are some events that can have an impact on what plays out in front of you, the cause-and-effect nature of the core games in this franchise has essentially been thrown out in favour of terror-induced panicked shooting at a variety of horrid enemies. You’ll ride a theme park cart on an actual rail through a couple of levels for each of the four games in the Dark Pictures series to date. ![]() It’s a game that pulls your attention one way only to snap your neck back with a jump scare likely to cause whiplash and panic about if you bought stain remover in your latest shop. More importantly, it’s a game that revels in making players shit their pants (hyperbolically, but perhaps also in reality in some cases – I can’t speak to everyone’s experience). Switchback VR, a follow-up to Supermassive Games’ Rush of Blood, is an on-rails lightgun-style shooter, this time set in the Dark Pictures universe. Does it feel like The Dark Pictures to you? It's fairly different. ![]() Switchback VR is simply too scary for me to take in anything other than short bursts. In the enclosed VR environment combined with the kind of stomach churns you’d expect at a theme park, I genuinely had to take a break for fear I’d keel over. When your heart rate rises like this, it feels completely different to physical activity. That’s not exercise territory, but it’s the highest it got that day and far above the resting rate. I checked my watch’s heart rate data immediately after coming off a session of Switchback VR.
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