It has been some time since I performed a recreation as effortlessly cool as Underdogs. This VR mech-combating recreation has you pilot an enormous mechanical gorilla, pummelling robots and human-controlled mechs with arms the size of lorries in grungy, trap-filled arenas. The fight alone is chest-thumpingly good, however Underdogs {couples} it with a fantastically evocative cyberpunk setting, and a well applied rogue-like construction.
Earlier than the present kicks off correct, a fast preamble from the pundits. That is the primary VR recreation I’ve performed utilizing Valve’s new(ish) Steam Hyperlink characteristic, and talking as a Quest consumer, it does a much better job of letting you play Steam VR video games wirelessly than Oculus Air Hyperlink does. For starters, you now not have to load up the Oculus App earlier than Steam VR, lowering the variety of menu overlays that you must work by means of from three to 2.
Furthermore, the expertise Steam Hyperlink affords is far smoother and extra steady than Air Hyperlink. The previous couple of video games I performed with Air Hyperlink continuously devolved into an unplayable slideshow, whereas checking any menu threatened to crash the sport completely. Switching to Steam Hyperlink was paddling a canoe throughout a pond after dragging the factor over two miles of rocks. Steam Hyperlink does require you to obtain the app onto your Oculus headset, however that is a small inconvenience for the improved expertise it affords.
Proper, onto the primary occasion. Within the pink nook, we’ve got Rigg and his youthful brother King. Rigg is a gifted however unlicensed mech fighter. King is a whizz hacker who broke into the mainframe of the world’s authoritarian AI to forge a combating license. Within the blue nook, in the meantime, is that AI, which subsequently painted a goal on King’s again and is persistently making an attempt to counter-hack into his cybernetically enhanced thoughts. Hunted, the pair flee to New Brakka, the one human-controlled metropolis on the planet, which additionally occurs to be the hub for brutal underground mech fights. The plan is easy: rise to the highest of the ranks to allow them to get afford the tech wanted to get King out from underneath the AI’s thumb.
Written out like that, the plot sounds a bit daft. However Underdogs tells it so properly that it cruises previous any logical inconsistencies. The story’s associated by means of static comic-book panels drawn in a closely inked shading fashion a-la Darkest Dungeon. These are all introduced to capitalise upon VR’s sense of scale and perspective, the sport enjoying with them panel-to-panel simply as a bodily comedian e book would. The script, in the meantime, is written and voiced in a naturalistic MLE dialect that works fantastically within the recreation’s dirty cyberpunk setting. The impact is that, though you by no means actively expertise this world exterior of fights, it looks like a fleshed out, plausible place, one which arguably has a extra coherent id than a sure different, glossier cyberpunk recreation.
As for what you do on this world, the brief reply is “combat”. Every run has you climbing a ladder of arena-based matches, restarting on the backside in the event you fall off. You expertise these fights from contained in the cockpit of the Gorilla (aka ‘Rilla’) Rigg and King’s do-it-yourself warfare machine. Attacking an enemy whereas contained in the Rilla is so simple as swinging your arms at it, with the Rilla’s gangly metallic limbs mimicking your actions.
Preventing successfully, nevertheless, is extra sophisticated. For starters, the sport tracks injury based mostly on the arc of your punch, so straight, karate-style ahead thrusts will not do a lot good right here. As a substitute, you are after large, overarm haymakers, the sort that’ll have your shoulders and triceps burning the next day. As well as, you do not simply use your arms to assault, you additionally use them to maneuver, dragging your self ahead in your knuckles. You should utilize this identical manoeuvre to bash your opponent together with your chest, which may do extra injury than punching and knock enemies off their ft. But it surely additionally exposes your cockpit to potential injury, and since you may’t actually block assaults (at the least, not initially), that you must time chest-bashes rigorously to keep away from collateral injury.
All of this provides Underdogs’ scraps a particular flavour. Within the thick of battle, you actually do really feel like a rampaging silverback, lumbering ahead together with your arms, barrelling enemies over together with your chest, after which slamming them repeatedly whereas they’re on the bottom. It is kinetic, tactile, and deeply satisfying. The dynamic commentary out of your child bradda is superb too. He gees you up while you land a superb strike, frets while you take injury. His traces are a fantastic private contact amid the roar of the silhouetted crowd.
Every rung of the sport’s problem ladder options a number of exhibition matches earlier than you battle that individual space’s boss. These earlier bouts pit you towards nonhuman enemies like mechanical pit-dogs and beetle-like robots. These are enjoyable to combat, though the problem right here as a lot about crowd management as it’s fight method. The boss fights towards different mechs are undoubtedly the spotlight, animalistic boxing matches the place you duck and weave to keep away from their assaults, discover a hole to land a few of your personal, and panic once they inevitably unleash their second-phase gimmick.
In between fights, you come back to a small turn-based map the place you may restore your mech and purchase new upgrades for it. There’s nothing radical occurring right here, however Underdogs makes use of these quieter moments so as to add additional color to the world, mixing this preparation part with random story occasions. In a single instance, a mechanic I visited unintentionally botched my mech’s restore, panicked, took off, and disappeared perpetually.
There are a few minor quibbles. I want Underdogs allow you to regulate your mech’s gear at any level in the course of the preparation part, reasonably than forcing you to attend till simply earlier than a combat. That is primarily since you would possibly obtain or purchase some cool new tech instantly throughout this part, then neglect to equip it when it is combating time. Additionally, choosing places to go to throughout prep might be unnecessarily fiddly, with the controllers typically struggling to spotlight menu icons.
Nonetheless, Underdogs is comfortably essentially the most gratifying VR recreation I’ve performed this 12 months, a particular, thrilling first-person brawler with a cyberpunk setting that hits each bit as arduous as its artificial simian slugger. Transfer over, Blade & Sorcery, there is a new contender on the town.
