Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series – Episode 1

By Dan Stapleton

After so many hours of Beat Saber, I must say that I felt really good about having officially licensed sound effects as I rocked my honest lightsaber in Good Quality, in Vader Immortal: Star Wars VR Series – Episode 1 (on three) . This 45 minute Star Wars game (which is exclusive to Oculus Quest at launch) is quite simple from a mechanical point of view and the story has not yet resulted in such an interesting result, but it holds what has been promised: immerse yourself in the Star Wars universe. .

The story goes that Vader was picking up your generic replacement character and your sassy droid sidekick (voiced by Maya Rudolph) as part of a quest he had begun in Episode III: Sith Revenge; he needs someone from your force-sensitive lineage ("Surprise!", said no one) to search for a magical artifact of Mustafar's distant past. I would not call it particularly interesting so far, because the stylized cinematics tells the mystical origin of the artifact and its family ties with the feeling that it could have come from a fantastic tale without association with Star Wars but it takes us where we need to go.

Once inside the Vader Castle, you do not feel really distinctive next to your typical imperial fortress, but the good thing is that it's certainly nice to immerse yourself in as many sounds and sounds familiar to Star Wars. It's after all for what we are here! The limits of the Oculus Quest are hard to miss in places, though, and I could not help staring incredibly low polygon TIE bombers into the bay shed when I first arrived.

Face to face with the Sith Dark Lord himself is pretty impressive – you understand how imposing he is in his shiny black armor. (I'm 6 "4", and I had to watch it.) The animation is a little stiff and the quality of the Quest's texture does not let a lot of detail appear on his suit and chest panel , but voice actor Scott Lawrence sounds more like the original performance of James Earl Jones when he took over the role in the role of Rogue One: a Star Wars story of 2016. It's a shame they probably book the moment to spend sabers with him for the second or third episode, but it is certainly something to hope for.

There is a new imperial character who feels quite superfluous for Vader, considering that his distinguishing feature is a cyborg arm and a partial cybernetic face that gives him a deep, muted voice. In addition, it does not really do anything. We also meet Mustafarians in the story, and although they are perfectly part of the extras of the Mos Eisley Cantina, they have not done much to stand out from the rest of the menagerie Star Wars.

Very little of what Vader Immortal: Episode 1 will feel mechanically new or innovative for anyone who has already approached the VR block many times, but the different activities feel good together. It contains a handful of pleasantly tactile puzzles to open doors that involve tearing and reconfiguring control panels, climbing ladders and pipes by reaching out and pulling you toward the handles, deflecting the locks Incoming blaster that you are dropped like a softball field Little League, and of course, the lightsaber fight. (Yes, one of the first things I did with the lightsaber was to point it straight to my face and ignite it – I was only slightly disappointed not to die.)

Lightsaber battles are incredible at first. You watch your opponent droid wire his rotational and deflecting motion, giving you a return of rewarding haptic vibrations from the controllers and a sensitive animation of the enemy's locked blade, then you rip when his guard is down . Unfortunately, they do not separate like a Fruit Ninja melon at first touch, but at least it sounds spectacular and it's fast enough to be a lightweight challenge. The problem is that there are only two types of enemies with which you fight, and that one only appears for the workout, the other appears by a dozen to fight you one after the other. others with the same identical attack pattern, much more. long. Before this fight sequence was over, I had abandoned the fantasy and stepped forward to wave my hand of lightsaber around their face to end it as quickly as possible.

As far as controls are concerned, Vader Immortal offers now almost standard options for teleportation or free movement, with some customizations in between. The only thing that bothered me when I was using the free motion control option was the frequency at which the control was removed, which was blocking you on the spot.

Finally, there is a mode of training lightsaber in which you face waves of glider drones against which Luke fought when he held his lightsaber. You do not have to do it with a helmet protection shield to blind you as it was. So it's fun to do a few laps to avoid blaster shots and cut them in half when they get closer, but I do not expect to trade in Space Pirate Trainer for that.