Alien: Rogue Incursion Review (Scyushi)
Hmm.. right now I'll say it's a maybe.
There's a lot that Rogue Incursion does right, but a few things I'm concerned about.. I'm far too early in the game to give a proper review, but I thought I'd share my experience so far.
GOOD:
-It's actually trying to do something different. The environment is quite large, albeit a lot of corridors, and you'll have to revisit areas once you get tools later on, unlocking different pathways to more goodies.
-Alien battles are pretty dynamic. If you make enough noise you usually have to fight a couple of them, but ammo is limited so I wonder how much of it is smoke and mirrors.. being quiet seems to avoid conflict, but once a battle starts, you don't seem to be able to avoid a fight by sneaking or anything.
-There's a lot of contextual menus you can navigate with your hands. Like you physically put your finger on your map, then drag to move it like a touch screen. These little interactions are far better than the usual "point and click on it with a mouse cursor" most VR games opt-out for.
BAD:
-This is more a personal complaint, but the characters just don't shut up. It's really immersion breaking when aliens spawn in and my character warns me about it every time. There was also this cool part within the Alien hive that was ruined by how chatty the characters are.. it was a great chance to build up tension rather than exposition.
-Bad controls. This is probably the worst aspect of the game right now, but the control of your character is just awful. It's one of those VR games where your arms are super floaty and almost delayed behind your real physical movement. I assume they did this to make combat more clunky on purpose, to make fights more intense, but it severely needs to be tuned down in my opinion.. I can barely pull my assault rifle out without it flopping all over the place, which doesn't feel right with how fast the aliens are. You NEED quick response time.
Another small complaint with the controls might be an index thing, but this was clearly designed for PSVR and Quest, because the grip on those controllers is a simple on/off button press, while the index you have to physically grip the controller.. problem is you have to grip REALLY HARD in order to have my hands actually grab something.
CONCLUSION:
Despite my complaints, I think this might actually be worth picking up. It is VERY expensive for a VR game, which is why my critiques might seem a bit harsh, but the controls are the worst aspect of the game right now, it's just not very responsive, thus not as immersive, thus not as fun as it could be.
My main worry is "will the game evolve" or is it trying to trick me into thinking it's more than it is?
Is Alien Rogue Incursion truly going to have Metroid elements, similar to Alien Isolation? Or is it all window dressing for an otherwise linear shooter that won't have any replay value once you complete it.
Let's also not forget that nowhere in the marketing does the game admit this is "Part 1", so there's a high probability that Part 2 will be another full price game or paid DLC.. or maybe this game was rushed and simply isn't complete yet, with Part 2 content coming later?
That's the thing, nobody really knows because they weren't very forthcoming about it, and that has me concerned.
Anyways, I'll report more once I've gotten further. Even if this is a simple one-and-done, at the very least, it's trying to do things a little different. As far as this type of VR game is concerned, Rogue Incursion has a LOT going for it.. it just needs touched up a bit.