Apex Construct (PS VR) Review - A solid and full-fledged PlayStation VR game

nehashetty (58)in #gaming • 6 years ago (edited)

There you are, in a futuristic world, the only person. The world as you know it is no longer and you are lonely. You are not alone, however, because in the distant future it is the AI that has a lot of control over life on this beautiful planet. In Apex Construct you end up in this situation where, under the guidance of the AI Fathr, you get all sorts of jobs to get rid of his opposite - Mothr. An interesting concept that you will experience entirely in virtual reality, but is everything as it seems?

A good adventure

Apex Construct has a very interesting story, because for Fathr you are going to do all sorts of chores that eventually lead to a larger result. Because Fathr speaks and accompanies you right from the first minute, you faithfully follow his instructions. Yet you will gradually get more and more hints about the adventure that not everything is up to scratch. A good example of this is that your left arm is now mechanically caused by a somewhat unfortunate incident, according to Fathr. A few hours in the game, however, you come across an audiolog of a predecessor who also had a mechanical arm and who was perfectly adjusted to the bow that you also have at your disposal.

This gives the impression that there was not an annoying incident, but that Fathr deliberately replaced your arm. So you will regularly receive information where you notice that something is not right. Whether Mothr is actually so bad, as Fathr says, we leave that in the middle. Her way of reacting and acting does not, however, promote your image of her. Although, her hostility is also well understood. In short, the story is easy to follow and is presented to you in an interesting way. On the one hand by good voice-acting by Fathr, which is somewhat manipulated, making it sound excellent as a robot.

On the other hand because you encounter notes everywhere in the world with some information and we do not have to forget the terminals that you have to deal with in a classic way. Starting with 'dir' which you literally have to test yourself on a keyboard. The files that the terminal contains are then displayed and with 'open ~ filename' you open the relevant file. This gives you new information about what predecessors have done, but you can also retrieve information such as passwords and more. This is necessary in order to get further in the adventure. This alone indicates that the developer of Apex Construct has made more than the umpteenth thirteen in a dozen VR game.

No turning around

The voice-acting, both by Fathr and Mothr, sound very cool. The information you encounter in the world has been drawn up in various ways and gives you little by little more information about what has happened. Playing with the terminals is nice and the whole looks very good visually. In fact, you can easily read texts on notes and computer screens and that is not always possible in VR games. In that respect, Apex Construct is a great game, but that is not all that the gameplay has to offer. Because you are working for Fathr, Mothr will try to stop you and she does that with machines.

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Very regularly you are confronted with a kind of mechanical spinning, as well as turrets, dogs and more. These creatures want you to graze and fire orbs at you. Babysitting is the motto here, because you lay down so badly if you are hit too often and that goes fairly easily. The only way to defend yourself is to position yourself well and use your bow. This way you can shoot arrows with the bow, but you can also activate a shield with it to pick up incoming orbs. During the fighting with the machines you will alternate between them regularly, since you can not use your shield and arrows at the same time. Watching, defending, fast firing and defending again is the best solution and that can be quite challenging.

In the first place because you can not have much and in the second place because the steering feels a little too limited. The entire game works on the basis of teleporting. With the push of a button and move your Move controller you go the direction you want to go. Once there, you can turn 180 degrees at the touch of a button, but it is not possible to turn it yourself with a 90 degree angle. So you are often - certainly when fighting - busy to position yourself feverishly well without being bobbed. The way the game plays is very nice, but the loss of 90 degrees is quickly noticeable, because sometimes you have to maneuver yourself into very strange corners if you want to be able to hit an enemy.

What does not make it easier is for the enemies to move in all directions and also to walk around you. The result is that you are suddenly attacked from behind, because you overlook one of them because the change of perspective works at 180 degrees. This can become very frustrating later in the game, because teleporting is not the fastest way to move forward and certainly not in situations where multiple machines are firing at you. The only solution you have for this is to play the game standing, which makes it just a bit more playable. But it is still not ideal and it is a pity that there are not a lot more spin options in the game.

Enemies shoot with sharp

You can disable the various machines that you encounter during your adventure with the mentioned bow, but here you also get alternative options. In the first instance you only have ordinary arrows at your disposal, but soon an electric arrow is added, which you need to eliminate shields from enemies. A bit later in the game you get explosive arrows at your disposal, but the difference with the normal arrow is that they are not infinitely available. They have to charge and that takes some time. In addition, you will find here and there grenades that you can throw towards the enemies to switch them off faster, you can also use the environment. So in terms of resources you have something at your disposal, but do not underestimate the enemies.

They move quickly and defensively and at times they are difficult to tackle because they hide behind objects. That certainly gives the game some form of challenge and that is very cool. A disadvantage, however, is that not every arrow that you fire is actually counted as a rake attack. That can be frustrating, especially in heavy fights where enemies do not stand still. You also have to focus completely on your own estimation, because the game does not have a cross-hair, but that fits well with this type of games in VR. That makes the experience a bit more realistic and intense.

Conclusion

Apex Construct is a fascinating game that feels like a solid and full-fledged PlayStation VR game. It has several nice elements and the gameplay can be called varied with a nice form of puzzles. Both AIs are equipped with strong voice-acting, although manipulated, but that benefits the experience. This makes it a great game for PlayStation VR, but it is annoying that the navigation feels too strict, so you regularly panic at your end because you do not react fast enough and moves on the enemies. Even the loss of credits can be very annoying, but nonetheless it is an entertaining and fun adventure that is visually very pleasant.

➕ Beautiful levels
➕ Good voice-acting
➕ Shooting with the bow is a lot of fun
➕ Use of PlayStation Move works well and accurately

➖ Navigate unnecessarily limited
➖ Arrows are not always registered as tangent
➖ Loss of credits at death is frustrating

Thanks for reading.