Want to feel zombies and degenerate villagers attacking you? It takes a tough heart to strap on your VR headset and debut two of Sony’s newest PSVR 2 productions, Resident Evil Village and The Walking Dead: Saints
We often have the impression of dealing with prototypes and unfinished experiences in virtual reality. The games are usually shorter there, the concepts compete in ingenuity but they rarely offer finished works. This is not at all the case with Resident Evil Village in PSVR2, which takes up the entire scenario of Capcom’s magnificent game released in May 2021 to which we gave 4 and a half stars out of 5.
We will not claim to have redone in virtual reality all the game that we had then completed in 9 p.m. The rhythm to tame such a format is much slower, you can’t spend three or four consecutive hours there without coming out with a serious headache.
No wonder, the original game already triggered this feeling of claustrophobia and danger at all turns. We have passed the first three tables of Resident Evil Village PSVR2, where we have no choice to play in the first person. We personify Ethan Winters who wants to find his baby Rose in a cursed village in Eastern Europe.
From the first minutes, we are immersed in the horror of dozens of possessed villagers throwing themselves at us from all sides. Our two hands clearly visible, one of which is mutilated, we have to play fast to get out our weapons hanging from our chests. The knife is always available, a revolver is accessible on the left side and, by pulling the arm towards the right shoulder, one can take out his long weapon. These two weapons, as in any Resident Evil game, are sometimes completely useless when ammo runs out, which is inevitable.
The first moments, being glued to these bloodthirsty villagers is simply traumatic. Their face approaches you, they bite you and you have to struggle to escape. After a few fights, however, you get used to the proposal, which is so exaggerated that it becomes unreal. An unsuspected advantage of the PSVR 2, whose image is not as well defined as on a television, is that the note has been forced to highlight the clues that allow you to solve the puzzles. Keys, documents and tools that could easily have been overlooked in the classic version are more visible here.
The Walking Dead : SaintsÂ
At all times, a flashlight hangs from your jacket, a backpack hangs over your left shoulder, and a long gun hangs over your right shoulder.
Here, we had fun offering bloody variants to cross our enemies, with an axe, a chainsaw or with big punches when we have no choice. We go from the streets of New Orleans to ill-famed corners, abandoned bars or ruined buildings from which zombies emerge. And if you sometimes have to rack your brains to get out of trouble, it is more often a question of using your ammunition and your weapons in the right way. A long tutorial of almost half an hour prepares you for it.
Here too, the horror is so crude that it quickly loses its traumatic character.
Whether for Resident Evil Village or The Walking Dead, we are dealing here with finely crafted games, with very beautiful design, especially for the first game. The mechanics are however very frustrating in both cases: if we quickly manage to grasp his weapons in the classic version, by a few combinations of buttons on the joystick, the exercise is much more complicated in virtual reality. You have to simulate the gesture of going to get the weapon, which promotes immersion but requires skill. Not easy when armies of bad guys surround you.
The same goes for melee combat: make sure you have enough space because you’ll bump into the furniture in your room all the time. Make sure no one sees you. Looks ridiculous guaranteed.
Once again, we have the demonstration of a featherless prediction: no, virtual reality will not replace screens, not with current technology, at least. It is an absolutely tasty spice, impressive to experiment with, but which will not allow you long consecutive hours of adventures. Unless you have an inhuman tolerance for virtual reality.