I’ll admit that I went into COLD VR expecting big things. On the surface it had all the hallmarks of the kind of VR shooter experiences I love. My favourite VR blasters are SUPERHOT VR and Boneworks, both of which offer pinpoint level design and genuinely thrilling gunfights. COLD VR misses the mark slightly in both areas, and despite an attempt at immersive storytelling simply struggles to remain thrilling.
The USP here is that where SUPERHOT had time move only when you did, in COLD VR time slows down when you move instead. The premise is an intriguing one, but in execution just doesn’t have the same instant gratification. For a start it means that you moving quick causes incoming projectiles to move slower, and I just kept forgetting this effect as though my brain couldn’t grasp it.
COLD VR’s story is the usual VR spiel: a rogue AI has taken over the world, and the only way to defeat it and save humanity it to go into a virtual battleground and destroy endless AI enemies before fighting the AI directly. Regardless of how silly a premise this is (programming these battlegrounds would take ages, and who’s doing it?), it’s a simple set-up. Exposition comes from an amusingly terrified former employee of Allware, the company who made the AI. It’s presented via live action video and the actor is clearly having the time of his life. Sadly, his energy and verve just doesn’t translate to the gameplay.
An immediate red flag game in the lack of comfort options. You can’t sit down, raise or lower the screen height, or opt to have snap movement, so if you tend to get motion sick from smooth movement, this isn’t the game for you. There’s a small hub area you can go to between missions and train or mooch about, but it serves to highlight just how lacking COLD VR is in the visual department.
Now, SUPERHOT got plenty of life out of plain white rooms and shocks of red, but COLD VR struggles to do the same with its dull greys and blues. There’s very little detail or personality to any of the environments, and even though you’re supposed to be in a simulation, it just feels so, well, cold. What makers it feel worse is that death will usually send you all the way back to the start of the stage, and you’ll die a lot simply because it’s damn hard to dodge the bullets. This would be fine if it had decent checkpoints, but it doesn’t.
The shooting itself is precise and satisfying, but because of how the bullet physics work every time I stood still I got shot. It makes sticking your head out to take pot-shots incredibly frustrating, because standing still to take aim at a distant enemy means their bullets are coming at you at top speed and only slow when you move back into cover. It renders the entire core mechanic somewhat pointless.
A good spread of weapons helps, with katanas and “light-swords”, axes, claws, pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles and ARs, even a couple of Uzis – and you can dual wield whatever you like. However, the best VR shooters have a way of making you feel badass within their power fantasy, and COLD VR simply doesn’t. You’re not pulling out guns and leaping for cover, you’re poking your head out of corners like a furtive vole checking if the fox has gone and taking mostly blind shots so you can keep moving.
There are plenty of missions to get through if you enjoy COLD VR, though, and plenty of opportunities to replay them and improve your run – there just isn’t much point doing it. It has some good moments and a few cool ideas thrown in, and the live-action dude’s performance might be worth the price of admission alone, but ultimately COLD VR fails to ever really get off the ground and deliver on the promise of its central conceit.
