Shane
The fiery dark depths of hell as it is meant to be experienced.
Hellsweeper VR places you in to the unforgiving landscape of fire and brimstone with varying demonic entities all around, all having their sights set on you.
Developer, Mixed Realms has admittedly done an outstanding job of creating a hellish atmosphere, but gameplay needs some work.
From boss fights through to forging your way through the waves of enemies that you will come at you, you’ll get up to speed real quick utilising differing weapons… and trying to survive.
Weapons are summoned via gestures and you can upgrade them too, however, it is these gestures that can cause problems.
More often than not I’d find myself summoning a weapon I needed only for the game to think I was conjuring up a differing one, not recognising the gestures accurately.
In moments of do or die, having an overly large enemy in my face, literally, and needing something beefy and deadly for a good melee smashing I’d have to cycle through gestures to try and equip the weapon I needed while the demonic entity pummelled me. Nine out of ten times, I’d get the exact opposite weapon required.
This was super frustrating to say the least and at times, for me, near-to game breaking.
Your arsenal is a mix of melee, projectile and magic.
Movement is excellent however. The game proceeds at a fast pace and usually there’s a lot going on. You don’t get the time to see the sights in Hell, which is a bit of a shame due to the level of detail in your environment.
Wall run, back-flip and more as you defy gravity and take down evil.
Still, persevering on, in Hell, you can have pets.
Your Hell Hound is your silent best friend. You can use him to help you in battles and while he doesn’t say a lot, in a tight spot he truly is your best ally.
Hellsweeper VR has varying modes of play to. Co-op, multiplayer and a rogue mode.
Hellsweeper VR was a game I had been looking forward to. A lot.
It most definitely appealed to my dark soul, and in some levels it did not disappoint. More work on the accuracy of gesture recognition needs to be done, if this gets sorted, Hellsweeper VR will be one of the ultimate VR titles this year.
Released: September 2023
Rating: R16
Platforms reviewed: Meta Quest II
Genre: Action
Developer: Mixed Realms
Publisher: Vertigo Games