Developer / Publisher – Pocket Monkey Games / Fun Train
Price – US $19.99 / CAN $24.99 / EU €19.99 / UK £16.99
Release Date – March 18th, 2024
Input – 2 x Tracked Motion Controllers
Play Area – Seated, Standing, Roomscale
Store – PlayStation
Reviewed on – PSVR 2
I like mysteries, I like horror, I like suspense and I like shooters so on paper The Twilight Zone VR should be a winner though what’s here feels like a mish mash of solid ideas marred by mundane and uninspired gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not awful, and each story does have its own merits but when taken as a whole it’s well…let’s just dig in shall we.
The opening into should be a treat for fans of the show
I’m going to quickly cover the visuals here as they play a large factor in my enjoyment of the game or lack thereof. This originally released on the Quest back in July of 2022, and it looks like it with stripped back textures, static lighting effects and stages that seem cobbled together using generic assets, minus some elements I’ll touch on in each chapter. It’s a little misleading, imo, then that the developer has promised enhanced graphics on the PSVR 2 as what’s on display is anything but impressive looking akin to lower budget efforts we got for headsets several years ago and while I could excuse that lacking quality on lesser powered standalone headsets, on the PSVR 2, it’s nothing short of disappointing. This is not a AAA game nor is it trying to be with each stage taking roughly an hour to get through and its priced somewhat accordingly considering that content, but that lacking visual quality not only hampers immersion, but takes away from much of the scares and suspense the game throws your way. Each chapter is introduced and ends just like the Television show with the host of the show explaining why you are in the situation you find yourself in and helped remind me that I was in, fact, in The Twilight Zone
Avoiding the killer isn’t too hard.
The first episode is “Character Building” and while you can play these in any order, I recommend playing them in the order suggested as they do somewhat tie into each other. Regardless, the 1st is the most horrific in that you play as a ‘not very nice’ boss at a game dev company who gets his comeuppance when a digital creation comes to life and stalks you through your office. Arguably the most interesting aspect of this game occurs here as you need to record the audio for that digital killer, who will tauntingly call out your name and say things like “You can hide, but I’ll find you” or “You Deserve this”. When the game 1st asked me to record these lines (without any context) I had recorded my lines in a very monotone fashion so when the killer started addressing me, it sounded anything but scary and I restarted the game and re-recorded my lines in a much more dramatic, entertaining and creepy fashion. With that out of the way, this stage is a poor man’s stealth game with you having to avoid the killer while trying to escape the building, hiding under desks or in closets or whatever else keeps you out of sight. Unfortunately, the killer seems to be either hilariously blind at times as it walked right passed me in plain view or annoyingly alert, seeing me through the environment and upon sight, ran up and killed me forcing a restart at the last checkpoint to try again. You’ll be tasked with finding items to get you into the next room and ever closer to escape though outside of that and the stealth, you aren’t doing much else. Regardless, I didn’t hate this chapter despite its shortcomings, and I found more to like than to hate so I’ll give Character Building a 6.0 out of 10.
Kill them before they kill you!
The next mystery is titled Terror Firma and has you in the shoes (or hazmat suit) of a survivor of an apocalypse that turned the sun’s rays up to 11 and scorched the Earth. You are forced to leave the safety of your bunker in search of your daughter Hope who is now wandering the wasteland. Shooting creatures is the core of this story as you are armed with some sort of BB gun that has infinite ammo and fires 3 separate rounds before needing to be pumped with your off hand to reload. As you explore the landscape, newspapers scattered around hint at the events leading up the world’s end though don’t read anything but the headlines as the body of text seems to be AI generated nonsense. I love’s me a post apocalyptic world but what’s on display here just plain sucks and isn’t fun to look at. The landscape has been buried in sand making much of the game look drab and dull, but that’s not my issue. My issue is that quite literally every element of the environment looks uninspired and boring. Textures on buildings are embarrassingly low resolution to a point where I just assumed I was just playing through an environment made up entirely of cheap Unity assets. Not the end of the world (lol) but the combat is just as uninspired with dark black creatures of various sizes popping out of the sand and attacking you, but they make enough noise to telegraph they are coming from a mile away giving me plenty of time to find a safe spot and easily pick them off. 1 or 2 quick shots will have them effectively disappear turning every encounter into the same one minus a boss battle where I had to strafe right and left to avoid projectiles. I also found the mystery here to be largely predictable and rolled my eyes at its conclusion making this the least enjoyable out of the 3 stories. 3.5/10
The alien ship is nothing short of weird.
Lastly is “Deadline Earth” which places you in the role of a science fiction writer abducted by aliens. It starts off simple enough with you in your house, going about your day by watching some cartoons on TV, having a burger and doing some other random stuff before those dastardly aliens show up and take you aboard their ship. Living in a simulated version of your house, you go about your daily life unable to escape its confines for over a year (you only play through a few days in that time) until finally notes show up directing you how to escape. What ensues is a trip through the alien ship where you’ll see other humans in singular rooms going about their lives until you peel back the veil to reveal the truth behind your surroundings. You’ll travel through areas of the ship and on floating islands containing houses and chunks of land seemingly taken by your abductors. Oh, you also get a pistol to shoot at these one-eyed octopus looking alien creeps that like to fry your brain if they see you. The gunplay here is arguably even worse than the previous chapter with your 9mm having infinite ammo thanks to ever spawning clips at your waste with aliens not reacting to your shots save for when they die. I didn’t hate this chapter despite the mundane gameplay but the visuals really hold it back, causing some of the more “epic” moments to fall flat thanks to ugly jpeg backgrounds, scaling issues on houses that made them look too small…or me too big, and an ending that tied it all together but felt cheap. 5.0/10
I did appreciate the voicework here as the host of the show did an excellent job at capturing the feel of the series despite the lacking overall narrative and the performances (outside of my own) were well done. Sound effects are on point as they helped up the immersion factor that the visuals hurt and there is some decent 3D audio at play that aided when I was being stalked by those creatures.
PSVR 2 haptics are in use here with my headset rumbling as I took a hit and controllers giving a little shake when I grabbed an item or fired a gun and while they do rumble when firing weapons, the only time I noticed adaptive feedback was when I was selecting menu option so that’s kinda weird. I also noticed reprojection while using the thumbsticks to turn though I didn’t find it too distracting.
You can customize the killer to look a little like yourself…if you like.
I don’t hate this game and appreciate what the developers were going for and even somewhat enjoyed the overall story despite the missteps made in each individual chapter, but as a whole, a bulk of this game is forgettable with the visuals and gameplay really hampering immersion. There are items you can find throughout each story that unlock additional visuals filters to replay the game like a 1950’s black and white mode and host of others, but that wasn’t enough reason for me to dive back and spend anymore time in here than I have too. Fans of the series and this style of story telling may be more forgiving of this than I, though if you are still interested, I’d wait for a sale as what’s here isn’t anything special.
Fun Trail provided The VR Grid with a press code for this title and, regardless of this review, we thank them for that!
