Game Review 🎮 | Pixel Gear (PSVR, HTC Vive)
The amount of VR games is constantly getting bigger with large titles and smaller indie experiences alike. PlayStation VR has seen a good flow of new titles on a regular basis, but first-person shooters aren’t really all that common in virtual reality, even though the technology seems ideal for it. Luckily, the developers of Geronimo Interactive decided to release a first-person shooter to fill the void: Pixel Gear. The game is quite simplistic and uses an appealing, pixelated art style. Read RebelHeart’s review of Pixel Gear below.
Gameplay
Pixel Gear is a game that primarily focuses on gameplay which means that there’s little room for any kind of storytelling or other narrative elements. The concept of the game is dead simple, really: aim and shoot. You’ll use a single PlayStation Move or HTC Vive controller and you can change weapons with an in-game button. Pull the trigger and defend yourself against waves of increasingly difficult enemies.
The game isn’t really that large in scope, but Pixel Gear also comes with a lower price tag. There are three different worlds to explore, each with a unique and different style and the final boss. Pixel Gear is quite a challenging game, even on the normal difficulty as end bosses will definitely create some frustrations.
There’s a good variation in regular enemies such as bats, ghouls, and skeletons. Pixel Gear makes good use of its environments and you’ll truly have to look in all directions to catch your enemies with a bullet. In between the different waves, you can collect coins to buy new weapons, upgrades or ammunition. If you’ve completed one of the three worlds, a higher difficulty unlocks to add some additional replay value to the game.
Pixel Gear has four different weapons: the simple handgun that you’ll get for free in each level, but you can also buy or find an automatic machine gun, a sniper rifle and for the more difficult enemies, a grenade launcher might come in hand. The developers have also made sure that these stronger weapons come with significantly more recoil, which is an interesting aspect of virtual reality. With the sniper rifle, you can also aim down the scope – again, something that hasn’t really been done before and works pretty well in virtual reality, even with the somewhat limited tracking abilities of PlayStation VR. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless. Unfortunately, Pixel Gear doesn’t support multiple PSVR controllers on PS4, an additional Move controller would definitely come in handy.
The game also features an asynchronous multiplayer mode, where four players can use regular controllers and one player uses the virtual reality headset. The team of four battle against the VR player and tries to send armies of enemies to the VR player.
Graphics and audio
Pixel Gear definitely looks a bit like Minecraft, which is definitely noticeable in the first environment of the game. Pixelated and ‘blocky’ are two graphical terms that would fit best with this game, but I must admit that Pixel Gear does have a certain charm and atmosphere it can bring to the table.
Graphics are simple and not exactly mind-blowing, but the game looks pretty good nonetheless. The soundtrack is not so impressive, but fine. Some of the sound effects are rather low quality and can sound repetitive after playing for a while.
Conclusion
Pixel Gear is a fun shooter for PlayStation VR and the HTC Vive. It’s not a fantastic title per se, but if you’re in the market for a fun-to-play and easy to pick up FPS in virtual reality with a pixelated art style, Pixel Gear will check off all of those boxes for you. It’s not a particularly long game and aside from the other difficulties, replay value is rather low. We do have to praise the developers for their asynchronous multiplayer support, which is something you don’t often see – especially in a virtual reality game. Pixel Gear is pretty challenging and offers plenty of variation in enemies. The price tag is rather low and you’ll definitely get value for your money here.
Pixel Gear is available on PS4 (PSVR) and PC (HTC Vive). Image sources: official Steam page.
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