The creators of Until Dawn and The Quarry release their first PSVR2 game, with another homage to classic 90s lightgun games.
Until Dawn was an unexpected hit for Sony, back in 2015, but while there was eventually a falling out with developer Supermassive Games the spirit of the game, and its modern take on the interactive movie concept, lives on. The original has gone on to spawn not just the recent The Quarry, but the whole of the The Dark Pictures Anthology series, which already includes four games and has at least four more on the way.
Before the split from Sony, Supermassive produced a couple of VR spin-offs for Until Dawn, most notably launch title Rush Of Blood, which was much more of a straight action game than the other titles. Switchback is clearly intended as the next gen equivalent, as once again you’ll be donning your headset to partake in a demonic roller coaster ride in which you dual wield guns to blast away zombies, monsters, vampire bats, and numerous bonus targets.
The sketched-in plot has your character involved in a train crash, but none of that matters. This is all about firing guns at things lurching at you from the darkness. Like lightgun games of yesteryear, you’re effectively trundling through an endless shooting gallery, only this time with a state-of-the-art VR headset and, unlike Rush Of Blood, proper controls.
Switchback creates an impressive sense of motion, but never goes crazy with big drops and rarely goes all that quickly. We don’t tend to suffer motion sickness in VR, so it’s hard to say whether this would be problematic for you, but if you’re okay with driving games like Gran Turismo 7 you should be fine with this.
The experience is heightened by the Sense controllers’ haptics, which do a good job of conveying the sensation of grinding along metal tracks when you’re rolling along. Not that you always will be, though, since the game drops in plenty of moments where you come to a halt, the familiar hydraulic chuff of rollercoaster brakes recreated perfectly in Sony’s 3D audio.
Those moments mix up the pace, and let assailants come to you. They’re also used to set up the game’s spookier moments, which is where you’ll start noticing Supermassive’s reach slightly exceeding its grasp. That’s because although Switchback is a decent lightgun style shooter, it isn’t particularly scary. Things jumps out at you and zombies pop up on both sides of your car simultaneously, but they can only ever startle you the first time you play, and even then possibly not as much as intended.
The same goes for environmental hazards. You’ll regularly need to duck under chunks of scenery (handily marked with blood stains, presumably from previous hapless rollercoaster riders) or avoid incoming zombie vomit or firebombs, but even when the game lobs entire school buses and train carriages at you, there’s no sense of peril. That may be because the worst they do is a tiny bit of light damage, but whatever it is, and in spite of the overt horror setting, the scare tactics don’t quite land.
Unfortunately, that also means there are times when the game’s desire to set up jump scares makes it feel a bit flat. You’ll come across sections where nothing attacks and you’re just noodling along with nothing to do, when suddenly the lights go out. Plenty of times your guns also disappear, letting you know that something’s about to leap out, but also that it can’t possibly harm you because you’re unarmed, making those by far the least interesting parts of the game.
The best bits are when you’re clipping along on the coaster with plenty to shoot at – and not necessarily just monsters. Some of the more interesting targets are marked in orange and act as score multipliers. They’re often slightly hidden and tend to come in rapid succession, making them fun and lightly taxing to try and hit, unlike the zombies themselves who tend to be inveterate bullet sponges.
And while there are interesting ideas, they’re often left bafflingly on the shelf. One room has you fighting mannequins that attack like Dr Who’s Weeping Angels: every time the headset detects an eye blink, they instantaneously teleport a few steps closer. It’s a fantastic use of the technology and deliciously menacing, but it’s over in under a minute and never comes back, which feels like a waste.
The gunplay is solid enough, and the scenery’s varied in a decaying old building sort of way. There’s a rusting shipwreck, an underground temple, H. R. Giger-eque caverns, and a cursed forest, but the best two levels are undoubtedly the final two. One has you facing off against robot zombies (zombots? robies?) and the other against Chucky-like creepy china dolls. Sadly, the final boss is a total pushover though.
In fact, you may well be able to see off all six levels without even having to recharge your Sense controllers, despite their anaemic battery life. There’s no bonus content and nothing to unlock, although there is replay value in beating high scores and the global leaderboard, and by taking different branches in the track, selected by shooting a trackside directional arrow.
As well as alternate routes, there are fellow survivors to be rescued, by figuring out which props to shoot in what order, while trying not to succumb to the onrushing zombie horde. There are also a number of story elements you can notice, the game cunningly using eye tracking to sense exactly what you see and what you don’t during the course of each run.
If it stuck to the action, whisking you between hectic supernatural shooting-fests, rather than trying to set you up for some of its fairly dud scares, this would be a better – if even shorter – game. Alas, compared with the recent Zombieland: Headshot Fever Reloaded it’s slightly less engaging and doesn’t quite have its replay value either.
Like a VR fairground ghost train ride with guns, Switchback has its thrills, but also regularly feels like a missed opportunity. Especially as it repeats the exact same faults from Rush Of Blood. The roller coaster’s not quite fast enough, the fun a little too inconsistent, and its scares aren’t all that frightening.
At its best this is a fast-paced lightgun shooting gallery that loves making stuff jump out at you, but even then it doesn’t have the showmanship and verve of 90s classics like The House Of The Dead. The technology is far superior, but the sense of engagement has not improved at all.
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR review summary
In Short: A moderately entertaining on-rails action game that fails to learn anything from its predecessor Until Dawn: Rush Of Blood or indeed other, much older, lightgun games.
Pros: Solid gunplay, good use of the PlayStation VR2’s haptics and adaptive triggers, and inventive deployment of the system’s eye tracking tech.
Cons: The attempts at horror and jump scares fall a little flat. Unremarkable action and very short for its price, with no bonuses or unlocks to look forward to.
Score: 5/10
Formats: PlayStation VR2
Price: £32.99
Developer: Supermassive Games
Publisher: Supermassive Games
Release Date: 16th March 2023
Age Rating: 18
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