Price at Time Of Review: £4 ($5)
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement)
Genre: Arcade, Music and Rhythm
Supported Platforms: Oculus Rift, Rift S
Supported Controllers: Oculus Touch
Best Playing Position: Standing, Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: BATTLE TO THE BEAT – Powered by the high energy tracks of chiptune ninja Jake ‘Virt’ Kaufman, Pulsar Arena is a head-to-head rhythm shooter like nothing you’ve ever seen. Stand your ground in a deep space arena, where a single well-timed laser blast can send you tumbling into the event horizon of a dead star. Use combos to unlock devastating powerups or overwhelm your opponent with a flurry of perfectly placed shots. Either way, you’ll need quick reflexes and the right strategy to stay in the game. Designed from the ground up for VR, Pulsar Arena is a game for music lovers and virtual reality enthusiasts alike!
Review: It’s pretty hard to describe Pulsar Arena in just a few words. In short, it is a head-to-head rhythm shooter. You play in an hour glass style arena where the idea is to hit gems on the beat of the music. The more gems of the same colour you hit on the beat of the music, the more combo / gems you send shooting upwards to your opponent. There is also powerups to collect which can really turn the game around in a heartbeat (or should that be musical beat?).
From what I could gather there is a 1,2,3,4 beat and you need to try and shoot the same coloured gems in a row. But in the end I was just holding down the trigger and waving it in a line, I never really felt in control, or indeed sure of what was happening. Despite trying for several hours, I just couldn’t work out how to play this game. I watched tutorials on YouTube, read up on it, but yet I still couldn’t complete a match. Maybe it was me missing the point of it, or maybe I was just rubbish at it, but whatever the reason I just couldn’t get the hang of it.
The good news is that after a while playing I did start to get the gist of it and really started to enjoy myself. The music was pumping and the graphics while retro in style still look amazing and it did get that feeling of immersion, being part of an epic dance battle taking place is some weird looking arena. I can’t say this game was as good as their previous one “Proton Pulse Plus” but it sure has a lot of potential.
