ARK: Survival Evolved (Steam VR)

System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £44.99
Comfort Rating: Red (Extreme Movement)
Genre: Adventure
Input: Gamepad, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: 15+

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Description: As a man or woman stranded naked, freezing and starving on the shores of a mysterious island called ARK, you must hunt, harvest resources, craft items, grow crops, research technologies, and build shelters to withstand the elements. Use your cunning and resources to kill or tame & breed the leviathan dinosaurs and other primeval creatures roaming the land, and team up with or prey on hundreds of other players to survive, dominate… and escape!

Review: Players should quickly realise that most of the island’s monsters are beyond their combat capabilities and that they should steer clear of the particularly aggressive ones dwelling on land, in the sea and even the air. To help the players deal with these threats and offer some sense of progression at the same time, ARK features a levelling system. You gain XP at a steady rate over time, with a bonus for doing pretty much anything from gathering and killing to crafting and building. Levelling up will allow you to increase one of your attributes, as well as spend points learning a new crafting-blueprint. While you are barely able to craft torches and stone tools at the beginning of your adventure, later down the line you may pick up the recipes for weapons, buildings and more tools to help you survive. All blueprints cannot be unlocked until a very high level, so specialising in a select few while working together with other players online can be a huge benefit.

The unwritten goal in ARK, for most players, is to build a somewhat self-sufficient base for yourself and your tribe. Bases are built using a very simple and easy to understand the system of square foundations with snapping walls on their four sides and flat roofs on top. Indeed, whoever has played Rust will immediately feel at home, as the whole game plays very much like it. This includes player’s characters falling asleep and remaining in the world whenever their puppeteer disconnects, adding an additional treat to potential raiders, who will be able to take all of your character’s belongings even when you are not on the server. Of course, building a secure base will help combat this threat.

This games biggest problem is that you simply can’t play it. You have to commit to it! Most people will never get to be anything past a caveman and even then you still have to evolve past being a Cowboy to get all the coolest futuristic weaponry, this really is more a lifestyle choice than a game. Also, the VR element has just been stitched onto it, so it doesn’t work all that well and doesn’t really add anything to the actual game other than giving you a nice viewpoint and making you nauseous.

OK, now those issues are out of the way I will explain why this game is so amazing. First up it is a fantastic concept that as a game works amazingly well. The array of creatures, clans and the scenery is so vast that often while exploring you will never see the same things, or meet the same people ever again. If you have the spare time and want to play one of the very best adventure survival games out there, ARK: Survival Evolved has you covered. But I really can’t recommend playing it in VR, stick to the 2D screen.