Planetship (Steam VR)

VR Shop Score – Silver Award

System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £5.99
Comfort Rating: Yellow
Genre: Space Shooter
Input: Gamepad, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG

 

Description: Planetship is both a planet AND a ship, it’s also a party bus holo-lounge spice freighter rocket boosting thorium burning well-oiled supermachine, get it? You will after a harrowing yet surprisingly relaxing journey through the chaotic void realms of strange space!

So here’s the deal, you’ve got to find a new planet for humanity to call home in the far future, a really nice spot with all the trimmings: liquid water, the right temperature, not too much or too little mass and atmospheric conditions conducive to keeping homo sapiens alive. We’ve even done a pile of research FOR you and marked habitable zones with the potential for an Earth-like planet on your star map, so navigate yourself to a green zone and pick out a cosy little pad for the crew. What could possibly go wrong?

P.S. – One little thing, if you’re going to pilot this craft we’re going to have to shed your body from your brain and hook wires up to whatever’s left, Dr Scienceman here says it’s the only way for you to survive the trip. You’re cool with that right? Great.

Review: The storyline puts you into the challenge of finding a habitable planet and successfully landing a shuttle onto its surface. Luckily for you, there is a star map for reference that will help you to discover a nice habitable zone. Finding a suitable home is imperative to the human face. Playing as pilot Brian up are in control of a planet scanning ship.

The best part of the game is shooting at enemies. However, weaponry is far too difficult to come by. Pickups are rare and weapon crafting opportunities even rarer. The basic railgun is totally ineffective, it’s too difficult to get direct hits on moving objects – it might be easier with a mouse but I’ll never know! Essentially this leaves you defenceless for a frustrating length of time at the start of a session, always running away from overpowered enemies. When you finally get some decent weapons you can’t take a break and close the game because you’ll find all your weapons gone when you come back, even if you haven’t died.

Clearly, a lot of effort has been put into this game and that helps to make it quite a unique experience. For me, it was just a little too guided. I like games that are more driven and free where I can sort of feel myself taking steps towards a goal. So I personally got tired of the game pretty quick, and it’s definitely not for everyone. But I do think it is a very good game for anyone who likes slower paced open-ended exploring games that don’t pressure you too much, especially if you want to play something that is truly different than anything else you have ever played before, this is the game you want.