System: Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift & Windows MR
Price at Time Of Review: £10.99
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement)
Genre: Sports
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Gamepad
Best Playing Position: Standing or Sitting
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: PG
Description: PLANNES is a game of zero-gravity tennis. As you visit various planets on your spaceship, you are challenged by the planets’ national teams! Outsmart your opponents by making full use of your various rackets, each with unique abilities!
Review: I wish I wasn’t but sadly I am old enough to remember playing “Pong” on the Atari 2600. Back then it was described as a virtual game of tennis and fun for the whole family. WOW! Have things come a long way since then. That is where PLANNES comes into it. This is once again the same virtual game of tennis where the object of the game is to get the ball past the opponent. Only this time around, of course, we are playing it in VR with some truly awesome looking 360 environments.
The idea of the game is pretty simple, get the ball past the opponent and smash one of his crystals. I will quickly say, that because you are facing forward you can’t see your own crystals behind you and the noise of them smashing will enrage you every time. Once you have won a few games you can also upgrade your bat for a bigger hit area and more powerful return. Obviously, things are not that simple and the AI will get better and better every level and the arena will also have some obstacles that can drastically affect the path the ball takes and that will require you to take some truly drastic action. Be warned, this is a VERY physical game and you will sweat hard while playing it.
While there are better games in this Pong genre available, PLANNES brings it’s own cute sci-fi style to the table and is all the better for it. With some great multiplayer action, amazing scenery and fast and furious gameplay, it gets the blood flowing and the heart racing. This type of game makes a good VR system worth owning and really can make you quite fit if played over a long enough time frame. For the price, I think this game is worth every penny and is a perfect example of what makes VR gaming so much fun.
