Vendetta Forever Review | The Sixth Axis

Vendetta Forever is a VR shooter that immediately draws comparisons that place it between Superhot VR and Pistol Whip. It has the rapid shooting and score hunting of the latter mixed with an intensity, almost infernal, at the slowness of the former. But of course there is much more to this oversimplified description.

Shoot to kill and kill to move. This is the true ethos that runs through Vendetta Forever. You don’t move freely through the environments of Vendetta Forever, but instead have to pass action movies. Shoot someone and you can grab their weapon, moving quickly to their position to shoot whoever is next. You’ll feel like John Wick as you slide down a train car, grabbing guns and knives out of the air to keep moving forward, staying out of the way of incoming fire as you move forward, circling and shooting the surrounding enemies. It’s the closest you can get to Gun Kata in a game.

Meatspace Interactive has taken this basic concept and had as much fun with it as possible. In one level you’re falling down the center of a spiral staircase, spinning in the air while shooting enemies on the stairs. In another, there’s a duel, as in, light three and shoot, while another is basically the lobby scene from The Matrix. There are western-themed levels with cowboys shooting at you from balconies as you make your way through a town, or a race against a fuse as you try to blow it off and save some hostages. There’s something here for every persuasion, as long as it involves shooting people in increasingly stylish ways. It’s great

Don’t limit yourself to just pistols and throwing knives. There are Uzis, miniguns, sniper rifles, even a rocket launcher that appears depending on the level. Then there’s a katana, which is perhaps the only way to get around without a gun, as it allows you to run into enemies and slash them. Not to mention the silly way you have to pluck knives and shurikens out of the air as enemies throw them at you, but if you can’t catch or dodge them, you can always get them out of your face. and hurl them back in a display of vengeance that is truly incredible both in its absurdity and sheer satisfaction.

This is not an easy game and there is a lot to think about while playing. Enemies are literally all around you, making both fast real-life movement and analog stick twirl essential – I usually use smooth twirl in VR, but breaking is much faster. You will also have to play standing up and the game requires the scale of a room for your play area.

In-game, you’ll want to be quick to pick up weapons when shooting bad guys, as they sometimes disappear when left alone, though oddly enough not all the time, so I’m not sure how intentional this is , and if there is no weapon. to grab, you just can’t move. It’s kind of a puzzle game in the same way as Superhot, but here you have to choose a route and order in which to shoot the enemies, and then use that route quickly or lose it. Made a lot harder by all the bullet dodging and shooting you’re actually doing, of course.

I’m of two minds about the movement system, as when you’re moving through a level smoothly it’s very satisfying, but having nowhere to go ruins the state of flow the game is trying to get you into. It’s not the end of the world, especially since you can go back through positions you’ve already been to in one attempt, and if you’re lucky, you’ll find a gun or an enemy you missed.

The game’s visuals are kept nice and simple, not as minimalistic as Superhot and Pistol Whip, but still with a toned-down aesthetic. This is for the best considering how quickly you’ll need to recognize enemies in order to shoot them before they do the same to you. It has charm though, with the pared-down aesthetic more than capable of communicating when you’re in a Western or The Matrix, while ensuring you can spot everything you need to easily enough.

I have to mention my favorite levels, both of which I’ve decided to call “Daredevil levels”. In these, it’s pitch black except when there’s sound. You start out in the dark and can see a nearby enemy’s footsteps as a circle radiating outward from their source, but when you shoot enemies you know where you are. Sure, you can grab an enemy’s weapon, go to their position, and all living enemies will lose track of you until you make some noise, but since they just fired at your last position, you’ll be able to see the its position for a few seconds. Stand still for a moment and everything will go black, but you can throw a gun to make a noise as it hits a wall for enemies to shoot at it, leaving their positions. This is one of the most unique shooting and VR experiences I’ve had and it’s exciting. It’s phenomenally cool and I’d play a full game on it without hesitation.

On top of all this, there’s a selection of mutators to tweak the game, whether you want it to be more forgiving by turning on what is effectively an invincible mode to take the pressure off and enjoy the over-the-top nature of the game, or if you want to turn it off aim assist, which makes the game incredibly difficult to handle, naturally. If you’re a true glutton for punishment, there are also higher difficulty levels to test your skills.

Once you’ve finished the levels, and there are quite a few, even if each one is pretty short once you’ve perfected your run, you can always go back and compete on the online leaderboards to extract a little more longevity. Just in case you get tired of playing The Matrix lobby scene over and over again in VR…