Virtual Reality is without a doubt the best way to feel like a superhero without having to leave the comfort of your home and do something dangerous. I've featured a couple of official titles on VR Corner in the past, such as Iron Man VR which captures the feeling of being Iron Man much better than giving us a few miscellaneous missions.
Then there was the free connection to the movie. Spider-Man: Far From Home which many people enjoyed, but it seemed like a disaster to me. Fortunately, excellent adventure and puzzle game. Yupitergrad came out a year later to give the helmets a much more stable roll, but it still wasn't the true Spider-Man experience everyone wanted.
So, move on to Swarm 2, which launched this week for Quests 2,3 and Pro. Swarm 2 is obviously not an official Spider-Man game but, by giving the player a couple of easy-to-use hooks, it allows you to feel the thrill of hurtling around gigantic structures at high speed. And you can watch me do just that as I experience the game for the first time in this week's VR Corner!
Swarm 2's gameplay will turn you into Spider-Man WITH GUNS!!! – Ian's VR CornerI wasn't able to spend much time with Swarm 2 in this week's VR Corner, but the hour I played gave me a pretty good understanding of what the game has to offer. And that offering is a fairly simple roguelike arcade shooter that relies on fluid movement and “just one more time” arcade action rather than a deep progression system or fleshed out story mode.
The grab-based movement in Swarm 2 takes a little getting used to, so I recommend starting the game in “casual” mode to learn the ropes, as “normal” and “extreme” send the difficulty levels through the roof. . All you need to do is point at an object with either controller (and yes, that means enemies too) and press the grab button to grab it. From there, you can swing around the level and even launch yourself up at the top of a swing with a careful downward pull that builds tension.
Changing direction mid-move can be tricky, but pressing direction on the left stick will give you a little boost on the dash to help with that, plus you can “run” towards enemies and hit them in melee with the press of a button. . This rack move can be chained up to three times before needing to be reloaded, but I found it to be an excellent tool for changing course mid-swing and avoiding incoming rockets nipping at my heels.
The other aspect of Swarm 2 is, of course, the gunplay, which is also a lot of fun. Once again, it's arcaded, so you'll never need to reload your main weapons, the twin rapid-fire pistols. You can pick up other weapons, such as grenade launchers and mini-guns, as you slowly unlock them, but they are of limited use and only appear as power-ups in the game's colorful, procedurally generated arenas.
I guess learning how to combine the two so you can swing and shoot simultaneously while using both arms will take a while, but in the video above you can see how this movement scheme slowly comes together for me. I'm still not as good as the 'high-level Swarm 2 player' whose impressive gameplay was showcased in the game's review guide, but I can imagine getting there is part of the fun.
If you're looking for a VR game that offers bite-sized roguelike action, Swarm 2 is definitely worth a look. However, the basic progression system and brutal difficulty curve mean that locomotion is the main selling point. here, so if you're prone to motion sickness or want something with a little more depth, it may take you a while to get to this. one.
