Fantastic Contraption (VR) Reviews
Fantastic Contraption isn't something I'll ever aspire to master or completely finish. Some people will, and they'll get a lot of mileage out of solving all 50 levels and pushing the basic toolset to its limits. For me, though, it's far more enjoyable as a laid-back, revisit-it-every-so-often toybox. Get in, narrowly clear a puzzle with a cobbled-together monstrosity, get out. That's how I roll, and while it's not exactly what I hoped and expected from this game, I can't complain too much. It's fun in spurts.
As with many early VR games, it’s bright and colourful, with simplistic graphics, but that does nothing to explain the green cat with building items sticking out of its back or the magical hat that you pop onto your head to reach the game’s menus. Those just help to add a touch of whimsical charm to a very well done puzzle game.
While Fantastic Contraption encourages you to be creative, it immediately boxes you in at the same time with a limited number of solutions and even fewer tools. Its novelty wears off far too soon, resulting in something as shaky as its player-made creations.
How can you play with physics, when physics doesn't work? Fantastic Contraption would be great place for creative players, but there isn't many tools and technical part discourages from playing.
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Fantastic Contraption loses some of its charm with the lack of room-scale functionality, but the game is still enjoyable. The puzzles are purposely obtuse, letting players use their imagination on how to use the various types of objects to build a functional and moving apparatus.
Right now there is a distinct lack of this type of game in the PlayStation vR lineup, with most companies leaning toward the "experience" type of releases, which isn't a bad thing per se, instead of focusing on how creativity can innnovate in gameplay thanks to what the virtual reality hardware can offer. So if you're looking for a clever, colorful and fun puzzler on PS VR, you should definitely try Fantastic Contraption!
If the idea of a VR construction-based puzzler appeals to you then Fantastic Contraption is a must-play game.
The sense of scale you get when creating your contraptions in VR is incredible, I would often find myself constructing goliath vehicles requiring a fair amount of stretching and standing on tip-toes to get the finishing touches on.
Fantastic Contraption is a very interesting idea, where you basically manipulate parts to build contraptions that meet a certain goal. There is a tremendous amount of creativity that comes into play here, and the Oculus Touch controllers are fantastic as you manipulate different objects. Unfortunately the limited number of options to work with does limit the appeal somewhat, sometimes making a game of limitless possibilities surprisingly repetitive in places.