Battlezone (VR) Reviews
Battlezone is basically what you dreamed an arcade game would be ten years ago, finally realised and in your living room. A dumb, no-frills tank blaster that is instantly playable and understandable by anyone, this is the sort of thing that will win over a lot of people who wouldn’t consider themselves interested in VR as a concept. Unlikely to be a defining title of the platform, but a strong start regardless.
Battlezone excels mostly in its four-player co-op mutliplayer offering where team-work, strategy and upgrading efficiently really matters. The mother of all tank games is back with a huge virtual reality bang.
Battlezone looks good and controls well, but offline there’s nothing to think about besides shoot, shoot, shoot, which in this case just doesn’t provide enough of a good time to be enjoyable for long.
The arcade classic returns, bringing challenging, cooperative tank combat into modern virtual reality. The results are flawed but ultimately still fun.
A fun, if slightly limited, retro reboot, that proves that first person shooters can work on the PlayStation VR if the developer dares to think a little differently.
For me, Battlezone is easily one of the best games on PlayStation VR, even with a high price point. It’s retro futuristic tank combat is fun and engaging, while the randomised campaign, four player co-op and the challenge it can throw your way keep me wanting to come back and try to beat it time and again.
I want to like the thing. I love games with roguelike elements and I enjoy the way the campaign is laid out with random encounters and occasional adventure game-style choices. Campaigns can be surprisingly flavorful, and it’s fun to find surprise rewards while navigating the hexagonal map between battles. These glimmers of entertainment, however, are not frequent enough to make up for the number of times I’m left shaking my head at another “Failure” screen, wondering exactly what the hell just happened.
There are showier VR games out there, for sure, but this is a nice thing to return to once you've had your fill of gimmicks.
'Battlezone' feels like a serious missed opportunity. As the successor to what many consider the original virtual reality game, I expected Rebellion's revision to be an accessible arcade battler — the sort of game that would make a great introduction to home-ready VR. Instead, this new version takes its influence from more modern inspirations, including roguelike elements and procedurally generated maps.
Virtual reality is an apt home for Battlezone's class of tank busting pandemonium. Appropriating its arcade doctrine, filtering it through 36 years, and then projecting it as a full-priced product may have been a reach. As an experience, Battlezone VR is neatly matched to its hardware. As a game, however, it doesn't (yet) have quite enough firepower to oppose any presumed opposition.
While I would argue that Rigs: Mechanized Combat League is by far the superior online multiplayer game for PlayStation VR, if its frantic in-mech motion is too much to handle or you're otherwise more interested in an engaging cooperative experience, this fits the bill nicely. There are some glaring balance issues for Rebellion to work out, and Battlezone is far less advisable as a solo game, but damn if it isn't thrilling when everything comes together and your team perseveres against all odds.
Battlezone forgot to include a reason to keep playing with it, leaving players with a hollow and repetitive package from a developer capable of much more.
The fast and hectic gameplay is fairly pleasant, but the presence of a single mode, monotonous and with some balancing problem, limits the appeal of the game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Compared to other PSVR experiences that I’ve had so far, Battlezone still is one of the best games available right now. It’s actually a fully formed game, not some shoehorned VR experience in a different game or a boring shooting gallery like many other VR games currently on the market.
Battlezone stays faithful to the original game, offering a standout cooperative VR experience. The cooperative gameplay provides a great challenge, but playing alone can be a frustrating ordeal. The lack of competitive options is unfortunate, but the procedurally generated campaign offers plenty of unlockable weapons and different types of tanks to mess around in. Just be sure to bring a friend or more along for the ride.
It is unknown if the developers can patch Battlezone to reduce the nauseating feelings its perspective emits (reports indicate the game was even more discomforting during press previews before receiving some fine-tuning before launch), but that alone is a big enough reason to caution players from purchasing it.
Fans of the original games will find that Battlezone on PSVR rekindles their passion despite some definite divergence.
Battlezone is a tough, fun and addictive tank warfare game in its own right that throws down a gauntlet to teams of players and challenges them to really work together to succeed.
Battlezone is one of PSVR’s bulkiest titles, but fails to drum up replayability in the long run.
With endless replayability, Battlezone offers one of the more robust PSVR experiences available at launch. It is also exceedingly immersive, and its online co-op multiplayer makes for a unique experience in the VR gaming space. It's too bad that a lot of the underlying gameplay design decisions weren't better implemented. The extreme challenge is just one thing, and could be fixed in a future update for that matter. But players simply won't find themselves that drawn back into the game after the first couple of rounds, mostly due to frustration, or an overall sluggish feel.