Gunheart Review – Virtual Mediocrity

VR hype seems to be hitting the cold, hard truth of reality. VR on Xbox went to a nice farm upstate to run and play and be free with Kinect. Palmer Luckey went from Oculus to enabler of the surveillance state. The choice of VR games on PC is shallow, but varied. There’s weird porn, lots of interesting tech demos, and a few games that are actually good. Gunheart falls somewhere between tech demo and “game that is actually good.”

Gunheart
Developer: Drifter Entertainment
Price: $29.99
Platforms: PC (reviewed) 
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.

It’s worth noting that it says it’s playable on both desktop and VR, and that’s technically true. It runs fine without a headset. Without the headset to provide immersion and “wow” factor, however, what we’re left with is a mediocre shooter. There’s some interesting story and design choices, but there’s also tiny environments and levels, uninspired weapons, and simplistic AI opponents. I was reminded of second-tier shooters of the 90s FPS boom, where being able to shoot a dude in the nuts was the entire reason to pick up a game. Gunheart, sadly, lacks ball shots; its gimmick is Virtual Reality.

Story wise, you insured your brain/consciousness, but that pesky ol’ physical body died. The company is delighted to help you earn your keep by injecting your consciousness into a robot body. This enables you to travel to distant worlds, meet alien creatures with a rudimentary AI, and kill them. As any good wage slave does, you earn a payout for killing critters and breaking things, though none of the critters are particularly challenging. They have a few routines they run through and that’s it. Ideally, you’ll bring some friends along. It’s easy to see this being a fun little VR game with a couple of other people, all of you running around yelling and killing things.

Without the VR hook, we’re left with a competitor to the likes of Destiny and Warframe, and that’s where Gunheart really falls short. Obviously two of the better co-op shooters ever made, that’s a hard mark to beat, but still. The “Kill lots of things for money” gimmick is very Borderlands. But compared to all those games, the level designs are tiny and don’t have a lot to them. The path forward is usually clear and there’s not a lot of room for exploration. The guns aren’t impressive and don’t feel weighty. The enemies are weird creatures, but nothing as distinctive or terrifying as Doom.

Between the heavy reliance on co-op and classic online shooter competitive modes, Gunheart relies heavily on involving other players, and that’s another problem. You’ll want to talk some friends into coming with you because the servers are empty. I jumped into multiplayer for a couple evenings and might find one or two other guys in the same place. In the PvP modes, I’d wander around until I found them, then we’d sort of stare at each other like “Man it took me 5 minutes to find this guy, I don’t want to kill him now!” We would, of course, that’s the life of the gunslinger, but still.

The upside is they are trying to support it. There was a big content release in the course of my review that added some new gameplay modes and enemy behaviors. They do Youtube videos and that kind of community engagement thing. It’s not one of those pump-and-dump games abandoned the minute it hits Steam.

The Final Word
If you need an excuse to justify the VR purchase and can talk some friends into playing, Gunheart might be worth a few bucks and an evening hollering at each other, but we’re in an era of good shooters right now. There’s no reason to buy a mediocre one. Unless, of course, you can shoot a guy right in the dick.

MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average