Yeah, yeah, yeah, VR can change society blah blah blah Metaverse blah blah Zuckerberg 6G vaccinations. Everyone knows the real point of the Oculus Quest–I will NOT call it that stupid Meta name–and other VR platformsis shooting the hell out of things in VR. The benchmark so far has been Arizona Sunshine, which is about…look, it’s post apocalypse, zombies, like everything else in the world lately. That’s what we’re doing. We shoot zombies. If you don’t like it, play Halo Infinite. Please, I need friends.
Anyway, the Arizona Sunshine team is back. The first time, the zombie apocalypse was in the desert. After the Fall dares to ask…what if the zombie apocalypse was cool?
Cool…as ICE?
YO VANILLA, KICK IT!
After the Fall
Developer: Vertigo Games
Price: $40 USD
Platform: PC, PSVR
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
Seriously, the gimmick this time is that it’s cold and the zombies are cold for whatever reason. (I came to shoot zombies, not to read or pay attention to story).
The irony of being a VR owner and fanboy is you probably don’t have friends–and I say that as one myself–but if you do, what I can tell you is After the Fall is *basically* Left 4 Dead if Valve didn’t disappear to jerk off. It’s Left 4 Dead in VR, co-op is the best way to play it, and if you can muster The Boiz and get them to stop playing Halo Infinite, you are going to have one hell of a good time.
I was VR-skeptical until the first time I got five seconds into literally any game and it’s coming right at my head holy crap. Imagine the terror of Left 4 Dead but the zombies are running towards you and all around you and you’re running out of ammo oh god oh god oh god. When things go right, it’s basically a system seller for VR headsets, though looking around, it seems like it runs better on Quest 2 and the various console VR setups have some wonky stuff going on with the tracking. Be warned.
So: It’s pretty good if you like mowing down zombies.
This is where I do my Stephen A. Smith voice: BUT!
The catch–and there’s always a catch–is that they’re using the by-now-mandatory “season” model where there’s some content now, but a whole lot more in the planning stages. You’re basically buying it to play Left 4 Dead in VR right now, then maybe they’ll do some cool stuff later. That said, there’s…some PVP maps, but not a lot. There’s…some weapons, but not a whole lot. Single Player is…it’s alright, but this is one of those games where it’s not the same if you’re wandering around with a bunch of computer idiots as opposed to hollering at your friends and screaming over voice comms. There are some different enemies/special zombies, but they’re not all that interesting. There’s not really a Director tormenting you as in L4D. There’s just hordes and hordes of zombies to mow down and some tougher dudes with weak points to shoot.
And it is a multiplayer game, but if you’re doing multi-platform, it has its own friends list system and in-game ID and please god I yearn for the sweet embrace of death every time it disbands the party between levels for whatever reason.
If you need a cool VR game and can get the crew together and don’t mind some…questionable matchmaking decisions, it’s pretty fun and it would be great to spend Friday nights with the boiz gunning down some zombies (please I am so lonely). On the other hand, I wouldn’t buy a VR headset just to hang around by myself when Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood are still out there, undeadishly.
The Final Word
Worth buying if you have a VR crew, but don’t buy a headset for it unless you want to die alone like me.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
