First of all, I have to admit to never having played the original Dick Wilde game, but I’m always down for some hillbilly shooting action on a redneck river cruise, so when Dick Wilde 2 arrived for review I grabbed a six-pack and tossed on my VR headset ready for action and I was not disappointed. VR is quickly becoming the home to shooting games thanks to the visual immersion as well as the ability to replicate the light gun games from past generations. When done right, these shooters can be immensely fun, and fun is exactly what you get with Dick Wilde 2.
The game is fairly barebones on presentation, starting you off with a simple menu board located in a junkyard full of trash that you can use to test your shooting skills before ever entering the game. It was kind of nice being able to learn the physics and the amount of bullet-drop over distance. The menu offers simple settings for volume levels and anti-aliasing – I did not see a way to render above 100%, but the game looked fine without it. Since we were reviewing on Steam I tested on both the Vive and the Rift and aside from my normal comment about the Oculus Touch being more comfortable than the Vive wands, there were no major differences in gameplay or performance, so owners of either or both systems will have generally the same experience. The motion controls combined with the laser targeting sights make aiming surprisingly crisp and precise.
When the game starts you have access to three of nearly a dozen levels for that world and there are two more worlds waiting for you after that. Six levels are story related and then you have four gun trial levels specializing in certain weapons for that chapter, and then there is an epic boss fight to test all you have learned. Each world has a wholly unique environment, and each level presents you with a slight variation of theme like going underground or maybe a nighttime mission, but the objective is always the same – SHOOT EVERYTHING THAT MOVES OR FLOATS…OR FLIES!
Prior to launching your attack raft you will get to configure your weapon selection as well as any perks or power-ups like an inflatable raft to add HP to your own raft or a flak jacket to boost your overall HP. Other purchases include more health, added chance for a critical hit, etc. You start each chapter with a set amount of cash but will earn thousands of dollars as you shoot targets during each stage of the mission, and there are several mid-mission checkpoints where you can shop for more goodies and take a breath.
The game is totally arcade in design with a heavy emphasis on replayability; not only to better your score, but now knowing what lies ahead in each stage so you can make proper gun purchases. I found the dual-wielding revolvers worked well in almost all instances, but you can swap out either or both of these for shotguns, machines guns, lasers, and many more; 16 weapons in all; most of which are locked until you earn the right to use them. Finding the right combination of range, accuracy, and stopping power can take a bit of experimentation, and each stage of each level might require you to switch things up for what lies ahead.
Dick Wilde 2 starts off casually enough with some fairly standard shooting. You are in a fixed position on a moving raft, and while the game does support room-scale all enemies spawn ahead of you, so there is seldom a reason to aim behind your normal 180-degrees of front-facing vision unless you let something slip by. Targets include all sorts of mutated wildlife from flying fish to fireball spitting frogs and snakes to hideous rats, moles, bats, and other deadly birds. The river is littered with barrels of toxic waste and explosive fuel drums. Shooting these gives you points as well as splash damage for taking out multiple targets, and there are also junked out cars, trucks, buses, and wooden barriers blocking your way. Your raft can smash through them, but you will take damage, so it is best to shoot anything and everything that doesn’t look like part of the background art.
Speaking of backgrounds, the environments are simplistic and cartoonish by design, giving the game a fun animated flavor while keeping things simple enough to maintain a smooth framerate, even when the screen is littered with dozens of critters and special effects. Combined with your relatively stationary turret-style placement there was virtually no motion sickness to be had.
My only real beef with the game was that it got hard…really hard, really fast. I tried mixing up the weapons thinking that may be it, but while the Uzi offered a nice, sustained fire rate the bullets did little damage. The shotgun was great for fish or fireballs flying at your face or the occasional mutant crab in a shell that attached itself to your raft, but I always seemed to fall back on the revolvers. The level of difficulty is not progressive either. Some stages of some levels were brutal like one stage with dozens of mutant rats on both banks of the river along with all the other stuff going on in the water. I barely survived with 10HP, but then the very next stage was super-easy, and I took no damage at all. 
One of my favorite elements were these combination doors where you have to shoot numbered targets in sequential order to unlock them. And some stages have these golden flying fish you must shoot when they leap out of the water to collect a gold key that unlocks future stages. If you miss, you’ll need to replay the level, and these keys are usually duplicated on branching forks in the river meaning you’ll likely have to replay many levels at least twice to collect all the gold keys.
There is a lot of crazy fun to be had with Dick Wilde 2 thanks to the sheer amount of content, the large arsenal of unlockable mix and match weapons, and the crazy achievements and unlockable reward like hats…so many hats. The action ramps up fast and I caught myself yelling often as I would turn and a fish was flying right at my face. This game will be great for testing your reflexes as well as your patience, and if you have a friend with VR and a copy of the game there is also an online co-op gameplay mode to extend your time on the river. Whether you end up playing with a friend or just try to survive the toxic waters of this redneck raft ride, there is a ton of fun waiting for you with Dick Wilde 2.
