As the name implies, Loading Human: Chapter 1 is the first in a trilogy of episodic installments for an adventure game set in the year 2184 where you play as an astronaut preparing to head out into deep space in search of the Quintessence, a rare energy source that can power the nanobots needed to save your dying father, who just so happens to be the inventor of the Dark Matter engine that allows you to travel into space.
Despite the impressive concepts and themes going into the game, once you start playing the story slips almost entirely away to make room for lots of annoying exploration, frustrating puzzle-solving and disappointing conversations. It’s also worth noting that being the first in a 3-part series, you won’t have much of a satisfying conclusion when the game is over, so be ready to invest in two more sequels if you want to see this thing out. And I hope those sequels are priced as DLC and not $40 each.
Loading Human works fine with the DualShock 4 but lacks the overall immersion when using a pair of PS Move controllers. It’s an aggravating dichotomy because the gamepad is much better for moving around while the Move is preferred for fumbling around with items and objects in the environment, but you can’t have it both ways. The game purposely limits your travel speed and turn abilities to prevent motion sickness, which just makes getting around take longer than it needs to. There are also issues where it looks like you should be able to interact with something visually, but the game doesn’t think you are close enough to grab an item or flip a switch. In the end, I switched back to the DualShock 4 just to avoid the annoying bugs associated with the Move.
Loading Human reminded me of another game, The Assembly, which was originally for PC then ported to PSVR. This time we get the game first on PSVR and later on the Rift and Vive, which I can only assume will be better experiences, not just in controls but in visuals. While the graphics aren’t horrible on the PSVR, Loading Human is certainly limited by the power of the PS4. Maybe the PS4 Pro will improve things in a couple weeks but right now the visuals are loaded with aliasing issues as well as that swimmy watery look that washes over the entire display. This seems to happen whenever a VR game is trying to deliver too much of a realistic look. Out of all the launch games, it seems the stylized graphics work best in VR.
Shattering any illusions of reality are some pretty poor character models with weird emotionless (or inappropriate emotions) faces that were trying to deliver the overly complicated script with some pretty bad voice acting. It’s all pretty cringe-worthy to the point that you want to skip the exposition and move on to the next puzzle. It’s sad because the game wants to make a big deal out of your relationships with Lucy, Alice, and your father, but given minimal opportunities to interact and poor presentation when you do, it just never engages the player as it should.
Loading Human: Chapter 1 takes upwards of four hours to complete where you’ll get to solve puzzles ranging from interesting to totally frustrating while you walk around some pretty cool environments at painfully slow speeds dreading that next conversation with some lifeless mannequin of a character. It’s sad when your best delivered dialogue is coming from Lucy and she is an AI.
While I can only blame the PSVR for the poor visuals and the annoying Move control scheme, it’s the plodding story and poor conversations that have me wondering if this series can save itself in future episodes. The power of the Rift and Vive will certain fix a few nagging technical issues, but they won’t help with the fundamentally disappointing script, acting, and puzzles that plague this game at its very core. There are better VR games out there, so save your $40 for one or two of those.
