This is an Early Access Review and as such opinions and scores are based solely on the state of the game at the time of review and subject to change as development progresses leading up to final release.
Original Review on February 28, 2017
I’m not the biggest fan of western movies but I do love western video games, and while most of you can only relate to more recent games like Red Dead Redemption or Gunslinger, back in 1990 there were these places called arcades and they had these new things called laser discs and Mad Dog McCree put you face to face with some of orneriest hombres of the Wild West. 27 years later Unforgiven VR is trying to do the same thing, only this time in virtual reality.
The good news is that even in its early access state the game looks great, and to a certain degree is even playable, mostly in the practice mode where you can shoot cans, bottles and other assorted targets. You create your alter ego by designing your own Wanted poster; a process made overly complicated with an Ouija Board interface to enter your name combined with a composite sketch artist to build the image. This entire section was broken for me as I was unable to even exit or advance to the game. I had to ALT-F4 back to Steam and restart the game, which thankfully sent me directly to the game this time.
Now I was by a campfire getting some backstory and this guy drops a gun and says to pick it up, only where he threw it was inside my couch, and with no teleport system to realign the play space I could not get the gun and had to exit once again. This time I took a few steps forward before launching the game so it would calibrate the room with more space behind me, and was finally able to get into the main town that serves as the hub menu.
Using the standard teleport move system common to VR you can move around the wooden front porch to access various hot spots leading to a practice range, online shootouts, or a leaderboard ladder climb with a random assortment of Wanted posters hanging on the wall. The practice range offered a few minutes of fun as I learned to dual wield pistols and reload weapons to take out random target items scattered about the coral. Interestingly (and realistically) enough, you cannot reload when dual wielding.
Next up was a Wanted poster fight. I didn’t pay much attention to the info on the poster so I was terribly mismatched; either that or the other player was cheating somehow, as I was getting gunned down within milliseconds of being allowed to draw. I don’t even think the narrator had finished the countdown command before I was dead. So I went back to the posters and pick some 100-300 reward targets and had some better luck, or at least as much luck as I could have with a totally non-function holstering system.
I know enough about Westerns to know that during a shootout you stare down your opponent and whip out your gun as fast as possible, target, and shoot, but if you try that in this game you are going to pull up empty hands 99% of the time. The calibration for this game is totally broken, and no matter how hard I tried or how much I tried to exploit the height calibration my gun belt was ALWAYS around my knees and not my waist. The only way for me to even draw a gun was to stare down at my belt buckle during the countdown, crouch down or arch my back, then squeeze the button when allowed, visually confirm I had actually grabbed a gun (or guns), then raise it up and shoot. This totally broke the spirit of the shootout theme and pretty much ruined the game. If I can’t trust that my hand hanging down at my side is going to align with a gun then why am I doing this? How hard can it be to calibrate my holster by simply having me hold both controllers down at my side naturally?
I was able to win several consecutive duels but none of those victories felt natural or rewarding. I’m sure I looked like some nerdy hunchback rather than a skilled gunfighter, and I usually drew both guns and emptied them both just in case because targeting is pretty imprecise when you spend more time looking at your crotch than you do at your opponent.
For now I’d have to recommend passing on Unforgiven VR. The game is still in early access so we can only hope they figure out the calibration issues before final launch. And hopefully they add some more content. I’d love to have a traditional Wild West shoot out with dozens of enemies popping out of windows or shooting from rooftop complete with stuntman falls when they die. There is a lot of potential, so we’ll be sure to come back after this game has had some more time to cook.
Update on March 7, 2017
The fist patch has dropped for Unforgiven VR with three fixes and a new feature; the ability to shoot off your opponent’s hat. The developers claim that the poor position of the gun belt is a “feature” and part of the “difficulty curve”. Even so, my complaint and those of countless others who also complained about drawing empty hands has been addressed with a fix to enlarge the drawing zone area. The results for me is that my 99% empty hand draw has now been reduced to 60-70%. That means that in ten duels I’m still drawing empty hands 6-7 times unless I continue to awkwardly hunch over to make my hands line up with my knees and visually confirm I have a gun in my hand before I draw. This fundamental part of the game is still broken and our review and score remain unchanged.
