VR Gaming

50 Days Of PS VR #1: 'Farpoint' is One Of VR's Most Promising Shooters

, & Jamie Feltham

12 October 2016

50 Days Of PS VR #1: 'Farpoint' is One Of VR's Most Promising Shooters

This is it. PlayStation VR launches tomorrow. We’ve been on an epic journey counting down the last 50 days to the launch of the platform and we’re sad to say that this is the last entry. Thanks to everyone that’s joined us! But dry those tears; we’re going out with a bang, looking at one of our most anticipated PS VR games on the horizon: Farpoint.

–

Developed by Impulse Gear, Farpoint is a hugely promising first-person shooter coming exclusively to Sony’s headset in the near future. In it, you explore a hostile alien planet that’s littered with bug like enemies. You trek through desert-like environments, blowing up bad guys with your machine gun and taking in some spectacular sights. It’s essentially Starship Troopers in VR, which is nothing to complain about.

But that’s not what gets us so excited about Farpoint. The star of the show isn’t so much the game (which is really good) but the new controller it’s coming with, the PlayStation Aim controller. This is a little like the Sharpshooter peripheral that came with the PlayStation Move back in the day, though it’s a standalone device that doesn’t need Sony’s motion controllers to work. You hold the rifle-shaped device with both hands, with analog sticks on both handles to help you walk.

While it isn’t the most innovative idea, it brings a new level of depth to the FPS experience, and that’s wonderfully demonstrated in Farpoint. Bugs crawl down from the sides of walls, pop up from the sandy floor and charge at you from a distance, and you’ll constantly be desperately switching targets in an attempt to take them all down. You bring the gun up to your eye-line to aim, giving the game a distinct Call of Duty-like feel.

The key to Farpoint is the variety it presents in locations, enemy types and weapons. You’ll side-step along sheer cliff faces, making sure not to be caught off guard by enemies from above. Some bugs will try and hack away at you while others will spit acidy globs of liquid for you to shoot out of the air. While you start off with a machine gun, you’ll soon arm yourself with other primary and secondary weapons that will be better suited to taking down some opponents.

We’ve played Farpoint, and the Aim controller genuinely makes it so good that we’re hoping for a truly memorable FPS campaign out of it. We also know the controller will be utilized for other games, which gives us hope for the future of the genre on PS VR in general.

We don’t have a final release date for Farpoint yet, though we’re expecting it to arrive with the Aim controller sometime in 2017. PlayStation VR, meanwhile, launches tomorrow.