Dumb Ways: Free for All Review - A WarioWare Vacation For VR

Dumb Ways: Free for All shows you how not to take a holiday on Quest. Read on for our full review.

It’s hard to believe that an Australian rail safety advertisement has spawned a series of genre-jumping games that span logical puzzlers, Lemmings-likes, and 3D racers. What’s more, the Dumb Ways To Die brand isn’t done reinventing its death-dabbling challenges and is now pushing beyond flatscreen platforms with its VR debut, Dumb Ways: Free for All. Following the series’ established framework of infusing obvious danger with dark humor, Playside Studios delivers a safe reimagining of the formula, presenting players with a pool of moreish but familiar VR minigames doused in chortle-worthy laughs.

Free for All sets you up as one of the iconic Dumb Ways To Die ‘Beans’, a jolly holiday-goer whose idea of relaxing includes feeding hungry bears color-coordinated meals and fishing for gold in a sea of active mines. Across a sequence of timed levels aptly called Tours, you’ll face off against a smorgasbord of chaotic WarioWare-like activities, earning experience points and unlocking cosmetics along the way. It's a simple premise yet the overtly silly setting of Free For All is convincing, grounding you in the peril-filled fantasy nonetheless. 

The straightforward control scheme has you using the grip button to grab and hold items, the trigger to shoot projectiles, and the joysticks to turn in place. There’s no movement within levels to worry about, with the focus pulled squarely onto your reflexes and speed. The items you’ll interact with across the Tours mirror real-world items like bowling balls and slingshots, so using them feels natural despite the curious circumstances you might find yourself in.

This is further helped by broad similarities between tools and activity types, which means once you’ve tried your hand at a few minigames, you can usually intuit others. One task involves using a spear to stab slippery fish while avoiding explosives. Later, I needed to squash crawling crabs with a giant mallet, and found myself avoiding the same intrusive bombs. Despite both tasks being thematically oppositional, the simplicity of this process and overlapping physicality make it easy to adapt and get stuck in. 

This repetition is a double-edged sword, however, as certain activities can become dull and loathsome over time. This isn’t helped by the inconsistency of certain interactions, like with certain items not recognizing my movement or inputs. These weren’t overly common, occurring mostly when I would move quickly. Still, the games are built on urgency, and the unpredictability of these systems creates moments of frustration as I miss out on better scores. 

Once you reach the final tour minigame, Dumb Ways: Free for All throws you a curve ball in the form of a weather warning, which increases the difficulty of your next task with visual complications like rain and fog. This shift not only helps to maintain momentum as your arms start to ache from moving them around, but it delivers a solid final impression that helps nullify the frustration of any mediocre challenges taken on in the same run. While I loathed the monotonous process of swatting mosquitos out of the sky, its tedious nature was forgotten as soon as I enjoyably dual-wielded hot chip handguns to shoot seagulls during a storm.

When you’re not in the wild performing dangerous acts like playing football with a jumbo crab, you’ll spend your time in the Airport-themed hub. From here, you can choose your game mode, solo and multiplayer, change your character’s outfits, and tweak settings. Movement within the hub is limited to pointing at arrows and warping, which is a shame because the vacation-friendly set-dressing would have been lovely to explore between Tours. Ultimately, Dumb Ways: Free for All isn’t as concerned with exploration or narrative as much as it is interested in getting you to jump back into its attention-grabbing minigames.

Even if you can’t touch the broader world around you, it's still visually enticing. Vibrant candy colors frame the beaches and rainforests, and a rambunctious, bouncy soundtrack helps maintain an energetic ambience. This is compounded by the slapstick comedy of my fellow Beans, who are peppered throughout the levels in flaming buildings or strung up in trees. Not every game here is a winner, but it's hard not to smile as Dumb Ways to Die’s signature tune chimes when finishing levels. Often, Dumb Ways: Free for All reminded me of the way brightly lit arcades teeter between overwhelming and exciting, charming you in with the promise of serotonin hits and high scores.

As mentioned, you can also play Dumb Ways: Free for All in multiplayer, with up to six players online. While I didn’t get the chance to try out this feature pre-release, I’m keen to dig into some of the challenges with friends in tow. On my own, I found myself running out of steam across play sessions, and it certainly feels like some friendly banter would be the perfect antidote to spur me on.

Dumb Ways: Free for All - Final Verdict

Dumb Ways: Free for All is a compelling arcade simulator that draws you in with its bouncy soundtrack and endearing silliness. The engaging bread-and-butter minigames are great for short periods, though they begin to grate over time and that's especially true if you’ve played this familiar brand of VR arcade simulator before. Still, with its unique set dressing, slapstick comedy, and a handful of standout levels peppered throughout, Dumb Ways: Free For All is a solid way to spend an afternoon, if not just for the great triceps workout.

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