Final Approach is an upcoming game from Phaser Lock that tasks you with controlling every aspect of a busy tropical airport. UploadVR went hands-on with a demo of the experience at the Steam VR Showcase in Seattle.
The gameplay for Final Approach is simplicity itself. The game starts you out in a fully customizable hanger. You are then treated to a command view of the colorful bustling airport with multiple landing sites for different types of planes. As the planes come into view you hold the trigger on the Vive hand controller and trace a glowing green path the plane will follow. If the plane is able to follow your plan successfully and land on the appropriate runway you score, if it hits something it shouldn’t and explodes you don’t.
The current build of the game also offers some more up close and personal gameplay elements. By interacting with certain zoom points in the airport you can get in close, watch the planes land, and take on a few more varied gameplay opportunities. One example is zooming into an offshore battleship which lets you take control of the vessel’s missile launchers and machine guns to take out enemy drones.
The occasional plane will also come in with a flaming engine that you will need to zoom in and take care of. During these portions, your controller becomes a hose that you fire with the trigger to extinguish the flames.
There are other ancillary goals to fulfill while you play such as picking up packages out of the water with a magnet and making sure they get to the appropriate places. These, and other similar tasks, eventually make up the game’s narrative-driven story mode.
Phaser Lock was born out of an Austin-based game jam the company founders attended. They knew they wanted to build something that used room-scale VR and their shared experience in aviation led them to create what would eventually become Final Approach. The build at the showcase is way beyond what the company has previously shown. The game now feels like a fleshed out experience rather than the product of a hack-a-thon. The game is confirmed to be in the beta stage of development and on track to release with the Vive in April.
