A few weeks ago, we brought you a story about a new Suicide Squad VR experience that would be making its debut at San Diego Comic-Con. That experience was a 360-degree video that was only being shown to people at the show. However, Warner Brothers did promised it would be making the experience available to the masses eventually.
However, what we didn’t realize is that the Suicide Squad: Special Ops mobile game (iOS and Android) would also be seeing a VR adaptation for Gear VR. Luckily today, you can now go into the Oculus Store and download Suicide Squad: Special Ops VR for the low, low price of free. The VR version of the game is currently only available for the Samsung Gear VR and now that I’ve had the chance to try it out, I must say that it may have a more well-structured narrative than its source material.
Now, to be fair, saying something has a better flow to it than David Ayer’s ‘Suicide Squad’ is a bit like saying the U.S.A. beat this guy at gymnastics. Not exactly an “Olympic achievement”.
Special Ops VR may not provide voice acting, character development, or any reason to shoot your enemies beyond “they look scary,” but at least it clearly walks you through each level and provides you with a clear objective to progress through the game.
The experience rotates you into the shoes of three Suicide Squad members: Deadshot (who is inexplicably caucasian in this game despite being depicted by Will Smith in the film), Harley Quinn, and El Diablo. Each of them has their own unique weapon and sub-weapon, but your goal as each anti-hero remains the same: eliminate a wave of enemies without being killed.
Deadshot has a custom rifle and his signature wrist blasters. Quinn boasts a revolver and a comically over-powered bat that can take out multiple enemies in a single swing, and El Diablo burns things. He burns all the things.
The core gameplay loop of shoot, swing, burn, and survive is relatively entertaining, but ultimately Special Ops VR does little to raise itself out of the mediocre waters that most movie tie-in games end up drowning in. The game does use spacial audio in interesting ways and keeps you turning and moving by placing enemies around you in 360 degrees. Ultimately, however, these positives are not enough to make Special Ops VR anything other than a novelty that never truly brings you into the world of the film.
If you’re looking for a somewhat engaging shooter to pass an hour or so, then go ahead and give this one a shot, it is free after all. But after that hour elapses, Special Ops VR will become little more than a waste of your phone’s memory.
Suicide Squad: Special Ops VR was created by Sticky Studios, a game developer known mostly for creating movie tie-in titles such as 300: Seize Your Glory and The Hobbit: Barrel Escape. It is published by Warner Brothers and is available for download now.
