At E3 last week in Los Angeles Sony’s media showcase included a demo of ROM: Extraction paired with the PSVR’s Aim Controller — adding a cool new element to the shooter.
The arcade-style shooter from First Contact Entertainment released late last year for both Rift and Vive, allowing players to throw orbs and slow down time then shoot the orbs when they are close to enemies for highly satisfying kills. Obviously, with its single camera PSVR doesn’t have solid 360-degree tracking so the game has been adapted to use snap turns to get the robots coming at you from all directions.
In addition, the aspect of physically throwing orbs has been removed in favor of using the buttons on the front of the Aim Controller to send orbs toward your enemies and slow down time.
Overall, the modifications worked well to adapt the game for PSVR. It is easy to access the time-slowing and orb-throwing superpowers while still taking aim at the robots. The Aim Controller continues to be a fantastic addition to the system and definitely feels missing on the other headsets — though Vive is likely to get similar accessories as soon as the Vive Tracker is more widely available.
It did feel like the precision I was able get out of the Aim Controller on a game like Farpoint wasn’t quite matched just yet by ROM. That said, my experience with the Aim Controller is limited — so it’s possible I just wasn’t used to looking down the barrel of an actual gun in VR. Either way, what I saw was still early as ROM remains in active development. So it is likely major improvements can be expected prior to release on PSVR, which is planned for sometime this year.
“You should expect us to take ROM using the Aim Controller as far as possible,” said developer Adam Orth. “We have a lot of amazingly cool uses for the Aim Controller planned.”
What do you think of this addition? Do you want to see more games get PSVR Aim Controller support? Let us know in the comments below!
