No one tell Blizzard about Vision Origin. Upon booting up this new HTC Vive game, I quickly had to remove my headset to check that I wasn’t actually playing a surprise VR spin-off of Overwatch, given that the character designs of the three classes on offer look almost exactly like some from last year’s multiplayer shooter hit. But though it may be asthetically identical, Vision Origin is quite different on the inside.
This is one of those highly-polished VR games that appears seemingly out of nowhere. Not surprisingly, its roots trace back to China, which doesn’t tend to market its big VR releases over here. It’s made by Shanghai-based Thinking Bear.
Refreshingly, Vision Origin isn’t just a survival shooter, though it does offer such a mode. There’s also a campaign that has you move through rooms, methodically removing the enemies within them, finding keys, and then moving on. You move via quickstep teleportation, as in the camera quickly zooms over to where you point your cursor. That’s about all there is to it; no one’s going to learn any great lessons or establish any practises from the game’s design, but you can still have some fun with it.
Every player gets a laser sword and a standard issue gun as well as their own signature weapon depending on the character. None of these really seemed to vary in their effects, and I just ended up choosing the weapon and provided the clearest sights for aiming.
Vision Origin is one of those games that, should you so desire, you can cheat your way around. The easiest path to victory is using the sword and teleporting straight into enemies to cut them down. Doing so makes short work of the huge crowds you’ll often face, though it can also help to stay back and take a quick few pot shots before your foes spot you. You’ll face off with gun-touting guards, chainsaw-armed robots, a mechanical bird with a missile for a beak, and ghost-like sword wielders.
While some of the enemy designs are encouragingly unique, the game’s presentation is a mixed bag. Your guns are outlandish, bulging and cartoonish, with slick reload animations that feel a little at odds considering you’re not performing them yourself. That said, killing enemies produces comic book-style visual sound effects, much like Epic Games’ Robo Recall. The tone just doesn’t carry through to the rest of the game, though. Everything feels a little too borrowed, with the sum of its parts looking like a jigsaw stuck together with pieces from different boxes.
When handled in doses, the combat is stylish fun. Slicing away with the sword incites Star Wars-style poses, and I love that you can turn it on and off by holding down a trigger, avoiding those awkward contact issues so many VR sword games suffer from.
It’s when enemies swarm that you realise Vision Origin suffers from the same issues many full VR FPS games suffer from. Teleporting away from gunfire feels unnatural, and the game doesn’t do a great job of establishing the boundaries of contact between you and your opponents. It’s hard to know when you’re standing close enough, what you should be doing to avoid attacks, and if you’re too close to a wall (in which case the game will push you back when you lean into it).
It’s all polished and looks lovely, it just needs a little direction. There are plenty of design rules that still need to be established to make VR shooters mechanically precise and satisfying, and it’s a shame to see games like Vision Origin come at go without really bringing any new ideas to the table. Its two levels last about 20 minutes in total so, unless there’s plans for plenty of new content, it’s hard to recommend laying down the $20 needed to play it.
It’s easy to make your game look like Overwatch, but we don’t have the tools to make something as brilliantly refined and gloriously playable as Blizzard’s blockbuster yet, and we probably won’t for years to come. With its stylish presentation but simplistic gameplay, Vision Origin demonstrates that perfectly.
Vision Origin is available now for $19.99 on Steam with HTC Vive support.
