There were several really good mitigation methods in the accessibility settings, but motion sickness is something every VR game is going to have to contend with forever, and I feel like the game could have offered even more ways to combat that. But boy howdy, did I feel sick while playing. So, I’m not sure if I would have felt as sick as I did while playing had my inner ear not been in panic mode. I played Horizon: Call of the Mountain while very sick with a virus that played havoc with my sinuses. What is less good about Horizon Call of the Mountain? I recognise these are famous last words, so to be clear, more eye tracking in games, please. While I didn’t love that it meant having to make extra eye contact with characters, it improved all other experiences so much that I want more things to have eye tracking. It made selecting dialogue options and navigating the menu feel more natural. While we’re talking about the technology that makes the game good, getting to use the eye tracking to select things in the game felt like magic. The world of Horizon has always been one I wanted to walk around in, and it certainly lives up to the hype. That’s not to say the other parts weren’t pretty good. Sure, there were other puzzles to do and a beautiful world to explore, but I wanted to shoot more arrows. The only problem with the archery was that there wasn’t enough of it. And archery with the new Sense controllers is just an intuitive joy. Climbing is a little oversimplified, in that the game locked onto hand holds for me and tried really hard not to let me fall to my death, but it still retained some of the magic. Once you get beyond the initial boat ride, you start getting into the meat of the game, which features the best of what VR has to offer: climbing and archery. But I don’t know if that was the primary vibe the makers of Horizon: Call of the Mountain had in mind. Personally, I love good tech demos, Wii Sports is one of my favourite games of all time. This fits, because Horizon: Call of the Mountain feels more like a tech demo than a full game. That opening is designed to be one of those moments that make you understand the appeal of VR, and it works perfectly for that in the way the original shark demo for PSVR1 seemed to at the time. But that first 5-10 minutes is something that will stick with me, because while it felt like a cheesy and somewhat outdated theme park ride (which is also one of my favourites that I have ridden roughly a dozen times), it felt exciting and real, but safe, in that way immersive theme park rides do. After that, you have to run/climb for your life, and the game opens up. The beginning of Horizon: Call of the Mountain is exactly that, complete with calm captors who get attacked by mechanical dinosaurs. The boat then veers around wildly as animatronic dinosaurs jump out at you, and there’s a big drop into water as you try to escape. The boat starts out drifting peacefully through the enclosures while the recorded tour guide calmly tells you about what’s going on, and then things go off the rails as you discover more and more dangerous dinosaurs have broken containment. If you’re not familiar with the ride, it begins as a standard boat tour of a zoo with dinosaurs. The first 5-10 minutes of Horizon: Call off the Mountain feels exactly like the first time you go on the Jurassic Park ride at Universal Studios in LA. Unlike previous Horizon games, this one doesn’t drag out for 40 hours, and you really wouldn’t want it to in VR. He sure was a perfectly fine self-insert vehicle for the game, and I have no quarrel with him, but I also don’t think we need any more games about him. An extra story in a world you know and love, but in a delightful form factor.Įven after playing, I have no real connection with Ryas. It wouldn’t make sense to advance Aloy’s story in a game most players won’t have access to (assuming the PSVR2 doesn’t magically start selling in pace with the PS5), and it brings back the pleasant vibe of PSP exclusive games. But in hindsight, I actually love the switch. I wanted it to be part of the main canon of the series. Instead, you play as Ryas, a former Shadow Carja rebel sentenced to a particularly intense form of community service.Īt first, I was disappointed to discover the game featured Ryas instead of Aloy. Horizon: Call of the Mountain is set in the same universe as Horizon: Forbidden West and Horizon: Zero Dawn but, crucially, it is the first game of the series that doesn’t star Aloy.
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