Defending The Post Apocalyptic World of Arktika.1
So as of today the post apocalyptic FPS cover shooter Arktika.1 from 4A games has finally been released. Overall the game is solid featuring awesome graphics and sound engineering as well as a bit of an unfolding story but where it falls completely flat is in 4A’s choice of “Node Based” teleportation. This is the only thing I am having an issue with in this game currently. The locomotion choice 4A made for the game was supposed to be due to them wanting to combat motion sickness and to help the players to get into the correct positions for manipulating objects within the game as was stated in a video 4A released last week. Well I can understand the first bit as my wife and a few friends do suffer from motion sickness and this type of teleport locomotion does help them, but the second point that was made in the video 4A released is IMHO a bit insulting to VR gamers. I do not need to have my hand held to make sure I get to the correct spot on a map!
The Node based teleport also got a bit disorienting during the heavier action sequences and quite often seemed to confuse the AI. Basically as I would teleport around the battle zone the AI would seem to get confused as to where I was sometimes. This had me shooting enemies in the back or just standing there while I waited for them to correct their tactics. As it is with most of the bigger VR releases lately I sincerely hope that 4A listens to the community and releases a patch that at the least enables standard teleportation or even better just gives gamers the choice of which locomotion they prefer with free movement included of course. Please don’t get me wrong… I really like this game and am having fun playing through it, but I would of course love it even more if I had the ability to be able to freely explore these very detailed environments!
You can grab a copy of Arktika.1 here:
https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/682000918570174/