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GameSpot
As an early adopter of PC-based VR, I’ve been guided down the path of that must-have high-gloss VR game before. But despite a handful of true winners, from Recreation room to Beat saber, my Rift and Vive first generation, and newer Oculus Quest, everyone spends more time collecting dust than anything else.
My big problem has always been that the games that people really want to play, based on great franchises and popular characters, are few and far between. Even when a company like EA or Activision dives in, it is usually a one-of-a-kind experience, like the unique levels of VR found in Star Wars: Battlefront or Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, both of which were quickly abandoned.
But now, my forehead is sweating and my head strap is tight, because the only great new Star Wars game this season is a full VR experience that is hidden in plain sight. Star Wars: Squads it’s, from what I can tell, mostly for VR games, it’s just that no one bothered to write VR-only on the cover (maybe because a VR-only Star Wars game couldn’t sell enough copies to justify its costs ).
For example, all of the playable parts of the game are played from a seated cockpit view across different spaceships. When in a hangar or other common area, the protagonist is literally rooted in a place like a tree (or like an avatar from a virtual reality game), able to point and click on some things from a distance, which activates cut scenes.
Frankly, it’s not a great game, so it probably costs less than most new game releases. But once you put on a VR headset, be it on a PC or PS4, suddenly someone has created a very expensive-looking Star Wars dogfighting simulator for the underrated audience of VR gamers.
The experience reminded me, in the best way, of the countless hours I spent in classic spacefighting games like Freespace 2 or even the original Wing Commander games (yes, I’m that old). Now that usually means trying to line up a signal on a radar screen in front of you, shoot past it, then cut the throttle in half and execute a tight turn to try again, but that’s dog fighting games. At least the way I fly, which is wrong.
On a more practical level, this is what I found:
Getting VR headsets to speak correctly to your PC and a specific game is still a moving target. In this case, I used an Oculus Rift in PC mode (which means connecting via a USB-C Thunderbolt cable). But the correct order in which Steam, Steam VR, the inescapable Oculus software, and finally the Star Wars: Squadrons VR version would be released never seems to work the exact same way twice.
Better put a flying stick on your Christmas wish list … for 2021. All decent flight sticks are out of stock, between this game and the last decade in development. Microsoft Flight Simulator to update. GameSpot has a good list here, but good luck finding one. Most cost between $ 150- $ 300, but I know Rebellion is on a tight budget so you can try to find the one $ 40 Logitech 3D Probut again, it’s out of stock everywhere I’ve looked.
You’ll end up using a gamepad … and that’s fine. Like many gamers, I ended up using a standard Xbox gamepad. It actually worked fine, using the left stick for throttle and roll and the right stick for pitch and yaw (that’s up and down and left and right, for the rest of us).
Personally, I’d love to see more $ 40 standalone VR games based on great movies or game series. Especially with Oculus Quest and Quest 2 making VR more affordable and user-friendly (and also providing a bridge to PC-based VR), VR games seem to have more lives than a cat. If you’re considering Star Wars: Squadrons as a non-VR game, I wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way for it. But if you are looking for an excuse to smash that headphone then this is good as you are getting it this holiday season.
Read more on GameSpot: Star Wars: Squadrons First Impressions Review
