SPORTS BAR VR HANGOUT
Mini-games refuse to play ball
Ugh. Sports Bar VR is a stressful experience. So much so, if you offered me the choice of spending a night in a dive bar, playing pool and darts against drunkards who’d likely mug me, or asked me to play another hour of this assortment of mini-games, I’d have to think long and hard.
It’s not that Sports Bar VR’s take on pool, darts, air hockey and Skree Ball is terrible. No, it’s that they’re all poorly explained and bogged down by unreliable PS Move controls. The opening tutorial is so confusing, it takes me half an hour to work out how to rotate the camera around the game’s dingy virtual pub – a feat performed by holding down both PS Move buttons until you initiate something called ‘Hulk’ mode. Obviously.
Once you figure out how to teleport around the bar, it becomes clear that pool1 is the headline act. You can play three-, eight- or nine-ball, though none of the rules are explained. Up on the niceties of American pool? You’ll still be battered by the AI. Even on easy, 2 the computer is a whirlwind potter; effortlessly putting away ball after ball.
Though Sports Bar conveys a convincing sense of space, any sense of immersion is nuked from orbit by wonky physics and jittery motion tracking. Playing Skree Ball demands the dainty touch of a comatose field mouse – the PS Move controls are waaaay too sensitive – while pool balls whizz around tables as if being thrust by a cyclone.
Air hockey is admittedly well-executed, and when the controls behave for the other sports there’s an alluring appeal in chucking darts and simulating cueing actions. Yet far too often, Sports Bar VR takes its ball and goes home. Dave Meikleham