Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash
PSVR
Another victory for nominative determinism. Space Channel 5 VR wins this month’s Ronseal award at a canter, but that aside its trophy cabinet seems destined to remain empty. This is a game of limited ambition – taking a beloved 20-year-old music game and squishing it as-is into VR – that at best reaches its not-very-lofty goal and, at worst, falls some way short of it. For all that the transferral may seem like a no-brainer, much has been lost in the transition to virtual reality.
As is often the case with PlayStation VR games, much of what’s wrong with Space Channel 5 VR can be blamed on the Move controllers, the use of which is compulsory here. Thanks to the ageing devices’ iffy hand tracking, Space Channel 5 is no longer timingbased; instead, the game merely checks the position of your hands when it expects an input from you. If you’re required to shoot on four consecutive downbeats, you can simply extend your hands half a second before the first shot, then keep them in place for the rest. Try and play it honestly and you’ll often be penalised for not quite being in position in time. Fail three consecutive sections and it’s game over, the rather misleading option to ‘continue’ dumping you back at the start of the level and forcing you to sit (or stand) through lengthy level intros and exposition.
Still, Grounding has smartly thought through the game’s transition to VR. Rather than playing as Space Reporter Ulala herself, you’re a cub reporter learning the ropes, and are standing behind her and off to the side a little. The series-standard repertoire of D-pad dance moves and button-press gunshots are now physical arm extensions, while dodging involves physical movement (for seated play a head-tilt will suffice). A new enemy callout requires that you mimic a specific dance pose. And rather than strut through the level, the action comes to you, making for a comfortable, if often rather dull, VR experience.
Series fans will know better than to expect an epic, but even by its own standards Kinda Funky News Flash is a short game. Its four levels, restarts notwithstanding, rush by in half an hour; we spend more time getting PSVR set up than we do playing the campaign for the first time (one of these days we’ll remember where we left the Moves). VR can benefit from short play sessions, but this stretches the concept to its limits. The result is a game that just about lives up to the promise of its title, but proves a far less effective experience than its concept seems to imply. After 20 years in the shadows, Ulala’s return to the spotlight involves a few too many missed beats to recommend.