C-Smash VRS

Developer Wolf & Wood Interactive Publisher RapidEyeMovers Format PSVR2 Release 2023

As told in E382’s cover feature, C-Smash VRS

was made in the spirit of its predecessor – which, in part, meant quickly. The game’s big September update arrived around the first anniversary not of its release, but the beginning of its production.

An admirable approach, for sure, in a world where development takes ever longer – but that brevity was a little too apparent in the initial release, resulting in a game that was less a smash than a slightly fumbled hit.

Size isn’t the most important measure when it comes to a game’s quality, of course, and C-Smash’s

slenderness could be passed off as further commitment to the clean minimalism seen throughout its visual design. This shortage does mean, however, that we’ve not been coaxed to don the PSVR2 headset and pick up our racquet in the intervening months. Until this update, with its promises of a near-doubling in size.

Unsurprisingly, that minimalist aesthetic remains C-Smash’s strongest asset. Immediately, we’re once more nodding along in our headset to Ken Ishii’s electronica – or rather the new Unkle remix – and we still salute the space station’s hazmat-suited DJ every time our platform whizzes past on the way to a match. Once play begins, though, the game reveals an old shortcoming. VR’s field of view being less than total,

the point where ball meets racquet is in a blind spot, making it hard to judge if you’re going to miss – and, when you do, exactly why. Lest this stray into the old idiomatic territory regarding workmen and their tools, though, we’ll note that the ensuing sense of deflation is offset somewhat by the new action replay, with its record of how you fluffed a match’s final shot, presented from a hard-to-argue-with thirdperson view.

But what of the new mode, Infinite, first promised in the aforementioned cover feature? It’s a fine addition, arguably presenting the game at its purest: hitting balls off walls, for as long as you can, with a (literal) nod to Beat Saber as you duck under and around panels you’ve failed to eliminate. Still, we miss having someone to trade shots with – a prolonged rally, getting faster with every return, is as electrifying as the real thing – and, during our tests, it’s a challenge to find a game online. The while-you-wait warmup sessions now offer an AI opponent to play against, yet we’re disappointed to discover this isn’t a humanoid-shaped rival but a flat block. The emotes that pass over its dot-matrix face are no competition for watching someone’s body sag when they miss. We’ll try again tomorrow. Perhaps inspired by sampling the game at EGX recently, more potential opponents will have tuned in.