BATTLEZONE
Complex and colourful tank warfare has hex appeal
Don your headset to play this virtual reality tank shooter, and the first thing you’ll read? “Insert C.O.I.N.”. This cute callback to the ’80s arcade game sums up Rebellion’s reboot, which stuffs the appeal of the classic with modern nuance. The result is something far more than an immersive five-minute experience – PS VR’s fullest, most confident and complex native game yet. Once you’ve hit q to duly provide your Combat Operative Identification Nexus (geddit?) and picked a short, normal, or long campaign length, a procedurally-generated hex map unfurls. The goal is to blast your chosen tank through roguelike missions and enemy forces to reach the volcano. There are nine unlockable vehicles with balanced pros and cons (heavy tanks are resilient but slow, for example), a selection of situational, satisfyingly crunchy guns, and a strategic special ability on o. You’re armed to the back teeth.
But just being in Battlezone is wonderfully disarming. The retro-futuristic, Tron-esque visuals glow as synth music shimmers and pulses. Movement is a silky side-to-side glide that makes tank warfare a lickety-split, yet nausea-free, ballet. Holding p boosts your speed, with the tradeoff that your shields deactivate. Different enemy behaviours demand you adapt: beat them, and your reward is “data” to buy upgrades with.
Piloting from the VR cockpit is as practical as it is novel; crystal-clear HUD elements are integrated all around. Pings on the radar have me craning left, right and upwards to target foes as if living in a videogame is perfectly natural, thank you very much. I grin every time I catch myself doing it.
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It’s not all smiles. Battlezone is uncompromising, a permadeath challenge of clever, considered systems that – coupled with the intensity of the headset – can be exhausting. Making an enthusiastic beeline for the boss, skipping the chance to destroy shield generators en route, means a tougher AI core to fight at the end. But you can’t dawdle about for too long either, as an enemy power bar fills with every passing turn to buff adversaries. There’s also a ridiculously strong Nemesis tank roaming. If it decides to hop onto your hex, you can kiss your campaign goodbye.
Difficulty scales for online drop-in, drop-out co-op. Huddling close to teammates to heal and revive seems sensible, but it’s painfully slow and leaves you too vulnerable. Often, my teammates and I even end up hopelessly stuck on each others’ chassis until an opportunistic baddie wastes us. That’s one more life drained from our shared pool.
It’s staggering how much Battlezone does to keep players invested, but it can be a shade too much to handle for lengthy play sessions. Want a robust, strategic, deep VR game? Grab this, but be prepared to digest it in small chunks over time.
“PILOTING YOUR TANK FROM THE VR COCKPIT IS AS PRACTICAL AS IT IS NOVEL.”