Light gun and shooting gallery games have always been an intriguing thing on home consoles. Normally they require the purchase of an accessory which means that the amount of people that played them would be limited to those that wanted to make the investment. This never stopped the fact that these games could often be great fun.
Unfortunately the genre has faded out on home consoles in recent years, although in virtual reality it seems to be making a bit of a comeback. Step up to the plate Lethal VR, a shooting gallery game in which you step in to the shoes of an FBI recruit as you try and get through various training exercises. You’ll have to master multiple kinds of weapons, from handguns to throwing knives, and complete challenges that range from shooting bottles as quickly as possible to picking out specific targets and disposing of them.
There’s a nice variety of challenges to try and master but with only local leaderboards you’ll be relying on having a lot of friends that want to come over to try and best your scores. I had very little difficulty besting the top score of most challenges, meaning that the biggest challenger quickly becomes yourself as you try and get a slightly better ranking. If you’re not someone that cares about high scores there are still some fun trophies to get which encourage playing levels more than once.
Some challenges will see you wanting to best your score whereas others will see you wanting to never play them again. Despite altering my camera position on several occasions I found the throwing knife levels frustrating, and not in a challenging way. The Move controllers limitations are really shown up by how accurately the knives have to be thrown, which is highlighted thanks to a one off special mission where you have to throw a heavier knife. With the heavier knife the chance of curving the trajectory is limited and it feels natural, unlike the throwing knives.
One of the intriguing things with the game is how the developers have designed the usage of guns. Rather than having a body or a pair of disembodied hands the guns operate by what controller they’re assigned to. Do you want to shoot that gun with your left hand rather than your right? Simply switch hands. It’s a useful thing to be able to do, especially in the later challenges. The lack of an avatar actually helps with the immersion in this situation.
There’s lots of nice pop culture references within the game, some less subtle than others, and the feeling of using most weapons is great. You can look down the sights of the gun if you want to and it actually works. It’s a fairly obvious thing to do but lining up your gun in your eye line to hit a bullseye feels great. The fact you have so many weapons you can do this with in one game without changing your peripheral highlights a benefit of virtual reality to the light gun genre.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with Lethal VR on PlayStation VR. With its price tag set at a reasonable £9.99 it’s worth picking up if you’re a fan of shooting gallery games. It’s a slick package that has lots of interesting elements, even if the Move controllers hinder some of the challenges and the lack of an online leaderboard does limit its replayability. You’ll be able to see everything the game has to offer in two to three hours, but it’s a fun ride.
—–
You can watch me play 30 minutes of the game in PlayStation VR below.