Shaun Munro reviews Vacation Simulator…
Owlchemy Labs’ Job Simulator remains one of the early gemstones of PSVR and VR in general, providing persuasive proof as it did that offbeat comedy games could flourish amid a sea of me-too VR shooters.
And now Owlchemy has finally returned with a nifty new riff, taking aim at the holiday experience with Vacation Simulator. In many ways this follow-up indeed feels incredibly familiar – perhaps a little too familiar for some – what with its similarly self-aware sense of humour and litany of knowingly mundane tasks. Wrapped around this is a “plot” involving robots guiding the human protagonist through three supposedly realistic VR holiday simulations – a beach, a forest and a snow-topped mountain.
As will surprise roughly nobody who played Job Simulator, this game’s biggest win is its remarkable sense of VR presence. The sheer tactile quality of the world around you is really what makes it so much fun; if something in your vicinity looks interactive, it more than likely is, and there’s probably an expectation-defying gag waiting in the bargain. Perhaps most impressive of all is the player’s Polaroid camera, which can be summoned with the press of a button and functions like an actual camera, even allowing the user to take selfies.
Noticeable pains have also been made not to repeat some of the accessibility and tracking issues prevalent in the original PSVR release of Job Simulator, meaning nearby objects can beam directly into your hands, and no matter your PlayStation Camera placement, you shouldn’t struggle with out-of-reach items.
The high level of interaction is tied together by a minimalist, pastel-infused art style perfectly tailored to the limitations of PSVR, and aided by some consistently terrific voice work, the dozens of robots you’ll encounter throughout your vacationing are absolutely overflowing with personality.
It’s probably fair to say that the weakest aspect of Vacation Simulator is the central tasks (or “memories”) themselves; completing a task for a robot, such as helping them prepare food, sculpting a requested object or taking a series of specific photos, will result in payment of a memory, of which there are 69 throughout the three mini-worlds.
While Job Simulator functioned quite holistically – and hilariously – as a satire of the rote, soulless nature of employment, it’s not a tack that lends itself quite so well to the vacation experience, which while gently mocked here, perhaps too often repeats the chore-centric nature of the previous game’s formula.
Though most of the tasks are at least passably entertaining – and you need only accrue 30 memories to reach the game’s end credits screen – the activities from the first level are more-or-less recycled in the latter two, with slight twists that aren’t always enough to fend off the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu.
Still, the game’s structure – whereby no specific tasks are mandatory – grants players decidedly greater agency than in Job Simulator, and if an event isn’t working for you, you need only teleport a few stops away to try something else. When the game presents a marquee task born from true inspiration – like a rhythm game where the player uses an oar for a drum – it actually flirts with genuine greatness.
Despite the technical slickness generally on display, in my play-test the game wasn’t entirely devoid of glitches; in one instance the sound randomly cut-out completely, and in another an object wouldn’t behave as intended, the former requiring a full restart and the latter merely exiting the level. Mercifully, though, the game’s excellent checkpointing ensured no progress was lost in either case.
On one hand, Vacation Simulator lacks some of the freshness that made its predecessor so startling, but between its giddy sense of humour, top-notch VR world and addictive memory-hoovering central loop, it’s a solid variation on that prevailing formula.
For most players, collecting enough memories to trigger the ending will take 3-4 hours, but obtaining the rest can probably double that. Whether the game is worth its £26.99 RRP will depend entirely on players’ own fondness for (or tolerance of) a central loop that will certainly prove overly repetitious for some.
Though some of the novelty has worn off, Vacation Simulator serves up another charmingly off-kilter VR quirk-fest.
Pros:
+ Excellent visuals and VR presence.
+ Goofy, self-aware sense of humour.
+ Terrific voice acting.
+ Addictive core gameplay loop (to a point).
Cons:
– Tasks can feel repetitive.
– Occasionally glitchy gameplay.
Rating: 7.5/10
Reviewed on PSVR (also available for Oculus Rift & HTC Vive).
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
