Back in April, I got to spend serious time with the HTC Vive. I played a lot of games, and found a few favorites. Stuff like Job Simulator VR and Space Pirate Trainer really showed me what a Vive could do that consoles and PCs couldn’t. Since then, I’ve tried a few of the newer Vive titles but none have held my interest like Funkatronic’s new game Cosmic Trip VR. The premise is familiar to anyone who’s played an RTS in the post-Starcraft era: gather resources, build defenses and kill aliens. What makes Cosmic Trip VR fun to play is that it applies those mechanics to VR in a smooth and consistent way so that it’s easy to lose yourself in the game.
Don’t be mistaken. This isn’t just Starcraft with goggles on. Cosmic Trip VR offers a highly interactive experience that highlights some of the Vive’s strengths. The construction interface is mapped nicely on the Vive controllers. A brief tutorial explains the fundamentals, but anyone used to playing Vive games will figure it out instantly. Players select different pieces of robot-building/mining equipment and place it on a worksite. Worksites are scattered across the map, accessible only by teleporters that must be pulled up from the ground and stepped into. First you build up one worksite, then another, then another and so on.
Working against you are the aliens. In my demo I only had to contend with one type, a floating eyeball looking thing that wanted to destroy my cosmobots who dilligently gathered crystals. Fortunately, Cosmic Trip VR has a delightful combat mechanic that lets you help defend against the aliens. You can switch each controller into a weapon that lets you toss projectiles like frisbees into your foes. It may sound simple, but when you suddenly have a large swarm of aliens moving you then you’ll start flinging discs two at a time and wondering if it’s enough. Defeated enemies drop a space gas also used in construction.
That’s the basic ebb and flow of the game. Establish workstations to build cosmobots, put them to work and use the resources to build more cosmobots and defensive structures like automated turrets. The game flow had just enough motion to keep me engaged but not so much I felt frantic. Taking out swarms of enemies with just my own weapons was great, but there was a swell of pride when I watched two turrets handle things while I kept building. Cosmic Trip VR is a good game, and should entertain for hours when it has it a full release. It’s currently in Steam Early Access.
