One of the most standout aspects of virtual reality to me is not the obvious nature of immersing you into well defined worlds like Batman or Until Dawn (although that’s still a really cool thing). It’s that it can take the sense of presence and apply it to seemingly mundane worlds, heightening the experience to something that would be otherwise relatively lackluster on a two dimensional display. Recently I was very impressed with Darknet, a game that breaks that fourth wall a little bit by making you feel like a VR hacker. From looking at images and gameplay videos, it may not seem all that engrossing, but once you’re in there, it becomes something else entirely
VR Invaders takes a similar stance. While it’s not the flashiest game in PlayStation VR’s arsenal, it takes a subtle fourth wall break and allows you to be a Diver; someone tasked with entering neural virtual reality in 2046 to help debug or rescue people that have lost themselves to the virtual world. What ensues is a loose narrative (that can be toggled on or off) tied together by one of the most solidly designed VR shooting galleries on the platform, even if the setting seems rather uninspired.
VR Invaders seems to share its name with one of the earliest wave based bullet hell games that has permeated pop culture for the last 40 years. Whether this allusion to Space Invaders was deliberate or by coincidence, it’s an appropriate comparison to make as various drones attack i...