2 hours into Synapse and wow finally a decent game!

So far I considered all the games I’ve played on VR either ok or just plain bad with very few exceptions (like the obvious REVIII and Pavlov).

Synapse already gets points by virtue of being playable: every other shooter I’ve tried had some degree of jank and Synapse is just fluid. It works, it’s a miracle. Sure using the telekinesis can be a bit tricky when you want to do something more surgical than the standard “randomly through an object around” but I’m not that picky.

So yeah, as someone who’s been complaining about PSVR2 for months I can say that this game seems pretty good so far: the telekinesis is incredibly satisfying and the all experience lives and dies by that: you either get off feeling like Magneto or you won’t enjoy this.

On a more surprising note: this game actually promotes verticality? You can climb almost every wall and that means not only the basic “reach the second floor of this building” but actually getting some weird vantage points that can easily save you if you’re out of hp. Bonus: it’s actually a climbing system that is fun, as opposed to whatever Hubris and Horizon tried to do.

And even more surprising: you can hide. Now that was surprising: enemies don’t know your position and if you hide during a skirmish they will lose sight of you. And that’s when that climbing thing really gives you the edge.

Or you know, just blast off with kinesis and shotgun, that works too. Yep, this is actually a game that has a main gameplay loop but allows you to follow a different one without shoe horning it. This is the kind of good shit I don’t find even in flat games, let alone VR games that are usually the pinnacle of mediocrity.

Is it short? I don’t know, probably, I got halfway through the run towards the subconscious in 2 hours, I might just get to the end tomorrow.

But considering that it’s around the same price of hubris and that hubris also lasts 2 hours (or however much time it took me before abandoning it) I’d say it’s absolutely worth it.

As for the plot, I can’t say much, mostly because the audio mixing is honestly the one truly bad thing this game has: I can barely understand what they say between the music and all the explosions and I don’t want ugly subtitles in my face. So yeah, I guess this game won’t scratch my itch for a good story driven VR game but it definitely gets a pass. Fully recommend