Review: NOPE Challenge
I have previously liked the Face Your Fears games on the Meta Quest, so when I first heard of NOPE Challenge I was happy to be getting something new like this series. I have now been through the scenarios on offer, but did it fill the void of scary challenges in VR?
Release Date: April 25th 2024
Developer: Happy Manic
Publisher: Happy Manic
Price: £14.99
Reviewed On: Meta Quest 3
* Code Provided For Review *
Challenge Yourself
I think it is important that I caveat this review with that personally I am not scared by the content of the scenarios currently on offer by NOPE Challenge, so I wont have got the full effect of what it offers. Which was only cemented by watching videos of people who have fears of them on YouTube after playing through them all myself and seeing their genuine fear.
In NOPE Challenge it will offer you a total three scenarios, all of which come three different levels of challenges, which will start off lightly and increase to get more of a challenge. These come in the form of heights, spiders and clowns.
I don’t really want to go into the details of what each scenario and difficulty throws at you. As if you are wanting to play it and have a general fear of any of them I don’t want you to go in knowing what to expect. I will say though although I do not have a fear of anything the game throws at you, the final level of the Clown scenario did have me feeling on edge, but this was down to the use of audio in this section – with the general noises being freaky over the fact a clown was walking around.
So, why is it call NOPE Challenge? This is because you have a nope button on your arm, so if it does get too much you can press this button three times and it will remove you from the scenario. Once removed from the scenario you are placed into a breather space, allowing you to control the pace of your playthrough.
Depending on how you manage in the scenarios you could get through them all pretty quickly, but with it only having three at the moment I am hoping more will be added via updates down the line.
Its All About The Audio
Visually the game is a bit of a mixed bag, some of the textures look great but a lot of the environmental textures are low poly, and on some scenarios these look very obvious. It’s not that bad to take you out of the immersion, as you are concentrating on the fears they are designed around – and maybe they stood out more to me with my aforementioned lack of fear on the content they offer.
The sound in game is what really builds the potential scares. With the heights being built around the wind in the atmosphere setting the feeling of being so high without needing to look down. The areas you will encounter spiders have the environmental sounds like thunder outside the house and finally the circus sounds and laughs when dealing with clowns. All are used well to bring every setting to life and build the tension to go along with the fears.
Comfort
The Verdict
NOPE Challenge certainly has a good base to potentially offer scares to those who have fears of heights, spiders or clowns. But, as someone who doesn’t have a fear of any of these it just didn’t hit as it is likely supposed to and I feel it might be the same for people who have them but are used to VR. But, even if I was the lack of content currently on offer still might have still be a let down. I am hoping down the line we might see more fears added in updates to expand the content available – until then I am sure I can have some fun letting people I know with these fears check it out.