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Review: Metal Hellsinger VR

I was left impressed with the early preview I got with Metal Hellsinger VR ahead of the demo being released so, I was looking forward to seeing more of the game with the full release. I have now played through the full game, did it leave me just as impressed?

Release Date: October 3rd 2024
Developer: Lab42, The Outsiders
Publisher: Funcom
Price: US $29.99 / CA $39.99 / €29,99 / £24.99
Reviewed On: DPVR E4 Black / Playstation VR2
* Access Provided For Review *

Reclaim Your Voice

You play as someone simply named ‘The Unknown’ who arrives in Hell. Where her memories , her voice and her ‘song’ is stolen – as Hell steals the memories of all there, sometimes leaving enough for them to suffer. You are now seeking to reclaim it, you need to go face The Red Judge, the ruler of Hell. The question is can you break through the Anguish Gate and reclaim your voice?

Slay To The Beat

Metal Hellsinger VR takes an interesting approach of mixing a rhythm game with Doom like paced gameplay. It does this by making you shoot enemies to the beat of the music. Which works well in Virtual Reality, with the whole full freedom of movement offered by turning physically in your play-space and the feeling of having weapons in your own hands.

You will be killing to the beat over eight different levels and taking on a mix of standard enemies, larger enemies and bosses, as aforementioned you will be shooting and slashing to the beats. Actually carrying it out to the beats will do more damage, charge a special shot and also give you a score multiplier, with the multiplier adding the songs vocals when it hits a set level. With how it works and when you get the hang of it, it’s easy to keep the multiplier up and charge those special shots – however getting used to killing to beat might take some practice at first, but don’t let this put you off at the start.

As you would expect from the game, the tracks you will slaying all these Hell demons too is metal music, with the games original soundtrack including eight tracks with vocals from the likes of Tatiana from Jinger, Matt from Trivium, Randy from Lamb of God and others. All the songs really get your adrenaline pumping when mixed with the gameplay. You will get a total of eight weapons to mix it up but, you will find your favorites and likely stick to those – I found myself sticking to using a mix of Persephone (shot gun) and The Hounds (dual pistols) and another fun one is Telos (Bow). You will find that each level will be around fifteen to twenty minutes long each, meaning it will feel you get through the game quite quickly. But, the idea of the game is going back in and play the levels again and again, get better scores and maybe try and get stylish with your kills.

Where a lot of it works well, there are some issues, the first one being slowed down at times by getting stuck on stairs and parts of the environment which really breaks the smoothness and sometimes your flow – which can be frustrating. Also some of the gun interactions in VR are hit and miss, which was very prevalent when flicking the shot gun to reload (although this is still my favorite weapon). It’s little things like this can be frustrating in VR, especially in such a fast paced action game, as it slows you down a little. With some little tweaks, these could be resolved by patches. These issues happened on both the PCVR and PSVR version of the game, so it’s not platform specific.

If you are struggling to kill to the beat and want more of an easy ride in building up your multiplier and special shots, the VR version has the Beat Assist mode that was a later addition to the standard game. Meaning you can just enjoying the Doom like gameplay and not being worried about killing to the beat.

There are more songs available through DLC (these were not available at the point of review). These DLC packs have some more original songs made for the game, featuring artists like Cristina from Lacuna Coil and Joe from Autopsy. Then there is a pack of licensed songs, featuring bands like Muse, Gorillaz, Depeche Mode and Disturbed.

Oh Holy Hell

The majority of playtime for the review was conducted on the PCVR version of the game because, visually the game looks a lot better on PCVR on Max settings, compared to the PSVR2 version. The PSVR2 versions has more muddy looking textures and some pop-in in the distance – which is not present on the PCVR, again these could patched at a later date, which would bring it inline with the PCVR version. Not that the game looks bad on the PSVR2, but the extra details and clarify on PC just brings Hell to life that little bit more, with some of locations looking great and will have you taking it in once the enemies are taken down.

With the audio the team have done an awesome job of mixing the sounds of hell, the enemies and the games original metal soundtrack to build the world of Metal Hellsinger. However, what might come at a stumbling block for some is the fact its a metal soundtrack, as this style of music is a select taste. One element I love is that the game uses the haptics of the controllers to allow you to feel the beat of the music as well. This is where the PSVR2 offers something over the PCVR version, the haptics in the Sense Controllers feel much better, then add to this the headset haptics, and you feel the music a lot more.

Comfort

The Verdict

Metal Hellsinger has ported over to VR very well but, with some VR specific issues its not a perfect port. With getting stuck on stairs and parts of the environment, and reloading not always being perfect, it can slow down the games fast and hectic play style. When it comes to the visual and audio design, these mix in perfectly with game coming with an impressive roster of artists on its original soundtrack, all well respected within the metal scene. However, where the metal music makes perfect sense for what the game is doing, this might mean it’s not going to gel with everyone – as the genre can be for a quite a specific taste. However, if you take to it and take the time to get used to killing to the beat Metal Hellsingers gameplay is fun, fast and will get your adrenaline pumping as the overall gameplay and design choices made, makes the mix of killing to the rhythm of the songs and Doom-esc shooting come together perfectly.