RollerCoaster Legends Review (HTC Vive)
For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a review code does not affect my judgement of the game.
RollerCoaster Legends has been released on the HTC Vive, Playstation VR and the Oculus Rift – as aforementioned bringing with it an experience rather than a game. But, does it do enough to warrant a purchase?
As you will be able to tell from the name, this experience is a roller coaster ride. This roller coaster ride is set inside Greek mythology, and you take you through a number of different scenes. The experience does try it’s best to immerse you in the world and setting you are placed you. But, unfortunately the areas are quite open and big with little filling them at times.
With this being more of experience than a game, you would hope for good immersion to take away from the fact you have little control over it. As previously mentioned the games settings are very wide open with too little happening at times, this means you are not always immersed in the setting. At the beginning of the game, you won’t really notice the lack of objects in the environment as the track seems to twist and bend a lot more at this point, but once it stops doing this you will soon notice it. However, the use of the sound and the noise from the cart when it changes surfaces/areas can drag you back into the immersion, and can at times save the experience. Another great use of the sound, is the boost in the sound as you hit the portals which switches the setting in your ride.
When it comes to the tracks and the immersion around that area, they do give you all the feelings you expect to experience on roller coaster – be it the anticipation of the big drop and the butterflies as you go down them. Again though the experience hits a bit of fault outside these fast drops, twists and turns, this is down to the speed of the rest of the experience – which really is quite slow. As previously mentioned they do switch up the environments to try to change what you have to look at, and to keep you visually engaged. You will find one of the sections is sort of a ghost train, but where they try to place in jump scares they are not ones everyone will fall for. Although the immersion does show at some of the set pieces, as I found myself attempting to dodge and move out the way of some them.
They have included an option to allow you pause the game and take a look around at any point. I only really found this feature fun just before drops and leaning forward looking over the track – this really did give you the feeling you could fall off the track at these points. But, with very little happening in the environments there is not much reason to pause it after your first play-through. Another slight niggle I had with the pause feature this is done using the Space Bar on your keyboard. I am not sure why this wasn’t assigned to one of the Tracked Motion Controllers – as using these is a lot feasible while playing in VR.
As you would expect with the game it would be best played seated for immersion as you are supposed to be on the roller coaster. The only reason you will need the Tracked Motion Controller is to pause the game, there really is no other use for it. The head tracking works really well, and leaning over the cart really feels like you could fall out of the cart at times.
Your ride is going to last about 8 minutes, so there is not a whole lot of time spent in the game. This is probably why the price point for the game is only £3.99 because it’s a short experience, and likely one you wont visit again. But, I think it is worth it if you have friends and family around to show what VR can do. Otherwise you might be left the felling that the team have missed an opportunity to make something great. I also feel RollerCoaster Legends will be appreciated more by Playstation VR users, due to the fact there really isn’t many roller coaster experiences available on that platform, unlike the other two platforms.
Also available on Oculus Rift and Playstation VR
Developer: WarDucks
