Drunken Bar Fight Review (PSVR)
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.
I am a huge fan when people try to bring something fun and different to VR gaming, and as soon as I heard about Drunken Bar Fight I knew this was going to fall into the scope. The question is did being different help the game?
Drunken Bar Fight brings with it exactly what it says on the tin, there is no story on why you are fighting – it’s just simply walk into a bar and start a fight with someone or everyone in there. With being from Middlesbrough witnessing this is nothing out of the ordinary when going into town, there is always that one person who has one too many and thinks he’s unstoppable, as he can’t throw punches in his drunken state. Where normally I sit back and take in this sorry state of affairs, with Drunken Bar Fight it puts me in the shoes of those idiots.
So, that is the premise of the game, walk into a bar and start a fight with a random patron and watch the commotion unravel in front of you. As you flail your arms around trying to knockout as many people as you can in that time. Don’t worry the game doesn’t throw you straight in at the deep-end of bar brawling, you will start by entering a bar with one rather relaxed patron to put a beating on. However, the bars will soon ramp up and you are left taking on multiple people at once. As this grows it really becomes a work out, as you are trying to dodge incoming attacks, while waving your arms around frantically trying to land your punches/slaps or what ever you are trying to do.
Each bar will have a large number of objects laid about you can use to aid you in your brawling – from the standard bottles/glasses to throwing darts into people. Given the amount of items available and being able to hit one patron with another it really does make for some hectic moments and some real laugh out loud ones as well. However, after sometime in the bars available on single player it soon starts to become a little stale, as really the game depends on laughs to keep you going, and these will start to disappear.
The game does try to combat this with some couch co-op with friends in non-VR. These will take control of the other patrons and sometimes this can offer some great laughs or break friendships with a quick dart to the man melons. However, they will have to be some space to stop the person in VR cracking them one in real life.
Your probably asking yourself, is there any skill to Drunken Bar Fight – putting it simple No. It really is all about just getting in and giving someone a kicking, there’s not elements like blocking or special moves – it’s all just hit and hope with your fists or what even you can lay your hands on.
When it comes to presentation that game doesn’t really stand out in any way, I would say it is acceptable for what the game is trying to offer, but don’t expect to be blown away. When it comes to the sound they jusat throw in general bar sounds and the ability you change the music on the jukebox, to allow you to choose you battle music – but it’s no Eye of the Tiger level tunes to get you pumped. However, one thing I love is the rag-doll psychics on the patrons you are fighting, this gives another level of silliness to the what gameplay offers. Which then in most cases makes it easy to ignore and look past the under-par presentation.
But, the games mains struggles come with the control scheme. Give the nature of the game it has to played standing, although this is not where the issue comes in, this is the movement. Firstly though the fighting is not a problem either, you will need a move controller in each hand to fight. This works in the most cases, but as with other games on the Playstation VR there is cases where the tracking can be lost, and you might hit some poor lady, which is frowned upon or make it so you take an unwanted beating.
Anyway back to movement, this really is awful, and even when you think you have finally got used to it, things will start to go wrong in the heat of battle. Let me explain how this is going to work, the two move buttons on the controller with move you either backwards or forwards, so if you need to move left or right you need to turn that way in person. Where that may sound like it shouldn’t cause an issue, it really doesn’t feel natural or control well at all.
I mentioned previously when talking about co-o that your friends will need to be space aware when playing with you – well you need to be space aware on single player also. The game is going to need a huge play area, I know mine is not that big but I have never hit the wall so many times in any other game – even GORN. Hitting the wall hasn’t even been restricted to my hands either, and one point I hit the edge of the headset against the wall tying to move out-of-the-way of punch – thank god it wasn’t to hard to cause issues with the HMD. This might have been avoidable though if the PSVR allowed for room boundary settings, so please take space into account if you are planning to purchase this on PSVR.
When it comes to how much you will play the game, it really comes down to how long you can be amused by the whole silliness of the game. Other than that you might only jump into the game every now and then to let off some steam on these poor virtual patrons, or to show friends it and have a laugh at their expense as the flail about your room like an idiot.
Conclusion
Drunken Bar Fight is a game that does what it does well, but also comes with some flaws. What you get from the game really depends on how long you are going to be entertained by the games silliness. The game shines more when it comes to the co-op element and this will add a reason to go back if you have friends around. But, be warned you are going to need a decent play space to avoid injuring yourself in single player or your friends in co-op. Giving you something to contemplate when making the decision on whether to get the game.
Also available on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality
Developer: The Munky
I love this game so much, but it is certainly a furniture risk 🙂
Certainly is I cut the knuckle on my thumb catching the door frame when throwing a punch