Review: Mannequin
I spent every opportunity I could play-testing Mannequin in the closed testing stages, and have been looking forward to it’s release. Fast Travel Games have now released it on App Lab on Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro. So, I have been jumping in to see what has changed since those closed testing stages.
Release Date: May 1st 2024
Developer: Fast Travel Games
Publisher: Fast Travel Games
Price: £14.99
Reviewed On: Meta Quest 3
* Code Provided For Review *
Strike A Pose
Mannequin is essentially a different sort of take on prop hunt, where you have a team of Mannequins and team of Agents. The Mannequins are an alien like creature that can shape-shift in order to try and hide from the agents that are hunting them.
The premise of the game is, crystals have emerged on earth that have frozen time and the people in their vicinity. With the Mannequins arriving at the same time, with their shape-shifting abilities allowing them to blend in with the now frozen humans. This opens the game up for the 3v2 PVP mode, where the Mannequins and Agents must use their abilities and tools to gain an advantage over the other team.
As a Mannequin you will be able to pose and shape-shift to blend in with the humans around the levels, which you can the use your dash ability to get close to unsuspecting Agents, with a single touch taking them down.
As an agent you have a gun that also doubles up as a scanner, which will help you know when one of the Aliens is close-by. However, you do have to switch between the scanning and shooting modes and your gun can only hold six single fire shots – so you need to be accurate. As well as your lethal bullets, while in scanner mode you can fire one Gauss Detector that will scan a set distance, and if a Mannequin is in its area of effect it will light them up with a blue outline. In most cases one shot will kill a Mannequin, however there is one element which will give each team buffs.
Throughout the maps there are three energy extractors, which offer both teams an advantage. The Mannequins can capture these for some buffs. Draining one will give them a speed boost and draining two will give them a shield – meaning it will take more than the one shot to kill them. However, if the Mannequins don’t drain two of these in three-minutes it will give the Agents the advantage of being able to see them through walls. The other advantage these offer to the Agents is you can use the energy extractors to recharge you gun if you are running low on your remaining shots.
At the moment the game has four-maps available, which are very different in layout and design to keep the rotation feeling fresh. The aim of the game is to eliminate the other team to win in a best of five-rounds formula. With the size of the maps and the way game works there is quite a quick turn around when it comes to rounds. Meaning if you are taken out and your team mate misses the small revive window you get, you are not waiting too long to get back to playing with the game offering no re-spawns. The window you are waiting to get back in is greatly helped by going into spectator mode when dead, where you can still move about the map and converse with your team, offering updates on the current positions of the other team.
Although, I have been having a lot fun with Mannequin, I think the teams should be evened out at 3v3, as from the private and public games at the moment it seems which ever side has the three-players always seems to come out victorious. This could also help with the match-making when if in a group with three friends as you are essentially looking for people playing on their own or in two to fill the game, so you can be on the same team. However, if you make a custom game that will not progress your rank in the game, you do normally get those last slots filled quite quickly.
Suspenseful
All the maps are quite simple in design when it comes to textures, with it looking more stylised, but for me this really suits what Mannequin is doing. With each map being full of frozen humans in all sorts of different poses – which is good as its not always possible to look naturally posed yourself all of the time. Some parts of the four-maps look very cool with the some of the humans being thrown through the air before everything froze, and when finding some of these scenes within the maps it was hard no to stop and take a good look at them. The maps although simple in design, also look good due to the lighting and the different colours of the lighting, as you go from areas with orange lighting to areas with green lighting, it just adds to suspense of either hiding or seeking.
With the maps being brought to life with some ambient atmosphere sounds, the opening of doors, the scanning from the guns, the morphing of the Mannequins and the footsteps of the Agents. All making for the sort of atmosphere and suspense that the game needs.
Comfort
The Verdict
What I like about Mannequin is it is trying something new in the PVP space in VR, by bringing a twist to prop-hunt. Which is best played with friends but, can also be fun with random people. With balancing between the two classes and buffs offered being perfect to feel no class has an advantage – however I think balancing the teams as 3v3 would be a smart move. With the AppLab version releasing with four-maps there is currently enough content to keep the player base engaged for the moment, but I hope more come when the game approaches full release. If you are currently looking for something new in the PVP space in VR Mannequin is certainly worth considering.
* Please note this review was completed using the AppLab release of Mannequin, so changes might be made and more modes and maps could be added as the game leads to the 1.0 release on the main stores.