Outta Hand Review

September 26, 2023

From the moment of watching the Outta Hand teaser trailer I was thinking ‘that looks fun’, but the movement system would need to be refined to stop it causing any unnecessary frustrations. Something that really could make or break the game – but which one was it?

STORY

You are one of many Hand-People, but due to not being dumb enough Dr. Vendolvom has selected you to be terminated – but, don’t expect your P45, expect your life to be no more. However, you manage to escape your fate, but can you save yourself and fellow Hand-People?

GAMEPLAY

Outta Hand brings a unique take to the platformer in Virtual Reality, by making you use your own arms to move in the game. Your hands in the game will be on the floor and swing your own arms to build momentum in the game. You can move slower by moving your arms slowly to move forward on the levels surface, you can walk on your tiny legs by lifting up your long arms and using the analogue – but this more for lining up for precision.

This is basics behind the movement system and this is going to become the start of your platforming adventure. The more velocity used in your arm swings builds up your momentum, as you move faster to make your jumps. Add to this flapping your arms to use your small wings for some extra distance, and these are your best friend at times – as you would expect in a platformer a little boost in your jump goes a long way.

Add to this moves like the floor punch as you fall from a height to avoid obstacles or propel yourself further. Wall jumping as you go side to side to get to higher platforms or sometimes this can become your savior if you miss the all important jump, and even some swimming.

Outside of the traversal you will come up against robots out to harm you and try stop you freeing your friends. These come in a variety of styles to keep it fresh and some can be used to aid you if you get the moments right. Also you will come up against a number of large scale bosses on your travels, which follow the platformer system perfect – avoid the attack pattern and then take your opportunity to attack.

Mixing all of this together brings everything you want from a platformer, and Capricia Productions have not only refined the arm movement system from games like Gorilla Tag and No More Rainbows, but evolved it to seem so much more accurate and seamless.

PRESENTATION

With the game being a platformer, the team took to correct approach and went for the cartoon block-color design to the visuals. This approach really has allowed the game to look great on the standalone device and make you feel like you are in the platformers of old. With your Hand-Person looking like it wouldn’t be out of place in a Monsters Inc. movie and seeing the other Hand-People in captivity around the levels in all different shape and sizes is great.

Audio wise you will get the old school platformer feel with nice light upbeat music as you traverse the levels, with the music becoming more intense for the boss fights. Add to this great and sometimes humorous narration from who saved you from captivity and impending doom and Dr. Vendolvom – and it all comes together perfectly for the platformer feeling.

COMFORT/CONTROLS

As aforementioned the movement systems is controlled using your arms, and this can be tiring and leave you wanting to let your arms recover a bit after a decent session. With this in mind the team do recommend playing the game standing with plenty of room to move your arms about like crazy. But, the game can be played seated, and I tested it seated with plenty of room around me and found no big issues – although I did prefer it standing. They have added a vignette in the options, meaning you can get the blinders while moving if needed.

TRACKED CONTROLLERS

HAND TRACKING

LONGEVITY

The story mode took me around four-hours to complete, and its was a hell of a workout for that time. After this you can jump into endless run mode and try and top leaderboards, which will allow you to challenge yourself and put everything you learnt through the campaign into practice.

REVIEWED USING META QUEST 2

For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a review code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a press code does not affect my judgment of the product.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Outta Hand is quite possibly the most fun I have had in a game for a while, once you get used to the movement system and you start stringing together running, jumping and attacking in one swift-combo it feels fantastic. However, there is the caveat of getting used to movement system, which did take me a little while, but the perseverance is worth it. Everything about the game made me reminisce back to platformers of old but in Virtual Reality – but beware you arms will feel like jelly after long sessions, and even with this I found it hard to quit playing.