TRIBAND have brought their sense of humor to the PSVR2 with the release of What The Bat? A wacky mini-game adventure that looks to make use of Virtual Reality – the question is does it hit a home run?
GAMEPLAY
The idea of the gameplay is you are someone with Baseball bats instead of hands, as you take in the journey of growing up from baby to adult. This will see visiting nine different locations and trying to complete mini-games using your bats – playing out in a sort of Warioware-esc fashion, but in Virtual Reality.
With the premise of the game this has allowed TRIBAND to include mini-games and humor that is odd and out-there, and they have done this really well. The simple humor in the mini-games makes this suitable for any age that may pick up the game – and did give me a good few giggles along the way.
The puzzles for completing the mini-games are not overly difficult, but some can be challenging to do with bats for hands – especially the ones that want you to pick up and move items, this simple task is now not so simple. As expected with games in this sort of ilk there is plenty of mini-games available, with What The Bat? having over one-hundred across all the destinations you visit.
As previously mentioned the idea of the game allows them to be creative in their mini-games. This will see you doing things like tuning your TV, washing and ironing your undies, pickling many different items (some expected and some not), herding sheep with a UFO, create romance with space satellites and even play their previous title What The Golf? (which was released on various flat-screen platforms).
There is plenty of randomness throughout the game, but mixing this with the fun mini-games and TRIBAND’s crazy brand of humour, and it brings everything together like a perfect tapistry of craziness.
PRESENTATION
What the Bat? carries on the visual presentation style from What The Golf?. This sees a block-colour cartoon visual style, where this does no push the PSVR2 hardware, it does suit with the whimsical humor of the game. With objects in the places you visit looking like they are made up toys rather than their real-life counterpart.
Audio-wise they have matched the environments with sounds that suit them, but play catchy music over them, which again suits what the game is doing – and believe me the theme tune will get stuck in your head.
COMFORT/CONTROLS
The game is made to be played either using room-scale or standing stationary (which was added post launch by the team). Which means you do not have any artificial movement, this makes it accessible to everyone never mind their level of VR use.
With you just having bats for hands there is actually no use of any buttons, as there is nothing to grab or press – everything you do is just using the bats. Even if you want or need to restart the level, there is a button on the end of your non-dominant hands bat to press with the other one.
LONGEVITY
Where there is over one-hundred mini-games in total over the nine places you visit, these do not take a long time to figure out and complete. To get through them all it took me around one and half hours of solid play with no breaks, and I am not sure if I would personally choose to go back into them myself – but it’s certainly something you can put family and friends in for a bit of fun and to introduce them to VR.
REVIEW USING PLAYSTATION VR 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 judgement of the product.
REVIEW OVERVIEW
What The Bat? maybe does not do enough to make it one of the essential must-buy titles on what is currently available in the PSVR2 library, but it should not be one that is overlooked. There is plenty of fun and laughs to be had with What The Bat? and the mix of fun mini-games and TRIBAND’s sense of humor is perfect for Virtual Reality. You will have a lot of fun with this title and afterwards it will be a game in your library for fun game nights with friends and introducing people to VR.
GAME DETAILS
Release Date: February 22nd 2023
Developer: TRIBAND PRODUCTION
Publisher: TRIBAND PRODUCTION
Price: US $24.99/ CA $33.49/ €24.99 / £19.99
