Ever play Skyward Sword or Twilight Princess? I think you’ll agree that the double hookshots are the best abilities in the games just because of how stupid-fun they are. Now, take those abilities and make them the entire game, and also put it in VR. That’s how you get Windlands 2 by Psytech, which Keith and I were lucky to play at PAX South. As with Sleep Tight, we’ll both give our thoughts here.
Max: This was the first VR game I got to play here, and it was one of the first VR games I played, period. As I wasn’t quite used to Virtual Reality, I was a bit dizzy and actually ended up stumbling a bit, but that didn’t ruin my experience in the slightest. Windfall was incredibly fun, and swinging around with grappling hooks felt surprisingly real. There’s also a bow and arrow mechanic used at the end of the demo that I couldn’t get the hang of, but if I could practice with it I can tell it would be almost as awesome as the grappling hooks. I say “almost” because nothing can compare to the exhilaration of swinging around like a monkey over pits of lava.
Keith: Oh. My. God. I’m going to buy an Oculus Rift now. That was incredible. The game’s style reminds me of Breath of the Wild or Wind Waker, but the gameplay was something else. It was absolutely incredible. Playing locally, I could see Max and two other people in the room in-game, and we could wave to each other (which was the first super cool part). The next cool part was that you could transform one of your controllers into a bow, and pull it back with the other hand, and that mechanic was amazing. After being introduced to those, we were thrust into the game where we grappled from tree-tops all the way around the map, and I ended up falling quite a lot. Eventually I got the hang of it, and it was absolutely superb. The game played amazingly, looked amazing, felt amazing, and was incredibly fun.
Windlands 2 will be available for Rift, Vive, and PSVR in 2018 and we cannot wait.
