The short version? Lone Echo is the first VR game I have played that 1, has to be in VR rather than VR as an enhancement, add on or worse, a gimmick. 2, I was sad to see the end of it. WANT MOAR!!!! Before this the best two VR titles I would point out to folks have been Mission ISS, and Project Cars. For a story/experience I recommend Apollo and Henry. That said, Mission ISS isn't really a Game and is more of a concept demo. And Project cars is enhanced by VR but by no means a VR game. I have heard that the Climb is also a worthy title but I have yet to plunk down the cash for it. Sci Fi is a draw for me... not fear of hights :-) Job simulator is fun... but it isn't AAA game material. This really is the first full up new world VR game that is successfully implemented.
There are spoilers ahead so if you are worried about that turn back now. You have been warned.
Introduction, and 30 second synopsis of the game:
You are Jack, An AI in a robot body. You are a companion and helper for Captain Olivia Rhodes and are stationed on the Kronus II in orbit around Saturn. An anomaly occurs which causes systems malfunctions on the Kronus and you have to work together with Captain Rhodes... Liv, to fix them. After fixing systems and encountering a lot of anomalous data you finally get in position to put the full capability of the outpost to scan the anomaly only to have a massive mysterious ship appear and wreak further havoc in which you get knocked offline. You come back to on the bridge to find Liv is not on the ship as its life support has failed and you locate her transport inside the mysterious new ship and off you go to find her. You encounter an infestation called "BioMass" that is unsightly in dormant phase and immediate loss of your robot shell if touched in its active phase. Radiation dangers abound all over. Once on the new Ship you boot up its Tactical AI system and go about trying to repair the ship to try and have it locate Liv. The ship turns out to be from 400 years in the future, The crew is dead and the BioMass gets more active the more systems you bring online. You find Liv as she is on the last dregs of oxygen in her suit and scramble to bring the ships main reactor online to restore main life support. This fails due to all the damage to the ship making it impossible to maintain an atmosphere. You rush to the Bridge as the most likely place to be able to isolate and maintain a life support environment and after clearing it you finally get it pressurized only to have to bring Liv back through the use of a defibrillator. But... more bad news... now that the ships main reactor is online the infestation is growing again and the only way to get it back to sleep is to drain all the power... by a faster than Light jump. The same thing that caused it to jump back into the past. No option, no time to waste you make the jump... and find yourself 400 years in the future. Safe for now.... but but but... what happens next? Will have to wait for Lone Echo II to find out.
So... how is it to play through?
The Good:
The story is engaging. The game play serves the story and the pacing is often pretty well in line with the actions you are performing. It is like the best bits of Uncharted games where the dialog and gameplay magically align from time to time. IE you don't feel like you are doing a thousand things for a 'game'. I want to read the book. I want to play the next chapter.
The introductory sequence of the mechanics is one of the better sequences in recent memory for introducing new game mechanics. In general the game concept that you are an AI in a robot body helps with a lot of game immersion elements. Re-spawning after a failure like getting burnt to a crisp by a plasma beam, or radiation exposure makes a lot more sense than if you are supposed to be a person.
Speaking of the mechanics... the interface in the way they house the various functions on your wrists and you activate with touch is super intuitive once you 'get it'. You turn your light on by touching the side of your VR headset. It all works really well. I suspect we will be seeing lots and lots of takes on this kind of setting/navigation mechanic.
Movement. Beats Adrift (a pre-touch micro g space game) by miles. This is basically the same movement mechanic as Mission ISS with an excellent directional thruster mechanic thrown in.
Character engagement. There are only 4 characters in the whole story. Olivia Rhodes (the Captain), you as an android assistant called Jack and the two ship AIs. One on the Kronos II you start on, and a second on the Astreaus that pops out of the "anomaly". The dialog is unfortunately sparse in bits but it flows well and at least for me I got very engaged in the process of saving Liv. If you played Firewatch that is about the only other example of dialog I can think to compare this to... though it isn't as constant as it was in that game. Ok... 5 characters. There is someone that contacts you at the very end after you have jumped the ship back into the future.
There are real challenges in navigating the puzzles and tasks but failing is not painful. The challenges are nothing super cerebral, mostly timing and balancing task vs exposure to a danger. When you do fail you pretty much get to pick up where you left off, no retracing steps/ repeating actions other than getting from the spawn point back to what you are doing, typically pretty close by. No needing to remember to save etc... The idea that this is a process of transferring your AI from unit to unit works well. May wear a bit thin in places if you are really struggling (is there a never ending supply?). But it could be worse.
While there is an alien agent (biomass) invoked to create some elements of danger. The game is not violent. There is death. Finding the crew of the Atreaus dead in their pods had more impact than I expected. I suspect it impacts more strongly being in VR. I have a growing dislike of shooting as the primary game mechanic in way to many games and you will find very little in the way of "shooting" in Lone Echo. You can use your torch as a sort of short range flame thrower to eliminate some "spore's" but not much else. VR is finally making more nuanced player interaction with the environment possible and Lone Echo stands out in this regard.
Three Sea Shells!!!!...... THREE SEA SHELLS!!! THHHHRRRREEEEEEE SSEEEEAAAA SHEEELLLLLLSSSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Side note... Demolition man was in large parts an atrocious movie tragically infected by the action movie tropes of the time. Much like this games infestation of Biomass. But... buried in it were some shockingly good future thought experiments. If you don't get the three sea shell thing go watch it... you only have to watch I think the first 20-30 minutes to get to it. Call me crazy... I think its worth it if you haven't seen it. It is nothing earth shattering but it was a scene that stuck with many geeks through the years.
The So So:
The necessity of the way you regenerate near where you last failed works excellently on your original ship the Kronos II. Not so much once you move to the Astreaus vessel. This ship is human at least... but it is from 400 years in the future. Obviously they don't have a bunch of Echo units in the future so what exactly are you transferring into? You spawn on the ship from 400 years in the future as if transferring to one of the units stored on that ship. The idea that they had new units the Jack AI could transfer to isn't exactly absurd. But it might have helped if they had played with that a bit... IE given you new functions once you spawned in the new ship after a failure. Maybe a game play completion bonus for not having to download into a unit on the new ship?
That said it is absolutely fantastic they didn't make you spawn back on the original ship and make you trek all the way back through the new ship to where you were. So it is an understandable compromise. With a little bit of story telling to close the gap I think it would have worked better. But it also could easily have been much worse. I only mention it because it is one of the few immersion breaking elements. A good example of what I mean by using story telling to bridge the gap a bit is the induction panel discovery for charging your shields. It isn't much... but the concept of induction is one that could make sense across 400 years of technological differences.
The dialog mechanic is... interesting. It is at turns elegant and at others very clumsy. In particular it can be very awkward bringing up a response option list if you are in the middle of a task as the functions are overloaded. If you are in the midst of carrying something it is easy to lose it and lose track of it or end up picking options you didn't intend to.
The Bad:
First off.... most of this section is nit picking. This is a very well executed game... but all games have flaws. So lets take a look at some of Lone Echo's. Also... this is something of a quirk of my reviews. The games I like more I tend to find more things to pick at that could be better. For crap games I generally just throw my hands up at them rather than try to understand them and think of how they could be improved. So... contrary to what may seem logical, longer gripe sections in my reviews tend to reflect games I was much more engaged in, and in general enjoyed more than those I find little problems with.
There are lots of blocks in the progression of the story where if you don't launch dialog things cannot be interacted with. Things you can cut through won't be active to cut through. It is immersion breaking. Once a game mechanic is introduced of how to interact with the world then those elements should always be consistent. Find something the scanner/game tells you is significant and it obviously should allow you to start it up or cut it open then it should allow it. Not wait until you talk about it.
Also... I know it is a gaming mechanic choice they may have had to make, but having to do things like cut through the access panel to a defibrillator which would always be easy to access, or through designed maintenance hatches made little sense. There should have been a mechanic for opening these things just like the storage crates. Which... while we are mentioning those, are the one element the game did NOT introduce in its tutorial section. Something that had me stumped a couple of times. In retrospect it is obvious... and looking in things in a physical way is such a nice way to be able to interact with the game world. It really should have been used more... as is I think it was used twice. But for whatever reason... prior training, lack of imagination, lack of having to do it to progress the story. I just didn't consider it as something that needed to be done. This caused the one time I went to the net for an answer about how to proceed.
Another issue I hit in particular (and found plenty of evidence on forums that similar incidents happen) is an issue with the micro-G environment and the need to transport items you have to grab. If you goof up and drop them in transit they can fly off. When outside this means they can fly off into space. And you can only get so far from your ship. In one case this happened to me with a critical element. It was helpfully highlighted with a distance listed... that was beyond the limit of how far I could go. It required me to repeat about an hour of game play. Now in most cases they have reset elements for this kind of stuff. But it doesn't always work and it when it doesn't it is very frustrating. At one point you have to retrieve a spare 'core' for a reactor. The storage container has multiple cores but only one you can actually pull out... and if you lose it you can't progress the story. For me nothing would reset it and the save point I had prior to that event was 2 hours of game play back. That sucked. Granted the second time through I did it in about 45 minutes... and could probably do it quicker still now.
Lack of being able to call up dialog history, or any kind of map of your surroundings. The few times I felt lost both in terms of what exactly I was supposed to do next or in where I was could be tied to these two things. It is a common mechanic in adventure games with multi step 'quests' and it developed for a reason.
The story is WAY to short. Start to finish was maybe 8 hours? And that counted a major replay element of the first section of the story due to the afore mentioned lost core. It is probably 6 hours with a smooth play through. Could probably do a speed run once familiar with it in less than 3... possibly way less. I would dearly love this to have been a 20-40 hour epic ala an uncharted game or Tomb Raider. It was like it was just getting started when it finished.
The BioMass. Everything else about this game feels fresh and new until you get to the BioMass as the 'adversary' component that drives some very familiar elements of game play. I get it. I actually accept it. But... it just seems like it was a cop out. Instead of artificially limiting your navigation this way I think they could have done just as well by increasing the complexity of the ships interface puzzles. The cherry on top problem with the BioMass was the uneven ending. You pop to the future with an infected ship and that information isn't something you broadcast to the team coming to rescue you? One of the few serious beats in the story the dev team missed. The only other one really was when you start hearing Liv on the Comm again after a long separation and no certainty she is even still alive you do not have an immediate dialog option to re-establish contact? This is a minor problem in a more traditional game. In a VR game that sucks you in like this one it is painfully immersion breaking... LET ME TALK TO HER DAMNIT. Oh yeah... I am in a game... she isn't real.... she isn't real... this isn't real. Oh crap, need to get life support on for Liv before she asphixiates... back into the thick of it.
The lack of logic and and ability to explore the Astreaus. Kronos II is ultimately a more engaging ship than the Astreaus. The added size is mostly locked away from access and you are shuttled from area to area.. and often your repair tasks have you going through 'vents'... read long tunnels with lots of pipes. You are rarely faced with much in the way of choice in terms of navigation at any point. But the tantalizingly open nature of the 'fix things to scan the anomaly' of the early game presents you with gave me a lot of hope the game would just continue to open up in terms of exploration options. But... once you get on board the Astraeus, the way the Fury transports are used to shuttle you about might as well be a level load screen and you can only go forward. When introduced to the Fury you have multiple destinations to go to... once you get to the Astreaus you only ever have one. The second that Ship appeared I got my hopes up I was going to get to really explore it open world sandbox style. VR makes that an engaging possibility in a way old school FPS games just couldn't pull off. I spent a good 15-20 minutes just going around Liv's cabin reading logs and checking things out. 3 SEA SHELLS !!!!! Another good session bouncing around the bridge of the first ship. I have done this before in cool game settings... but for a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the immersion of feeling like I was exploring a real place. Between VR and the extremely well implemented navigation mechanic that lets you explore the world in a very natural and physically tied way (as opposed to pushing on d-pad or joystick) it is very easy to get lost in this story and feel you are there. Adrift had a similar problem with its fairly linear progression through its story. I didn't find the task nature of the game nearly as intriguing as the idea of exploring that station in its complete state.
Jacks tools are well implemented. But there are obviously tools scattered about the game that serve no purpose other than to be flotsam. Pity. Using larger Drills or Saws etc... to do bigger actions than your attached cutter could have been interesting. Along with the battery charging system... could have made for an interesting resource management mechanic. Think tool choice for different ways to solve problems vs Gun choices for different ways to dispatch waves of enemies in most games.
Lastly... as enjoyable as the story is, in retrospect it seems there really are no branches to the story based on how you interact with Liv... just differences in how the dialog goes. This is a shame as it would be interesting to have some re-playability in terms of different paths/solutions through the story. I aim to give a replay a try but I am not expecting to much from it other than to just get to enjoy the world a bit again. Maybe feel a little less rushed in terms of side quests.
Conclusion:
I loved the game. Seriously, this is the first VR game I feel like raving about. It is worth the price of admission.... my only hesitation on that is that it is ultimately a bit short... but then it isn't 60$ either. And I enjoyed the time I did spend in it a LOT more than many other games I have paid full price for through the years.
I got invested in it very quickly. I put it down after getting a bit frustrated with the first mission I tried outside the ship but it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to finish it unlike most other VR titles I try, get to the frustration point, put down and almost never return to. Once I got back to it I stayed for the longest sessions I have had in VR by far. Other than this I have maybe half hour to 1 hour sessions in Project Cars. In this I spent 3 hours straight and lost track of time.
I am REALLY looking forward to what is a likely glut of micro-g navigation based space games. Just hope there are some nice adventures where exploring is primary vs shoot em up. An early puzzle first tomb raideresque experience translated to this movement mechanic on to something the scale of the Astreaus.... yes please.
Ideas:
As I said above, I think they could have seriously expanded the Astreaus. Make a logical ship layout and systems of interfaces along the lines of what they already did. Continue to grow Jacks skills by having him find and transfer into a unit (series of... selection of?) on the Astreaus which grants him access to more and more ships info, tools etc... to complete the needed repairs. Jack is an Atlas asset and so by the same logic the Ships AI accepts Rhodes as captain it should accept Jack as valid.
Jack really needed a storage/attachment mechanic when having to haul things around. Magnetic stick point on back, chest etc... There were a lot of interesting looking flotsam about that looked like they could have been a lot of fun as tools trying to learn how to use them and make needed repairs. This would have allowed a much more complex set of interface options without increasing the amount of back and forth travel needed to fetch things etc... or problems holding on to them. Fury as a pack mule in same vein for larger tasks. Or as a staging point when entering new sections of the ship.
If you drop the BioMass mechanic as a navigation impediment, danger element you need another reason for the ships crew being dead. Though not that hard to say that power loss drove it. Or keep the biological element but not have it be so invasive. Just a biological weapon that killed the crew that couldn't get into suits before being infected, or stasis pods etc... Ship comes through dead with no/few survivors... and survivors are locked in stasis and being able to bring them out is a major problem to solve. In general Liv is limited in where she can go due to the biological element and Jack has to scout ahead and clear the way etc...
