Review for The Walking Dead Onslaught. Game for Oculus Rift (VR), Steam VR and PlayStation VR, the video game was released on 29/09/2020
After a very difficult development and a lot of waiting, we finally got our hands on the new Survios project, The Walking Dead: Onslaught. A virtual reality title with excellent potential, and which uses its now very popular name, thanks to the homonymous TV series by AMC.
We are the walking dead ...
The Walking Dead: Onslaught presents itself as a virtual reality FPS, with very marginal small crafting mechanics and camp management. The title offers two modes: the campaign, in which we will play Daryl Dixon, one of the most beloved characters of the series, as he tells of his misadventure outside the fortified city of Alexandria, through 7 missions that can be completed in about 6 hours. These are structured in long tunnels through which the player will have to face a large amount of walkers (and not zombies!). The writing doesn't particularly shine but obviously, the plot isn't the highlight of The Walking Dead: Onslaught; the guys from Saviors have in fact staked everything on the gameplay, as could be expected from such a title.
The second game mode is that of scavenging: in these short missions the player's aim will be to recover as many materials and supplies as possible, to increase the number of survivors in the camp and to be able to build new buildings. However, this aspect of material collection is somewhat useless for the expansion of the city, while the food supplies will increase the inhabitants, which will be used to advance in the countryside, as a certain number of people will have to be recovered before being able to move on to the main mission next one. The structure of these missions is slightly more open than those of the main campaign, in fact, there are several internal areas such as shops or garages. During the research we will obviously find ourselves facing the undead, with an additional difficulty: we will be chased by a horde, which cannot be faced, and which will lead us to the game over if it reaches us. This mechanic adds even more tension during missions, a tension that is also perceived in normal missions, especially when we find ourselves surrounded by walkers.
Speaking of pure gameplay, The Walking Dead: Onslaught has a great feeling in what is the main mechanic… killing. However, there are some notes to be made: if it is true that killing with a knife or various sidearms give great satisfaction, the same cannot be said for firearms. These, in addition to almost never giving the satisfaction of the headshot (which instead gives a knife stroke), are often not very precise and not calibrated very well with the movement of the controller. Unfortunately the tension that you feel in the very early stages of the game when you are surrounded by the dead is lost a little as you go when you understand that it is often enough to wave the arm armed with a knife to free oneself in moments of difficulty. Still, it's still pretty terrifying to be faced with a horde of undead trying to eat you!
Bulky or motion sickness?
The movement system takes care of the player's immersion in the game world: at the beginning we are made to choose whether to use teleportation or move by swinging the unarmed arm, as if to simulate walking, and these two methods both work quite well. The problem comes with the management of the view, which is controlled with the X and O buttons of the PlayStation Move; you can choose whether to move the view of 45 ° or 30 ° at each press, or with a more fluid rotation by holding down. The first of these methods is quite cumbersome and often confuses the player, with the fluid movement mode instead the situation improves with regard to speed but “dramatically” increases the risk of motion sickness. We therefore recommend using the first option for the view, with which you get used to it in a few hours and you can play fairly quietly, especially for those who usually suffer from motion sickness.
Even the eye wants its part
Graphically The Walking Dead: Onslaught on PlayStation VR remains up to the standards of other Sony headset titles, with a particular attention to the faces of the characters, above all that of Norman Reedus, the actor who also lent his voice to his character and who now, after having participated in the development of Death Stranding, continues to work in the video game sector with great results. The environment that surrounds the player is never too complex or large, and for this reason it manages to be quite detailed and pleasant to explore, even if the glance is, after a couple of hours, very repetitive. To report some small problems of freeze, frame drops, while the audio is still at excellent levels, with music that will be familiar to those who follow the TV series and a good 3D audio capable of making the player perceive when he is about to be attacked from behind.
Do we have personality?
The biggest problem with The Walking Dead: Onslaught is the personality: taking away the city of Alexandria and the faces of the characters, this could be any zombie game in VR. Furthermore, the main storyline fails to make you want to continue playing, also due to the progress that is constantly blocked by the secondary missions, and the repetitiveness of the latter which is probably the biggest flaw in production.
Despite the potential to be a great title there were all, these have not been completely respected by the developers, who have still packaged a good quality product, which however fails to excel in any field. The excellent feeling of melee weapons is balanced by the almost total uselessness of firearms, the good technical sector is rendered almost useless by the lack of personality presented by the game, and the gameplay, all in all quite fun, is not enough, without a plot more interesting, to attract the player to the console, also given the repetitiveness of the missions.
► The Walking Dead Onslaught is an RPG-Simulation-Adventure-indie type game developed and published by Survios for Oculus Rift (VR), Steam VR and PlayStation VR, the video game was released on 29/09/2020
