Farpoint

Virtual reality fans looking for the medium's first true blockbuster won't find it here, though they'll get a taste of what such a game might be like. Farpoint is surprisingly successful in creating a traditional first-person shooter experience within VR, with players able to move and look freely while intuitively wielding a range of sci-fi weapons that are satisfying to fire. It's a deeply immersive experience, easily and impressively creating the feeling that you really are standing on and exploring an alien world. And the Aim controller -- which comes bundled with the special edition of the game -- only enhances the sense of immersion by allowing players to physically look down holographic sights and feel the rumble and recoil of each shot. It's far better played with the Aim controller than without.

But while Farpoint delivers the basics of a good first-person-shooter experience -- and even throws in an unexpectedly moving story (though, oddly, it's not the story of the playable hero but rather two other survivors) -- it delivers a bland campaign and archaic level design. The environments explored are extraordinarily linear, typically offering only a single, narrow path forward. If the terrain does open up a little, you know you're about to start a major encounter. There's also a woeful lack of variety in the enemies we face. Worse, each one is clearly designed to be dealt with using one or two specific weapons. If you don't happen to have one of them equipped, you'll be in for a long and hard fight. And while combat requires players to take cover frequently, there's not really a covering system. You just have to stand behind a piece of the environment and hope for the best. Perhaps most problematic is that the whole thing wraps up in only five or six hours, and offers little replay value beyond some timed level challenges and a friend-based co-op mode. It's a hard value proposition -- especially if you're thinking about buying the edition that comes with the Aim controller. Farpoint clearly wants to be the first big hit for PlayStation VR, but it's only about halfway there.