Like strapping joy onto your face. This is what VR is all about.

There's been a lot of "Sony's Mario" chat thrown around about this, and it's honestly hard to argue with that. But I've not had this kinda fun with a Mario game in some time. There's a real proper feeling of immersion. I kept pointing at stuff expecting my hand to come into view. Instinctually going to hold my breath as water rose up past my chin. It sounds ridiculous, but you truly get lost in there.

Just you and yer wee pal, exploring worlds, rescuing lost bots, punching enemies, headbutting footballs back at them. Using shuriken to solve puzzles, smashing a giant robot ape's teeth to bits. It's gold, and the kinda thing that feels like proof of what VR can be beyond the gimmick most folk assume.

Super Mario Odyssey was the most disappointing game of 2017. It was Mario as a completely modern videogame. Mario as content. With a bad moon economy, a tourism model of exploration, and the most unapologetic fanservice. Not an odyssey but a mockery. Mario Kibbles ‘n Bits. Mario Groupon. Mario Are You Being Served?

So it was the most welcome surprise to find that Astro Bot was not only the best Mario game of 2018, but the best Mario since 3D Land. In many ways, its heir. If the screen can’t get any more 3D, then we’ll just have to go further inside it ourselves. And what we find here is a fully arrived VR experience, perfectly suited to its own limits. There are no compromises or half measures. No nausea from movement or teleportation to hide its lack. It doesn’t apologize for or try to hide its limits but instead delights in them. Which is often the best response to our limits anyway: laughter. Let’s make a game of them.

This is the pleasure of constraint. I’m on a conveyor belt, every level a tunnel, and my little guy is crossing a bridge above me. Or he’s just around a corner up ahead. Or he’s running in circles somewhere beneath me. Point being, I can’t see him well. My view is decidedly sub-optimal. In a typically screened videogame, you would complain about the bad camera and strain against the controls to get a better view. But here, the strain is actually in your neck. You are the bad camera. Every player her own Lakitu.

There is such delight in this. Your body is centered, but you still have an avatar. And it is through this connection, this interplay that the haptic limits to current VR tech are downplayed and instead you feel your centered body anew. It’s not the same as the first person perspective of so many shooters. There you are not a body but a naked eyeball, untethered, flattened via the screen, more point-of-view than center. And this perspective is empowering. Without a body, without defined borders, what you see is the world.

But in VR, to bring your actual body in, its center, its limits, doesn’t empower you. It humbles you, just like in everyday life. You are a thing in the world, one of many, and what you see is a limited view, also one of many. And strangely, by combining the first and third persons and centering my actual body, an unexpected comedy emerges. My body, which I usually like to forget in games, becomes something dear, almost cute. Something to feel out again, gently, curiously, with laughter, even pleasure.

There are so many things to feel anew, which screenshots cannot capture. Heights that take your breath, waves that stifle it, caves that press in and enclose. Near and far, light and dark, the very fundaments of perception, you can feel them. Darkness is not a rectangle of black but the death of sight. Behind is somewhere you can never truly go. Everywhere textures tease. You can’t help but constantly reach out for things that are not there. There is no periphery to remind or frame or distract. You can’t check your phone. You can’t put on a podcast and chill. You have a headcrab on your face. It’s all in or get the fuck out.

I play Astro Bot and it’s as if I’ve never played videogames before. As if it all still lies ahead of me. That future feeling. I’ve known that feeling before. Super Mario Bros. in a Pizza Hut. Final Fantasy VII at Shane’s house. Grand Theft Auto III off the Old Santa Fe Trail. Demon’s Souls in Corte de Monterey. And now, here in that future, I’m still feeling…something. Not disappointed exactly. Their sequels had their moments. But I feel the struggle of all aging groundbreakers. For relevance. Vitality. New Ground. And I pause.

The language of VR hasn’t settled out yet, the genres haven’t calcified. And there are many obvious challenges to meet — bodies in motion, haptics, a basic solipsism. But I’m going to relish this future feeling a bit longer. It’s just a hope to feel new things, to keep feeling things anew. Soon enough videogames will do what videogames do. Domesticate. Capitalize. Sequelify. Turn a future feeling into a past we’re desperate to recover. But it’s not that future yet.

highkey the best game on PSVR its better than most mfin mario games. Utilizes the VR headset in a lot of ways that other VR games don't even think of trying. So many games in VR think only in the mindset of being in the first person where you are someone, and while that definitely works with a lot of games and helps with immersion, you can really utilize VR to immerse the player in more ways than just that. Remember how when super mario 3D land came out on the 3DS, everyone was talking about how having 3D in that platformer made it easier to tell depth and where things are in the game? Astro bot takes that concept to a whole other level by fully immersing you in the 3D platformer worlds that you explore, all while also making you yourself an active character in the game as well as astro bot himself. I think that this game pushes so many boundaries on what is possible with both 3D platfomers and VR as a medium to play games on. If you have a PSVR, you HAVE to play this game. It's basically a shining example for what VR can do for immersion in games, and its done so masterfully.

A perfect platformer, making great use of some fantastic VR gimmicks. It's a lot of fun, with a variety of creative and beautiful levels and powerups for you, the floating buddy hanging with Astro through the game. I still don't love that Astro Bot and its little pals feel more like a stand-in tech demo character design aesthetic, but much like in Astro's Playroom for ps5, they do quite a bit to try to inject some personality in him and some great cartoony personality into the bosses, especially. The music is also fantastic. It does get a bit repetitive, but by breaking up levels between worlds into different themes, you're typically not in them for too long. Plus the core gameplay and "hidden object" mechanics are a neat way to really make you observe your surroundings. The difficulty is also paced wonderfully, mostly easy but with a few segments that do pose a challenge. And I love the crane game. This is the most I've wanted to 100 percent a platformer.

Team Asobi's debut title that originates from a 10 minute long tech demo in a free downloadable PSVR game gets an upgrade to a full priced (for VR) and length VR game that delivers on every front. It may have taken me nearly 6 years to play this game, and while this is my first VR title, I don't think I could have chosen a better title to play than this one. The fact that this team was able to execute a 3D Platformer in VR so perfectly is astounding. Such relatively simple gameplay and controls, but so perfectly amplified by the fact its being done in VR. It's hard to describe, but the game is able to really perfectly throw you into this environment where you have full 360 movement to look ahead, behind, and to the side of you as you help guide astro through 26 relatively short, but packed levels. What really helps this game is that no one world has a certain theme. Each world gives you so many different themes. You could start the world in a relatively simple city level, and then over into a lush forest followed by an underground cavern lit by mushrooms and then followed up by a lush beach that takes you to the bottom of the ocean floor. Even when some of the levels feel like they're repeating at first, this game always finds a really clever way of doing something new with it and surprising you out of left field. If you ever have access to a PSVR, this is a MUST PLAY. Do not pass up the chance to play one of the best VR games to date. This only makes me hope that whatever Team Asobi is working on post Astros Playroom isn't related to PSVR2. I'm sure it'll be fantastic, but I don't want to wait another 6-8 years until PSVR2 is in my price range to be able to play it. I'd rather slap $40-$70 down for an Astros Playroom that's double the length of what Playroom was. Whatever it is, I'm glad Team Asobi seemed to make it out of Jim Ryan's insane Playstation Layoffs unscathed and can't wait to see what they're planning next.

Fantastic platformer that was very immersive and interactive. It put the controller into the spotlight, which was novel. Using your controller with different attachments was satisfying and felt like I was in that world. I began to grow a connection to this little robot buddy. If you look at him he waves at you and you want to prevent any deaths to your new buddy. The major issue was there wasn’t enough enemy diversity. Too much repetition. Using your head to interact with the environment was one of the coolest features; use your head to bash breakable objects and enemies and head the soccer ball back to the goalie enemies. It accurately changed the direction of the ball depending on how you headed it. Extremely satisfying! The highlight for sure was the boss fights. A lot of variety and actual difficulty. I think they nailed the difficulty of the experience overall. The music was good but kinda went unnoticed and only accompanied the action. Some standout one off levels were the graveyard that was chockful of some cool easter eggs and the Japanese medieval era level. Very cool level design with new concepts that weren’t repeated. It’s the best psvr game and needs to be brought to psvr2.

I understand now why this was such a killer app for the PlayStation VR. It's absolutely oozing with charm and uses VR to a highly effective and accessible degree. Each stage is sharply designed and the level design is highly varied. It's a joy to actually have to look around the world to find hidden bots and the various "powerups" with the controller were all enjoyable additions. It's impossible to not be charmed by Astro Bot, I'm glad to have picked up a PlayStation VR even if it's just to experience this lovely treat.

One of the most charming games I've ever played. And a killer app for VR, I'd honestly say it was almost worth the price of admission by itself. A very fun and unique platformer with a lot of creative ideas, and a delightful visual design. I really hope they make more of these, PlayStation has had at least one iconic first-party platformer series since the PS3, but with PS4 to now, its been very hit or miss. But this and Astro's Playroom are a sign that at least one Sony team still knows the art of the platformer.

When PlayStation VR launched in October 2016 VR had an exciting and promising future ahead of it. The new tech ushered in fascinating titles and immersive ports, with PSVR growing to be the best-selling VR platform in 2017. The launch also posed a host of challenges to both developers and gamers, and even today it remains difficult to demo and convey the content to those that don’t have a headset. At its inception, Sony understood that PSVR was generation one hardware, and with it would come all of the experimentation, successes, and misfires of an introductory piece of tech. The promised land of VR wasn’t going to arrive right away. Rather, it would take quite some time for rich experiences exclusive to the platform to hit store shelves. While all of the VR platforms have some excellent software now, there’s not a single PSVR exclusive that I could recommend without some caveats. While Super Hot, Resident Evil 7, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in PSVR offer engaging ways to play older titles, they are games that can be played without a headset. Like many early adopters of PSVR I’ve been waiting for something truly exceptional that can only be played in PSVR and nowhere else – a title that takes the platform to new heights, and one that becomes an easy recommendation for any PSVR owner, both currently and in the future. Astro Bot Rescue Mission is that game.

Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/astro-bot-rescue-mission-review-breakthrough-vr-platforming/