Note: This post was originally published on June 10th, 2017.
This past May, I built a custom PC and bought an HTC Vive VR headset in the hopes of being part of the first generation of consumers lucky enough to experience a living, breathing, virtual world. One of the first VR games I bought (using whatever scraps of money were left in my bank account) was “Raw Data”, a virtual reality game that asks players to tear down armies of dysfunctional robots and awards weapons, powerups, and support turrets as players progress through its storyline. It’s good fun, and definitely worth the experience of bigger-budgeted games in VR. However, there are also things we can learn from what does and does not work in Raw Data.
Combat without Contingency
In its beginning tutorials, Raw Data does not hesitate to hand over a selection of weapons for the player to try. Right as users become acquainted with the games’ panache and art style, they start to get a handle on how to hold and control the three main weapons available at the start of the game. The neon-orange pistol offers down-the-sights damage, the katana offers the satisfaction of slicing-and-dicing enemies, while the shotgun’s close-range damage sends enemies flying. Only one of these weapons can be available during battle, which allows players to configure the game’s’ combat encounters to their specific play style.
Most VR games on the market today only allow players to attack or shoot with one hand, making combat derivative after a few hours of play. Raw Data separates itself with how players can use both hands to complement the game’s combat flow. When choosing the pistol, the dominant hand fires bullets while the other reloads the gun. Swinging the katana around with the dominant hand slices enemies, but grabbing the weapon with both hands inflicts more damage. While the dominant hand holds the shotgun, you need the other to cock the gun and shoot the next pair of shells. Giving both hands a purpose in combat allow the experience to feel much more engaging than the shoot-and-dodge scheme found on the market today. From a developer perspective, this could not have been easy to pull off, especially since the number of hand interactions increases exponentially, but the investment of creating a two-handed combat system created unique and interesting combat choices that allowed users to play to their personal strengths.
Movement is a Mixed Bag
While combat certainly takes center stage, the movement mechanic in Raw Data was an unfortunate reminder that the game was only a virtual world, and not a reality. The game gives players only one option to move around in its futuristic world; teleportation. In battle, this works by using the non-dominant hand to dash-teleport around a space. As a developer, I can relate to the struggles of creating interesting ways to move around in VR, but when playing missions in Raw Data, moving around becomes a chore that gets in the way of combat. Unlike a first-person PC game where a player can control the exact distance and direction they want to move in, teleportation in VR is a very difficult skill to master due to the disorientation it causes as well as the confusion of how far to move while trying to duck and dodge enemy fire.
Props to the developers for tweaking the teleportation algorithm to at least somewhat fit the game’s rapid combat flow, but I still think they could do better. If the game allowed players to jump (not quickly zip) to a destination or had the option of touchpad movement using the trackpads in the HTC Vive (which are comparable to the joysticks on the Oculus Touch controllers), it would truly give players the ability to move and attack using their own preferences. As a result of using teleportation, and giving the players no other option, I found myself choosing not to move during missions, and simply relying on my combat skills to eliminate enemies.
Story is On the Surface, But a Nice Addition
The story of Raw Data is about uncovering the secrets of a mega-corporation that is putting chemicals in their products…or wait…what was it again? I can’t remember. But that’s okay because Raw Data never shoves its story in the player’s face and instead provides an overall tone of mystery and intrigue using environmental storytelling. When entering a mission, the enemy models, futuristic set pieces, mood lighting and music all add to a premise of intrigue, but still don’t give the full picture of why shooting waves of robots is a good thing. The game does have characters; a human and robot are both introduced in the game’s tutorials and narrate their thoughts to you as a way of pushing the story forward. But the fact that I personally can’t remember the names of these characters or why they are helping me proves that story was never meant to be a centerpiece (or selling point) of the game.
Stories in games have to be built from the ground up, with a reasonably attractive hook towards the beginning of the game propelling the player to be motivated to experience or find a conclusion to the story. I don’t think Raw Data does this correctly, but I respect the developers for trying to include a story in a game that is obviously fine tuned to be a combat/multiplier VR experience.
Raw Data is the kind of game you show off to your friends to demonstrate the fun of high-paced VR action. There is not much substance outside of this action, but that does not stop the game from achieving a thrilling mix of combat and strategy, even though executing this strategy can feel awkward and purposeless.
Have you played Raw Data? Let me know your thoughts on the game or on my ideas in the comments below!
