Well, it certainly is an application that you can download onto your phone.
I'm torn. On one hand, I feel that with such a tiny install base, Gear VR users should basically be thankful for any games that are offered. And as such, the more we purchase, the more opportunity that other developers may see to make some money, and therefore, more and better games. So let's start with the good.
It is an application that you can download onto your phone.
It runs.
There are graphics and sound.
Look, it's hard to create art. Games, movies, music, sculptures, paintings - all require skill and imagination and creativity, and it's not nice to shit on peoples' creative endeavors. Hell, my writing might be the shittiest shit that ever was shit, but I'm enjoying doing it, and I'll put it out there and hope for the best. But at a certain point, one SHOULD have self-awareness enough to say, "Hmm, this is half-baked. Maybe it's not ready. Maybe I will hang on to this and see if I can fix it up."
I'm sure the developers of this game had/have the best of intentions. They were probably proud enough of getting an actual game up and running (and in VR!) that they hustled it through whatever submission process Oculus has and smiled when they saw it on the store. And seriously, no joke, good for them. As a fellow creative-type, I'm sure that was a great thrill. And the game certainly does work on a technical level.
Here's my problem: I paid money for this.
There are a lot of "free passes" being waved around for VR games these days, and (in my opinion) rightfully so - especially for Gear VR games. You are playing the future, ON A PHONE. These are phone games. You shouldn't reasonably expect to have a long or deep experience (heh) any more than you would with a flat picture phone game.
Escape From Bunker 14 is a first-person, point and click adventure, in which you escape from a bunker, which I'm guessing is named "15". It starts off fine, if plain. You do some light puzzle solving to turn on lights, find codes, and stuff like that. You warp around the little rooms by looking at a spot on the ground, and then you instantly appear there. I was carrying around an axe, and my stupid axe kept repeatedly smashing against the wall because it would warp me uncomfortably close to the wall. I did eventually "escape" the first room, and ran across a dead body. I chopped his head off and used it to scan into another room. I also set a trash can on fire, and used the smoke it created to expose lasers that I had to navigate to make it to the next room. I also stopped a nuclear missile from being launched by entering a code onto a...um, code-receiving device? Sounds kinda cool, right? And that's just within the first five minutes!
Thanks for reading this review.
...yep. That's seriously it. That's where the game ends. It would be one thing if this were some amazingly beautiful game, where the five minutes of gameplay and zero replayability were "worth" it so you could just walk around and gawk at stuff in VR. But...not to be mean, but...well...hmm. I'm sure it has a great personality.
The good news is that it's only $2.99, and there are worse experiences on Gear VR that cost more.
The bad news is that it probably shouldn't have cost anything.
Buy it if you want to support the developers and the Gear VR ecosystem, have three bucks to burn, and five minutes of time to kill.
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