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Trover Saves the Universe - reviews and impressions - an amazing VR experience!

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Trailer:


Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1051200/Trover_Saves_the_Universe/

 

ABOUT THIS GAME

From the co-creator of Rick and Morty comes Trover Saves the Universe.

Your dogs have been dognapped by a beaked lunatic named Glorkon who stuffed them into his eye holes and is using their life essence to destroy the universe. You're partnered with Trover, a little purple eye-hole monster who isn’t a huge fan of working or being put in the position of having to save the universe. He’s also not that big a fan of you quite frankly, and neither am I. (Jk, you’re great)

Only you and Trover can save everything in this bizarre comedy adventure, created by Justin Roiland!

  • A comedy adventure filled with combat, platforming, puzzles, and morally questionable choices. See how the best intentions can go horribly awry.

  • You control Trover's movements, but not his mouth. He’s got a lot to say about what’s going on in the game.

  • Travel the cosmos to experience a variety of weird alien planets and bizarre characters with big personalities.

  • Upgrade Trover AND YOURSELF with new abilities to (hopefully) defeat Glorkon while evading awkward situations.

  • You'll be immersed in weirdness, no matter which display you use. Switch between TV, monitor or VR headset displays* whenever you want.

*Additional hardware required.

MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION

The developers describe the content like this:

Blood and Gore
Drug Reference
Mature Humor
Strong Language
Violence

 

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Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

75 REPLIES 75

pyroth309
Visionary

RuneSR2 said:

Ok, you did have me worried there, lol. Meaning we have the same video card, and you getting 90 fps ss 2.0 while I'm struggling easily could keep me up all night  😄 


Nah, it's a flat screen game that just has VR support. Epic VR settings are usually not near as taxing as Epic settings for a flat screen game. 

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Ok, got the Oculus version running - Oculus Tray Tool (OTT) decides the ss and I got ss 2.0, so OTT seems to override the in-game ss. 

And it's really night and day - the game performs so much better using the Oculus version - feels like 90 fps although it's 45, I'm confident this is the asw 2.0 kicking in. Fun thing - the game remembered my settings from the SteamVR version and my save game, so this way I could compare the same settings. 

My settings: ss 2.0 in OTT, no antialiasing, no depth of field, and everything else maxed out = epic. 

This game is totally awesome - had me laughing several times already, but the humor is just perfect = super-sick black humor, Trover even called someone for mentally handicapped and has little to no restrictions on his vocabulary. Easily offended persons should never touch this game, for the rest of us it's a gem. And the game-play is extremely unique - I feel like the last Jedi, but also I'm in an adventure game, just perfect. Could be my favorite Rift game, but I need to play much more. 

The SteamVR version really let me down today, though - if I should have rated the game using the SteamVR version, I'd probably rate it 80 % (didn't feel smooth, more like semi-glitchy, could easily see the 45 fps x 2 when running). But the Oculus version easily is 95 % to me, it's that good, feels like 90 fps. Or going to the Oculus version felt like upgrading my 1080 to a 2080 Ti, something like that...  

Edit: Forgot to mention - Touch works perfectly in the Oculus version, even if it says only gamepad is supported. And everything just works better than SteamVR. When playing and then trying to change options, I got some weird loading screen in SteamVR (like being momentarily kicked out of the game) - but the options menu system is perfectly integrated in the Oculus version. When checking control options in the SteamVR version I got an image of an XBox controller - but Touch did work - in the Oculus version I got a nice image of my Touch controllers. Small details sometimes make great impressions... And now I can see that Oculs has changed the description to show that the game supports Touch as gamepad.

Get the game here: 

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1769388509760051/?locale=en_US

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

pyroth309
Visionary
Ah that's a bummer. Some games perform better than others on SteamVR for the Rift. This summary off Oculus wiki sums it up pretty well. It's only worth buying on SteamVR with a rift if you intend to use other headsets in the future or it's only on Steam. If you only intend to play the game on a Rift (and it doesn't support Oculus API) it's a no brainer. Get it on Oculus. 

Does SteamVR support the Rift?

Yes! SteamVR supports the Oculus Rift and Touch controllers, as well as as many tracking sensors as you have.

However, on the driver level, SteamVR does not support the Rift directly. Instead, SteamVR simply translates the game/app developer's commands into Oculus API calls, and sends those to the Oculus drivers. This process usually works great, but sometimes can be buggy.

So what's the difference between Oculus API and SteamVR games/apps?

As mentioned, when a game uses SteamVR instead of Oculus API for Rift users, it translates those SteamVR API calls, as following:

  • Native Support: Game/App --> Oculus API --> Oculus Runtime --> Rift
  • SteamVR Game: Game/App --> SteamVR API --> SteamVR Runtime --> Oculus API --> Oculus Runtime --> Rift

Because extra steps in any system introduce more points of failure- generally, games/apps which use Oculus API directly for Rift users will be more stable, have fewer launching issues, have better performance, and not require maintaining the separate audio system of SteamVR.

A problem here is that the Steam store page for an app does not actually tell you whether it supports the Rift directly or via SteamVR, however this wiki has a community maintained list of games sold on Steam which support the Rift natively.

This album of images is a very low level explanation of how compatibility works between various headsets and VR runtimes. Follow the green lines to see the path of comms between APIs.

What about games which only list HTC Vive support on Steam?

This means that the developer has only developed & tested their game with the HTC Vive (a competing PC VR system, supported by SteamVR natively) but this does not mean it won't be playable on the Rift!

All SteamVR games can be played on the Rift- the only issue being that the control scheme might be awkward with the Touch controllers it was made with the HTC wands in mind. Additionally, you might require a 360° Touch controller tracking setup, as not all SteamVR apps have snap turning.

What's the difference between buying a VR game/app on Oculus Store and buying on Steam?

Some apps are only available on Oculus Store, some are only available on Steam, and some are available on both. Each store has its advantages and disadvantages:

Oculus Store advantages:

  • a guarantee that the app runs natively via the Oculus API, fully supporting the Rift+Touch (Steam games which do so are listed here)

  • a comfort rating telling you how likely the app is to make you sick

Steam advantages:

  • ability to easily play your current VR games on future non-Oculus PC VR headsets

It is personal preference which you prefer overall- but generally you will have far less issues by purchasing on Oculus Store.


RuneSR2
Grand Champion

I think your post @pyroth309 is spot on. I really felt no difference playing Freediver (but since I always got 90 fps it's hard to judge), but in Trover it feels massive. Maybe not if you're a casual player not minding video settings and just starting the game using defaults settings, but when you push your rig to the max things in Trover really start to change between Stream and Oculus. 

I never really liked using SteamVR on the Rift - actually that was my primary reason for getting Index - I want to separate the two systems and get like native SteamVR support using Index, without having Dash and more Oculus software running in the background (if that's possible when having both HMDs connected to the same rig...). And I don't want to start one home just to start another home... Hopefully Index will just launch SteamVR home when I put on the HMD. 

This looks like a nice list of native Rift games on Steam - not sure it's fully updated and it seems anyone can edit it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/wiki/steamgameswithnativesupport

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Review - 9/10:

Quote: "Had Trover Saves the Universe opted to remain VR-only, it might present a convincing reason to purchase a headset, only because there’s minimal competition on the shelf for such undiluted and singularly crass humor. Generally speaking, good comedy is harder to produce than good drama, and the all-time list of successfully funny video games — meaning games that actually prompt uncontrollable bouts of laughter, not just a smirk or knowing chuckle — is alarmingly short as a result. For these reasons alone, Trover is a rousing success, making it the new crown jewel in Squanch’s stable, as well as a showcase for incredible voice acting performances wrangled and carefully arranged in a playset, operating under Roiland’s inimitable handcrafted approach to the art. There are lengthier, more complex and challenging and expensive action-adventure games, none of which will make you cry-laugh in your stuffy headset like Trover Saves The Universe, easily the best use of PS VR since Astro Bot."
https://screenrant.com/trover-saves-the-universe-review/

No PCVR reviews yet, and PCVR may in fact be much better than PSVR. 

In the Oculus Store Trover now has an average rating of 100 % based on 13 ratings. Can't top that, right?  B)

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Interview with Justin Roiland - the voice behind Trover:

https://youtu.be/V099vppjHGA

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
More  😄

https://youtu.be/UhVZ94qnbOc

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
I've been playing Trover a few more hours, and I found that activating antialiasing really didn't lower my performance and did improve image quality, even when using super sampling 2.0 (resolution 200%). The first time I tested the game using ss 2.0 and epic video settings was in the very start of the game where a lot of things are going on - but later in the game I don't feel any impact of turning on antialiasing = it's all 45 fps 😉

Depth of field should really not be activated, it makes distant objects very blurry and makes the world feel smaller. You get a feeling of much greater view distance by turning it off. 

Post processing effects seem to have a great impact - if I turned that off I could get 90 fps (at least some places) even keeping all other settings on "epic" and using ss 2.0. But it doesn't really matter - 45 fps asw 2.0 or 90 fps look much the same in this game, so I greatly prefer optimal image quality. 

In short - I'm actually playing Trover with all in-game setting maxed out - and the game still performs awesome (thank you asw 2.0). If you have a GTX 1080 or RTX 2060 - or better - then you should be able to max out all in-game settings. But if you want all in-game settings maxed out and 90 fps, then I'm not sure even a RTX 2080 Ti is enough - because I'm really close to 45 fps, and 2080 Ti may not perform a 100 % better (typically more like 70 % which isn't enough to go from 45 to 90 fps).

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Trover now has a 96 % average rating based on 21 ratings - even though you don't have full locomotion nor full Touch implementation (Touch only works as gamepad), this game's impressing me more and more. And there's also nice replayability due to the choices you make.

It's one of the few games that probably will touch you emotionally - one way or the other, lol (remember that disgust and surprise are nice emotions too!)

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

KlodsBrik
Expert Trustee
This game was fucking hilarious.
 The end of if it just above whatever comedy guy could have come up with.
Not to mention the achievement when you collect all the green power babies.
 😄
Be good, die great !