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Vox Machinae now with both singleplayer campaign and multiplayer - impressions and reviews

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Vox Machinae just had a giant update including a 10+ hours singleplayer campaign:

 

 

The singleplayer campaign was designed for the Quest and ported to PCVR, so the npcs have the same very low polygon levels, but the PCVR version does have much better textures - jump to 10:30 in this video to see the similarities and differences:

 

 

You could say the singleplayer campaign has been Questified, but it seems that the cockpit levels are full PCVR - that is, these levels are using unchanged assets from the previous PCVR version. 

 

The campaign has been heavily criticized though: 

 

"At best, the campaign mode is a guided way to learn the game's range of unique mechs before digging into multiplayer, but if you're only here for the campaign then you'll probably be disappointed at its poorly executed story and characters, and the significant pacing issues that come along with them."

Source: https://www.roadtovr.com/vox-machinae-quest-2-review-campaign-pc-vr-1-0-launch/

 

"The NPC’s are just awful to look at, wooden and awkward in their movements with hands and arms disappearing into their bodies. Thankfully they don’t walk too much. But you have to. It soon felt like a trudge walking around the various cabin compartments, made even worse by the fact that to move the story along every single person had to be spoken to, even if that’s the last thing you want to do. Credit to Space Bullet for combining the narrative into each character’s monologue rather than some jarring cutscene, although trying to get back to the action was laborious at points. This led me to stop the campaign for a bit and start up the multiplayer."

Source: https://www.gmw3.com/2022/03/review-vox-machinae/

 

RoadToVR rated the game 7/10, and GMW3 (=VRFocus) rated the game 6/10. Not very good reviews - and I fully support those ratings. 

 

I might rate the game 7/10 too, but that's 9/10 for the cockpit missions and 5/10 for the forced npc interactions. Maxing out all graphics settings, like tessellation, the game in the cockpit mode looks great - I took some shots:

 

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I guess this is MechWarrior VR 🙂 

 

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A colleague - note the realtime shadows and vast view distance

 

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Taking a walk with my best friend - textures do look great

 

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Everything looks so small when you're big 😉

 

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A new planet and new missions

 

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More sightseeing

 

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Roasting an enemy mech 

 

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You have a full body in the game 

 

I think the battles - including the number of units/opponents on screen - have been designed for what the low-end Quest 2 XR Soc can handle, but surfaces, shadows, tessellation and more do take the PCVR version to another level. I do like just walking around in the giant mech - so I may be easy to satisfy. I don't care for multiplayer. 

 

The game is here:

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/334540/Vox_Machinae/

 

The PCVR version is only available on Steam. The Steam version does not support native Oculus drivers.

I'm getting solid 90 fps using Index res 300% and maxed out graphics - but that's using an oc'ed RTX 3090. Maybe I can do res 400% too, I have not checked, the game looks great using res 300%, no jaggies. 

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"

5 REPLIES 5

Anonymous
Not applicable

I didn’t read this yet, but I will…

 

this game looks really fun!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Read it, good review, but I decided not to buy, the current state of the App Library destroys everything!

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

The game really is a must-have, and the devs just ended early access - so the full v. 1.0 just arrived:

 

1.JPG

https://steamcommunity.com/app/334540?snr=1_2108_9__2107

 

Just went back into the cockpit and was blown away - or maybe I had just forgotten the awesome graphics and atmosphere:

 

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The great Index fov is really perfect for this game. 

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"

TamaraHutton
Explorer

I like this game. Thanks for sharing this game with us. I am getting bored at home and I am glad I found your post.

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Fun video 😁

 

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"