Game Details
Developer: Stress Level Zero
Publisher: Stress Level Zero
Platform: Valve Index (reviewed), Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality
Release Date: December 10, 2019
Price: $30
ESRB Rating: M for Mature
Links: Steam | Official website
For years, an ambitious game called Boneworks has hovered in the periphery of the VR enthusiast community, inspiring equal parts drool and confusion. It's made by a scrappy-yet-experienced VR team (makers of quality fare like Hover Junkers and Duck Season). It revolves around realistic guns and a complicated physics system—thus immediately looking more ambitious than other "VR gun adventure" games in the wild.
And it so strongly resembled Half-Life in its preview teases, both in aesthetics and in physics-filled puzzles, that fans wondered if this was the oft-rumored Half-Life VR game after all. (It's not.)
Now that Boneworks has launched for all PC-VR platforms, does the gaming world finally have an adventure game worthy of an "only in VR" designation? The answer to that question is a resounding "yes"—but that's not the same as saying it's a good video game.
The trouble with “git gud” in VR
When Boneworks enemies get too close and you're short on weapons and ammo (a rarity, but still), just use your real-life hands to virtually shove them away. Stress Level Zero Boneworks' similarities to Half-Life don't start and end with this headcrab-like creature, which is terrifying to encounter in the middle of combat. Stress Level Zero Though the game doesn't emphasize its two-handed melee as often as I'd like, the feeling of intentionally slow-swinging a mallet into a foe's skull is unique to the Boneworks experience. It's killer stuff in action. Stress Level Zero Every firearm in this game needs to be manually loaded with a magazine and cocked before you can fire. There's also no UI to say how many bullets you have; you'll need to eject and reload guns' clips manually. Stress Level Zero One-handed weapons like this lead pipe will do in a pinch. Stress Level Zero Why are these helmet-clad soldiers shooting everything they see? And why do they ride spinning balls, like futuristic unicycles? We're not sure on either count. Stress Level Zero
At its worst, Boneworks had me bellowing in agony. The game, which has you escaping and battling your way out of a mysterious research facility, revolves around a philosophy of "realistic" physics interactions. Everything you see can be touched, pushed, lifted, and manipulated by your hands and body according to their real-life size and weight.
But the results can be an utter mess of virtual body parts glitching through or getting stuck on top of stuff in the game. Since your real arms and legs are not so constricted, the disconnect of game and reality is some of the most severe I've ever seen in VR software.
To break this down, I'll start by addressing a brief, "experts-only" notice which must be clicked through upon every boot of the game. Now that I've played the game, I would've rewritten the notice to be more specific:
WARNING: Boneworks operates with the assumption that you're comfortable with VR experiences that push the limits of comfort and nausea. You must walk using a joystick, as the game doesn't offer any "teleportation" options for comfort's sake. You must press a button to virtually "jump," and your virtual perspective will fling and fall great distances throughout the game. And you must press against firm virtual objects, which will thus "push" your apparent grounding point in VR while you remain still in real life. If you've never played a VR game before, this should not be your first VR rodeo. Maybe not even your second.
The above issues are no accident. Boneworks' battles and puzzles revolve around intentional movement and the position of your body and hands. If the developers at Stress Level Zero had their way, they would've built a massive, real-life amusement park to emphasize gunplay, melee, running, jumping, and climbing—in ways that can't be replicated in a flat-screen video game.
But this means you're doing things like looking down and jumping between platforms—a first-person traversal system that sucks enough in traditional games, let alone VR ones that yank your virtual perspective wildly. You'll also occasionally use your hands to push through massive objects or climb and clamber over complicated geometry by lifting yourself with your hands. Both of these can result in some bizarre glitching, especially since the game renders your virtual arms and legs at all times, which can get caught in the game's risers, ladders, and other geometry for no good reason. And sometimes, these glitches mean you'll fall a great height, which is both uncomfortable from a VR perspective and annoying from a gameplay one. The game forces you to walk, climb, and jump at a real-life pace through large zones and puzzles, and a single fall can drag your progress down enormously.
Great times with two hands
And yet! When I stumbled upon a perfectly executed Boneworks moment, whether because the game neatly telegraphed it or because I cleverly "broke" the game's weirdness and rules for my own benefit, I felt exhilaration unlike pretty much any other immersive, sense-filling VR fare I've ever played. That's no small praise; longtime Ars readers know I'm equal parts VR freak and apologist.
The first unique thing about Boneworks is its insistence on "realistic" manipulation of VR objects. Want to pick up something small and one-handed in the virtual world, like a coffee mug or a hammer? Reach for it and press a "grip" button on your VR controller of choice, and you'll pick it up and wave it around. This is common VR-game stuff. Boneworks' twist comes from larger, heavier, and two-handed objects. You can't easily pick up and wave a sledgehammer, ax, or 4"-tall crate in Boneworks with a single hand; try doing this, and its VR motions won't match your real-life ones. With only one hand, your powerful new implement will instead flit about like a useless foam sword.
Instead, after grabbing a bigger object with one hand, reach your second hand to another spot on its shaft or side and grab on. Then adjust your hands' positioning. Then pantomime moving and swinging this object a little more slowly, with more intention. Then find something to wallop.
Whether it's slow-and-intentional slamming of a sledgehammer, or crisp-and-smooth swings of a baseball bat, or a mighty-and-heavy drop of a battle ax, Boneworks has it where it counts: in the resulting, crushing impact of these weapons against the bodies of the game's faceless, creepy monsters. Get the motion wrong with these weapons and you'll only hear a light "pffdd" as your attempted attack rolls off worthlessly. Get the motion right, on the other hand, and the enemy's body will crumple beneath the loud crack or slice of your successful bludgeoning.
Similarly, when you conform to Boneworks' rules about what you can manipulate and grab onto, the resulting sense of discovery is wicked. Does a set of ridges against a wall resemble a ladder in the slightest? Go on, fake like a spidermonkey with a climbing system that (thankfully) errs on the side of "your hands are out of position, but you can climb, anyway." If you see a platform close to a wall with wheels at its base, climb to its top, then use your hands to push against the wall—and you'll slide the entire platform on the wheels' path.
And what about an apparent bonus key at the very top of a room, which you noticed after climbing up an awkward tower of boxes but then realized you couldn't physically reach? That's OK. Shoot the key with your gun, and it'll fall to the floor below. Should you arrange that climbing tower successfully without your virtual arms or legs glitching, the sensation of building your own path to success is fantastic. (Should your makeshift tower suffer from your VR body glitching through it, on the other hand, get ready to scream until your lungs get sore.)
Memorable content, not necessarily paced well
Speaking of guns: You'll find a substantial variety of nicely modeled, military-grade guns hidden in the game's mysterious cities and catacombs, which you can either shoot in one- or two-handed fashion. The reload-aim-and-recoil experience of each weapon is distinct and satisfying once waves of enemies stumble in your direction, while later-game scoped rifles are a treat to hold up to your real-life gaze for sniping's sake.
All of my praise for this game is about discrete moments in isolation, by the way. Cool gun combat. Cool melee combat. Cool "solve it yourself" moments where players maximize the game's complicated physics system. The freaking balloon gun, which eventually opens up crazy traversal and combat options by launching and attaching helium-filled balloons to whatever you aim at. (Good stuff there, SL0.) Where BonRead More – Source
