Now This Is Borderland Madness: Gazzlers VR

A CRAZY AND JOYFUL TAKE ON THE OLDSCHOOL COIN-OPS.

Gazzlers has to be one of the biggest surprises in VR gaming this year, at least for me. A Railshooter with a wacky and funny style accompanied by roguelite leveling mechanics which basically means that you are stuck on a path and you have to replay it until you finally get strong enough to get to a new world, roguelite is getting fairly common in VR games, most likely due to the fact that they are easier to make and requires next to no story, all it needs are mechanics that works and makes the player want to give it just one more go…

REPLAY VALUE, STAGES AND LEVELS…

Sitting on the back of a train and shooting enemies that race up toward you might not sound like the best idea for a rail-shooter, but it won’t take long for fans of that genre to enjoy it for sure.

Gazzler is divided up into 6 or so stages for each world and every world (there are 4 worlds?) has a minimum of one main boss fight, these battles will take a lot of time to beat and for sure need quite a few retries before you eventually kill them. Once you unlock more worlds you can actually teleport to them ( after beating the first world). The game also comes with a trophy list that will make the game last for quite a while (there’s also a Platinum trophy).

WEAPONS, UPGRADES AND MONEY…

You have 2 types of upgrades in Gazzlers, one is permanent which you upgrade with the in-game currency called scrap, and the other one is actual ingame upgrading that is done after every stage, there are quite a few of both and while some won’t matter much but some will really pay off if you mix them together with others, especially so with the ingame after level upgrades.

The permanent upgrades will make you want to replay the game repeatedly just to upgrade them even further (4 levels for each upgrade). This upgrade system is very rewarding and they upgrade your stuff in a way that you should notice soon enough, that said, the upgrades can feel extremely grindy but heh, it will come automatically as you start getting hooked on the game.

THE CONCLUSION?

Gazzlers is a fun quick-fix type of game, it’s easy to play although very challenging, and you will get hooked on the simple mindless action. Do not think that this game will be a walk in the park, the graphics might trick you into thinking this is meant for kids, this game offers stuff for most ages really as the mechanics will require you to dodge bullets, reload, use a shield and health packs while shooting like a crazy man at the same time. My eldest son tried the game last night and his first few attempts showed that he thought it would be easy (he saw me playing it first), shooting all the stuff, swinging the shield, and dodging bullets can and will require you to be focused but fear not, this will come naturally after some serious attempts playing the game. 

Last minute update: A free update was added just a few days ago, this update is dedicated towards Halloween and it is called Nightmare, this update fixes a few things, like a difficulty option with high score tables for each of them and supposedly this has made the game easier, I still find it hard as nails though, the balancing in later levels got some big spikes which makes the game harder than it has to be.

The controls, tracking, visuals, and sound make the game work really good, if you play a bit blind with reloading and shooting you will always get sound feedback telling you if someone is shooting at you or a certain sound effect that reflects that you managed to reload properly (that said, it would be great if the reload had been a bit easier as later levels are really hectic and reloading soon becomes a pain). One of the things I noticed after a few hours of playing the game was that I ended up looking one way shooting stuff while doing things with my other hand in the opposite way (like using the shield or scouting for other enemies) and honestly, it feels very natural. So, is this game worth the asking price of £19.99/$19.99, is there enough replay value, oh, and what about with the crazy amount of VR games coming out in the next months, what should I spend the money on? Well, to say it simply, if you like Railshooters and typical arcade action games, then this is for you, if you don’t, then you should wait for a sale.  

A really cool take on the rogue-lite genre, now that’s for sure.

PS: The game does not support a leftie mode (yet), I have sent a request to the developer about it and hopefully they will add that in one of the upcoming updates.