The Collider 2 is a relatively simple and fun game in which you need to navigate tunnels and unlike the title suggests you need to avoid colliding with other objects. An added benefit is that this game also brings VR support.
Standard gameplay
The Collider 2 pretends to have a background story – some aliens came and now you need to destroy their ships by navigating through the corridors of their spaceship. Ok, the story isn’t much but when you start playing you realize that it could do without even that.
Essentially The Collider 2 resembles games for mobile platforms like Subway surfers – you fly through tunnels avoiding obstacles while trying to collect coins and special power-ups. A power-up can give you added shield protection, added cooling, more coins etc. Cooling is important because your engines have a boost option that you use to accelerate the ship significantly (earning you more points at the end of the level) but they also tend to overhear if boost is activated for too long, keep it pressed long enough and your ship will explode completely. On the other hand the shield protects you against only one collision with an obstacle, another one gives you the “mission failed” announcement. Considering that the game is quite difficult you may be hearing this sentence a lot. The coins you gather on the way give you access to many upgrades to the ship – better cooling, better shields, attracting coins, doubling the coin amount etc, sort of an RPG element in the game.
There are two game modes – standard mission and survival mode. Survival mode is actually an endless tunnel that keeps accelerating while you are trying to stay alive. If you add more boost it increases your score that is then compared to other player’s results. Survival mode is a bit more difficult so you can only access it when you reach at least level 8 in standard mode missions. Standard missions have several variants: in scouting mode you need to pass the tunnel in certain amount of time, you have missions where you collect alien artifacts and you have levels where you need to shoot at some obstacles. Shooting mode is automatically activated when you have an enemy in the crosshairs. All of the missions are divided into sectors, about ten in each sector, and at the end of the sector you face a boss which you need to destroy by shooting at certain points.
The biggest issue in the game are the controls – the mouse is the best choice by far but also requires a bit of adjusting. If you try to use a gamepad you need to be prepared for a nightmare of calibrating sensitivity while you hit a wall every few seconds and get numerous “mission failed” messages. On the other hand graphics are nothing special but satisfactory for the purpose. One thing that stands out is the effect of motion blur when you apply the boost functionality which gives you a nice sensation of speed.
And when we step in to the virtual reality?
The game gets a completely new dimension when transferred in to VR environment. We tested it on an Oculus headset but it should support other models too. First thing to note is that you control the ship with the movement of your head. This is a surprisingly good solution compared to the gamepad and even the mouse but you have to understand that you will look funny, to say the least. Waving your head up-down, left-right will definitely make people around you thing you have gone crazy. Also it can be tiresome physically because if you do it for a longer period of time your neck might start to hurt because of rapid and sudden movements.
More problematic is the understanding that you cannot directly convert games made for a standard monitor to a VR environment. First of all there is the problem of the speed that is one of the features in The Collider 2 – it is nice on a monitor but playing on a VR headset you might get a bit nauseated by it (especially if you are new to VR headsets). While the view on a standard monitor is third person, in VR it is of course first person. This creates a lot of problems when your ship starts firing because the muzzle flashes are directly coming from your eyes and your vision needs constant adjustments. In my opinion those flashes should have been completely removed in VR for the comfort of the player.
Conclusion
The Collider 2 is a nice game that can keep you entertained if you like speed and avoiding obstacles. However there are some issues in the realization of this idea and our biggest concern is not enough adaptation for the VR experience it supports.
The Collider 2
Pros:
- High speed gameplay
- Different game modes
Cons:
- Bad controls
- Very difficult
- Poor VR adaptation
