With the first major PlayStation VR2 exclusive, I took a look at a familiar post-apocalyptic world. Call of the Mountain can amaze with its high-quality processing, but I won’t be heading to the mountains again for a while.
The world of Horizon is already well known from the last generation of PlayStation. Therefore, it makes sense to me that Sony wanted to attract players to their new virtual reality through what they actually already know, but at the same time they will see the world from a completely new perspective. Unlike many other VR games, Call of the Mountain doesn’t feel like a tech demo, but like a full-fledged game. At the same time, it’s a promise that PlayStation will pay more attention to VR2. The experience is intense, but it was not without mistakes.
However, the first impression is really excellent. As Horizon was the first game I tried on the PS VR2, the initial wow effect blew me away. You sail down the river, watch the surrounding nature with mechanical dinosaurs, and your fellow travelers introduce you to the story of the game. If you were worried that even this generation of virtual reality would not reach the necessary qualities, then at least Horizon will convince you otherwise.
The processing of the world was excellent. You will visit several different locations during your quest, and nowhere did I get the impression that any of them felt crowded. Even the mechanical monsters and characters themselves maintain a high quality of processing, although there are only a few of them in the game, but they look great during the cutscenes. We will also have a few words with Aloy, the main character of the previous episodes, who is currently passing through the refuge of our captors. Yes, Ryas who is the protagonist of this story starts as a prisoner.
Getting into the story will be difficult for those of you who don’t speak English well. To my surprise, the game lacks Czech subtitles. The first Horizon didn’t have them, but you can already find Czech in Forbidden West. But Call of the Mountain once again omits the Czech language. Even though I don’t really have a problem with English, I keep the subtitles on in games in case I miss a word. However, reading the subtitles in this case is a bit complicated. They are located on the bottom as in classic gaming, but with the headset on my head they are not the best to read. So I turned off the subtitles after a while because they were distracting rather than helpful.
It takes a while to understand the story, but in the end it’s very simple. Ryas used to be part of the Shadow Carja clan, which the others don’t exactly love because of his bloody past. He won’t stay imprisoned for long. Ryas gets a chance to earn his freedom by finding his brother and finding out what he is trying to prevent. Gradually, the plot gets going nicely, but I won’t dissect it unnecessarily. More important than the story in this case is the gameplay, which works very well, but I have a few reservations about it.
Since the game has the subtitle Call of the Mountain, it is logical that we will spend most of our time in the mountains. Ryas is a good climber, so in his shoes I managed to climb not only ordinary rocks, but when there was no other way, even ancient robot remains served to climb to the top. I enjoyed climbing in the first missions. It works well, you gradually get things in your equipment that will help you overcome more difficult obstacles. After a few hours, however, the climbing gets quite warm. In short, there is too much of it and compared to the other parts of the gameplay it is the most boring of them. Which is a shame, because there are by far the most of them.
“Monsters are well done. When playing, it feels like there really is a huge mechanical monster standing in front of you.”
Horizon differs from classic postapo worlds mainly thanks to mechanical dinosaurs, and we won’t lose them in Call of the Mountain either. I’ve dealt with small Scrappers, but much larger monsters such as Stormbird or Thunderjaw will also occur. The monsters are well done. When playing, it feels like a huge mechanical monster is really standing in front of you.
Ryas’ main weapon is a bow, to which he has several types of arrows. I enjoyed these parts the most. Bow handling works flawlessly. As in the previous games, this time too you can shoot parts of the dinosaurs to deal a good amount of damage. If you just keep shooting arrows head to head, you will spend quite a long time in the fight. During the fight, in addition to shooting, you must also manage to dodge attacks. Ryas can jump quickly, but you have to react quickly. Dinosaurs are quite aggressive and won’t let you breathe.
You will also get to crafting while playing. I have to say that Call of the Mountain has the most fun crafting of all the games. Instead of pressing one button and everything comes together, you have to assemble the parts by hand. I’m a bit sad that there isn’t much crafting in the game, if I don’t count the special types of arrows that you only spend a few seconds on. After all, this also applies to fights. There could also be more. Climbing clearly gets the most space.
Even before you start playing fully, I recommend heading to the control settings. It takes some trial and error to find the perfect fit for you. Gesture controls didn’t quite sit well with me, and I didn’t feel good climbing during the first few missions. After adjusting the settings, it was incomparably better. I appreciate that there are really many options. In the settings you will also find an item with eye detection. This function is used when navigating the menu and choosing options in conversations, which are only a few in the game, but like the characters themselves, they are at a first-class level.
As you move through the environment, the space around your eyes darkens. This is probably to ensure the smoothness of the game even in more intense sequences. I found it quite annoying while playing though. The dark part is constantly changing, and if you want to admire the surroundings, for example, you have to wait a while until the entire field of view is rendered. In these moments, I also noticed minor imperfections. Sometimes a shadow would jump or a texture would load. I have no other reservations about the environment. The only problems I’ve run into yet were in a boss fight where the huge bird got stuck in a pile of rubble and couldn’t move or attack. In the fight with the smaller birds, after stunning them, they remained suspended in the air as if they were lying on the ground.
After completing the story, you can spend some time in the Challenge Hub in Horizon. There, as part of the challenges, you try to beat the highest score of the other characters you meet in the game. For example, you can prove that you can do better with a bow than Aloy. It’s not a big deal, but the challenges are a nice added bonus. This also applies to Safari. You get on the boat again and just watch the surrounding dinosaurs poke each other. This mode is just right for those occasions when someone just wants to try out what it looks like in PS VR2. You don’t have to learn to control anything, you just enjoy the environment.
Call of the Mountain isn’t perfect, but it’s a very promising start to PlayStation’s next generation of VR. From a technical point of view, it is an excellent game that shows that the new headset has huge potential. However, it is not so famous with the gameplay. Rock climbing, which for me is the most boring part of it, is just too much in the game. Combat and crafting are fun, but you rarely get to do them.
Verdict
Horizon in virtual reality looks great, plays great, but its content would like to be fine-tuned. I’d like to spend more time fighting mechanical monsters or crafting gear instead of constantly hanging on a rock somewhere trying to reach the next peak. Technically, Call of the Mountain is mastered brilliantly. The environment looks nice, it’s interactive and the characters are well-crafted and believable. But the more boring sequences greatly exceed the fun, which is not good for a game in which you spend around 10 hours.
