My childhood dream, the Star Wars space-game I’ve waited for (even if it’s just a short span of time), and the unbelievable visuals that makes a VR game great, has just arrived. I’ve got to say, today is one of the best days I ever have. It was spectacular and immersive.
But wait. What am I talking about? Oh yes, I’m talking about my experience with Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-Wing VR Missions. It’s now available exclusively on the PlayStation VR, and as long as you own Star Wars Battlefront, it’s 100% guaranteed free for download with about 1.9GB of file size – no need to buy the Rogue One: Scarif DLC if you’re wondering.
X-Wing VR is not a standalone app, it’s playable when you launch Star Wars Battlefront after you download the add-on. You get to experience a full-sized AT-AT walking in front of you as the main start menu of X-Wing VR. I had literally waited for the AT-AT to pass by until it’s far from my sight until I couldn’t hear its chilling mechanical greasy walking sounds. It took like about almost 15 to 20 minutes, really I did that. I know it’s a total nonsense, but in VR? I don’t think so. It was still worth it. It’s Star Wars.
I was excited when I saw a red R2 unit running around the X-Wing, and my Star Wars fanatic side just exploded out of oblivion when the X-Wing was really in front of me. There’s these Rebel Alliance emblems that serves as your navigational points since it doesn’t feature “walking”. I’ve tried all areas, and even if it was just purely for sightseeing to showcase the X-Wing, it was really out of this world. Along with this great experience is the epic musical score, specifically The Force theme, which compliments the whole feel of this short experience.
The whole hangar where the X-Wing is parked is technically the same menu theme of Star Wars Battlefront – a purely plain white background with the X-Wing and its refueling tubes laying around the floor, and some random tool crates. It could have been better if the area was in a Rebel Frigate or any types of hangar.
Since the Star Wars Battlefront is running on DICE’s famous Frostbite Engine, every graphical detail makes all of it feel more alive and immersive. The smokes coming out from the X-Wing are really smooth-looking, and every carvings and greeblies are realistic. I’m running X-Wing VR on the base PS4 version and it still looks amazing, how much more on the PS4 Pro.
As soon as you get inside the cockpit, everything becomes simply engaging. Before you set out to space for the actual mission, you can tinker or press or mess around with any buttons inside the X-Wing cockpit. I’ve discovered the button of the Targeting Computer and I was like “whoaaaaaaa”. And you know what’s also great? Is that the Targeting Computer works in the game – I just remembered A New Hope’s trench-run sequence!
You get to also select a character gender with their own voice which makes a great option for players who wants to have either a male or female voice dialogue. Now, you’re ready to fly into space and experience what the X-Wing VR Missions has to offer.
You’re this rookie pilot who just got accepted in the Rebel Alliance Starfleet, and codenamed as Rogue Four – who accidentally went to hyperspace that made him/her (depends on the gender you selected) went ahead from the Rebel Fleet. As soon as the fleet arrives, your squad leader, now asks you to join them in to jump into hyperspace to assist an SOS transmission sent by K2SO, the Imperial enforcer droid from Star Wars Rogue One.
The experience you get from seeing huge frigate ships, especially the Correllian Corvette (the Tantive IV from A New Hope) and the Star Destroyer, is just mind-blowingly awesome. The dogfight in space against TIE Fighters is very entertaining and exhilarating as you get to chase them down, and fire proton torpedoes to blow them up to smithereens. There was this memorable moment I had earlier was when I had to use the Targeting Computer to lock-on to the Star Destroyer’s Targeting Array, I shouted “yes!” after I launched my proton torpedoes and successfully hitting the target – going back to memory lane: the trench-run scene again in A New Hope. I’ve remembered a lot of these moments when I played Rogue Squadron, it really does bring out the nostalgic atmosphere.
It’s a very short experience, unfortunately, but it’s also a great one. I finished the whole thing in about 16 minutes of playthrough. X-Wing VR Missions is one of the best VR games I’ve played, and it had really shown the potential of what the developers like DICE and Criterion can do with this kind of device. Motion sickness was not present, gladly. And surely I hope that both DICE and Criterion will develop a reboot of the Star Wars Rogue Squadron titles on VR.
