Underdogs

There are a lot of concepts that should work fantastically in VR. With so little choice in this format, I'm often surprised that developers don't take these ideas, create really good games and then feed a hungry audience. Of course, I also understand the risks. The biggest of these is probably that it reaches a fairly small audience no matter how good what is on offer is. Even a title as phenomenal as Half-Life: Alyx unfortunately doesn't reach the crowd that it should, mostly because VR is so expensive and also not as accessible as sitting down with a controller and getting started. But now, rather than shedding tears over VR as a whole, we're mainly going to talk about one solid concept.

In Underdogs, you're placed inside a giant robot and let loose in an arena. Here you must then defeat a wave of enemies. The game has a rogue-like concept so if you die on a so-called 'run' you simply have to start over from scratch. This is Underdogs in a nutshell, but of course it wouldn't be much of a review if we didn't look at this a little more closely.

It is important to utilise the skills of your robot before getting into a fight.

The first thing I noticed was how incredibly responsive the controls were. This is one of those areas where I've often found VR to have problems. But swinging my giant arms was incredibly responsive. It really feels like they follow the movements no matter what I do, and since the blows I can deal also do extra damage if I swing faster, this is obviously important. If I pull my arms far back and swing them forwards in a fast movement, they do more damage than if I just do some quick jabs. However, this means that you as a player have to be more physically active. And yes, Underdogs requires that you don't have any furniture you can accidentally mistreat. However, it is possible to play sitting down but requires some space around you so that you can wiggle.

In addition to waving your arms and handing out punches, you also move in a very unique way. You press two buttons on the controller and sort of jump forwards. The theme here is to mimic a gorilla and although the system gets a bit tiresome after a while, it's just as smooth as fighting. You can also do a lot of damage by jumping into enemies in this way. Because enemies. They come in droves. You're in an arena and various gates open and they appear. There are all sorts of different robots and you have to destroy them before they kill you. Between the various fights, you can then rehearse your robot, buy and upgrade and hire some buffer-types who make sure that your enemies start with less in life. Then there's also a little story that's recreated in a comic book-like style.

You can repair and buy new upgrades for your robot between each run.

I actually had quite a lot of fun the first hour and the first few rounds. Sure my robot broke down and I had to restart and change my tactics and learn to swing and dodge better. But thanks to great tracking and the fact that the movements were then transferred so well, I was quite happy there inside my big robot. It gets very frenetic at times, I changed one of my arms to a saw blade and as so often in the past with a rogue-like, you start to think about what upgrades and rewards work best in the long run. You can equip your robot with everything from things that give more pure physical damage and make the cage surrounding the driver stronger. Because if it breaks and exposes you, you are not far from certain death.

As I dealt out swings that thumped the life out of the robots, I began to fantasise about a boxing game where the agility and punching felt this good. Then when I had done a number of rounds I realised that I was getting really bored. Of course, I believe that a developer should make the game they want, but when I sat down behind the controls of my giant robot, I had actually hoped for something other than just fighting in that arena. Sure, you try to vary it with different opponents and a story to follow - but it becomes incredibly monotonous in the long run. I quickly got tired of jumping around and weaving, quite simply. The fact that the game is a rogue-like creates a certain challenge as every fight really means something. It also means that it gets very tiring to redo, especially the first fights when you die and then start over again. Usually I feel that this kind of thing creates a desire to succeed and to believe that you can do better. Here, unfortunately, it does not contribute to that because it mostly just gets annoying to fight the same wave of robots again. I would have rather seen the roguelike element dumped in favour of more linear courses and saved progress.

Dealing blows is incredibly responsive but unfortunately it's done in dull arenas against dull enemies.

Visually, Underdogs uses a cartoon style that works quite well. Everything has its own identity, from the character designs to the enemies. However, the arena is not the most visually exciting place in the world. There are some traps and debris placed here, but it feels rather sparse and claustrophobic. Although the enemies are well animated, there is also a lot of repetition of them. We are offered a few different types of enemies but they are also often repeated or are different variants with slightly different sizes. The sound consists of an attempt at cool one-liners and a generally 'tough' attitude that certainly fits the game's theme, but also feels quite ridiculous. It's a matter of taste, of course, if you can stand that little 'YEAH' theme, but for me it was just another monotonous thing. I would have preferred to see really epic music accompanying the fights to make it a little more engaging.

If you want to see a bigger upside, this can definitely work for those looking for VR games that offer a bit of a workout. If you run a longer workout, you notice how sweaty you get and your arms really have to work when they are constantly cranked around. Both to fight and to move.

Unfortunately, Underdogs failed to impress me beyond the initial joy of tight controls. Sitting inside a robot is cool, but what appears in front of you needed to be more engaging than what you're offered. It's an interesting concept that just gets repetitive in terms of entertainment. Because as cool as it is to sit inside a giant robot and deliver those first well-aimed punches, there was nothing I found particularly fun after a few hours of play.