Dick Wilde 2 is the second game about Dick Wilde and his brother Billy Bob from developer Bolverk games. This game is a shooter on rails with a bit of a twist. For the majority of the game, you will be on boat, but that isn’t the only place you will find yourself. Not only will you find yourself shooting the fish and amphibians of the swamps, but you will find yourself in the mines trying to find your brother Billy Bob, who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right (or wrong) time.
The swamps have been infected and it is up to you (and oftentimes an online buddy) to take down the terrible ooze and the dwellers inside of the problem. If you keep advancing in the game, you will be taking on some insane bosses in the pursuit of Billy Bob. You will be given the opportunity to weld up to 16 different weapons in this game. Let’s jump into the review and see what this one is all about.
Getting Up and Running
As always, we are going to talk about the very first steps of getting this game onto your PC and your VR headset and ready to play. As many popular and successful virtual reality games, you are going to be able to find this game on all platforms that you can buy games for VR. The Oculus Store, Steam Store, Viveport, and even the PSVR Store are going to have this game. As of the end of October 2019, the game is half priced on all platforms, and is a part of the Viveport Infinity subscription.
The game is a smaller download than most popular games, as it is only going to require 2 GB of free storage on your gaming rig. If you are connected to a quick and reliable internet connection, this is only going to take a couple minutes to download. If you are dealing with internet that feels like you are a sloth, then this game may take up to 15 minutes. Grab a snack, use the restroom, and be ready for a fun and immersive experience in Dick Wilde 2 once it is downloaded!
Type of Game
This is a shooter on rails game, and it can also be included in the first-person shooter and comedy categories. This game isn’t a moving shooting gallery like most VR shooter on rails are, but instead you will be actively going against the rivers obstacles. You will have countless obstacles to hit, and most of them are going to be causing problems for you. This isn’t a typical VR game, but the uniqueness and the creativity are going to pleasantly surprise you the entire game.
Some of the frogs will be spitting fireballs at you, reducing your health. Other obstacles will hit the boat if you don’t shoot them, and it will be compromising the integrity of the boat. All, if not most, of the virtual objects in the river are meant to interact with you and ultimately get shot by your guns. Some will be exploding though, so make sure to time your shots right to not injure yourself of your raft!
Player Perspective
This game is played from the first-person perspective, but it is not as immersive as other games that take this approach. Usually in FPS games, you will be able to at least see your hands represented in your virtual world, but in this game, you won’t be seeing any of your body. Your hands and controllers are respected by the guns in this game. This doesn’t take away from the immersion though, as the developers took the attention form your guns and put it in the fast-paced action while you go down the river.
Theme and Story – Score: 6/10
The theme and story in this game are presented to you early on, and even in the opening page of the game inside of the Steam. With that being said, it wasn’t a constant story that impacted the way you played the game. You knew what had to be done, but it wasn’t essential to the game at all. The theme was somewhat constant, but it was never going to get a score of more expansive games like No Man’s Sky and Asgard’s Wrath. Its a good theme and story, but it isn’t anything that is going to leave you thinking about it once you beat the game.
Controls – Score: 6/10
The good thing about the controls in this game is that they only had one button for the controls of this game. The bad thing about this game is that they only included one option for control input even when there are so many input options inside of VR now. This game could’ve been played with a basic controller with one button, so the Valve controllers felt a little overqualified for the job. It was simple and got the job done, but even adding input to reload on our won would’ve been a good feature for the controls of Dick Wilde 2.
Music and Sound – Score: 5/10
The audio of this game has some serious work to do if it is going to get anything better than a halfway finished score. The audio seems like it got little to no love in the development of this game, and it is going to be pretty obvious early on in the experience from most players. The splat sounds were fun, the guns were equal to what you saw, but there wasn’t too much outside of that. The river could’ve been more prominent, the mines could’ve added some echo, and there was plenty of room for a good soundtrack. Middle of the road score for a part of the game that felt like it was far from a finished product.
Player Movement – Score: 6/10
This game requires a play space to start the game, and you aren’t allowed to play from a standing or sitting position. We wish there was a sitting option, because the player movement in this game was lacking. Because this a shooter on rails game, you won’t need to be focusing on moving at all. That does pose some problems though, as cant fully rotate to either side too much without the game stopping you. We wish there was a little more freedom for where we would float, but the developers have a monopoly on the movement, and gave none of it to the players.
Kinetosis – Score: 81/0
Dick Wilde 2 could’ve received a perfect score here, but the ending of each level was so disorienting that we questioned if we even wanted to finish the level or just fail on purpose often. Usually, a great game for motion sickness with one bad habit would receive a 9, but the slow stop while you are standing still felt like a true sin to leave in the game. Other than that, the movement in this game was constantly good. The river luckily didn’t get too bumpy and toss you around much, so a good score here for motion sickness.
Environment and Immersion – Score: 6/10
We know that cartoon games can often get a bad score here, but that never is because of the type of graphics they choose. We aren’t going to be fooled of where we really are, as we still have a big black box on our foreheads. This game still has some work to do here. The audio in the game was not immersive enough, the controls didn’t let you interact with the virtual world enough, and the player movement made this game feel like it was often an interactive experience more than a game. This game is like one or two big updates from really improving this score in a big way.
Overall – Score: 6.2/10
This game gets a slightly better score than average here, but it still has a long way to go to become one of the better virtual titles. The overall score (an average of all the topics we review) doesn’t perfectly represent how much we enjoyed this game though. We still think Dick Wilde is worth downloading if you have Viveport Infinity, and it is worth the half-off price of $10right now. This deal won’t last long on the storefront, but the game is going to be a part of Infinity going forward for the foreseeable future. This is fun game, but it won’t be letting you get lost in it for hours on end.
