Sairento first made its VR debut back in 2016 on the HTC Vive. This game was a simple first person shooter, and like all VR games at the time, it had a handful of limitations. The idea of the great was (and is) great. You are a cyber ninja based in the megacity of Tokyo in the year of 2066 AD. This game was also on PlayStation long before the VR industry got a taste of it.
In this game you are given missions to complete as each one has an array of different challenges and players to defeat. You will need to use you wide-ranging skill set to put an end to your enemies, and you will need to use every weapon that is available to you. The developers of this game did a fantastic job of making sure each of these weapons were showcased.
From the opening tutorial, you are going to feel right at home with the controls. The locomotion system feels fantastic and natural, making for a seamless transition into your new cyber reality. You will be introduced to umping off of walls, double jumping mid-air, and even running along the walls themselves. Each of these feels great in VR and the game is fantastic at not introducing motion sickness, something everyone fears in an open-world virtual reality game.
The weapons all feel like you have been training with them your entire life. Each one of them feels right at home when you grasp it into your hand. One of my favorite features of this game is the gripping of weapons. In games like Robo Recall and many other first person shooter games, you need to keep your hand on the grip button the entirety of your use of the gun. In Sairento: Untethered you only need to keep the grip of the controller held down while you are picking the weapon up. After that you are free to release the button while maintaining the grip of the virtual gun.
The placement of the weapons on your body is questionable at best. This version of Sairento was made specifically for the Oculus Quest and Rift S. With that being said, having weapons on your shoulders and lower back are just not good placed. The sensors are only located on the face of the headset, and there is no exterior sensors. I experienced problems grabbing weapons from my back multiple times throughout my experience in this game.
Slowing time is this game is something special. Using the same four buttons you can use to move, you can hold those down to slow time temporarily. This game takes a page out of Super Hot and it works perfectly. You won’t need to have this feature being used a lot, but a couple times a mission will get the missions done in a mannerly time and with good health.
When playing this game, you are going to want the biggest play area possible if you are playing to room scale. This will allow you to whip around while you are fighting your virtual and cyber enemies. This will be important as you can are going to be moving, leaning, and jumping in every direction possible. When playing stationary, you are going to need plenty of arm-swinging space.
Overall this game is well worth it, especially for a price of $14.99. you can find this game in the Oculus Store or on SteamVR, whichever you prefer to go through for your Oculus headset. This game is sure to bring out your inner cyber ninja in ways you never thought were accessible.
