Skyfront VR: In-Depth Review

Skyfront VR is one of the best games inside of virtual reality right now. This is a first-person shooter that is located in space, and it feels similar to Lone Echo, if you ever had the chance to play that game. You won’t be competing any missions or playing in any campaign modes, but you will be playing a lot of multiplayer space games, and it feels like what you read about in Enders Game as a kid. This is an ultimate space game. 

There is no gravity when you are playing, and that only adds to the fun. After you are adjusted to that feeling, you will be able to twist and angle your self in many different ways that benefit you to get a better angle on killing your opponents. This game is takes everything that VR does well and tosses it into a big salad. This is a perfect mix of everything you should be doing inside of VR, especially because we can‘t play games like this in real life. 

Getting Up and Running

This game is pretty small for a multiplayer first-person shooter, but it doesn’t take away from the gameplay itself. You will need only 3 GB free on your computer to download or buy this game. If you have slow internet connection, no problem. This game should only take about 20 minutes to download. If you are connected to lightning-fast internet, the download could be downloaded within just minutes. Grabbing a snack will leave you playing catch-up with a download this fast. Sit tight and be patient. 

This game is only $9.99 and it is published by Levity Play. This is their first game and they are still working on polishing it. For only $10, this feels like a pretty complete gamer compared to many other VR games on the market right now. Getting into the game itself is fairly easy and there isn’t too much to learn. Your first match will be mostly trial and error, but after that, the killing will take off like never before. 

Type of Game

This is considered a first-person shooter by all measurements, but just like many great virtual reality games, there is a bit of twist to this one. You won’t be using any gravity, and this is nothing like Pavlov or even the newest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game. This is a futuristic style of playing, and it fits perfectly into playing inside of VR. Games like this are going to be the ones to propel virtual reality forward, and Skyfront is on the front edge. 

With this game being made for multiplayer interaction, you are going to get to know lots of people through this game from Levity Play.  The voice chat is always on in this game, unless you choose to turn it off. You are playing anything more than 1 vs 1, it is going to be smart to keep that microphone active. This will give your team an advantage over most that don’t communicate. If you are one to say what you’re seeing throughout gameplay, this game is going to favor you more than most. 

Player Perspective

Most good virtual reality games are made in the first-person perspective, and this game is no different. You aren’t going to see your arms or legs in this game, as your view is cut off halfway down the barrel of your gun. This doesn’t break the immersion at all, as your arms would only be impacting your view of the level you are playing on. The less body parts in your view the better when you are playing a game with this much fast-paced action. 

Theme and Story – Score: 5/10

There is no known story in this game, and the theme isn’t too prominent. Of course you see that you in space and fighting in space suits, but outside of that, you aren’t going to see too much. If you do dig a little deeper, you are going to find that there is a back story on the games website. The score gets a nice knock here for not presenting that to us in the game itself, but it was somewhat refreshing to see that the game at least typed out a few paragraphs to add context to the space fights. 

Controls – Score: 7/10

The controls in this game is as simple as a first-person shooter should be, but that wasn’t really needed. Simple is nice, but when you are fighting in space, you would rather have more than less. There wasn’t much input through the controllers in this game, but we did find that we weren’t missing out on too much when we got used to them towards the end. We wish that they would’ve done more, but they barely got away with a 7 on this one. 

Music and Sound – Score: 6/10

There wasn’t enough music and sound in this game to overly impress us, but when it was there, it was sufficient. If you are reall fighting in space, you are going to next to no sounds and noises. Of course that would be terrible while playing a video game, but they should’ve added some better music while we were playing. The weapons all sound the same, and with the wide variety we had, we were hoping for something a little different every once in a while. 

Player Movement – Score: 6/10

The player movement in this game was bad, but it wasn’t the worst have seen. To get from place to place, you would pull the trigger on your left hand. You could change this to your right if needed in the settings. This would often be disorienting and would cause you to spin in circles. This is because the devs didn’t add any way to rearrange the way you look, making a wired experience look similar to the public execution in the 1700’s. You could get from point A to point B in this game, but it wasn’t that simple. 

Kinetosis – Score: 1/10

This game wasn’t very kind to our stomachs at all, they didn’t seem to care in the most basic way. Being in a zero–gravity place while sitting in a chair is going to take your body for an unexpected trip to the garage can, and it felt like that was a matter of time and not a matter of if it would happen. If you are uneasy inside of virtual reality, you need to stay away from this game. If you are completely comfortable inside of VR, you still will need to be extremely cautious of how fast you move in this game. 

Environment and Immersion – Score: 4/10

It is hard to get immersed in a game when you feel sick the entire time because of the game itself. It doesn’t do too much to have a spacesuit on if you feel like just laying on the cold tile. The sounds in this game didn’t help either, as they seemed like it was on repeat the entire game. You weren’t able to move in the ways you wanted to the entire game as well, which made it hard to feel like you were ever actually in space. 

Overall – Score: 4.8/10

This game doesn’t eclipse the 5 point mark, and that is okay, for now. The developers are working hard to make this game feel like a finished product, but there is still a lot that needs to be done around the player movement and a little more sound effects and soundtracks. Until then, this game is going to be slightly behind the rest of the pack inside of VR.