Go For Launch: Mercury

TRIED TO GET REFUND AGES AGO BUT GOT REJECTED BY SUPPORT. THE GAME IS JUST NOT ABLE TO BE USED. STUCK IN A BIZARRE LITTLE OFFICE. STATES I'VE PLAYED FOR 47 MINUTES. TOTALLY NOT REALITY. NOT ACHIEVED EVEN 47 SECONDS THUS FAR.

Underdeveloped. [h1]Valve Index[/h1] The main problem I ran into with this VR game is that it doesn't have a control scheme for the Valve Index (despite the store page listing it as supporting the Valve Index, although whether this stirctly implies support of the Index controllers is not clear), so I have no confidence that I can interact with the game properly. The first menu was so far above me I had to crane my neck to see it. I tried to do a mission, and it hinted to interact with a checklist, but the checklist simply fell through the spacecraft when I approached it with my hand. When I looked at editing the buttons on the Steam VR program, the bindings simply list the button presses - not what they actually do. You can rebind the B button to perform the function of the A button, but it won't tell you what the A button does in the game. If there was a button to get back to the menu then I have no idea what it was. Whether it works with other VR sets or not I don't know, but it was promising to see the developer acknowledge my issue with the Index controllers. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Trudging through desktop mode just to see what I'm missing by not having it work in VR - there are multiple breaks of several minutes each as if it was a real mission. You can gain immersion through realism, but there's a certain point where pointless realism erodes the fun, so I think it should have a skip time option (like the [i]Shuttle[/i] game did all the way back in 1992). The strength of the game is the immersion of matching the radio chatter with visuals and an interactive cockpit. [h1]Quality[/h1] It has only four of the six manned Mercury missions, and of those four there's visuals issues where you don't see certain details like smoke or spent stages out the window. Some texture resolutions are quite low. On one menu the music drowned out the broadcast of Kennedy's historic speech. In the spacecraft the cabin fan sometimes comes on despite being switched off, and it sounds like a sample that doesn't loop well. I can't find a way to save or quit, and the desktop version launches SteamVR. [h1]Summary[/h1] The Apollo 11 VR game was more cinematic (and polished), so I'd go for that one instead. But having read a book on the Mercury Project - this is a hugely interesting moment of history that would only need a bit of fleshing out with quality to be appreciated.