Project Demigod

I have followed the development of this game for a while, and as someone who loves Superheroes and the idea of having a VR Game that lets you embody your favourite types of supes, I want to write a review so people know what to expect of Project Demigod so far. I'm putting this review up passionately, because there are not many superpower games out there for VR that come close to what you can sort of see this game is trying to achieve in a way. Project Demigod has a lot of potential, it has a solid foundation to be something really good, but unfortunately, it just isn't there yet. There is so much missing from this game that makes VR as immersive as it is, and so much of what makes you actually feel like you have superpowers. It visually is not appealing and it doesn't make you feel like you are in the world it is set in properly. Core problems: -Visually not appealing: The texture and graphics are very plain, the environments feel empty and considering that you are supposed to have superpowers, the sense of scale and discovery isn't there, as there are no good points of interest, no really storytelling in the world apart from the odd statue or landmark building but these again are quite minimal impact. The outfits and player avatars themselves are pretty good, and this is helped by the modding community also. Vehicles vanish when destroyed in a ball of fire and a lot of other characters and assets seem out of place, for example the insect queen. A large boss you can fight in the city, which visually looks great but there is an obvious discrepancy in asset quality compared to the environment around it. -Poor Immersion & Mechanics : With superpowers you would expect to be a destructive force in the environment around you, sadly this is not the case. Only certain maps allow destruction of the environment which is quite fun for the first few minutes but once you get bored of the one map and again take notice of how empty the environment is, you quickly lose interest. Interacting with the world is also super lacklustre and this plays into the powers themselves too. Vehicles are anchored to the ground, you have superstrength yet a car wont budge if you punch it, lamp posts and street furniture don't move, there is no sense of force or impact. Pedestrians are clunky and feel like jelly, half the time your abilities have no effect on them. For example the lightning superpower would take 2 or 3 hits for the NPC to fall over, the first few hits it just bounces off. The world itself does not react very well to your presence and there is a real disconnect. When fighting the insect queen, there was no feedback, no response to me punching it, all I had was a health bar telling me I was doing damage to a creature that didn't even move and was just locked in a preset animation. Essentially, some objects feel like they are weighted to the ground or don't move at all, others feel very floaty. -Power Mechanic is poor: The actual list of powers available in Project Demigod is great, I cannot fault that. Being able to be Spiderman, Human torch, superman, the list goes on. But the one thing that really lets all of this down is that these powers are not combined powersets, and they SHOULD be. I can see what the devs are going for in this game when it comes to switching between powers, they want it quick and they want to give you access to all the different superhero abilities wherever you are, but I think this comes at the cost of fluidity in the gameplay where you have to switch between each individual ability within that powerset. For example, with Superman's powerset, Strength, Flight and Laser vision, (Which by the way you have barely any strength in the first place, take the example of cars not moving after being punched). You have to switch between flight and laser vision with your controller in order use them, which to me breaks the flow of combat and breaks the flow of movement you have. Your powers should be combined, if this means choosing your powerset from the pause menu and then having more buttons available to use your all the powerset abilities with your controllers without having to select them first individually, you are on to a winner. Additionally, some of the powers themselves are lacking feel. Projectile powers such as the energy blast and fireball move way too slow and don't feel destructive. -General UI and Controls: The pause menu itself is not bad, it is readable and makes sense, however the in game power menu is very poor, the power selection menu is offset awkwardly to the hand and no matter how hard I try to fix it, it never seems to move so I can comfortable see it. The menu always seems to be facing down at and angle from my wrist. In summary. The game is very empty, a realistic session of Project Demigod would probably be loading it up, flying around for 20 minutes because you find that the most accessible way to get around what is a huge but empty environment. You may try to fight a few enemies by throwing them off buildings or into a wall, but really, nothing is satisfying in the game. You don't feel a part of the world, it feels very empty, almost liminal, and there is no consistency to the gameplay. I hope the dev's continue to work on making this more of an immersive experience.