MADiSON VR (PSVR2)

👍🏻

This game has you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. The immersion it bring is truly amazing, the haptic feedback on the headset is brilliant, this is probably the scariest games I’ve played in VR If you like horror games then this is a must. Totally brilliant game.

I brought this game as it has been called the "Scariest game ever made" and I am a huge fan of horror, to also play it in VR was a dream come true.Sadly, it was not to be.This game is a glitchy mess in VR, multiple times you will lose your hands and they collide with walls, that and the numerous invisible walls will make traversing the areas very difficult at times.I have no doubt the original Madison was a decent game, but it is very clear it wasn't made with VR in mind. Multiple times through the gameplay you'll have to press a button to travel down a staircase or ladder, at these points you see a magnifying glass pop up on screen, there is no proper way to use this as the sensitivity of the button varies every single time. Sometimes you just have to look at the prompt and press the R2 button to go down the staircase, other times I spent minutes walking around the prompt, waving my hands, approaching it from different locations and it felt like only luck that it allowed me to continue.One troublesome time is when you have to break open the entrance to a well and then go down a ladder. The first time I did this I soon realised that despite the lid of the well being destroyed, the game recognised that it was still in place and was an invisible wall, meaning I could not get close enough to the ladder for the prompt to work.To fix this I had to start the game from the very beginning.Also, expect the game to blue screen, this happened a few times to me, usually you can tell when it's about to happen when the game doesn't load properly (i.e: Lights not turning on when you walk into a room).Overall, VR doesn't help this game in the slightest, there are a few times when you use your hands to hold items, but there is zero point in having motion controls.Also, every item you pick up, you have to place it into your inventory otherwise you cannot move. So, if you pick an item up which you are going to use in the same room, you can't just pick it up and walk it over to where you are going to use it. You have to pick it up, put it in your inventory, walk over to where it goes, open your inventory, scroll (very slowly) to the item, then grab it and place it where it needs to go. Just feeling like alot more effort than it needs to be, not to mention the amount of glitches (some game breaking) it adds to the game.For the game itself, it's one of the least scariest games I've ever played. It's basically a haunted house simulator, very similar to 'Don't Knock Twice' or 'Paranormal Activity'.You play as a young man called Luca who escapes his father by hiding in his Granddad's house, soon afterwards he finds a old Polaroid camera that was gifted to him on his 16th birthday.At first, some of the scares are typical but definitely make you jump, items move around, you see a woman walking at the end of the hallway, etc.But you soon realise that this is the only scares the game ever gives you. Around 99% of the scares is a creature jumping out at you whilst an intense musical scare plays in the background, it makes you jump the first time but soon gets boring.The second realisation is that there are only three enemies in the game and only two of them can kill you, even death doesn't mean much as you respawn very close to where you died, so any tension from the enemies go away as quickly as they are introduced.The game does really well setting up the enemies, near the end of the game you meet a character called 'Blue Knees' through a nursery rhyme and have to run through infinite hallways to beat him at a game, but as I said the first time you die at his hands all tension leaves immediately and he gets more frustrating than anything, giving you a small amount of time for you to take a picture of him to ward him off. Something that was probably easily done in the main game but in VR you have to physically grab the camera from your shoulder and aim it at the creature.In fact, one of the most genuine scares I had in the game wasn't from an enemy at all but from a statue. Throughout the game you see a statue of a woman holding a plate (the purpose of the plate comes in at the end of the game), you see her so often standing in the corner of the room that it's genuinely frightening when you come back to the room to see the statue missing.Then you are basically playing a game with a weeping angel, but instead of it killing you, it just pops up in random locations to get your nerves going.Another genuine scare is when you first hear about 'Blue Knees' and walk down a corridor to see the creature staring at you before running off. They work best because they are not jumpscares, they allow the player to genuinely react to the situation and realise they are not alone and have an enemy to deal with.As I said, sadly these are few and far between. The rest of the game you have to get used to having a naked grandma jumping up at you whilst an orchestra trashes their instruments.Between the glitches, the genuine scares and the many, MANY terrible jumpscares, you will find a tedious game. You have two walking paces, either walking normal pace or shuffling like the old grandma who is jumping out at you. Some of the puzzles are interesting but alot of them are self explanatory or are far too cryptic, forcing you to use a guide.Overall, the game only lasts for around 2 hours and has very little in terms of 'Extras'. You get a harder difficulty and a selection of skins for your camera that really doesn't feel worth it.In all honesty, I would just stick to watching a YouTube play through for this one.