Battlezone

« Overall, Battlezone is an excellent reboot for this long-suffering franchise. No modernization of the original concept has worked nearly as well as this does, and it is a perfect showcase for VR technology. »

« In the end, Battlezone is an incredible VR experience. It’s enough of a full-featured tank simulator that it would be a great time played with standard controls on a normal television, but the perfect immersion takes that already-great play and elevates it to something truly special. Among the eight PSVR launch titles, Battlezone is the best at creating a seamless world for the player to inhabit, and even with a few balance problems in the campaign, it stands as one of the best arguments for getting PSVR. »

« Battlezone is easily one of the best games on PlayStation VR, even with a high price point. It’s retro futuristic tank combat is fun and engaging, while the randomised campaign, four player co-op and the challenge it can throw your way keep me wanting to come back and try to beat it time and again. »

« Battlezone excels mostly in its four-player co-op mutliplayer offering where team-work, strategy and upgrading efficiently really matters. The mother of all tank games is back with a huge virtual reality bang. »

« Battlezone is a tough, fun and addictive tank warfare game in its own right that throws down a gauntlet to teams of players and challenges them to really work together to succeed. »

« While Battlezone is a very simple game conceptually, Rebellion has done a great job of making the most of what’s there. »

« Impeccable visuals and some slick, considered design make it one of PS VR's most impressive. [Dec 2016, p.87] »

« Want a robust, strategic, deep VR game? Grab this, but be prepared to digest it in small chunks over time. [Christmas 2016, p77] »

« This rating refers to the VR version of this game. It is a nice cockpit shooter. The visuals looks blurry on PS4 Pro. The resolution of the game world is too low for this PS3-like presentation. It might be good before years, but it is not enough today. »

« They made a big deal out of this game at launch and it was one of the more expensive titles but I never found it to be that entertaining. Now that it's cheaper it might be a better value but I doubt there are many people still playing it. »

« Fantastic game, particularly since updates. There’s plenty of depth, longevity. I keep returning to it, because of the great multiplayer. Can either enjoy playing through maps on easy mode (still challenging but forgiving and easy if you have other players as you can heal each other) or have a sweaty challenge on one of the harder modes. If you have psvr, it’s an essential. The demo disc version does not do it justice at all! »

« Battlezone is great. The game is tons of fun playing it online with 4 other players. There is a lot to learn upgrades, weapons etc. very good PSVR title. I wish the graphics are a little bit sharper on PS4 Pro. »

« First, no motion sickness. At all. It's a seated game you spend in the cockpit of a futuristic tank. This game will not make you sick. Second, this game is immersive as **** Probably one of the most immersive VR cockpit games on the PSVR, Oculus and Vive. You really feel like you're piloting a dangerous prototype war machine, not playing a video game with a silly headset on. Third, the gameplay is fun, fast-paced, rewards strategy, and has a lot of unlockables to keep things fun. This isn't a game you play once, beat, and put down. It's a roguelite. They're all about replayability. It's definitely worth the money. »

« (Hours played so far: 30) Battlezone is ruthless. It's frantic. It's exhilarating. The game starts off inside your tank looking at the game map, which is composed of hexagons. You move one hexagon at a time and must make your way to the Volcano, where the AI core is waiting for you to destroy it and if you do you'll win the game. You'll have to fight on almost each map hexagon and some of those battles are harder than others depending on the specific objective. As you battle through the map you earn points and can use them after each battle to upgrade your tank (shields, healing speed, etc.) or buy new weapons at supply stop hexagons. There is a significant tactical element to how you move on the map because the enemy gets stronger with each move and when their strength reaches a certain level the Nemesis (a super strong enemy tank) makes its appearance on the map. If you encounter the Nemesis you'll have to deal with that in addition to whatever else was going to try and kill you in that battle. Battlezone is a surprisingly addictive game. Single player is really quite good and if you finish the game you'll unlock new tanks and items. In multiplayer Battlezone really shines. Up to 4 player coop will give you 3 more buddies to help tackle the huge variety of machines out to get you. Stay close together and you can heal and revive each other and so can tackle much harder enemies. The multiplayer element adds another level of tactics to the game and there's nothing quite as satisfying as when you're part **** team. Maps are procedurally generated at random (or you can enter a "seed" manually should you want to play a map over and over), so there's a lot of replay value here. The graphics are really quite good. More functional than just pretty for prettiness sake, but they're still very intricate and varied. The VR is completely immersive and I never experienced any discomfort during my protracted games (I've played Battlezone for up to 3.5 hours in one sitting). The only downside to Battlezone is that it requires the player to give it a decent go. In this sense the demo hardly does it justice... You'll struggle at first as you get used to maneuvering your tank and use the HUD and information panels around you in the cockpit. You'll also need to experiment a bit to work out which weapons are best used in which circumstance. If you get over these initial hurdles, Battlezone will reward you with easily one of the most exciting VR experiences available within the stellar PSVR launch lineup. The game reaches a 7.5/10 in single player, however multiplayer is incredible, which is why I rate Battlezone at 9/10. A PSVR launch must buy. »

« Shame it's just so frustratingly difficult and upgrades are lost between campaigns. You feel like you're progressing only for it all to get reset. It's a shame because initially it's an amazing experience, clearly a lot of care has been put into this took make sure it runs so well. »

« [SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.] »