No Whammy No Whammy Stop!
The shooting gallery genre on VR is one of the best experiences I have found on the hardware. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood has been one of my go-to VR experiences that allows me to experience VR without having to suffer through any sort of nausea or “VR sweats” that can cause VR to be something best experienced through short bursts. And with the tech evolving as significant as it has over the years, especially through the impressive PSVR2, the games and the feel of VR have made the idea of it far more appealing.
While Gazzlers found its VR legs earlier on the other available platforms, its release on PSVR2 is where I was intent on making it my first title on Sony’s new VR hardware. Given that Sony’s own offering is pretty slim, there have been few titles to really catch my interest. Gazzlers is what happens when you take the Whammy mascot of the game show Press Your Luck and infuse them into the world of Mad Max: Fury Road, albeit in the visual design of something out of Borderlands. It’s a mixture that works extremely well, making for an insanely fun VR experience that I’ve returned to well after downing the game’s final encounter.
Gazzlers has you locked to the back of a train tasked with protecting it from the Gazzlers, a horde of crazy red creatures that drive, fly, and maneuver a wild variety of vehicles and lethal weaponry. While there is a nugget of a story here in that you are traveling across Gingko, all in an effort to reach the Temple of the Machine God, the premise is sort of where it ends, given that Gazzlers is more focused on its gunplay and spectacle than the reasons for doing so. And honestly, it’s a smart play given how great this game plays.
As you begin this journey of shooting every last Gazzler you can find, the mechanics presented to you are incredibly straightforward and focused on providing as little of a barrier to take part in its action as it can offer. You’ll begin with a basic firearm and a single-use health pack. Health is on the right, ammo is on the left. You also have a shield that you can pop up to block incoming fire but it does have a limit and its recharge is slow, so you’ll want to ensure you don’t abuse it.
Gazzlers sees you through a number of biomes that vary considerably on their look as well as the Gazzler threat you’ll encounter. The first biome is a desert that has monster trucks and motorbikes, with Gazzler-mounted turrets that pepper you with fire while you’re also dodging the incoming fire of fighter planes that often have Gazzlers hanging on for their dear life. They are a crazy bunch, I’ll give them that.
The second biome itself changes up its visuals significantly, as well as the color of the projectiles and the Gazzlers that are hell-bent on chasing you. This crystalized wasteland is visually striking and a nice change of pace after spending hours attempting to push through the previous area, all in an effort to earn the much-needed scrap to level up.
Gazzlers is a game that forces you to push through its entire run in a single sitting. You’ll do this by earning scrap from killing Gazzlers as well as popping the balloons that appear high atop your Fury Road shenanigans. Each upgrade follows a set pricing with 5,000 to upgrade once, 10, 000 to upgrade again, and more as the upgrades promise you better rewards. There are a ton of upgrades to focus on from having more health, and a better shield, to earning more scrap from all the various sources. The leveling system works well because you always feel like you are earning something and feeling stronger as you sink more scrap into your available options.
Your first dozen or so runs will be a combination of getting used to how Gazzlers plays, how the Gazzlers themselves operate as your antagonists, to earning that scrap to make yourself more formidable. After that, it’s learning the proper ways to use your shield and keeping an eye out for the more considerable threats in the turrets that vary from biome to biome. Once you start to grasp those fundamentals, you’ll start to harness the chaos that Gazzlers exudes on such an incredibly fun level.
As you take aim and fire on numerous weak points, you’ll want to watch your ammo as reaching to grab an ammo canister to pop it into the gun can result in getting hit with fire if you are not aware of your surroundings and have a charged shield ready to go. As you complete waves, you’ll have a choice between two upgrades. While most of them are weapon-based, you will tend to get damage or health boosters to aid in better survivability.
Weapon upgrades can be anything from replacing your bullets with rockets or a laser, to a charged beam that has incredible precision. While the rockets can do some decent damage, I didn’t find them as accurate as my starting pistol, which sort of became my go-to given how much time I spent with it. Still, any upgrade that granted me an additional ammo reserve canister was crucial to my success throughout the game.
These upgrades can often spell doom if the RNG is not your favor, but you’ll often get one of your favorite upgrades at some point in the early goings. Still, with how many upgrades and weapons to unlock, the variety really starts to shine as you get deeper into the run. And given the variety of Gazzlers to shoot down, especially the bosses, all those options for your arsenal start to make a whole lotta sense.
From a presentation standpoint, I really dig what Bolt Blast Games has done here. The game has a Borderlands appeal in how crazy and over the top it can get, but it never fully goes in that direction and still does a great job at looking great and oozing personality. The Gazzlers themselves have an almost Rabbid-like quality to their insane behavior, albeit red and far more savage. Combine them and a kick-ass soundtrack that really compliments the chaos and tone of the action, and Gazzlers is a title that really surprised the hell out of me.
Gazzlers certainly got its hooks into me deep with how fun the game was, the kick-ass soundtrack, and just the overall vibe the game presents. The upgrade system constantly feels rewarding, and the weapon variety starts to get seriously fun the deeper you get into it. Personally, if I had any sort of gripe it is that each run is right from the start, meaning that you cannot start from the most recent biome that you have unlocked, which I understand why, but it still is a bit frustrating when you are 2 shots away from killing the final boss and then die. Still, Gazzlers is so damn fun that you’ll shrug it off and load it back up again, losing hours of the night to blast the hell out of those crazy red bastards.
Developer - Bolt Blaster Games. Publisher - Odders Lab. Released - October 4th (PSVR2), September 14th (Other). Available On - PS VR2, Meta, Pico, and Steam. Rated - (E 10+) Fantasy Violence. Platform Reviewed - PSVR2. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.