[Review] Trials Fusion

[[MC]Ronin[MC]]

 

Werewolves Within
SEE DEAL
 takes the po[CENSORED]r party game ‘Werewolf’ (or Mafia) and transforms it into one of the only remarkably welcoming, social VR experiences available. It’s a successful "port" of an already very tactical and thought-provoking game of deception, but being hosted in a virtual world offers unparalleled accessibility. Unfortunately, it also comes with some very inhibiting technical issues that mar it considerably.

Werewolf, the social game that Werewolves Within seeks to replicate, is about a werewolf trying to hide their identity amidst a group of villagers, while the villagers try to discern who among them is the monster. Werewolves Within facilitates the social setting you need to play it in, with an interesting variety of fantasy-inspired worlds. Without VR, it usually takes a social event and a willing group of people to play, but being able to opt in online with the PSVR makes it wholly accessible, even for friends or family living miles apart. Jumping in through the Quick Start option either immediately puts you in a virtual lobby with other players, or has you observe other matches while you wait to play - it feels organized, and easy to get into the madness.

Each player sits around a circle, and is represented by a unique cartoon avatar. Despite the competitive nature of Werewolf, and the fact that accusing people of lying is the sole mode of progress, I didn’t encounter a single hostile person playing, and I think that’s likely a credit to these virtual avatars. Their expressions react impressively to players’ tone of voice, giving them a visual identity that completely humanized every person I played with.

 

After just an hour of playing with, and getting to know a group of complete strangers, I actually came to imagine that they might look just like the cartoon men and women that represented them. The detail in the avatars’ animation gives life to the setting as well, which plays heavily into VR’s uncanny ability to make you forget you exist outside of the game world. It even takes advantage of VR mechanically, too, by allowing players to talk to the person next to them without anyone else hearing by simply leaning in their direction.

There is a small learning curve when it comes to remembering the game’s roles and how they work with, and against each other. They’re randomly allocated at the start of each round, and some feature special abilities - the Tracker, for example, can lean to the right or left to confirm if there is a werewolf on the corresponding side. You are provided a virtual book that contains notes on each of the roles if you forget, but that’s when our first bug appears. If more than one player stands up at the same time (which you can do to silence other players), the book will disappear for a period of time, making it impossible for new players to know the rules without having them explained. That’s tough, because games aren’t very long, and every second you waste explaining the rules makes a significant dent on the progress your group can make.

 

 

This is compounded by the fact that there’s only one round instead of the usual two in the original Werewolf, which makes figuring out the monster’s identity feel rushed. The villagers have just seven minutes to discuss roles, and who to kill, and then the game ends. It’s not uncommon for the timer to run out during deliberation, either, meaning some players often miss their chance to vote. It’s just a little too fast-paced, and some of the more satisfying logical discussions that the format usually promotes are cut short.

That’s doubly frustrating when the PSVR has major mic problems, to the extent that players tend to need to ask people to speak one by one in the lobby just to make sure their mics are working. It’s a really odd bug, because if you leave the lobby and re-join the game the mic will work, but as a result, every single game is slowed down. Of course, a game that depends almost entirely on good audio also has its fair share of issues - background noise from one player or a bad connection from another dramatically affects everyone, because there isn’t a quality filter.
Verdict
When it works and none of the seven players have any audio or connectivity issues, Werewolves Within is competitive, surprisingly friendly, easy to jump into and even easier to play for hours on end, building up an active repertoire of new online friends as you go. When it doesn’t work, though, it’s inexcusably hard to play, and that’s unfortunately very often.

 

 

 

 

 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
MINIMUM:
Requires 64 bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10
Processor: Intel® i5-4590, AMD FX 8350 equivalent or better
Memory: 4 GB memory
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970, AMD Radeon ™ R9 290 equivalent or better
Storage space: 5 GB available space
RECOMMENDED:
Requires 64 bit processor and operating system