[Review] The Climb 2

[Sxynix]

The Climb 2 (Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest 2 [reviewed])
Developer: Crytek
Publisher: Crytek
Released: March 4, 2021
MSRP: $29.99

 

There aren't any convoluted modes or parameters in The Climb 2. You're literally climbing up a bunch of jungle gyms either for fun, or for time trial bragging rights.

There's five biomes: Alps, Bay, Canyon, City, and North. From there, the environments branch out into three levels (easy, medium, hard), and then two modes (casual, standard). There's 15 jungle gyms to climb and all of them are worth playing at least once.

The main appeal of the original returns, in that it isn't always apparent where you're supposed to go. Sometimes you might need to grab a ledge and "peek" around a corner to see the next vantage point. Or, you could look up or down to get a better view. VR is essential to the core of the game and it's better for it. It's puzzly! I love that about it.

 

The Climb 2 also mixes things up with crumbling grips (think Mario's disappearing ledges), sharp grips (which pierce you and mess with your stamina meter), and grips you need to clean off before grabbing. When you add in the need to constantly grab onto objects with both hands and chalk (a simple button press, which requires a free hand), it gets real strategic real fast.

One of the biggest wins is the "half press technique." Making good use of the pressure triggers on the Oculus Touch remotes (still among the best VR controllers in the industry), you can "half" press in to maintain a zen-like balance without overexerting yourself. As the tutorial reminds us it is possible to fully play the game without it, but hardcore speedrunners will want to master it.

Each stage was fun to play, but the city setting really takes the cake for me. In fact, if Crytek is interested in returning to this IP roughly every five years, make the next one all cityscapes; or give me some DLC. Point blank the city environments are a blast to tussle through, as the team really gets creative here with some of the obstacles and logic/pathing puzzles. It's especially harrowing to look down and see traffic bustling below you, or have a bird catapult in front of your face on a high ledge.

 

Despite being way more intuitive, The Climb 2 still hasn’t fully escaped the troubles of the original. It’s a physically intense game which often makes you crane your neck to play, and that can cause some discomfort. And while the level design is far less frustrating than that of its predecessor’s, there will still often be moments where you get your head stuck inside of a wall, or your avatar’s full body will block you from making an obvious jump, causing you to fall to your death. As with the original, you can customize your avatar’s hands, but there really isn’t much of an incentive to do so. You can’t even show off the stuff you’ve earned to other players, and vice versa.
 

 

With that need for extra detail the engine falters a bit (some objects, like flowers on an awning, or rough, visually), but the main things like buildings and grips hold together. Far away fanfare like helicopters taking off and landing and ambient noises add to the allure of the city levels. In any case, it's very satisfying to look back and see what you've conquered.

The Climb 2 is light on content beyond the main draw, as "glove and accessory unlocks" are not going to be enough to satisfy everyone once they've finished all the stages. But like the original, I'm going to be returning to it every time I get the itch to climb something.

Virtually.

As tense as it can be, the moment-to-moment gameplay of The Climb 2 is meditative in its simplicity. Just like in the original, its core game mode – called the Professional mode – is about balancing speed and stamina. Trying to hold a grip with one hand can cause you to lose too much stamina and slip, but you can press your Touch controller’s trigger button halfway to hold on longer and restore stamina mid-climb, or you can apply chalk to your hands to make them retain more stamina and restore stamina much faster. These are all strategies that carry over from the original game, but they feel so much smoother now. For instance, maintaining a half-grip is now more forgiving and intuitive. Chalking your hands is also much quicker and far less clunky.

As a result, it’s much easier to get into a groove in The Climb 2. Making things even more interesting, most of the maps now have several different pathways that you can take to reach your goal. They’re also left open to interpretation: if you see an opening to take a shortcut by, for example, jumping directly to a distant ledge instead of climbing towards it, you can probably do it. The other big upgrade is that a vastly improved physics system means that you’ll get to move across objects and obstacles that have some physical reactivity as opposed to the strictly static world of the original. You’ll jump between hanging tents, climb across ropes, and hang onto scaffolding for dear life as it bounces around in response to your weight. This introduces a ton of flavor to the gameplay.
 

 

 

What makes it work is that there’s a refreshing amount of diversity. Each level, even within the same zone, has a completely different backdrop and art style, and map layouts are all notably different from what came before. For example, one of the early levels in the City area has you climbing along the outsides of skyscrapers in broad daylight, whereas the next level starkly contrasts that by having you jump between moving elevators with gorgeous city lights glimmering across the horizon at night. Later, you climb through mountainous crevasces while evading feral wolves, then you’re leaping between hanging baggage containers, and even climbing up the side of a giant wind turbine. It all looks fantastic, and the constant change in backdrop keeps things feeling fresh and interesting throughout.

Climbing is one of those things that works really well in VR with motion controls, but rarely gets more than a moment to shine. The Climb 2, though, is all about it. This is developer Crytek’s second iteration on the idea of scaling large, vertical obstacles, and it’s a major improvement over the original Oculus Rift launch game in terms of controls and level design. And even though climbing sounds pretty basic on its own, the simulated sensation of dizzying heights makes the tension feel real – and The Climb 2 comes with a bump in graphics that shows off what the Oculus Quest 2 can really do when it’s running on all cylinders.

Things start off pretty simple. Once you get through its brief tutorial, you’re allowed to swing (pun intended) between any of its five main zones, and within each of those are three different levels that unlock as you beat the last one. Thankfully, it does away with the original’s arbitrary level-gating system that felt entirely out of place and limited your ability to explore early on.

 

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System Requirments

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Minimum : 

OS: Win 7 64
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz / AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 4870 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
System Memory: 4 GB RAM
Storage: 7 GB Hard drive space
DirectX 11 Compatible Graphics Card

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Recommended 

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OS: Win 7 64
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K 4-Core 3.5GHz / AMD FX-4350
Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 280X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770
System Memory: 8 GB RAM
Storage: 7 GB Hard drive space

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