So I dove back into PSVR this week with the release of RE7 and the Star Wars Battlefront VR mission, and while in VR mode, decided to power through a few games I had sitting here as well.
So I dove into Bound with reasonably high expectations, based on all the reviews and the strong voice on the PSVR sub-reddit.
I know I am going to be in the minority here, but I have to say I was terribly disappointed. Sure it looks and feels nice in VR, but as a whole, the game made little to no sense at all in terms of cohesive story.
So many reviews (and the reddit community) tout it as something spectacular, but I just found it boring after the first 10 mins.
Maybe I am just no longer built for Indie games, but I like a decent story that makes some semblance of sense, and less and less indie games are offing that it seems.
It is as if the community is going to the starving artist. Whereby someone smears red and blue pain on a canvas and touts it as the modernization of society and its struggles with the middle class.
When all I see is a messy kindergarten level drawing.
Maybe I missed the point, but Bound really was not for me.
From the messy camera, which only “jumps” to an angle and distance each time you push in a direction. To the completely incoherent story.
** Spoiler Alert **
I am going to delve into the ridiculous story here for a min.
You start on the beach as a pregnant woman, who appears to be going through a journal of traumatic childhood memories. Why? No one know, nor does the “artist” care to explain.
Each memory plays out in some abstract world whereby you dance to fight off the source of the misery, from moms broken pearls, to your brothers paper airplanes. I know ridiculous right?
There is a loud monster that seems to have no bearing on anything, just yells.
You paint back memories of you parents fighting, mom scolding you brother, brother getting scalded by hot water.
All in an attempt to…. WE HAVE NO CLUE!
Is this women somehow mentally damaged by the fact her brother 30 years ago got yelled at? Seriously?
Is she having second thoughts on having this baby with the knoledge that her dad left?
Why did he leave? Or more important, why should I care?
This is Bound in a nutshell.
It is a mess, the plot makes zero sense, as we lack all motivation for the main character.
Why do memory play out as a cyber ballerina? Was she a dancer? No one knows, and no one cared to explain.
Save yourself $10 and bypass this highly over rated dud.
A generous 2/10, simply as high as it is due to the fact the game did really look nice in VR. Beyond that, it is simply not worth it…
The Compulsive Canadian Gamer 