So moving down the PSVR road we have Inpatient.
Lets get this out of the way right off the bat.
DO NOT PLAY THE INPATIENT!
Why?
Is it too scary? Nope
Is it too hard to take in VR? Nope
Is it a steaming pile of crap? DING DING DING, give the man a prize.
Warning, I am going to completely spoil the game here, so you dear reader, will not have to endure the torture that it is.
The game had such a solid foundation, it is about the events that preceded Until Dawn (one of my favorite horror games of all time) and was by the original developers (Supermassive Games) and was somehow completely bungled.
My best guess how is that like so many developers, indie and AAA alike, they have no concept of how to make a game in VR.
We are stepping back to the 80’s here in the floundering days of Nintendo and story telling in games.
The game like its predecessor has multiple branching decisions that will lead to 4 different endings.
What it does suffer from though is a completely lousy path to those decisions.
You start off strapped to a chair (in an obvious attempt to capture the restrained feeling of the Resident Evil “Kitchen” demo) whereby you are asked some questions that really lead nowhere.
Trying to regain you memory after some trauma. None of which ever becomes clear start to finish.
It is eluded to you are a Dr, but there is no proof of it.
The game plays out primarily with you locked in a room with you new roommate. Who is also maybe a Dr.
All in all it was hard to tell. Events happen outside the room whereby a bunch of miners turn into Wendigo, and start killing all the staff and patients alike.
How did this happen?
Who knows, it is never explained.
Your door just magically opens one day after what is about 1 week in game, you cell mate, now completely insane, just vanishes, only to show up later in the game perfectly healthy and fine.
Was it all a dream? Was she there? No bloody clue, because IT IS NOT EXPLAINED.
Are you getting a theme here?
That is In Patient in a nutshell.
Lots of small jarring conversation and events, that lead nowhere and have no context or sense to them.
Short of the Blackwell Hospital, and the Wendigo, there is ZERO ties to Until Dawn.
Or so I though.
Apparently if you do a super human series of events, make all the right conversation choices, then you get a special ending, whereby you finish the game as a Wendigo, ultimately finding out you turned into the Wendigo that attacked Beth and her friend encounter at the start of Until Dawn.
What do you get with just normal choices?
A slow ass gondola ride down the mountain, then credits. No wrap up, no “OMG we made it” moment, just a trip in silence and an elation that this turd of a game was over.
Now for the controls.
They were typical VR fare, where you have the ability to go full free rotation (my preference), the issue was primarily with controller detection. I constantly could not grab things I had to in the game, with my “hands” popping around and out of place. Trying to push buttons or turn knobs became a huge chore.
Another major issue was the pacing. This being a walking sim, you had to walk slow like molasses behind NPCs. Now I get pacing in a game, but this seemed like an intentional slog just to garner more time in the game.
The only positive I can offer here is it was over damn fast, lasing only about 2 hours total. Thankfully this was not a 8 hr game to endure.
I sincerely wish The Inpatient was a better game, because its roots were so damn strong.
But instead we have this me too approach to VR where companies feel they can just pop out any piece of crap and we will buy it.
Sadly I did, and the only bright spot here is I get to sell it used to some other sucker.
A dismal 1/10, and I do not recommend any of you play this. Go watch a Youtube video of the playthrough if you are a sucker for punishment.
The Compulsive Canadian Gamer 