Moss
Year: 2018
Rating: E
Time Played: ~4 hours
As gaming advances into an era with an option for virtual reality, I’m glad to see some games embrace this technology in ways to bridge the gap between traditional gaming and VR gaming. For example, it’s too easy to merely adapt a first-person shooter like SUPERHOT into the VR space since the platform is basically made for the first-person perspective. But what about platformers? Adventure games? Moss shows how games in these genres can still work in virtual reality while also making the interactivity of the medium part of the gameplay.
I have to say there’s a bit of a challenge in controlling the player character while also using these controllers to modify the environment. This multitasking takes some time to get used to but ultimately is interesting enough to not be completely frustrating. Sometimes, the next step in a particular room isn’t readily apparent, which led me to look up the solution to advance the story. It turns out I was doing everything right, but the VR system wasn’t necessarily triggering the next part of the game. Either way, I did far too much backtracking for my liking during one small portion of the game.
Of course, one of the qualms I’m having with VR games is their length. I was completely entranced in the fantasy world of Moss, but I could also tell it was not designed to be beaten in one sitting since you’re not supposed to play for extended amounts of time. That being said, the story was a bit too short, especially since they teased at more of the plot to come (that I hope is in a free update, considering the price). Either way, I hope more platformer adventure games take note and build upon the headway Moss created in VR.
A short but interesting third-person VR adventure game, I give Moss 4.0 stars out of 5.
