Vendetta Forever is a VR shooter that immediately draws comparisons that land it somewhere between Superhot VR and Pistol Whip. It’s got the fast shooting and score hunting of the latter mixed with intense, almost bullet hell slo-mo of the former. But there is, of course, much more to it than that oversimplified description.
Shoot to kill, and kill to move. That’s the real ethos running through Vendetta Forever. You don’t move freely around the environments in Vendetta Forever, but instead have to action movie you way through. Shoot someone and you can grab their gun, quickly moving you to their position to shoot whomever is next. You’ll feel like John Wick as you make your way down a train carriage, grabbing guns and knives out of the air to keep moving, staying of the way of incoming fire as you go, spinning around and shooting at surrounding enemies. It’s the closest to Gun Kata you can get in a game.
Meatspace Interactive have taken that core concept and had as much fun as possible with it. In one level you’re falling down the centre of a spiral staircase, spinning in the air as you shoot enemies that are on the stairs. In another, there’s a duel – as in, turn on three and shoot – whilst another is basically the lobby scene from The Matrix. There are western themed levels with cowboys shooting at you from balconies as you blast your way through a town, or a race against a fuse as you try to put it out and save some hostages. There’s something for every persuasion here, provided it involves shooting people in increasingly stylish ways. It’s great.
You aren’t limited to just pistols and throwing knives. There’s uzis, miniguns, sniper rifles, even a rocket launcher showing up depending the level. Then there’s a katana which is perhaps the only way to move without grabbing a gun, as it lets you dash at enemies and slice them up. Not to mention the daft way that you have to either pluck throwing knives and shurikens out of the air as enemies throw them at you, but if you don’t quite manage to catch or dodge them, you can always pluck them out of your face and throw them back in a display of vengeance that is truly incredible both in its absurdity and sheer satisfaction.
This isn’t an easy game and there are quite a few things to think about while playing. There’s enemies literally all around you, making both quick real life movement as well as snap-to-turn with the analogue stick essential – I typically use smooth turning in VR, but snapping is just so much quicker. You’ll also need to play standing up and the game requires roomscale for your play area.
Within the game, you’ll want to be quick about grabbing guns when you shoot baddies, as they despawn sometimes when left alone – though curiously not all the time, so I’m not certain how intentional this is – and if there’s no gun to grab you simply can’t move. It’s kind of a puzzle shooter in the same way Superhot was, but here you need to pick a route and order in which to shoot enemies, then use that route quickly or lose it. It’s made much harder by all the bullet dodging and shooting you’re actually doing, of course.
I’m in two minds about the movement system, as when you’re moving through a level smoothly it’s very satisfying, but having nowhere left to go ruins the flow state the game tries to get you into. It’s not the end of the world, especially as you can cycle back through positions you’ve already been in on an attempt and, if you’re lucky, you’ll spot a gun or an enemy you’ve missed.
The game’s visuals are kept nice and simple – not quite as minimalist as Superhot and Pistol Whip, but still with a toned down aesthetic. That’s for the best considering how quickly you’ll need to recognise enemies in order to shoot them before they do the same to you. It has it charm though, with the stripped down aesthetic still more than capable of communicating when you’re in a western or The Matrix, whilst still ensuring you can spot everything you need to easily enough.
I have to mention my favourite levels, both of which are what I have decided to called “Daredevil levels.” In these, it’s pitch black except for when there’s sound. You begin in darkness and can see the footsteps of an enemy nearby as a circle radiating outwards from its source, but when you shoot enemies know where you are. Of course, you can grab an enemy’s weapon, zip to their position and all the living enemies will lose track of you until you make some noise, but because they just fired at your last position, you can see their locations for a few seconds. Stand still for a moment and everything goes pitch black again, but you can throw a gun to make a noise as it clatters against a wall so enemies fire at it, giving their positions away. This is one of the most unique shooter and VR experiences I’ve had and it is thrilling. It’s phenomenally cool and I would play a full game of it without hesitation.
On top of all this there is a selection of mutators to modify the game, whether you want it to be more forgiving by enabling what’s effectively an invincible mode to take the pressure off and enjoy the over the top nature of the game, or whether you want to turn off aim assist, which makes the game unbelievably difficult to handle, naturally. If you’re a real glutton for punishment, there are higher difficulty levels for you test your skills on as well.
Once you’ve finished the levels – and there’s quite a few, even if each one is quite short once you’ve perfected your run – you can always go back and compete on the online leaderboards to extract some more longevity. Just in case you get tired of just playing the lobby scene from The Matrix in VR over and over and over…
