Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Velocity 2X: overcomplicated

I ended up playing this by accident. I had a notification on my PS4 that the game had been updated, and when trying to work out how to get rid of the notification I mistakenly launched the game.  Still, it's widely held as worth playing, so I might as well try it out.


As with all digital titles, my first stop was the instructions screen. Here I was presented with a long list of buttons against a diagram of a controller. Half of them were labelled with words that made little sense. I decided to just pick it up while playing.

I'd advise others to do the same. The first few levels introduce you to controls one by one, to the extent that when I finished playing, having beaten level 12, there's a lot on the controls lost that I've not used yet. And that's the problem - this just feels too complicated.

You have a fire button. You have a boost button. As well as boosting, you can (and have to) teleport using a different button. Controls are different - similar, but different - depending on whether you're inside or outside your ship. You switch between the two modes within levels. On top of that there are bombs and targets and other stuff I've not yet played with.

The main problem with Velocity 2X, though, is that to get to its icon on the PS4 menu I have to scroll past Rocket League.

No comments: