💎 PREMIUM: Id/voidflakes/recommended/ - Complete Album!

Zero Caliber is shaping up to be a great VR shooter, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will develop over the Early Access period and into full release. I've played for several hours now and have a pretty firm grasp of the game. It definitely has touches of old-school Call Of Duty, before it got too carried away with itself, with straightforward FPS gameplay that most people will be familiar with. You definitely need to have earned your 'VR legs' prior to playing this, as movement is primarily controlled with smooth locomotion on the thumbsticks. Having played and enjoyed Pavlov first, I picked this up afterwards because what I REALLY wanted was a proper single-player shooter. While this is definitely still a work-in-progress, I have not been disappointed! :)

In terms of weapon handling, both Pavlov and Zero Caliber are very similar in concept. However, where Pavlov is basically Counterstrike in VR, ZC has proper single-player missions that are based around a storyline - set on bright and colourful maps that are more 'realistic' and less 'cartoony'. These missions can also be played co-op, so your friends can join in too! There are a fairly good amount of levels so far, with a new one just recently added a few weeks ago. At the moment, most of them are separate skirmishes, but there is one mini-campaign consisting of 4 missions. I hope the future brings more mini-campaigns (or even a full campaign!), and possibly a slight overhaul of the storytelling to better link each of the separate missions (just something to help tie them together a little more). A series of mini-campaigns could allow for multiple different sub-stories that can be wrapped up into the main plot. The overarching story is reasonable, with plenty of room for expansion and a more in-depth narrative in the future.

One of the main selling points of this game is real freedom to create YOUR weapon of choice. Want a 10x scope on a golden Deagle? Go for it! Fancy a close-range one-shot-kill sniper rifle? Well, you can have one. Shotguns with laser sights? Yup! xD There are also 'special' skinned weapons which can either be unlocked as you level up or found hidden throughout the levels. You have a whole range of different sights, scopes, grips, suppressors and other accessories which you can add to your gun, with the vast majority being totally mix-and-match. You can even put a bipod on an Uzi if that's your thing Lol

I very rarely experience any crashes or serious bugs, no significant frame drops, haven't noticed any major texture or rendering problems. Standing too close to a wall or object can push your gun around a bit (there's collision detection to stop your gun disappearing into the wall) which can be annoying at times but is probably for the best, and you soon learn to stand at a slight angle or take a step back from the wall to compensate. The AI could do with some improvements, friendlies often walk through you or directly into your line of fire while you're shooting, while enemies are often seen uselessly bum-rushing your position or straight-up gangbanging you. Would be nice to see enemies enter the battle legitimately (APCs or helicopters occasionally dropping them in, or paratroopers, for example) instead of just spawning behind bushes. The only tracking issues I've had can mostly be put down to the fact I only have 2 front-facing sensors, and no third sensor behind me.

Overall, the game runs great and I have no performance issues when playing. It seems like the core of the game is pretty much finished, and just needs to be filled out with content and some polishing - more missions, more story, better voice-acting/script-writing, smarter AI, that kind of thing. I hope it continues to grow and mature over time, as FPS games and VR are a perfect match and so far this is a great example of how the two can be combined!

Oculus Rift CV1 (2 sensors, Touch Controllers)
i7-6850K
32GB RAM
RTX 2080Ti

P.S. I should also note that the devs actually added me on Steam and asked me to provide them with some honest feedback (which I've e-mailed to them) - this is something I have *NEVER* experienced before! I've seen Discord group chats and Reddit AMA's, that sort of thing, but never had a dev personally ask me for my opinion. This gives me hope that they are actively seeking to improve the experience by asking people what they think is good or bad about their game. They are nice guys too! :) However, this communication has NOT affected my review - if the game was total ♥♥♥♥, I would have told them it was ♥♥♥♥ to their faces! :p

Zero Caliber is shaping up to be a great VR shooter, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will develop over the Early Access period and into full release. I've played for several hours now and have a pretty firm grasp of the game. It definitely has touches of old-school Call Of Duty, before it got too carried away with itself, with straightforward FPS gameplay that most people will be familiar with. You definitely need to have earned your 'VR legs' prior to playing this, as movement is primarily controlled with smooth locomotion on the thumbsticks. Having played and enjoyed Pavlov first, I picked this up afterwards because what I REALLY wanted was a proper single-player shooter. While this is definitely still a work-in-progress, I have not been disappointed! :) In terms of weapon handling, both Pavlov and Zero Caliber are very similar in concept. However, where Pavlov is basically Counterstrike in VR, ZC has proper single-player missions that are based around a storyline - set on bright and colourful maps that are more 'realistic' and less 'cartoony'. These missions can also be played co-op, so your friends can join in too! There are a fairly good amount of levels so far, with a new one just recently added a few weeks ago. At the moment, most of them are separate skirmishes, but there is one mini-campaign consisting of 4 missions. I hope the future brings more mini-campaigns (or even a full campaign!), and possibly a slight overhaul of the storytelling to better link each of the separate missions (just something to help tie them together a little more). A series of mini-campaigns could allow for multiple different sub-stories that can be wrapped up into the main plot. The overarching story is reasonable, with plenty of room for expansion and a more in-depth narrative in the future. One of the main selling points of this game is real freedom to create YOUR weapon of choice. Want a 10x scope on a golden Deagle? Go for it! Fancy a close-range one-shot-kill sniper rifle? Well, you can have one. Shotguns with laser sights? Yup! xD There are also 'special' skinned weapons which can either be unlocked as you level up or found hidden throughout the levels. You have a whole range of different sights, scopes, grips, suppressors and other accessories which you can add to your gun, with the vast majority being totally mix-and-match. You can even put a bipod on an Uzi if that's your thing Lol I very rarely experience any crashes or serious bugs, no significant frame drops, haven't noticed any major texture or rendering problems. Standing too close to a wall or object can push your gun around a bit (there's collision detection to stop your gun disappearing into the wall) which can be annoying at times but is probably for the best, and you soon learn to stand at a slight angle or take a step back from the wall to compensate. The AI could do with some improvements, friendlies often walk through you or directly into your line of fire while you're shooting, while enemies are often seen uselessly bum-rushing your position or straight-up gangbanging you. Would be nice to see enemies enter the battle legitimately (APCs or helicopters occasionally dropping them in, or paratroopers, for example) instead of just spawning behind bushes. The only tracking issues I've had can mostly be put down to the fact I only have 2 front-facing sensors, and no third sensor behind me. Overall, the game runs great and I have no performance issues when playing. It seems like the core of the game is pretty much finished, and just needs to be filled out with content and some polishing - more missions, more story, better voice-acting/script-writing, smarter AI, that kind of thing. I hope it continues to grow and mature over time, as FPS games and VR are a perfect match and so far this is a great example of how the two can be combined! Oculus Rift CV1 (2 sensors, Touch Controllers) i7-6850K 32GB RAM RTX 2080Ti P.S. I should also note that the devs actually added me on Steam and asked me to provide them with some honest feedback (which I've e-mailed to them) - this is something I have *NEVER* experienced before! I've seen Discord group chats and Reddit AMA's, that sort of thing, but never had a dev personally ask me for my opinion. This gives me hope that they are actively seeking to improve the experience by asking people what they think is good or bad about their game. They are nice guys too! :) However, this communication has NOT affected my review - if the game was total shit, I would have told them it was shit to their faces! :p