2076: Midway Multiverse (Oculus Quest 2) Review
Release Date: June 2021, but came to Oculus Quest 2 late January 2022
Publisher/Developer: Ivanovich Games
Platform: Oculus Quest 2 (reviewed), Steam, potential PSVR release
Price: Free initial demo, $19.99 unlock of full game
Many retro game revivals have happened over the course of the last few years. The best ones are able to make you feel as if you are playing through those original rose-colored glasses. You didn’t go back to the beginning, you went back to how you REMEMBER the beginning to be. Companies like Dotemu have done a great job with recent releases like Streets of Rage 4, Windjammers, and the upcoming Ninja Turtles hack and slash, Shredder’s Revenge. By incorporating a slick polish and drawing style, the old pixel based games feel fresh and new. Ivanovich Games is doing the same with classic shooter games by injecting a heavy dose of VR and all it’s benefits through 1976: Back to Midway and now it’s sequel: 2076: Midway Multiverse.
In a sentence hard to conceive prior to playing this game, 2076: Midway Multiverse is chock full of humor and Space Hitlers. In the prior game, your time-travelling shenanigans to save the world from OUR Hitler has opened up a multiverse of epic proportions in which Mariachi Hitler, Bat Hitler, Baby Hitler and more have taken over their respective multiverses, and we have been tasked with stopping said overthrows of the multiverse. This involves a lot of space dogfights and blowing up stuff, so far so good.
Ivanovich Games has definitely created a fun space for VR to pay homage to classic games. This isn’t the only one, either. There’s the aforementioned 1976: Back to Midway, both of which are part of the “Nostalgia VR Bundle” on Steam. Players begin on a small screen, as if you are in a theater, and enemies fly in from all directions, even behind you, the player, to land on the 2-D scrolling screen. It soon opens up to a fully immersive landscape, where you traverse a corridor you the player are fully inside of. Eventually, you make it to special zones that thrust you into the cockpit for speed blasts through zones, or go behind-the-back to take on massive enemies.
Most sidescrolling shooters have upgradeable weaponry. 2076 only really allows you one shot type, but this is made up for in the use of the second hand. You can obtain a second ship tethered to your own you move with the spare controller, but the main use is the shield orb. Using this orb, you can manipulate things in the environment. You can turn handles, pull levers, or even throw blocks at enemies. Hovering it near your ship provides a shield on everything it covers, which is critical in certain parts of the game, as homing missiles and death lasers are ready to swat you out of the sky.
My biggest complaint with the game is one I hope the developers work on modifying, as it really boils down to camera adjustments. Everything is VERY close to you. Pretty cool in the dogfighting sections, but when options come up with buttons to hit, you have to come at them from behind since they’re so close to your face. Also, in-cockpit there’s an alternative control scheme involving grabbing a virtual joystick and accelerator. I felt the accelerator handle was up near my shoulder in an uncomfortable place, and the stick was “lodged” inside my chest at a place I literally couldn’t grab it. I gave up and went with traditional control schemes, but this simply felt like bad placement that could be fixed with a button that “snapped” those items to your hand.
Lastly, I enjoyed the humor, but wish they’d fully lean into it. Jokes about copyright infringement abound whilst I’m chuckling at variants of Hitler named Heil 9000 or one where Hitler was crossed with Dolly the Cloned Sheep, but in a multiverse where anything can happen, it’s frustrating to see that the Star Wars Parody level could easily be mistaken for the Back to the Future parody level. Heck, I’d even say the Dolly level (still baffled I’m saying some of these sentences) felt more Back to the Future-y than the BTTF level, as it was a futuristic city with flying cars, whilst BTTF felt near identical to the Star Wars level I just left. Just go full-on parody, plop a 50’s space diner in the background and have a train fly through the level or something, yanno?
My gripes with the game are far outweighed by the fun I had during play time. As a newbie VR player, the side scrolling levels were slow and smooth and prevented motion sickness. The first person ones were well-contained and exciting but short and sent me back to the side scrollers with no worries. With enemies flying in from all sides and a variety of play styles, I feel 2076 is one of those games that you show your friends what VR is all about with.
Pros:
-Nice humor throughout
-Excellent homage to classic shooters
-Wonderful use of VR
-Cool use of second hand as shield and manipulator
Cons:
-Needs some adjustments to the positioning of virtual elements
-Despite unique presentation, levels blend into each other
-I’d like more weaponry options
Special thanks to Ivanovich Games for providing a code for review!