AFTER THE FALL Review: A Great Game That Needed A Little Time

PC and PlayStation VR Review Codes Provided by Vertigo Games

One of the most unfortunate things that we see far too often in the game industry these days is the fact that absolutely amazing titles are releasing just a bit too quickly. Because of this, games end up having countless issues, bugs, and end up with negative feedback from the player base. Even more crushing is that oftentimes, the game just needed to host an open beta for interested players, test the servers and controls from a variety of users, and then get cleaned up to launch the following month or two.

After The Fall from Vertigo Games meets this criteria fairly well. Playing through their game has been incredibly entertaining and I plan to keep diving back into this virtual zombie-infested title, but at the same time, it has not been without issues and complaints. Thankfully, all of my issues can be fixed with updates moving forward. Now, with all this in mind, let’s get into the details.

Story

The lore to this game is kept rather simple, or perhaps unexplained, as you are only truly given five core missions. These missions felt more like an excuse to send players to the different levels they have set up for the campaign or Harvest Run type levels. This was definitely not a big deal in the slightest, but every mission results back to ‘go check out this area and see what happened to the previous harvest runners’ or ‘see if there is anything useful in that area.’ The last mission was an interesting change as your base gets attacked and you have to fight your way up to the roof where the big boss is at in order to restore communications and ensure the safety of your base.

Gameplay

Starting off the game, you are thrown into a tutorial that has to be the worst designed tutorial I have ever experienced. With only half explanations and the majority of the tutorial left for the player to figure out, this experience can be rather frustrating. Basically, everything is done through arcade cabinets as they were found to be able to be converted into stash dispensaries by the surviving members of this harsh world. So, when you aren’t sure what to do, look at the arcade cabinet and it will direct you where to go.

There is a glitch that will have you completely skip over this tutorial area and throw you straight into the main HUB, which would make things even more confusing. Even going through the tutorial doesn’t prepare you for the HUB. The bad thing about this fact is that the HUB is basically a main menu lobby for players to be in. So, let me provide a written tutorial that goes over the aspects that they don’t explain to you.

Each control design is different depending on if you are on PC or PlayStation, and then again if you are using move sticks or the aim controller. I used move sticks, so I will be referring to controls for that, but there may be slight iterations for your controls. Inside the HUB, reaching other friends require you to add them to your in-game friend’s list due to the cross-play element. By pressing the button on the right side of your left move controller, you will open your social hub. You can find friends by their friend code. If you group up with people, you can also add them from this social hub under the party menu. The HUB lobby is randomized so even if your friend is not in the same lobby as you this does not mean you can not party up or set up into the same game.

While it is best to party up before searching for a game, you can go to an arcade cabinet and select the game details you want. There is a chance you will end up in the same party, despite the randomized search. If you are just starting, do not go above the Veteran difficulty! Before getting into the game though, make sure you talk to the lady in the HUB room - she will have a ? or ! above her wrapped in a green diamond. If you don’t talk to her first, the mission objective isn’t given to you and beating the level will not let you move on to the next level. After beating the game, this will not be something to worry about ever again, but until then you have to talk to her before each new mission.

Take a moment in the HUB area to get used to your controls a bit. Note for the directions ahead: I understand the controls are different for PC and aim controller, but I will be describing them for PSVR move sticks as that is what I used. For the move sticks, given you are using sliding movement, you move forward with the bottom left button on the right stick or the bottom right button on the left stick, and can run by pressing both. This is set up like this because to turn right you have to press the top right button on your right stick and to turn left you have to press the top left button on your left stick. Reloading your gun, given you used quick reload, will have you drop the current magazine with the bottom right button on your right controller or the bottom left button on your left controller, which you must press before trying to reload. You can drop your gun from the remaining button on both controllers for their respective hands. While this seems very confusing at first, I ended up really liking this setup and found it fairly easy to use with the way the game is designed.

Now, with controls as detailed as this, they really should have designed a tutorial that took you through each step more thoroughly, but they chose to design a very simplistic tutorial and throw players into the action. Just plan to take a moment and figure out the controls yourself before moving into the action and when you look around the HUB, know the arcade cabinets do all the lobby searching, the lady gives missions, and the gun range in the back is where you can modify and purchase unlocked guns to use in your future missions.

Going into the missions themselves, you will go through them in sections. As you complete sections, you will end up in a safe room where you can purchase supplies like pipe bombs and health. Use these moments to get your health back up and put at least a spare health item in your inventory. You only have two inventory slots, one on the back of each wrist, but it is worth keeping health on you. You can find frozen people every now and again which will have two items for the team to grab - a pistol, a pipe bomb, or a health item. You can also find discs lying around the level which you can store in your inventory as well. Bringing these discs to a safe room and putting them in an arcade cabinet will secure a random weapon upgrade unlock for the team.

You will only face against a handful of different enemy types. You have your standard zombies, then the snowbreed (zombies with ice on them), the exploders, the brutes, the juggernauts, and then the boss which is a giant brute with ice over his weak points. This is consistent throughout the game, but it does not mean that it will be easy or get old quickly. There is plenty of RNG to the game and the different difficulties definitely make a huge difference in how each level is experienced.

The last thing to cover is the PvP aspect of the game, which is a mode called ‘Tundradome.’ This mode honestly feels like a 4v4 battle royale as all the guns are laid around the map and you have to fight your way to the one you like best. It is a fun mode for messing around or perhaps having a good 1v1 with a frienemy, but it wasn’t a focal point to the game for me.

Visuals and Audio

I will have to admit that the aesthetic of the game is fairly basic to what you would expect from a virtual reality title. Nothing looks realistic, but at the same time, nothing is plain. The environments are well built and the enemies have a decent variety of visual styles to them. So, while there isn’t any ‘wow’ factor to the game’s visuals, it is well built to have its own personality.

When it comes to the audio, everything is pretty straightforward. The music is a good fit, the sound effects all make sense and are accurate, and the voice work was pretty well done.

Replayability

Thanks to the RNG of the levels and the multiple difficulty options available, not to mention the gun upgrades that have to be found and the variety of builds you can set your guns up to have, there is plenty of replayability to the game. Plus, if you do enjoy the PvP aspect, it could be a great source for straightforward gunfighting with friends in VR.

What Could Be Better

As I mentioned at the start of this review, this game could have benefitted greatly from making this month a beta session and releasing it in a month or so. Now I get to go over why that is.

The tutorial and HUB system alone are both awfully built. I pretty much guessed my way through the tutorial, which took about twenty minutes, and then the HUB took me another twenty minutes to figure out as well. Both of these areas in the game should have been guided to the player and described with a lot more detail. These are the only section of a game that should always be practically spoonfed to the player so they know exactly what to do. After all, this section of the game is supposed to guide the player into understanding how to play the game itself without guidance.

Aside from the tutorial and HUB, the social system and lobby system need work. I understand the need to add players to an in-game friends list due to the cross-play, but why can’t I invite players on my friend’s list if we are on the same platform? Luckily, it was easy to meet up with my friend, but if we had any issues with that then it would have made teaming up impossible. Especially since the lobby system does have any “search for game” or “open a room” option, aside from the private match. Leaving the players with only a randomized join option that puts them in any available room meeting the game criteria they desire is pretty closed off for players. The number of times I would join a room and have a host player that is inactive yet when I tried to find a new game I just kept rejoining the inactive room, making it literally impossible to play that mode or level at that time, was quite frustrating. When that would happen, I just wanted to be able to open my own room so I can let players join me and we could go.

Everything within the gameplay aspects themselves have no complaints. All of the problems with this game are at the beginning and the game setup. These can be fixed over time and will greatly impact how much a player enjoys the game.

Verdict

After The Fall is an amazing VR experience! It truly is a wonderful virtual reality game that I enjoyed playing a lot. In fact, players will still be able to find me online looking to do more Harvest Runs on higher difficulties. However, there are some issues that need to be worked out and various things cleaned up. Once that is done, this game will be a top runner for best VR game. Even still, this is a great game that is worth the time it takes to get set up and learn the controls for.