If you knew of an organization that was so evil and so ruthless, would you give up the fight and join them, or do you think you could take it down? Would you need the right team, the right force to be put together in hopes that the root of all evil within that organization would finally be stopped by any means necessary and at any cost? Thinking about what we would do vs. what would happen is always an interesting thought. But does Publisher, VRKiwi, and Developer GINRA TECH show us how the action of a shooter? Let’s find out with Operation Serpens for PlayStation VR2.
Operation Serpens is a fast-paced action-arcade shooter. As you join an elite unit, you will grab weapons and shoot at enemies as you try to dismantle the evil Snakes Organization. So before you go in acting like you are Lt. Sean Topper Harley from Hot Shots, there are a few things that will want to be aware of. First, find your favorite area or place to sit. War can be brutal, so you might as well get comfortable. Second, don’t forget to charge your Sense controllers. You don’t want to come across an enemy or enemies only to not be able to use your weapon of choice because you forgot to do so. And last, but not least, have some fun. With that said, let’s continue…
Before one enters a battle, one must be trained for the battle. So before starting, take some time to learn how to use weapons, reload, use health, and even climb. Also, one thing to point out is your wrists. Your left wrist will represent your health and your right wrist will represent your progress percentage of the level you have completed thus far. All of these skills will become important to your success. Well, that is unless you forget what you learned and have to experience the “Game Over” words that will haunt your dreams until you get it right. Well, maybe not your dreams, but it will be a lesson learned, or at least a lesson that will satisfy the game to let you continue. Either way, the controls are very simple to learn thanks to how easily the developer has made them.
Once training is over, it’s not going to be a walk in the park. So the first thing you will want to do is pull up the menu and here you can recenter, adjust your hand angle, elect to have smooth turning on, choose to have auto grab enabled, and your language. I found that having smooth turning enabled helped, especially when you come across times when enemies are shooting from both directions.
But before even heading into the main hub, you do have a mission that you will need to help get rid of some threats including a high-value target. But thanks to meeting Captain Joe, you are given the intel and then you can proceed to your initiation of sorts of joining the team, the OPERATION SERPENS team. In other words, if anyone even thinks of or says the name of the team, they better have some respect for it.
Once in the main hub, you do have some choices to make as there are different modes to select from. You can do some target practice with the Snakes Organization. This is where you will need to select from the different high-valued targets as you go through each level trying to get to them. You also have the option to go back to BootCamp if you would like to replay the tutorial and also select your level of difficulty.
You also have Horde Survival, in which you will need to pick two weapons for each wave of zombies where some can even shoot back. But try to do your best to see where you will place on the online leaderboard.
There is the Contests Mode, where you need tickets to play. Here you need to shoot at as mini soldiers as you can in a minute and try to get at the top of the online leaderboard that you can. Normal shots give you one point while head shots give you two points. So make sure your aim game is on.
And there is also Snakes Mall CO-OP where you can play with three other players via cross-platform and take on enemies. By completing each wave, new doors open that allow the enemies to come through. But weapons and ammo will not always be in the same location. I did try to find some online games at various times and each time; I found no one else playing, which I would love to try to play with others at some point.
Let’s discuss the graphics and sound. In looking at the graphics, this is an arcade shooter that isn’t trying to be the fanciest or prettiest, but instead provides a fun and simple way about it. Shooting at enemies and having their heads blown off as you throw a flash bang in a room that gives you 10 seconds of some breathing room as you can move faster as the enemies are in slow motion puts a smile on my face and just watching the reactions of the enemies of just go out and have some fun action that almost wish I could use the Aim controller. In Horde Survival, for example, you get that gloomy infested look that adds to the atmosphere. Lighting is done well here. As you can see shadows in things like the ceiling fan blades being cast on the ceiling to the brighter blue sky on the outside levels.
For the sound, I was using the Pulse Elite headset and the game has a good amount of punch and bass to it. Between firing your weapons to the enemies firing theirs and the soundtrack blasting, it all can become a little chaotic at times, but in a good way. The voice acting is as simple as can be as I am not sure if Captain Joe had some bad experiences of his own when he was in battle, but between hearing him talk and the enemies providing their little sounds, it’s something you will get used to in no time. I got so used to Captain Joe talking when he did talk that I would love for him to sing Christmas hits.
There are a few things that I would love to see. First, more comedy. There is this dry comedy that I wished was used more throughout the game. More modes. While we do get almost a handful of different modes to play, it would be fun to have even more to keep things interesting. Maybe even more additional scenes within the modes or selecting which weapon to use. Third, an update for the weapons. Using the pistols felt good, but it seemed with every weapon that the aim was a little off. It wasn’t too bad, but it was noticeable. Also, it seems like using the scope on the sniper rifle. The enemy was too close and it made it more challenging to find the enemy than it should have. Fourth, more implementation of the PlayStation VR2 features. You can feel some haptics within the controllers, but just think what more could be done with, say, the eye tracking or the rumbling in the headset? And finally, multiplayer. While it is kept to playing in a mall, I would just love to see more players playing and maybe even have different areas as well to play in.
Operation Serpens brings what it was designed to do and that is the fun of what it was set out to be and doesn’t try to be something it’s not and that is simple gameplay, non-stop action, and comedy. We sometimes take the seriousness of our everyday lives a little too much and forget that there can be fun thrown in to help offset and give ourselves the balance that we need. And at this point, couldn’t we all use a little more balance in our lives?
Operation Serpens is out now for PlayStation VR2 on the PlayStation Store and the physical edition on the Perp Games Store or retailer near you and is also available on the Pico Store, Quest, 2, 3, & Pro via Oculus App Lab on the Oculus Store and Steam VR. A review code was provided
To learn more about GINRA TECH, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Instagram, join their Discord, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
To learn more about VRKiwi, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Twitch, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
To learn more about Perp Games, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Instagram, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I need to climb some leaderboards, see if I can do better with the Insane difficulty, and hopefully find some other players.
