Back in the ’80s, there was a series of commercials that featured the Crash Test Dummies. The commercials starring Larry and Vince were meant to show the importance of car safety. They would have the duo crash into walls, through windshields, and even the importance of putting on your seat belt. But over the years as people were not paying attention and more accidents were happening, whatever happened to Larry and Vince and the rest of the Crash Test Dummies? Were they just put to rest or were they secretly tricked into joining a secret government corporation to only partake in a different path in their lives only to never see the light of day again? Does Developer Lockem Reality allow us to see what really happened and allow us to let off some rage along the way? Let’s find out with Rage Room for the PlayStation VR
In Rage Room, it is your job to test a variety of weapons on you guessed it, dummies. There are no windows and there are no doors, but there is a variety of weapons for you to use. So what is the motivation for hitting these dummies other than they are looking to make you their victim? I mean it’s not like you were in prison who decided to tell on everyone you supposedly who you were hanging out with just to save your own life and probably will get into the witness location program, but it won’t do you any good because you have tattoos all over your face and going around in colorful hair. I am sure that is not the reason at all.
But of course, within Rage Room, you get to test a variety of weapons as I mentioned. And because this is in Virtual Reality, it wouldn’t have that same feeling of swinging a weapon if you were to use the DualShock 4 controller. So make sure both of your Move controllers are charged and make sure you have some space because you will be swinging in different directions so you will probably want to stand for this one. You could sit, but if you have any ounce of rage built up, do you really want to deal with that sitting down if you had the chance to let it all out in a room with dummies? Luckily the controls are simple. Use the trigger buttons to pick up and use the weapons, the Move button is for movement, The Triangle button for the menu, the X button for rotation, and the O button to drop the weapon.
Now I mentioned that you should probably stand instead of sitting and there is more reasoning for this. Usually, when you play PlayStation VR you can hit the Start button to help adjust and recenter. Not here. For some reason, there is not an option for a camera adjustment within the game. So if you sit, you are lower to the ground in game and of course, if you stand, you are higher. I did try sitting one time just to see and I was just too low to the ground in the game to my liking.
When you first start Rage Room, you have the choice of three different options. You can select from Story Mode, Challenge Mode, and Free Mode. In Story Mode, it is more of being welcomed to the different types of weapons. You have things from baseball bats to chainsaws to Stop Signs to crossbows. You start and end each round by pressing a button. This is when it will drop your weapon in the center of the room along with a dummy. The further you get you will have multiple dummies as well as drones that will fly around bothering you like flys. Oh, the dummies don’t just stand, they will come at you with their weapons, so feel free to do whatever to them in the matter of self-defense and yes, parts of the dummies body do come apart.
As you hit the dummies you will notice numbers start appearing. These are supposed to represent the damage that you are doing. Sometimes it seemed like when I would hit at a faster pace sometimes the numbers would be higher or would be lower as well as the same when I would hit at a slower speed. It may depend on the weapon being used. When you start adding the drones, they will serve as a protection for the dummies. So in order to put the damage to the dummies, you will need to destroy the drones first.
After you complete the Story Mode, Challenge Mode and Free Mode are unlocked. In Challenge Mode, you will have a certain amount of time to complete a certain amount of damage. What I like is the breakdown of the stages as you are able to use certain weapons. For example, in the Middle Age Warfare, which actually maybe my favorite, you can only use weapons that are specific to that theme. I just wish more weapons from the Challenge Mode could be used in the Story Mode.
After you complete a challenge, you are showing how well you did with each weapon
In Free Mode, you are still attacking dummies, but you can select if you want them to be hostile, armed or even shielded. As you attack the dummies, you are rewarded in points that you can then use to purchase and unlock different weapons and accessories to try out.
Let’s talk about the graphics. Being in a room with no windows or doors there is not too much of a need for a lot of graphics. Sure each room is pretty much the same, but using the simple dark and light colors gives the effect of what it might be like being in a room to test weapons if the government were to just put you in a room to test weapons. The weapons when you first look at them give a little excitement because they something new to try. When I went from the bat and then saw the barbwire bat, a big smile came across my face because I was about to go all Negan with Lucille on everyone. Some of the weapons are very well thought out, such as the spring punch gloves and adding wigs and glasses adds some new fun to the mix.
On the sound front, it’s simple soundtracks do not overstep its boundaries from the hitting of the dummies. Sometimes when hitting the dummies I hoped the sound was a little more realistic when it came to certain types of weapons. The aired up punching gloves squeaked which was nice, but sometimes when you had a weapon with a metal sharp end, it sounded like a thud. It didn’t take away too much as I was too busy swinging and having fun trying out the new weapons.
There are some things that I wish were included. It would be pretty awesome if there was an online battle room so you can go one on one or even two vs two combat style. The last one to lose their head loses or something similar to that. Leader boards would be pretty good here to see who was the best with a certain type of weapon and who inflicted the most damage in the quickest amount of time. Also, being able to select the tone of music depending on your mood would be a nice addition.
At times when the world can seem to come at you from all angles and it seems that you are backed into a corner, sometimes we just need reach inside and grab whatever is getting us down and let it go. Rage Room gives us an outlet to possibly let out out some of our frustration that we may occur during our lives. Sometimes a quiet place will do the trick or sometimes a sport will help, but some times just taking a little time and swinging a chair at a dummy may do more good than once thought and especially if you are doing that in your own place within Virtual Reality and isn’t that a lot better compared to getting into trouble out on the streets?
Rage Room is out now on PlayStation VR and is also available on the Oculus Store and Steam. A review code was provided.
To learn more about Lockem Reality, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and follow them on Instagram.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time I going to go let off a little steam.
Mr. PSVR, Febuary 18, 2019, theplaystationbrahs.com