Drummers are an essential part of a band and of the music that is being played. Drummers such as Steven Adler of Guns N’ Roses, Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe, Joey Kramer of Aerosmith, and Dave Grohl, when he played drums in Nirvana, are some of the drummers who have helped shape the music that we enjoy to this day. But have you ever dreamed of playing the drums and hearing the crowd cheer for you, but might have been discouraged by what your playing style might be like? At some time, we have all played the drums, either with our fingers on the steering wheel or using whatever we could find as drumsticks in our homes to play with our favorite songs. But does the developer, PotamWorks, allow us to live out our drumming passion? Let’s find out with Smash Drums! for PlayStation VR2.
Smash Drums! is a VR drumming game that allows you to live out your drumming dreams with enhanced visuals, where you can become the crowd’s favorite. So, before you go in and start drumming away like there is no tomorrow, there are a few things that you will want to do. First, make sure you have some room. No need to hit the drums as hard as you can to only hit your desk, table, furniture, or any pets. Second, sure, you can stand, but you may want to find your favorite place to sit. Plus, have you seen any drummers stand for an entire set? Third, make sure your Sense controllers are fully charged. You don’t want to be caught in some type of drum solo only for them to cut out on you, do you? Fourth, do some arm stretches. No need to pull a muscle while drumming. And finally, get ready to have some fun. With that said, let’s continue…
Once you start, you do have some options. Sure, you can dive right in, but it might be helpful to go through the training in the Academy. Here is where you learn how to register your hits, work on your timing, position & strength, and learn about modifiers and bonuses. Once you “graduate” from Academy, it’s your time to rock on.
Directly in front of you, you have your song selection, which you can even sort alphabetically by release date and even search by artist. To the right is the scene selector, and to the left is the leaderboard. Now, before picking a song, please pay attention to red symbols that may appear to the right of the song title, as a red symbol will indicate that the song is intense.
From the base game, you have a variety of songs to select from, such as “Loverboy” by Kid Dope, “Say Yeah” by Alright Years, “What You Want” by Ghost, and “Money” by Chantrey Smith, to name a few. By either purchasing the different packs or going with the Premium Edition, you gain an extra 38 songs, such as “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi, “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the Scorpions, and even songs like “American Jesus” by Bad Religion, “Friday, I’m In Love” by The Cure, and “Rock And Roll All Night” by KISS, just to name a few. So there really is a variety here to enjoy.
There are also three different modes to select from that include:
- Arcade Mode – Drums and cymbals fly toward you, and you hit them as they arrive.
- Classic Mode – A virtual drum kit sits in front of you, and notes are displayed on a note highway. This is a completely different gameplay, as you need to read the notes and translate them to proper movements.
- Fusion Mode – You have a drum kit in front of you, but you also see outlines of incoming drums and cymbals, making it easier to know where and when to hit them.
Keep in mind that if you play either Arcade or Fusion modes, the leaderboards will be shared between the two modes.
Now, one feature that is on by default is the Spot Live Ranking, and this displays your current position in the top 1000, the name of the player in front of you in the charts, and the progress bar to see how far you are from their score. Another feature that is off by default is the Projected Live Ranking, which is available with the Expert HUD and displays the best score and rating you can still achieve if you do a full combo from this point, and your projected ranking if you achieve it. But it all depends on whether those 5-star ratings are more important or having fun and playing is more important. Either way, keep at it and try to do the best that you can.
Let’s talk about the graphics and sound. Now, being that Smash Drums! is on PlayStation VR2, you would expect some of the PlayStation VR2 features to be used, and PotomWorks did not disappoint. We have native 120 fps, eye-tracked foveated rendering, and adaptive triggers so you can spin those sticks and feel the love from the crowd, headset haptics to feel the flying debris headed your way, along with real-time lightning effects along with heat haze and dynamic shadows that really come through and shine on the PlayStation VR2 headset.
For the sound, of course, this is all about the music, so you know the music is going to be there, as there is a variety of genres here. to where everyone should find something to enjoy. But being this about the music, I will say that when using the PlayStation Elite headset, it somehow added to the experience with the sound that came through and helped me to start to feel the music as I hit those drums.
If there is anything that I would love to see here, it would be for the catalog of music to grow and add more genres, from country to bluegrass, to even adding more from the artists that are here. It would be good to see if we could get full albums from our favorite artists, if that was possible, or a way to add our own music via thumb drive, as there are way too many good songs out there not to be played.
Smash Drums! gives us the ability to rock out and live out our drumming fantasy, all while having fun doing it. It makes us want to play better and not stop until we master it. Sometimes in life, we are given the opportunity to do something we may not normally try ourselves. Sometimes we let those opportunities pass, but sometimes we take a chance on those opportunities, and they turn out to be some of our biggest accomplishments.
Smash Drums! is out now for PlayStation VR2 on the PlayStation Store in both the Standard and Premium Editions. A review code was provided.
To learn more about PotamWorks, please like them on Facebook and follow them on X.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I have some drums to smash.
