Siege Hammer VR Review

​Siege Hammer VR Review  is one of the first VR Tower Defense games I have played. It’s also one of the first VR games that I’ve played where the player can actively play and control in-world items without a controller. This hands-free game can be played with a high-end VR headset such as the HTV Vive or Oculus Rift on PC, or mobile such as Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream.

Unlike other tower defense games where the player is stuck with a single view of the battlefield, Siege Hammer, being a VR game, has a mechanic where you can teleport yourself to one of several points along a rail on one side of the field or you can just tilt your head to the left and right to slide along the rail that connects the teleport points. Since it is a VR game, the player can also actively attack the enemies.

Gameplay

The player plays the role of Blip, the hero who must defend the castle from the invaders. Blip was left behind and raised by the wisps when his family was pushed to the far reaches of the galaxy by Rok G’narek. It’s up to him to keep his world safe from Rok G’narek.

When completing a wave and earning a new turret placement area, the computer decides to randomly place it on the field. I wish that it was up to the user to place it, but that would make it a little difficult with the control scheme. This random placement gives a little more challenge on subsequent plays as it will give the player a different kind of challenge.

As you play and clear waves you collect wisps. Wisps come from the monsters you defeat, randomly floating about, or appear when you complete a wave. These wisps are your currency in the game and you have to decide whether you want to build new weapons or upgrade the ones you already have. There are different wisps that add a different value when you collect them. Larger enemies drop larger wisps. You can collect wisps when even when you lose. If you don’t have enough for that next turret or upgrade, you can keep earning them until you have enough and hopefully have enough for your next upgrade to finally win the wave.

Levels and Modes

Siege Hammer features three main locations which are also the 3 different levels.

The Last Castle, the intro levels, has the player defending where it all began. It’s a typical temperate like when king land floating among  all the other islands in the sky. Frostbitten, the Isle of Frozen Technology, is as cold as it sounds. Magmordor, active volcanic island, is the final level. You play on a floating island surrounded by lava falls. When playing on each of these islands in the sky, you can look off into the distance and see the other levels as well.

Each level has three different types of invasions: Intro, Brute Squad, and Overwhelming force. Intro is the first mode where things are plain and simple. Brute Squad has you facing more difficult enemies. Overwhelming Force lasts as long as you can defend yourself. There are unlimited waves of enemies that come your way.

When selecting a level and invasion, you can also select one of four profiles or play types: Young, Frantic, Industrial, Raging. Each of these has different abilities. Selecting Young give you slower enemies. Dramatic delivers faster enemies. Industrial grants +1 wisp per collected wisp as well as +1 build(each time you defeat a wave). Raging gives you a greater Area of Attack with your Siege Hammer.

Graphics

Visually, the game is great. The quality of the world and animation is great. Even the turrets have their own character. They bounce around while waiting to strike. They did use different sized monsters in different colors and textures to represent elemental powers, but they were obviously basically the same character model. Hopefully there will be a variety of different monsters later on.

I played Siege Hammer via Steam Early Access with an Oculus Rift both with and without controllers. The controllers I used were the Oculus remote, Oculus Touch Controllers, and X-Box One controller. As much as the gamer in me wanted to use controllers, I found that the best way to play it was the simplest way, hands-free. This game is best played while seated, but you can stand if you’d like.

Buy it on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/536230