Sports Scramble Review

Sports meets VR Fitness Fun

 Amanda BlainPosted:March 6, 2021
Updated: June 3, 2022

Let’s get started on this Sports Scramble Review.

What is Sports Scramble VR Game?

Take your favorite sports and mix them together. That is the idea behind Sports Scramble. Sports Scramble is a fun VR sports game that is a great intro for people into VR, anyone looking for a sports VR game, or those who love family-friendly party games.

Play bowling with a tennis ball, or Tennis with a hockey stick. It’s a different, fun, VR-only possible idea, but does it hold up?

Who Makes Sports Scramble VR?

Sports Scramble is developed by Armature. They have made several games and even contributed to Fortnite. It shows. Sports Scramble is a really well-produced game.

Which Headsets is Sports Scramble Available On?

Sports Scramble is available on Oculus Rift, and Oculus Quest 2.

What Sports are in Sports Scramble?

There are 3 different sports in Sports Scramble – Tennis, Bowling, and Baseball. Technically there are a bunch of others mixed in. When you start playing tennis with a badminton birdy, the game is a lot more badminton than tennis for example.

Sports Scramble Review Gameplay

The game starts with a fun video clip that introduces you to the world of Sports Scramble. A large robot ball greets you and walks you through the various parts of the world.  Then we are off to start playing some sports!

Sports Scramble is a very cartoon world that reminds me a ridiculous amount of Wii Sports. In fact, all the characters and your avatar look like they could be cut from Wii Sports remade for 2021. This isn’t a bad thing. It makes it a safe and good family-friendly game.

Sports Scramble is also a good title to show people who are new to VR who can quickly get into playing something and not have to worry about being shot at or bloody zombies attacking you.

How Do the Items Change In Sports Scramble?

The entire idea of Sports Scramble is that you play a sport, like Tennis, but as you continue to play, both the tennis ball and the tennis racket will switch to different sports items from other games.

As you are hitting the ball over the net, colored squares will appear there. When you hit the tennis ball, either intentionally or by accident through the orange square, the ball will come out differently on the other side. The ball is now a frisbee disc instead of a tennis ball for example. It automagically has a different ‘weight’ than a tennis ball and it curves more like a frisbee does. You have to adjust your play style as these changes happen.

Eventually, more colored squares will appear. This time it changes your tennis racket into a ping pong paddle. So you are now playing Tennis with a frisbee disc and a ping pong paddle. Although that sounds ridiculous, it’s actually quite fun. You have to think of the fly and adapt to the new items.

The game mechanics are also actually pretty fun and not crazy serious at the easiest level. You can even play sitting down if you wanted and still successfully hit things off for the most part. There is a hard and pro mode if you want to take things more seriously and you are looking for a workout.

What the game gets right, much like Wii Sports did, is that it is FUN more than super accurate at lower difficulties.  Eleven table tennis has a very serious realistic simulation of real-life table tennis mechanics which means when you start you will be missing lots of shots. In Sports scramble, if you are close to hitting the ball on easy difficulty, you will probably hit it. Even grandma can do it.

There is lots of customization under the settings here from how many points you want to play to, which team you want to be on, difficulty, and more. Check the settings out.

There are several achievements and trophies in the game., but other than that, there is no storyline or objective. If you feel like working out a bit or maybe playing tennis with some online friends you can do that in Sports Scramble.

Please no more Training!

There are very detailed training sections for each sport to walk you through each section from serving, to hitting, to rules. In fact, my one criticism is that it is an entire production for each training section. The training part itself is only a few minutes, but then there is a congratulations screen, and back to loading, main menu, repeat.  You can easily be doing the training for over an hour.

At some point, I stopped the training and just started a quick match. I quickly realized I was missing some important things and had to go back and finish the training. I wish you could just play through all the training back to back instead of menu and select and so forth.

Overall, there is really just SO MUCH to do in this game with the various difficulties and challenge modes. You can keep coming back to the game and trying the various things out.

Can I turn off the Scramble part of Sports Scramble?

Many people get thrown off or not interested in Sports Scramble by the “scramble” part and they shouldn’t. Although playing baseball with a pool noodle is good family fun, there are some very real mechanics and gameplay under the surface of this game, especially at the higher difficulties. Most importantly, you can disable the scramble part of Sports Scramble!

Yes, You CAN turn off all parts of the scramble in Sports Scramble under the settings when you start a match. Simple select edit and then slide the Scramble off.  You can also up the game to “Pro” mode. With these two settings this way you now have a fully functioning, fun, and normal, Baseball, Tennis, and Bowling game.

Sports Scramble Multiplayer Experience

Yes, there is multiplayer in Sports Scramble. You can play online against your other friends who have the game. You also can play against random other online players. This is a great part of the game and it is really fun to stop playing against PC and play with your friends or strangers! It may take a while for you to find someone to play with online, but when I did you select up to 2 games you want to play and then the game starts! Lots of fun.

You may need to wait a bit of time for Sports Scramble to sync you up with a Multiplayer experience.  There may not be a lot of people playing multiplayer at that time. You can also try checking out various VR Facebook groups to see if you can find friends to play with instead of waiting for random Multiplayer.

There is no party mode or ability to pass the headset back and forth in your house and compete against each other’s scores back to back in Sports Scramble. This is really too bad as it would make a great experience. You can still do this without keeping track of scores in the headset though.

Can you workout with Sports Scramble? Is Sports Scramble a Fitness Game?

There are 3 different sports in Sports Scramble, with Bowling being the lowest activity and Tennis being the highest.

There is a challenge mode in Tennis that has you acting like Beat Saber and smacking balls with your red and blue hand and that will definitely get your heart pumping. Baseball is more low key of course since you are not doing the running, but you definitely are hitting the ball and throwing/pitching.

This game is great for beginners to VR fitness who want to build up to some of the larger VR fitness titles, while still “having fun”. It is way better than sitting on your couch!

Yur.Fit rate this game as equal to doing Ellipticals or 4-6 Kcal/Min.

Does Sports Scramble cause motion sickness?

Sports scramble has zero movements in-game controls. When you are playing baseball you are stationary throwing and hitting. When you are bowling you are stationary. Tennis has some movement back and forth in your playspace only, and it is typical side-to-side motions while hitting a ball.

Sports Scramble should not cause any motion sickness issues.

Final Thoughts On Sports Scramble Review