Archangel

Archangel fulfills the Pacific Rim mech fantasy we have yet to experience in a VR world. The fluid and engaging combat is a highlight, as is the solid tracking and intuitive controls. While there’s not a lot of replay value, it’s easily one of the most impressive ways to introduce someone to VR. If watching the trailer for Pacific Rim: Uprising makes your palms sweaty with excitement, you need Archangel in your life.

Archangel is a great game, but it's overall length and high price tag may put off many players. It's not hard to learn and super fun to blast everything in site like a futuristic Rambo, but I wish there was more to it than what is presented here. Side missions or maybe even some extra challenges would have helped out greatly. You can replay any mission you have completed, but that can only keep you busy for so long. Bottom line, I do highly recommend Archangel, as you will have a kick ass time. If it's length and price don't bother you, well, get it now and start blasting everything in site!

Enemies and locations are varied enough to keep things from getting stale, a selection of upgrades add a sense of progression and customisation, and though this isn’t a game that could work just as well without VR, it’s implemented well. Really, the gameplay is there to service the story, which is where Archangel shines brightest, and I’m just fine with that.

Archangel puts players into the cockpit of the only giant mech capable of resisting a global terrorist threat. It's a great way to spend an afternoon, although the higher price tag might turn off some players. If you want a finely crafted shooting gallery with a compelling story to match, climb aboard and prepare for battle.

Archangel is a game that shows a lot of promise from Skydance Interactive. There’s flaws with checkpoints and lip syncing, but the game’s presentation on the whole is great and none of that matters when you’re piloting the mech. You feel incredibly powerful as you easily brush aside smaller tanks and drones, while battling with larger enemies feel like a proper fight.

Another visually noteworthy PSVR game, Archangel blends immersive storytelling with a complex rail shooter to let players live out their mech fantasies. Very little replay value and a high launch price tag of $40 for a three to five hour game may drive away some, but Skydance Interactive has managed to capture the enveloping magic of virtual reality to tell a personal narrative while at the same time creating a strong VR rail shooter as the vehicle to tell it.

Archangel is a highly ambitious game despite the on-rails shooter genre to which it belongs. The mechanics of balancing weapons fire with energy shielding make for an engaging fighting system and its narrative tries to surpass expectation with creative choices, but it ultimately lacks the environmental detail and moments of awe that would have made its adventure a memorable one.

Like Mortal Blitz this rail-shooter is a modern take on arcade shooters like Time Crisis. Piloting a mech that could play a starring role in Pacific Rim you’ll enjoy the tight controls, the challenging encounters and the better-than-expected story.

Solid debut for Skydance Interactive in the world of gaming and Virtual Reality.

Skydance Interactive brings the experience of controlling a mech warrior to players with Archangel,an enjoyable yet uninspired virtual reality title.

While it does have some surprisingly great acting and emulates giant robot combat quite well, I would wait just a bit. Neither of those features is impressive enough to make up for Archangel VR’s boring gunfights and somewhat tedious characters.

In the end, Archangel makes a good first impression, but the fact of the matter is this is a game you’d play at a Dave & Buster’s. The on-rail nature of gameplay makes it better suited to an experience rather than a video game. There’s no reason to play through it a second time, either. Nothing about the two to three-hour story, the characters, or the gameplay made me say, “Gosh, I really want to play this again!” As much as I wanted Archangel to be a first-person Zone of the Enders, I do have to be realistic. That sort of experience isn’t possible on the platform yet. Maybe if it came with a Steel Battalion-like control system, it’d be a lot more fun and interactive. But considering the limits of the Move controllers, what I want the game to be isn’t possible right now. And that’s a shame because Archangel has some promise, and I wish I could engage with it more than I am allowed to. A decent way to kill an afternoon, though you might want to wait for the price to drop below $40.

Archangel has a few rough dents in its mechanical chassis, but still performs a whole lot better than most of the VR dreck that has plagued Sony’s budding VR hardware. At this point, beggars can’t be choosers, and a decent experience is far more preferable than another stomach-turning train wreck. Though not every idea may be properly thought through, there is still a lot of love and care put into the game, which may not make it entirely deserving of a full-price purchase, but still worth a weekend with after a price drop or two.

The story is cliche, the gameplay is simplistic, and the entire package just doesn't come together in any significant way. Still, the game does look good and when the action is hitting it hits well. If you just want a new action shooter for PSVR this won't disappoint too much.

Archangel is an ambitious game, just in the wrong ways. The on-rails gameplay provides a few hours of forgettable fun, but the emphasis on a generic story and cast is to its detriment. VR can blend narrative and interaction together in meaningful ways, but Archangel fails to capitalize on them. Still, this is one of the more polished VR shooters out there at the moment, especially on PSVR, and those of you with itchy trigger fingers will probably find a satisfying distraction here.

There’s a lot of potential with Archangel, but when so much potential is unrealized, then the end product loses its luster. Archangel is exactly that, starting off with a bang and tapering off too quickly to maintain its level of initial intrigue.