Before I get into my review I want to go over briefly my experience with virtual reality at the time of writing this, as I feel it is important. I have played VR games that you stand still and things come at your face and you swipe them down, or you use your virtual joysticks to walk around or click a button to teleport. What I have not experienced is a on-the-rails type shooter in VR, and that is what Dick Wilde 2 is.
When I was a kid, I would often go out on a boat on the river with my father and go fishing. I always would think to myself as I looked down into the murky water “Man, there could be some crazy mutated fish or creatures down there and I would have no idea unless they attacked me.” Little did I know twelve or thirteen years later I would be living that thought minus the fishing and add some fun shooting.
Dick Wilde 2 is set in various locations, such as swamps, rivers, and even dark and narrow cave systems with a river running through them. The locations are cartoon-ish and bright, but that is exactly as it should be for a game like this. While the wildlife has been mutated by toxic waste, and that could be beautifully made with creepy design that would give me nightmares for weeks, the persona wouldn’t fit the game.
Each level has a main path that comes in segments, and sometimes will split at the next segment into a right or left path. After you get to the end of each segment along your journey, you can shop with the money you earned from shooting the mutated wildlife and the debris that is floating in your way. You can shop for which weapon you want to use in the next segment of river, as well as purchase more health or a critical bonus chance.
Unlocking new weapons comes in the form of “trials.” You participate in a harder level while using a new weapon that Dick has made. The first one I did was the shotgun trial, and after getting overwhelmed by not knowing the rate-of-fire of this new shotgun, I finally made it through and unlock the new weapon. I found this method of unlocking new weapons more entertaining than grinding out hard-to-earn currency to purchase new items. It makes you try harder and you learn from your mistakes.
Dick Wilde 2 has a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor that keeps the game fun as you’re focusing on taking down the mutated wildlife. The main host of this river rampage, Dick Wilde, sends you along on your wooden raft to take out the wildlife that has gone astray, and he always leads you off with silly comments on either what you might experience in that level, along the lines of “I saw some rats that were the size of sheep out there!”, or he might make a silly quip that might make you laugh. One of my favorites in my time of playing was “Preorder before the next shop and I’ll throw in a canvas bag!” and of course I’m hoping this is in reference to the Bethesda Fallout 76 fiasco.
The sound design for Dick Wilde 2 is simple but entertaining. I found myself often dancing to the simple, sometimes repetitive, music when there was a few seconds in between shooting. The guns sound like what you think they would, but they lack a kick to them, as if the bullets don’t have enough gunpowder in them.
The feedback is something that I feel needs to be said for VR games in a review, and for Dick Wilde 2, I was slightly disappointed. The rumble in the Vive controllers were the same intensity across all the weapons I used. If there was a difference in vibration intensity between a revolver shot and a shotgun shot, I think I would be much more happy with the feedback in the controllers.
What I was impressed with was the tracking of the weapons in the VR space. I have played a shooting game where there was a slight lag when pulling a gun across your view to aim at a new enemy. Dick Wilde 2 doesn’t disappoint with this, as I was able to go from shooting a molerat on a minecart on my right to shooting the fish that is flying directly at my face on the left with no hesitation.
This is a game that should come with a warning. You will get tired. Between swinging your arms around to shoot everything, or furiously pulling the trigger to shoot, I found myself constantly keeping my arms at my side and shooting from the hip. This might be the reason that Bolvërk Games attached laser sights to the weapons.
Overall the issues that I had with Dick Wilde 2 were minor, and they only sometimes distracted me from the fun that I was having. While for me, playing Dick Wilde 2 will have to come in short bursts, as I needed to often rest my trigger finger, I definitely am looking to hop back in and try and get a higher score on some of the levels.
Steam review copy provided by Bolvërk Games. Reviewed on HTC Vive.
