Visit the Jurassic era then swim inside a giant fish in the beautiful Time Machine VR.
Time travel is a fascinating subject and if it were possible, would we use it to alter decisions? Would we try and change the future? The theory always being that one slight alteration to the past could drastically change the present… Fortunately for us, Time Machine VR lets us return to the past without altering our actual future (sigh of relief!)
Recently launched on Steam Greenlight, Time Machine VR is currently in development by Minority Media — the team behind Papo & Yo. It’s only available to play in virtual reality, and powered by the Unreal Engine 4 is staggeringly beautiful to behold. A free demo was recently released on Steam so we decided to load it up and check it out…
As the games story explains during its opening, a plague is consuming all humans and as a result we face extinction. You take on the role of a time-travelling scientist who must return to the Jurassic era and face ancient creatures whose DNA holds the key to our survival.
After loading the game you’re presented with a wire frame drawing of an xbox 360 controller that shows you how to reset the view, this is followed by the title screen which sees you underwater in an ocean with a variety of underwater sea life swimming around you. Hitting start places you in the time travelling pod. Next up is calibration of the controls, so you’ll need to listen to the audio then look where the voice tells you too whilst holding down the right trigger button. Once successfully completed, you’ll find yourself deep in the ocean with a group of turtles to keep you company. Luckily you can freeze time whenever you like for a short period (trust me, you will need it).
As the demo progresses you’ll come across a threatening Pliosaur, before the game tasks you with entering the mouth of a giant fish to scan its DNA. It’s a great moment, with a wonderful sense of scale and danger. Soon, the pod suffers a … no, I won’t spoil it for you!
Technically there’s a lot to marvel at. Timing, animation and audio are all brilliant, and help you to soak in the atmosphere and imagine that you’re really sat at the controls of a submersible time machine. Graphics too are detailed, with great model work and textures. There are a few niggles in the current demo, most prominent being the resolution which appears to be sub-HD. It gives the presentation a jagged look that could easily be tidied up. Additionally, there’s a lens flare effect which only affects one eye at a time, which is incredibly distracting. Nevertheless, we marvelled several times at the overall presentation, and with use of both positional and head-tracking it’s a breeze to look around the cockpit or lean forward for a closer look at a turtle.
As you might expect from a demo, there are only a few tasks that need to be done, all of which are relatively straight forward but fun to complete. Nonetheless, we can’t wait to see more of the full game, which shows plenty of promise and might easily become an essential purchase early next year.
Why are you still reading this? Stop wasting time? (excuse the pun) and head on over to http://store.steampowered.com/app/356180/ to download the demo now!