Image: Vertical Robot
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Red Matter 2 should set graphics standards on the Quest 2. In the test, I also made my way through nicely lit stations via SteamVR.
Hardly any VR game presented the isolation of space as atmospheric as 2018’s Red Matter. In the sequel, the Spanish developer Vertical Robot want to refine the concept even more, with intuitive, modern controls and unparalleled beautiful wallpapers on the Meta Quest 2. At the same time, the game also launched on August 18 for PC VR, with even more extensive lighting and shiny effects.
In a fictional cold war I go in search of a lost friend and colleague. The adventure full of physics puzzles, jetpack jumps, sneak attacks and manipulable machines takes me through the solar system with its shady research stations. Along the way, I fight bizarre hallucinations and intrusive security robots.
Red Matter 2 in the test – Review in a nutshell
Red Matter 2 offers the most technically impressive backgrounds for Quest 2. For long pieces it is also a lovely immersive VR adventure that draws gamers to its mystical space stations. Later in the game though bugs and lack of fine-tuning interfere with the mechanics of fun puzzles, sneaking around and shooting.
Red Matter 2 is right for you if you
- want immerse yourself completely in remote sci-fi worlds,
- are looking for the most graphically impressive settings for Quest 2
- as a well-rounded blend of technical puzzles, sneaking and skill.
Red Matter 2 is not for you if you
- are bothered by bugs and lack of polish
- don’t speak fluently English or Spanish.
SciFi mystery for Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR.
If you want to unravel the mystery of Part 1 for yourself, read no further. The story picks up right from the predecessor. Therefore, spoilers are unavoidable. Of course, the plot still revolves around the mysteriously rampant red matter, which brings all kinds of mysterious and apparently dangerous effects.
After the consciousness of the main character Sasha Riss liberated from a simulationhe finds himself in the body of a guard at a hostile Atlantic Union base.
On the run, his Russian-influenced mutated nation of Volgravia provides him with an ally codenamed “Beta.” She gives him further instructions and helps with the look for his injured colleague Stas Volkov: Apparently he was still able to send a distress call and left video clips on several space stations such as a scavenger hunt.
On the way to the terminals there are of course some dark caves and ventilation shafts. Sometimes sneak through hidden entrances crouched with the brilliance, elsewhere I float purposefully with beam power through industrial halls. The revised jetpack doesn’t control as sensitively as in Lone Echo 2, but it fits well with the concept of quiet exploration.
During the approximately eight hours of gameplay, some wonderfully old-fashioned sci-fi machines await your input. l push mechanical connections put yourself in the right position redirect light rays. Even when hacking, I careful move electronic tubes or glowing spatial projections to their destination. Gradually, I reach for more explorable space stations to explore as I travel through space.
Fascinating haptic VR adventure
The most fun I had on the trip was manipulating a wildly buzzing device in the mines. The design pleasantly reminded me of Youtuber “Kane Pixels” mysterious backroom shorts.
As is so often the case in the game, the studio shows a talent for ingenious puzzle design here. After some experimentation with my tools and the spatial controls, after a few minutes I had the saving flash of inspiration again, which eventually caused the mechanical monster to overheat.
Screenshots and trailers can’t begin to capture how graphically impressive and stylish the enigmatic machines already look on the Quest 2.
A nice touch for immersion in all of this are the multifunction tools in my hand, which are modeled after the real Quest 2 controllers (or index controllers). While I reach for their handy tip with mechanical grab hooks“I feel like an astronaut in a suit.
Features like a flashlight, scanner and gun also prove useful amid the environmental puzzles. Sometimes you even have to find multiple components to fix a machine using scattered blueprints.
As with the mechanically old-fashioned Myst remake for Virtual Reality, there are no auxiliary functions or other modern achievements. So newcomers will inevitably have to muddling through and paying attention to Beta’s instructions over the radio.
Playable Isolation
Unfortunately, unlike the adventure masterpiece Lone Echo 2, there’s no reliable companion or philosophically tinged dialogue options. Instead ofjust some preset conversations are presented in cutscenes. Nevertheless, Red Matter 2 too knows how to keep my attention in a masterly way.
The occasional gunfights against boring metal buckets are becoming more and more of a chore, especially as the simple weapon handling can’t quite keep up with full-fledged VR shooters. | Image: Vertical Robot
The professionally dubbed conversations in English or Spanish always leaves plenty of room for exciting doubts. Can I really trust the Space Agency, Beta and their rescue operation? What do the many do? inconsistencies around my backstory, wayward scientists and red matter exploration mean? In Sasha’s surreal visions, the viscous mass partly overgrows the entire landscape.
Through many twists and possible interpretationsmight feel newcomers initially overwhelmed by the plot. However, after reading countless notes, more and more puzzle pieces of the story surrounding Sasha and his old colleagues Stas and Irina begin to come together. Running through all this is the theme of remorse amid unscrupulous experimentation.
Intriguing level design
The design of the planetary stations is: a feast for fans of old sci-fi movies filled with flashing mainframes and brutalist concrete buildings. Those, like me, who like to explore ruins and abandoned sites in real life will love it. Between huge research equipment and huge blood banks with robotic arms, I can’t help but relax through the landscape and… enjoy every last detail.
Red Matter 2 impressively demonstrates how good old is analog technology matches the enveloping immersion of VR. There is no overkill of messages, waymarkers or quest logs here. Fans of modern open-world games may get annoyed. I love this though focus on the essence! A grumpy AI even expresses his complaints about my break-in on the dot matrix printer. Extremely charming.
Again and again the thought occurred to me whether our present world with its overstimulation could be just a way station. Who knows – maybe “spatial computing” will serve us again in the future with more spatial objects floating in front of our AR headset in the room.
The best VR game for Meta Quest 2?
The unparalleled graphic realization on the Quest 2 also seems to be a glimpse into the future. Sometimes I can hardly believe what the highly modified Unreal engine tickles off the XR2 chip.
Some wallpapers could easily be exhibited in a museum. Even Charm Games’ otherworldly glowing Adventure Form doesn’t offer that many cool panoramas. | Image: Vertical Robot
From glowing particles to laser beams, light refracts and reflects in several ways in the environment. Particularly impressive are the damaged windows, on which even the finest scratches and smudges affect the result.
Even ray tracing is used for example for reflections on monitors or laser beams such as from the scan tool. Here it is a real pleasure to examine even the smallest, beautifully shimmering details or to translate full-gravity writing with the scanner.
I’m not allowed to move freely through the world in the mostly simple sections. However, some ramifications (and some backtracking) are appropriately integrated into the level design. Meanwhile, the sensitively varied orchestral soundtrack underlies the atmosphere.
Shortcomings in the fine-tuning
Unfortunately, over the course of the VR game, the fun of exploring is clearly curbed by some bugs and puzzles with mismatches. Sometimes a metal rod or important fuse gets stuck in the shaft, elsewhere I sink into the wall with a black screen – or a faulty hack minigame can’t be completed.
In one hall, even a trolley starts floating in the air when I launch an unintended solution idea (a patch is already in the works). Luckily the automatic reward points are not too far apart.
Instead of alternative fixes, there are later bugs like this floating trolley on Quest 2. Like the vehicle, unfortunately, the patch couldn’t be rolled out before launch. | Image: Vertical Robot
The jetpack jump sequences and sporadic gunfights against guard robots don’t seem quite as polished later on, either. They hardly pressure the hero with their weak AIas they hop unmotivated between predictable positions – even on the higher of the two difficulty settings.
Maybe the team just didn’t have time to fine-tune the later sections. More effort has been put into the comfort options. They contain all the usual mechanics for a stomach-friendly VR gameor standing or sitting. This includes smooth and jerky turning at different angles, different vignette thicknesses, and head or hand direction movement.
Even the slow hover bounces I tolerate very well as a moderately sensitive VR gamer. In general, the more stick-based control feels much more modern than the predecessor. If you want, you can do that too re-use teleportation.
Also impressive on PC
Red Matter 2 is mainly intended to show what can be tickled out of the mobile chip of the Quest 2. However, the SteamVR implementation offers significant more details and effects. This includes higher resolution textures and dynamic and indirect shadows.
With a Valve Index (review), a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and a lot of super sampling, the smooth result is even more impressive. Meta’s Space competitor Lone Echo 2, which was developed purely for the PC, still looks a lot more impressive on PC VR headsets.
On the PC, some extra details and effects like reflections make such artistic snapshots possible. | Image: Vertical Robot
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