Official Review Virtual Reality Updated

Review cover The Climb (Virtual Reality)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

Review Approach:

Reviewed on an Oculus Quest. Review code provided by Crytek.
Originally released for the Oculus Rift back in 2016, The Climb was one of the first games to hit the desktop VR platform. Nearly 4 years later, Crytek have managed to take this mountaineering adventure and cram it all onto the Oculus Quest running a mobile chipset. Is The Climb on the Oculus Quest a gripping feat or does it fall flat? Let’s take a peak! Mountains.

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The Climb is a first-person rock climbing adventure that takes you to three different locations around the world, surrounding you with beautiful scenery and vistas to bask in as you are faced with a single challenge - making it to the summit.

If you’ve played an Assassin’s Creed game before you’ll be familiar with the idea of scaling the towers in order to reach the viewpoint at the top. In a nutshell this is the basis for The Climb - just a bit more involved. Choose from one of three locations based on real world imagery and then select a difficulty. Based on your choices, the path above you will vary in both complexity and visual flourish. 

With just your hands in front of you, you must look to all angles for places to grip as you begin your ascent. The Climb is as much a puzzle game as real life rock climbing is - working out how to stretch to the next handhold is the challenge here.

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The basic concept of The Climb may be simple but the systems in place do a good job of challenging you based on your chosen difficulty. The core mechanic behind the climbing is based on stamina. Shown via the straps on your wrists, both your hands have individual stamina gauges that drain the more you climb. Stamina can be refilled by taking brief pauses by remaining in place, or you can rechalk your hands in order to instantly replenish that hands stamina. This is done by holding a button and shaking the controller and feels intuitive. 

Along your journey to the mountains peak you’ll be challenged with a variety of different gameplay mechanics to tackle. From the cliche crumbling platforms to dangerous plantlife, there are a variety of ideas that do a good job of varying the gameplay. The game will have you stretching to peer around corners; crossing your arms to make difficult reaches and often requiring full stretches to just make it to the next platform, it’s not a simple path to the top.

You’ll also be required to perform some jumps, some vertically, some horizontally and some across gaps and ravines. This is done by simply looking in the location you want to jump and pressing a button. You’ll need to be precise and quick with your hands as you reach for the available handholds.

Combine all of this with the stamina gauge and The Climb is clearly a lot more involved than just being another simple climbing simulator, similar to what we’ve seen in other VR games.

While the summit is the end goal, the views and scenery around you as you climb and leap to the peak of the mountain are worth taking in. Much like a simile for life, the journey is the reward here. The visual touches and realistic sounds that surround you as you climb are very well done and add to the immersion. Hearing the sounds of the passing winds as you climb higher and higher further ground you in the world.

Reach the summit and you’re rewarded with the 360 degree view that will be worth pausing for and you will be scored based on your climbing skills and time taken.

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The experience is not perfect however, and I’d argue that if you’re not already intrigued by the idea of rock climbing, there may not be much of a game for you here. Although the game wants you to pause to take in the scenery it also punishes you for doing so with your stamina being an ever present reminder to push on. The game can also feel somewhat claustrophobic at times, with most of the game spent looking straight ahead at a cliff face. There are also the odd hiccups with poorly designed sections that can cause your head to clip into geometry and cause the screen to go black. 

While the freedom of being untethered in VR is not to be undermined, visually compared to the PC version, The Climb on the Quest is a fairly significant downgrade. Thankfully, it still looks great and the core experience is still retained. It's especially impressive considering the hardware it's running on even if  the distant views appear a lot more flat and static. More importantly, everything runs at a silky smooth frame rate. The good news is that The Climb is a cross buy title and with the Oculus Link cable you can make the decision on which version to play if you have a capable PC. 

Get a grip

The Climb may not be the ideal game for VR beginners. This is a fairly involved game that will tax your body and give you a good workout. The constant use of, and stretching of, your arms will wane on you after a while. While your constant looking up and down will put some strain on your neck, especially when combined with the weight of the Quest headset. This is also not really a game that can be played seated.

Although I have spent a ton of time in VR and definitely feel I have my “VR legs”, there were a couple of moments in The Climb that gave me a slight motion sickness. The first of these was the first time I fell and the other was during my initial playthrough on the training level. Although The Climb wants to be a real-life climbing simulator, the way it plays in fact feels more arcadey than you’d first expect - your ingame body feels exceptionally weightless, almost as if your body is filled with helium. When you are gripped onto a handhold and move your arm up and down to simulate stretching, your entire ingame body follows the motion in an almost comical way. I’m sure this was implemented to aid the reaching mechanic and I did adjust to this very quickly after a while, but something about the initial feeling threw my body off guard. Thankfully after a short while you don’t really notice it.

Despite only having three actual locations to visit and although I would have liked to have seen more locations such as city buildings and other monuments, there is a good amount of content in The Climb. The alternate paths for different difficulty levels, optional routes, shortcuts etc and variety of scenery is decent. There is also a multiplayer component that lets you race other players ghosts and compete in leaderboards for best times. For those that like to collect, there are also a number of collectables and unlockable glove skins for your in game hands. These can also unlock optional bouldering levels that will test your skills in shorter but more more involved challenges.

Being on the Oculus Quest, compared to a tethered PC headset (if you can forgive the downgrade in visual clarity), I would argue that there is more value to be had in The Climb on this platform given its pick up and play ability. It’s a much easier and enjoyable experience to just jump in and play a few levels, especially combined with the lack of a tether.

The Climb (Oculus Quest) launch trailer

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • The full PC experience ported to Quest
  • Impressive graphics and sound
  • Cross-buy compatible between PC & Quest
  • Solid core gameplay mechanics
  • A good game for those looking for a workout
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Too few locations
  • Some initial motion sickness
  • Gameplay can become repetitive
  • Odd design choices in places
6
Gameplay
While the basic concept is well executed; a few odd immersion-breaking gameplay decisions can hamper the experience
7
Presentation
The Climb on Oculus Quest looks great even if it is a significant downgrade from the PC version. Sound design is spot on and presentation overall is well polished
4
Lasting Appeal
Multiplayer, leaderboards and collectables help add value to what may be a repetitive experience once the initial novelty wears off
6.2
out of 10

Overall

The Climb on Oculus Quest brings over the full experience from the nearly 4 year old desktop version at the cost of some reduced graphical quality. The Climb does a good job of translating the rock climbing experience into a somewhat fun but challenging game that is also surprisingly rewarding and good looking. Although it’s not perfect, and there are a few immersion breaking moments and confusing design choices; for fans of rock climbing or those looking for a slightly different VR experience or a good showpiece title, The Climb is worth a look.
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Reactions: bigfatToni, T-hug, Alexander1970 and 1 other person
FAST6191
Hmm. I don't know if I have ever played a game before that properly evokes the feel of climbing how some other games don't necessarily simulate but still give something of the same feel. VR however might be a thing to do it, and in that case might have a reason to have some kind of VR.

Might have to at least see if the local game bar thing can get this working.
 
B
Uncharted but only the climbing sections and in VR.
Looks like a fun game
 
Cyan
When I'm doing some hiking, I often wonder if there is any real-time VR hiking games with sense of scale, and size and effort, with scenery sight seeing (either fake, or real places).
I know the best is to just go hiking for real, but I think about Zelda or skyrim where you climb at the top of any big mountain in 10 minutes.

This climbing game seems to reproduce this scale and effort required to reach the top.
I only have PSVR so I can't try that game, but it might be one I'd be interested to play.
 
Review cover
Product Information:
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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