Boneworks never sweeps you away on the same kind of rollercoaster ride its biggest influences charted, but you’d be hardpressed not to get carried away on its own journey; one of interactive wizardry, devilishly gratifying combat and stunning physical authenticity, even if that occasionally works against you. Ultimately it might not be the VR shooter to turn the heads of the masses, but if you want to see where that future lies, you can’t miss Boneworks.
Almoust every thing about boneworks is perfect. Level design, enemis and their behaviores, guns, climing, open and creativity enganging levels, level of immersion and so much more. The best vr game of all time.
enough can't be said about this game in regards to how well it performs in almost every part of every game's universal task. also physics go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
With a really impressive engine that shines from physic awareness and realism, Boneworks brings a nice VR experience but fails to deliver a complete and bug-free game.
Despite its frustrations and some half-measure design, Boneworks is still a game that is easy to recommend for VR fans. There's a lot about its immersion that other VR games could learn from, and hopefully build an overall better game around.
The totality of the game lacks effective pacing as it bounces back and forth from puzzle to combat with little sense of synergy and no apparent climax. For those that are compelled by Boneworks' combat, the Arena and Sandbox modes offer up a great opportunity for extended gameplay, though we would have liked to see an emphasis on user-generated levels so that the community might flesh out concepts that didn't hit their stride in the campaign.
This is my personal best VR video game ever made. The atmosphere, music, fighting, enemies, everything is on top. I didn't regret at all that I played and finished this game and even the hidden story behind this game is very amazing.
The game tries too hard to do the actual walking and put weight on the player even though it doesn't work that well. The developers are really good at what they do but they focused on the wrong things.
If you're looking for a single player shooter and already finished half life alyx, sure get it!
If I could give a rating out of 100, I'd say 75. I'm giving Boneworks an extra 15 points or so for being first to market with a physics based shooter. And I think this game has a lot to teach other devs, and raises some good questions and tries to answer them as best it can. Full physics for every object. Simulated weight. One button crouch/jump. But subtract the novelty and the 15 bonus points I assigned to said novelty, and you're left with a game that should score a 60 or lower.
The introductory area is far too long. You get to a point where a sign says "You should take a break every 30 min" or something along those lines. I had been playing for about that amount of time and wanted a break, so I quit the game - assuming the autosave worked at the "You should take a break" notice. Well, there is no autosave. There's no save system whatsoever. You have to play the full level in one go, and some of the levels can be over an hour - especially when looking for secrets and ammo. Also, I could find no way to pause the action in the game at all.
The story is ... forgettable. Did it have a story? It's so tacked on and thin that I forgot it while I was watching it. I honestly don't know what was going on. The "plot" serves absolutely no point other than to fool you into believing there's something worth mentally investing in around the next corner. There isn't. It has no plot points, and no resolution. There is some finality to it, and I won't spoil anything, but it's not an ending worth playing for. However, the gameplay is what makes the game worth playing.
Gameplay is a little rough around the edges.
It's not polished. But it is fun. At times it felt like my in-game arm was the floppy unpredictable physics arm that belonged to the player character Jill in 1998's Tresspasser, a game that also was technologically groundbreaking with lofty ideas about interaction and physics, but ultimately was forgotten due to high system requirements, frequent game bugs, and a particularly difficult to manage articulating arm. Boneworks manages to avoid some of the troubles that Tresspasser had, but not all of them, while not having nearly an evocative a setting as a Jurassic Park game. It is cutting new territory, and for that I give it a 75.
Note: I think Tresspasser would be the perfect IP to bring over to VR.
The framework of Boneworks (e.g the physics and the hit detection) is the only good aspect of this game.
The same can't be said about the single-player and bad performance optimization.
Every level's design is the same:
- Big Boxes with grey developer texture (like literally anyone's first Hammer Map in Counter-Strike, no kidding)
- High-Quality Models sprinkled in (idk why they scale the models into to comical levels)
- Enemies are placed in the world carelessly and do nothing until you hit them
- AI does not know how to move to your location and gets stuck at walls till you shoot them away
- No Narrative, serious you really have no clue what's going on or what to do to progress (it's fine at the beginning where you learn the mechanic/environment but if you progress 4 hours and still feel like this then the game lost me)
Boneworks is overpriced at 30$ with what it offers.
It would be a better product if the ...
-> Narrative (what they advertise the game with) was much more believable and more fleshed out with some memorable character.
-> Puzzle ... just remove them ... none of them were enjoyable and I do not mean they were hard to solve , practically the usually "put that thing to a position on a map with your wibbly-wobbly body".
-> Inventory system would actually give me the item I needed in battle. Why the Developer thought to put your ammo under your pistol slot was a good idea is a mystery. Either leave it empty so you are able to grab ammo or navigate into your inventory screen every time you need ammo .
-> Weapons gave any indication of ammunition depletion like a slightly transparent number hovering around the gun (seriously the empty ammo only blinks like a Christmas tree if you wanna shoot the gun. You never know if you have bullets left).
I can't believe people actually giving this product a higher rating than Half-Life:Alyx.
Another VR game with no proper left hand support and developers who doesn't care or threaten with a ban when asking for this option. They even suggested to refund the game. Well it seems they don't really care about customers. The issue that SteamVR Input does not know witch button belongs to which side is often ignored since the answer is always "Use SteamVR Input" which you can't as mentioned before! Even if one of the devs is left handed you would assume they have played plenty of other VR games an came across the "Left Hand Mode". Never encounteres such unfrieldy developers after asking a legit question for us leftys. The game may be good but beeing used to the left hand controls scheme for years it's very unpleasant to play. You can swap sticks ingame which is a step in the righ direction but jump will be on the same controller and will make this setup obsolete. As said before you can't configure your buttons ingame nor in SteamVR Input.
So if you are a lefty, wait before you buy.
SummaryBONEWORKS is an Experimental Physics VR Adventure. Use found physics weapons, tools, and objects to fight across dangerous playscapes and mysterious architecture.