Battlezone

In the end, Battlezone is an incredible VR experience. It’s enough of a full-featured tank simulator that it would be a great time played with standard controls on a normal television, but the perfect immersion takes that already-great play and elevates it to something truly special. Among the eight PSVR launch titles, Battlezone is the best at creating a seamless world for the player to inhabit, and even with a few balance problems in the campaign, it stands as one of the best arguments for getting PSVR.

Want a robust, strategic, deep VR game? Grab this, but be prepared to digest it in small chunks over time. [Christmas 2016, p77]

Impeccable visuals and some slick, considered design make it one of PS VR's most impressive. [Dec 2016, p.87]

While Battlezone is a very simple game conceptually, Rebellion has done a great job of making the most of what’s there.

Battlezone is a tough, fun and addictive tank warfare game in its own right that throws down a gauntlet to teams of players and challenges them to really work together to succeed.

Battlezone excels mostly in its four-player co-op mutliplayer offering where team-work, strategy and upgrading efficiently really matters. The mother of all tank games is back with a huge virtual reality bang.

Battlezone is easily one of the best games on PlayStation VR, even with a high price point. It’s retro futuristic tank combat is fun and engaging, while the randomised campaign, four player co-op and the challenge it can throw your way keep me wanting to come back and try to beat it time and again.

Battlezone is a very interesting VR game, very enjoyable even with its flaws. Maybe it's not the most-well known, but it's definitely one of the most complete.

Battlezone is a good game and one of the best experiences if you own a PlayStation VR. Anyhow, the difficulty level is unbalanced in single player, and motion sickness is beyond the corner if you are not used to wearing a VR headset.

The tank mayhem is a worthy heir to the arcade classic. Simple at first, complexity is added by upgrades and slight tactical decisions. And furthermore it is a prime example for the usage of VR, when you get totally immersed in the colorful world. Unfortunately the AI is not with the name, while the difficulty spikes due to sheer numbers can become frustrating.

It’s a simple game with primitive visuals, poor AI and almost nonexistent physics, but it turned out to be very enjoyable in co-op. [13/2016, p.80]

A fine introduction to the pleasures of multiplayer VR, but ultimately there's not quite enough substance here to keep you coming back after your first few tours of duty. [Christmas 2016, p.119]

Battlezone is a wonderful old Atari game in a new jacket called VR. The game looks great, but is difficult to master. The presence of only one mode in singleplayer and multiplayer is a let down.

It may not be one of the must-play titles on PlayStation VR, but if you’re looking for a challenging experience to share with friends, strapping yourself into Battlezone should serve as a good introduction into what virtual reality should feel like.

Battlezone VR is a fun game on the PlayStation VR system which provides an enjoyable game that doesn’t throw too many challenges at the player. It does showcase the VR system and thankfully the controls work hand in hand with the gameplay and graphics to create this almost retro arcade tank game.

This vr-tank-shooter offers a few hours of fun in co-op, but the difficulty level might be too frustrating for solo players. Compliments for the amazing design, that fits the VR scene very well.

Battlezone is a perfect game to play on the new PS VR to show what it’s capable of and how it can make players feel as if they are really in a tank, blasting enemies. It’s an arcade like experience though, extremely challenging and if this thing required quarters, players would run out fairly quickly.

Battlezone is at its best when played in co-op. Its graphics are neat, its sound design solid and the illusion of driving a tank around is expertly crafted - provided you're not prone to motion sickness. However, Battlezone is also quite repetitive as far as its gameplay goes and experiencing a campaign reset is bound to cause frustration.

There are some glaring balance issues for Rebellion to work out, and Battlezone is far less advisable as a solo game, but damn if it isn't thrilling when everything comes together and your team perseveres against all odds.

Virtual reality is an apt home for Battlezone's class of tank busting pandemonium. Appropriating its arcade doctrine, filtering it through 36 years, and then projecting it as a full-priced product may have been a reach. As an experience, Battlezone VR is neatly matched to its hardware. As a game, however, it doesn't (yet) have quite enough firepower to oppose any presumed opposition.

Battlezone is one of those refreshingly old school titles. One that takes you back to the glory days of simplistic game design with a satisfying pay off. This may not have been enough for some on its own but VR makes the whole game that little bit sweeter. If you can bring a friend and conquer the steep learning curve then there is a good time to be had.

A fun, if slightly limited, retro reboot, that proves that first person shooters can work on the PlayStation VR if the developer dares to think a little differently.

It's true to the arcade original, capitalizes on its platform of choice, and provides a fully-formed experience--which is more than you can say about some VR titles. The draconian solo play, unimpressive AI, and repetitive missions stymie the fun to an extent, but with friends, Battlezone VR successfully scratches a nostalgic itch an exciting new way.

Battlezone forgot to include a reason to keep playing with it, leaving players with a hollow and repetitive package from a developer capable of much more.

Battlezone VR is a nice reboot for an arcade classic from the Eighties. But you have to play it with other friends, single player campaign gets boring after few missions.

Battlezone will quickly feel routine, but it’s also fun – not to mention an interesting window into the possibilities and pitfalls of virtual reality.

The virtual reality version of Battlezone offers a smart reimagining of one of the oldest video games. But even if the game really makes you feel like you're inside a tank's cockpit, it can get a bit boring after a while for solo players. Only players who are planning on playing online multiplayer should give Battlezone a shot.

Battlezone is well-made in terms of its brilliant UI design and solid set of shooting and movement mechanics. However, the single player missions do not showcase the tactical brilliance of playing with real human players and the lack of any PvP online modes is almost a crime.

Not only does it look perfectly like a modern iteration of the classics, it also provides fast, frantic tank gameplay. The single player mode gives a great space for players to practice before taking a shot at helping others out online. Unfortunately, an already middling amount of server activity makes this mode’s future worrisome.

The fast and hectic gameplay is fairly pleasant, but the presence of a single mode, monotonous and with some balancing problem, limits the appeal of the game.

Battlezone is an okay VR experience, but it is simply not a full game. It is cool to check out the cockpit of the tank, but the game misses depth.

It's too bad that a lot of the underlying gameplay design decisions weren't better implemented. The extreme challenge is just one thing, and could be fixed in a future update for that matter. But players simply won't find themselves that drawn back into the game after the first couple of rounds, mostly due to frustration, or an overall sluggish feel.

Batlezone VR is not a game we recommend to buy for your PlayStation VR. Sold for 60€, Rebellion's title has bad graphics and a boring gameplay with no variety at all in enemies and arenas.

Battlezone is one of PSVR’s bulkiest titles, but fails to drum up replayability in the long run.

I don’t mind difficult games, but I like ones that offer rewarding experiences and noticeable upgrades once the learning curve is complete. Battlezone does little to reward players and the various waves of enemies become tiring rather quickly. The foundation here is solid for a fun game, but the implementation falls short and doesn’t allow much room for the game to be enjoyable for any length of time. Perhaps some tweaks to the randomized challenge spikes can be patched in, but for now it’s a game specifically targeting only the hardest of the hardcore who value unfair challenge above all else.

Battlezone feels like a serious missed opportunity. As the successor to what many consider the original virtual reality game, I expected Rebellion's revision to be an accessible arcade battler — the sort of game that would make a great introduction to home-ready VR. Instead, this new version takes its influence from more modern inspirations, including roguelike elements and procedurally generated maps. That's not a bad thing on its own, but the implementation of these elements is incredibly frustrating.

Battlezone VR is a missed opportunity. With so many other PSVR launch titles ending up being little more than glorified tech demos, the balance and design gaffes that cripple the game make the experience that much more disappointing as Battlezone VR’s handling of the technology works really well. I’m convinced a good game could be salvaged from this with a few tweaks and some rebalancing, but for now it’s a brutally frustrating mess doesn’t live up to it’s promise.

It is unknown if the developers can patch Battlezone to reduce the nauseating feelings its perspective emits (reports indicate the game was even more discomforting during press previews before receiving some fine-tuning before launch), but that alone is a big enough reason to caution players from purchasing it. This is especially unfortunate, as the arcade-style mission-based gameplay can be really fun, especially when other online tanks join in.