FreeDiver: Triton Down Oculus Quest 2 Review
Summary: FreeDiver: Triton Down is a game that takes VR gaming seriously more than just a passing fad. Short and to the point but deep in immersion.
3.5
Going Deep in VR.
If you are shopping around for a game in VR, do not let the low price point on this game fool you. The game is surprisingly well done and an immersive (No pun Intended) experience.
VR brings us as gamers, potential to the table and it seems more developers are starting to treat VR gaming as more than just a passing fad.
Virtual Reality is ideal for really getting down into what scares the hell out of us. Those experiences that scare us in a regular game is great. Until you have experienced it in Virtual Reality, you do not know the true meaning of a visceral response. That feeling of you are there.
FreeDiver: Triton Down brings those fears to the front and makes us face them. Deep water? Check. Unknown cramped areas? Check. Trapped and kicking into survival mode? Check.
Much like other games dealing with different variants of gravity, FreeDiver: Triton Down being a game of swimming has a unique way for you to get around. At the start of the game in the set up, it give you a couple of choices for locomotion. Playing it like a standard game, we can set it up to swim along at the press of a button. Now where is the fun in that really? So, if you are bold like me, you will of course use the option to have to wave your arms around as if you are really swimming.
Be prepared, because this option will really get the arms tired. Now on the other side of that, you can get some work out in at the same time. How sneaky of those programmers.
With this option, you have to move your arms around just like you are swimming. Further, in certain situations you have to grab hold of things to pull yourself along as well. It is an interesting take on things and a bold but obvious design move that could have went very wrong. Here it very much adds to the game experience.
Getting around is not always a labor. There are some fast track short cuts in game. When you are so close to running out of air in your lungs, you will be ecstatic to find these fast highways
For some areas, the designers have also included fast moving currents that can either help or hinder your movement. Need to get to a point fast? Enter a fast moving current just right and it rockets you towards your destination. Now what can help can also be a hindrance. There are times that strong currents work against you, as they flow the opposite direction you want to go. When this happens, the player has to grab things in the environment in order pull themselves along.
Oh yes, the game does ease you in with a tutorial type pregame mission. I advise you to do this. It introduces you to everything you are going to need to survive what is to come.
At the very beginning, the game lays out who your character is. A Free Diver, you swim down to great depths and for long periods without the aid of a scuba tank.
With the aid of placed oxygen stations and air pockets, we will survive. The challenge comes from getting to these locations before our lungs have to give out and we end up sucking seawater to a gurgling horrible death.
Trust me though, the beginning tutorial level for FreeDiver: Triton Down may pull you into a sense of, oh this is easy. Oh sure, easy when there is no pressure of a dangerous situation or time running out as you run out of air. The game ramps up in a gut wrenching way when the research ship you are on capsizes and sinks. Now trapped in depths in this huge metal coffin, we have to find our way out and back to the surface. You do very much feel the stress, and the excitement of the game going forward. From developer Archiact, Freediver: Triton Down is far better than you would expect. Even when the puzzles come off easy and the story is of popcorn movie trope.
A game that surprises and delights. I can see this game chugging forward as a franchise much like a Tomb Raider style franchise. Good adventure stories and underwater domains to explore, sunken ships, subs…I digress. FreeDiver: Triton Down is a game that sparks the imagination. An Excellent adventure.
Have fun play games.
Edwin Millheim United States Editor ImpulseGamer
Game Details
FreeDiver: Triton Down
Developer: Archiact Interactive Ltd.
Publisher: Archiact Interactive Ltd.
Format: PC, PS4VR, Oculus
Reviewed on Oculus Quest 2
About the Author
Edwin Millheim Edwin Millheim is a freelance writer since the 1980's has worked in comic book scripting and story writing, for such magazines as Shadis magazine, Anime A2. and also has worked on role playing game creation and adventure creation in the role playing industry as a freelancer (For such companies as Hero Games ,Palladium Books Rifts Index and Adventures Vol 1 hook line and sinker story contributor) working over the years with his editor and co writer for many projects, Donna Millheim, his wife, together... wrote the "electronic games" article for Funk And Wagnalls Encyclopedia Edwin has also worked as writer on comic adaptations to some of his writer/created role-playing games such as Bright Future (Sci Fi) and Unknown Eagles (Based in World War II), and Moonsfar: Warrior's Creed.(Sword and Sorcery) Has also worked as an actor for various live action stunt shows and worked as action fight coordinator and action coordinator for film, and tv and live shows. He is also the Lead singer and Lyric writer for the band Dragon and Berr, who he works with his Drummer wife. Other than the albums they have released over the years, he has also started producing and mixing and mastering for other artists from his wife and his label Loose Bolt Records. All in all likes to keep busy, his first love will always be gaming though.
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