Review for Theseus. Game for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 11/08/2017
Theseus, at least in theory, would have all the cards on the table to stand as a reference for any action intended to pardon the (relatively) uncrowded digital lands designed for Playstation VR. The unreal virtuality of this production, destined for the expensive-but-not-too-peripheral Sony, first involves and destabilizes, throwing homo ludens in the middle of an ocean of opportunities, deriving both from the intrinsic potential of the medium, as well as from the interesting narrative preamble that is the background to the story.
The protagonist of the video game is slowly indoctrinated on what to do, suitably delighted by small playful morsels that, acting as a short tutorial, push Theseus to free himself from a whole series of threats, with the ultimate goal of getting out of the labyrinth, finally reaching Ariadne.
And it's almost mythology. Too bad, however, that the endemic slowness of the video game triggers moments of pure sleepiness at every turn. It is also a pity that what should have turned out to be the real strength of the whole work, the three-dimensionality, is exploited in an almost non-existent way. Nothing that can be experienced during Theseus' playthrough makes your eyes pop, virtual reality is there but you don't feel it, subjecting to the astonished user an experience that is difficult to define as sensorially exotic and not conveyable through peripherals other than Sony's VR viewer .
On a visual level, the character design is perhaps the most successful aspect of the game: the graphics engine certainly does not scream a miracle, offering generally poorly defined polygonal elements and some animated models in a not too exciting way.
Theseus is basically basic, extremely short and not very engaging: if during the first, timid jokes, the Forge Reply toy seems to be a creature halfway between the excellent version of Rygar published by Tecmo several years ago and any of the Devil May Cry clones, slowly but surely goes beaching their binary limbs on a red-hot bed of thorns and boredom.
Boredom reigns supreme in the just sketched exploratory sections and, at the same time, the (few) necessary skirmishes with the (even fewer) malefic creatures infesting the labyrinth are quickly routed on very uncomfortable tracks, capable of projecting the already proven synapses of the inebriated user into a haughty dimension and to the inside of which the predominant activity takes on the characteristics of a quiet Sunday trip. An excursion, however, which lasts very little, no more than a couple of hours.
Theseus seems to be an experiment rather than a real game. Essentially, it does not satisfy those who are looking for an experience for virtual reality, considering how the enveloping effect of technology is used in a way that is at least not relevant, nor all gamers looking for a structured production, able to keep them glued to the screen for hours. Negligible.
► Theseus is an Adventure-Action game developed and published by Forge Reply for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 11/08/2017
