Built from the ground up for VR, Wanderer has a unique blend of escape room style puzzles, tactile hands on interactions and action arcade sequences to bring you the ultimate time travel adventure. Are you ready to walk in the footsteps of those who have gone before you?
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It's a very good game, it's just not for me.
Alright, first off, I would consider this an overall good game with some big flaws that either might not emerge until hours into the game, or will turn you off right away. Getting right into it with what most negative reviews (rightfully) complain about: the bugs. The bugs in this game are not graphical, sound based, or physics based. In fact I saw none of these bugs and can heartily recommend the game on the quality of these parts alone, not even mentioning the game's unique concept and execution. Instead of these normal bugs, the bugs I encountered were all softlocks, forcing me to purge my save each time I encountered one (about four times). Each time this happened was disheartening, but it only set me back a little because of the game's chapter system.
I was a little confused and weary of this feature at first, afraid of what it might do to my carefully laid out base, but after I was forced into using it I was pleasantly surprised. The chapter system provides "checkpoints" at every major milestone in the story, and places important items you have collected prior in easily spotted and well organized places in the hub area. So, although these bugs really shouldn't be in the game at all, they can be resolved with these chapter saves without putting too much effort into repeating content.
One more complaint before I get into what makes this game good; I really don't like how they've implemented grabbing. Wanderer uses the standard "if you're far away, gesture your palm towards it and force grab" method of interaction, but they add something different; the same rules apply to drawers and ALL interactables. You don't need to be near something to interact with it, and as much as I would like to put some well thought out reason as to why it affects gameplay negatively or whatever, I really don't have a reason why I hate it so much except that it feels bad. Eventually you will get more used to it of course, but it just leaves a bad first impression and then keeps feeling weird for a long time.
OK, now the good stuff. Wanderer has great graphical fidelity and solid immersion through its entire 7-ish hour story. I have an i-9 and 3080RTX, so I was lucky enough to play on the highest settings and wanderer feels like its just under Half Life: Alyx in its setpieces and individual detail. Most things in the game can be picked up, interacted with, stored in your inventory, and taken back to base all in the span of 10 seconds with how much freedom you are given. These devs know the value of letting people mess about in their downtime.
The puzzles ranged from okay to good, but my opinion on them might be swayed the fact that I broke them and repeated them a couple times. The story was confusing, but it's meant to be, it's time travel. You don't really need the story anyway, if you treat the whole game like one big escape room. It's kind of like bonus to put all the story pieces together while you solve the real puzzles.
TLDR: I guess to tie it all together I'll say this: Wanderer struck a good nerve with me with its creative environments and fun ideas. It's a good game for all experience levels of VR gamers, but its not without flaws. Its small problems and sometimes big bugs can put a hamper of your fun, but I implore you to either wait until it's fixed up or push through the issues to experience the game. It was worth it for me, so it might just be worth it for you.
I was a little confused and weary of this feature at first, afraid of what it might do to my carefully laid out base, but after I was forced into using it I was pleasantly surprised. The chapter system provides "checkpoints" at every major milestone in the story, and places important items you have collected prior in easily spotted and well organized places in the hub area. So, although these bugs really shouldn't be in the game at all, they can be resolved with these chapter saves without putting too much effort into repeating content.
One more complaint before I get into what makes this game good; I really don't like how they've implemented grabbing. Wanderer uses the standard "if you're far away, gesture your palm towards it and force grab" method of interaction, but they add something different; the same rules apply to drawers and ALL interactables. You don't need to be near something to interact with it, and as much as I would like to put some well thought out reason as to why it affects gameplay negatively or whatever, I really don't have a reason why I hate it so much except that it feels bad. Eventually you will get more used to it of course, but it just leaves a bad first impression and then keeps feeling weird for a long time.
OK, now the good stuff. Wanderer has great graphical fidelity and solid immersion through its entire 7-ish hour story. I have an i-9 and 3080RTX, so I was lucky enough to play on the highest settings and wanderer feels like its just under Half Life: Alyx in its setpieces and individual detail. Most things in the game can be picked up, interacted with, stored in your inventory, and taken back to base all in the span of 10 seconds with how much freedom you are given. These devs know the value of letting people mess about in their downtime.
The puzzles ranged from okay to good, but my opinion on them might be swayed the fact that I broke them and repeated them a couple times. The story was confusing, but it's meant to be, it's time travel. You don't really need the story anyway, if you treat the whole game like one big escape room. It's kind of like bonus to put all the story pieces together while you solve the real puzzles.
TLDR: I guess to tie it all together I'll say this: Wanderer struck a good nerve with me with its creative environments and fun ideas. It's a good game for all experience levels of VR gamers, but its not without flaws. Its small problems and sometimes big bugs can put a hamper of your fun, but I implore you to either wait until it's fixed up or push through the issues to experience the game. It was worth it for me, so it might just be worth it for you.
https://pressakey.com/game,2061,7224,Wanderer-Review,.html
Wanderer hat mir äußerst gut gefallen und vermengt viele Stärken anderer VR-Titel mit seinen eigenen Ideen. Es sieht schön aus, die Puzzles sind ausgewogen und machen in den meisten Fällen auch Sinn - Ausnahmen bestätigen die Regel. Bei Fragen steht mir ja immer meine stets gut gelaunte Armbanduhr zur Verfügung, welche die Handhabe des Inventars wunderbar einfach gestaltet. Das hin- und herspringen zwischen den Epochen macht Spaß, bietet grundlegend unterschiedliche Lokationen zum Erforschen und das alles geht ganz fix mit einem Knopfdruck. Selbst ein erneutes Laden des Kapitels geschieht binnen weniger Sekunden.
Abgesehen davon, dass ich mehrere Male wichtige Gegenstände verloren habe und ein Rätsel daraufhin nicht lösen konnte, hatte Wanderer auch keine Aussetzer bei mir. Wer also einen interessanten Zeitvertreib mit zahlreichen Herausforderungen sowie Action-Elementen erleben möchte, hat einen neuen Grund, sein VR-Equipment aus dem Schrank zu holen, den Wohnzimmertisch auf die Seite zu schieben und wieder abzutauchen.
Wanderer hat mir äußerst gut gefallen und vermengt viele Stärken anderer VR-Titel mit seinen eigenen Ideen. Es sieht schön aus, die Puzzles sind ausgewogen und machen in den meisten Fällen auch Sinn - Ausnahmen bestätigen die Regel. Bei Fragen steht mir ja immer meine stets gut gelaunte Armbanduhr zur Verfügung, welche die Handhabe des Inventars wunderbar einfach gestaltet. Das hin- und herspringen zwischen den Epochen macht Spaß, bietet grundlegend unterschiedliche Lokationen zum Erforschen und das alles geht ganz fix mit einem Knopfdruck. Selbst ein erneutes Laden des Kapitels geschieht binnen weniger Sekunden.
Abgesehen davon, dass ich mehrere Male wichtige Gegenstände verloren habe und ein Rätsel daraufhin nicht lösen konnte, hatte Wanderer auch keine Aussetzer bei mir. Wer also einen interessanten Zeitvertreib mit zahlreichen Herausforderungen sowie Action-Elementen erleben möchte, hat einen neuen Grund, sein VR-Equipment aus dem Schrank zu holen, den Wohnzimmertisch auf die Seite zu schieben und wieder abzutauchen.