“The 7th Guest VR is haunted by clumsy motion controls, but satisfying puzzle design keeps this 90s PC remake alive.”
Pros
Fun, campy story
Classic mansion is effectively reimagined
Varied, tactile puzzles
Cons
Clumsy controls
Frustrating late sport puzzles
How do you protect a sport like The seventh Guest? The PC traditional was a groundbreaking launch in 1993, providing an uncharacteristically darkish sport for the time with some spectacular prerendered 3D graphics. Play it at the moment, although, and that reality will likely be onerous to glean. By at the moment’s requirements, it’s simple to mistake it for a boilerplate puzzle journey of the period filled with tacky performing. There’s solely a lot a easy remaster can do to protect the oohs and aahs of a launch that previous.
Perhaps sensing that stress, Vertigo Games takes a really completely different remake method with The seventh Guest VR. Rather than dropping a cultured model of the unique right into a headset, the brand new launch is a ground-up reimagining. It options the identical spooky mansion, now constructed as a completely explorable 3D area, however that’s about all it has in frequent. A extra fleshed-out homicide thriller and an nearly fully unique set of puzzles purpose to think about what The seventh Guest might need seemed like had been it made with at the moment’s technical developments.
It’s a inventive remake method that finds combined outcomes. The seventh Guest VR works finest as a campy haunted home journey crammed with intuitive escape room puzzles. That tactile enjoyable will get sophisticated by the quirks of digital actuality, as fiddly movement controls supply its largest scare of all.
Return to the haunted mansion
While The seventh Guest VR is a reasonably radical reimagining of its predecessor, it shares a number of foundational DNA. Players are known as to a spooky mansion on a darkish and stormy evening the place they encounter a haunted home filled with ghosts, puzzles, and creepy puppets. The VR remake has a number of enjoyable increasing the 1993 sport’s story, blowing it up right into a full-on homicide thriller as gamers be taught what occurred to a handful of friends who had been mysteriously invited to the home. It’s filled with previous horror tropes and supernatural camp, which makes for a enjoyable style throwback.
Story was an essential side of the unique seventh Guest due to its heavy use of pre-rendered 3D video. That put actual actors into the PC sport — a outstanding feat for 1993. The VR model seems to recapture that wow issue with a magic trick of its personal: volumetric video. That brings its forged of ghostly actors to life, as gamers can totally stroll round them in 3D. It’s not as groundbreaking a technical feat, but it surely does assist pump up its cinematic appeal by placing gamers within the middle of an interactive horror film.
Vertigo Games
The immersive nature of VR does the unique sport’s spooky tone justice, because the previous mansion will get an appropriate 3D makeover right here. Each room is a Halloween delight, crammed with thick cobwebs, scratched-up portraits, and dusty furnishings. All of those creative additions are the place The seventh Guest VR features finest as a remake. In 2023, it’s onerous to speak how an previous PC sport with a goofy MIDI soundtrack and corny visuals felt genuinely unnerving on the time of launch. The VR model does an excellent job of modernizing the ghost story, balancing mild horror and playful camp. It’s extra Disney’s Haunted Mansion than Phasmophobia, however that tone is an ideal match for the unique.
VR quirks
While its campy horror aesthetics make for enjoyable set dressing, The seventh Guest VR is extra of a combined expertise relating to puzzles. The core gameplay loop is straightforward sufficient: Each room of the mansion is its personal mini escape room crammed with interconnecting puzzles. Some of these discover an excellent steadiness by mixing in some cerebral brain-teasers with tactile options that make nice use of VR. In a gross rest room, I’m guiding cockroaches throughout a spider-infested wall by shooing the bugs off and blocking holes within the wall with my fingers. In one other, I’m sticking my hand by way of a magician’s hat to snag objects I can’t attain in any other case.
There are tons of inventive interactions right here, with no two puzzle rooms feeling the identical. Just a few even pay tribute to the extra board game-like nature of the unique’s puzzles. A well-known logic conundrum has me putting down a handful of queens on a chess board, taking care to not put them in each other’s crosshairs. In the kitchen, a bit of frozen meat turns right into a jigsaw puzzle as I reconstruct it for a witch’s brew. Puzzles like that decision again to the previous age of PC puzzlers whereas nonetheless using the extra trendy tactile really feel of VR to their benefit.
The seventh Guest VR does really feel behind the tech’s potential at instances.
The tech is usually The seventh Guest’s biggest hindrance, although. Through my playthrough, I skilled quite a few finicky motion-controlled moments that left me pulling out my hair beneath my PSVR2. One room has me putting dolls in a guillotine, reattaching the heads to different dolls, and putting them in the precise seats at a tea social gathering. It’s an excellent logic puzzle in principle, but it surely’s an absolute ache to get the dolls into their correct positions.
In some methods, I really feel like I’m critiquing VR platforms greater than the sport itself, however The seventh Guest VR doesn’t at all times design across the tech quirks. Several late-game puzzles require precision as I press piano keys or rigorously faucet tiny rings in a jewellery field. Those aren’t precisely simple duties when utilizing fat-fingered movement controls. The again half is filled with annoying interactions like that, which ultimately had me spending cash to auto-solve puzzles. They weren’t onerous to determine; I simply was uninterested in losing time with execution.
Vertigo Games
Perhaps these technical hiccups make for a extra trustworthy expertise ultimately. After all, PCs had their very own irritating limitations in 1993; perhaps it’s solely proper {that a} VR remake comes with the early warts of a brand new gaming period too. I can recognize that on a high-concept degree, however The seventh Guest VR does really feel behind the tech’s potential at instances. It’s a noticeably messier expertise than one thing like The Room VR: A Dark Matter, a wonderful horror puzzler from 2020 that nailed clear, motion-controlled escape room gameplay.
While I used to be keen to flee the mansion by the point I reached a irritating string of ultimate challenges, I nonetheless admire The seventh Guest VR as a left-field remake. It’s a thoughtfully thought-about reimagining that does a commendable job of capturing a PC traditional’s haunted home vitality, whereas nonetheless delivering an expertise that’s fully its personal. If nothing else, it’s a high-quality manner for shut-ins to spend a Halloween whereas hiding from trick-or-treaters.
The seventh Guest VR was reviewed on PlayStation VR2.
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