Psvr alpha tester, honest review
My old name was Choco, and me annoying steve daily a long time ago to include the sniper is why it's there. Name of the sniper? Uhh
I've been following Alvo for a long time, I was one of the first 10 people in the discord, from an email sent out by Steve stating the game was back in development a long time ago.
Played through the alpha & beta, learned the concepts behind recoil patterns, bullet patterns, how the recoil pivots, how the servers work, how the map design goes, the thought process, and a slew of other things.
The game uses Unity Preset Assets like Onward did originally, and likely rhe same creators of those assets ported them to UE4 for Contractors to use since I've seen people mention that alvo uses the same assets. There is nothing wrong with using premade assets made by professionals when the artists/programmers that were originally hired couldn't make something as good. I mean no disrespect by that, and everyone in the Alpha & Beta were included in the decision for using Unity premade assets from the Unity store, it wasn't a split decision made by Steve at the drop of the hat, it was months of talking to us and getting feedback.
Alvo is a unique experience that uses an arcade-style shooting experience similar to COD, yet took lessons from Counter-Strike.
The graphics seem to be disliked by a few, but I can assure you, whoever is reading this, it's an artistic depiction and I've never met anyone who played a game only for its graphics. There are still people who play ff7, ff8, ff9, kingdom hearts, tomb raider, and a slew of other older games. + crossplay was always the goal.
Regarding complaints of horrible voice quality, I know no one wants to accept this as an answer, but it is your internet connection dropping packets. You can't compare quests voice chat to Alvos because it doesn't use the same system and Alvos voice chat system requires a stable internet connection. I tested this myself as I have TMobile 5 G Home internet, and ATT Fiber 1gig internet. Me as a US player will drop packets on the Tmobile 5g internet while connecting to EU servers and have horrible voice quality, where the ATT connection remained absolutely solid. It is entirely depedent on YOUR internet connection. This explanation is met with "well why didn't they just use Oculus voice chat" and the answer is simple-- crossplay.
The devs said for months before Beta released that abbreviated manual reloading would be on launch, and a bigger playerbase would shape how manual reloading worked. For gameplay purposes, it has to be comparible to the PSVR version for crossplay, it has to have fair gameplay and functionality. So based off of the feedback, devs are actively working on a toggleable option to utilize immersive reloading, while keeping button reloading as an option, and optimizing both so one isn't more advantageous than the other for fair gameplay.
Some people say the community is toxic-- Every community can be toxic, but I've not experienced anything horrible outside of people lying about being devs or knowing Steve. Once people figure out that I'm Choco (Qyasumi now as a tribute to Oyasumi PunPun) they typically stop pretending and give honest feedback, I think people just want their opinions to be heard, and discord is the best way to do that.
Regarding a Tutorial-- I asked them for one too ahaha this is part of the reason I put 4 stars. A wall of text isn't good to teach people how to play the game. Most people always skip tutorials, but the community banded together to teach people how to use the abbreviated manual reload, and how to switch to button press reload. I believe the devs are planning to include an actual tutorial at some point based off of feedback.
Lack of content-- another reason I put 4 stars, only 9 guns in the game. Not alot of camos, not a choice if you want to prestige, not alot of attachments, not alot of maps, not alot of customization. Even if I was apart of the game from Alpha and saw it grow and know how much time it took to do everything that's in the game now & being made for the game, it's hard for me to defend lack of content for multiplayer. Multiplayer absolutely needs alot of choices for guns and attachments. It needs a grind system to unlock camos, it needs more customization. The devs are heavily aware of this and are still working on including new content.
Complaints of this is just a psvr port-- You're right, in a sense. Base PS4 has better hardware than Quest does, and that's a fact. Quest 2 is using cellphone parts with fast memory, ps4 is a console with better power & hardware in general. They ported a console game to a mobile game for VR in a sense, and had to re-optimize everything without cutting graphics down, but utilizing the resolution on quest. They are magicians. Can you name another VR FPS that does or will have crossplay with PSVR? The controls are what they are now because, you're right, it's a port so it's trying to utilize the same controls on PSVR, which people have been adament about. They want the Alvo devs to copy other games gameplay styles just because Alvo feels different, yet those same people trash Alvo for utilizing Unity store assets just as other games have, such as onward & contractors. Those same artists who made Unity store presets also put them on UE4 and are available to purchase a license to use. How does that make any sense? You want Alvo to copy the gameplay of Onward, Pavlov, and/or even Contractors, yet complain and put in a negative light they the devs chose to use premade professionally made assets that those other games mentioned also use. How does that make any sense at all? Calling Alvo a scam is a spit in the face for all the devs who worked as hard as they could to get the game running on 2 SEPERATE PLATFORMS.
Regarding players unhappy with the reload mechanics/controls because they're different from Pavlov, Onward, and Contractors: i've never seen anyone complain that God of War 2018 didn't have the same controls as Kingdom Hearts 3 and vice versa. Both hack n slash games, designed by different developers, with different visions. Absolutely blows my mind that people say that those 3 games decided the default controls for all VR games. Alvo is always based off of community feedback and the true immersive reloading that people want will be added. I believe that custom control binds will be added so each player can tailor their experience to what they want because everyones opinions on "the best controls" will be different.
Story of the 4x and 16x scope:
Back when I was annoying Steve everyday of the sniper, I had a thought to myself.
Borderlands 2 VR uses snipers, and when you pull LT on the PSVR aim controller it pulls up a zoomed in screen at a lower FPS.
So I told Steve, what if you took that screen, cropped it to a circle, put it in the Scope model, and had an activation box at eye-level?
Then they made the scope. Almost exactly like that.
But didn't like the 2D look.
So they went in, added some glass/bubble effects, and now you have the 16x scope that took literal months to get where we're at.
And yeah, that's my honest review & response to the negative comments. Join the discord, give the devs your feedback.
-PRO's:
Fast paced gameplay
Good core gameplay
Optimized for users with stocks
Decent grind/leveling system
Good UI
Toggleable UI elements for immersion
A working scope on PSVR & Oculus that actually works.
Cross-play is coming
Zombies is out!
Potential for the game is sky high.
-CONS:
Lack of a variety of guns (will be adding more)
Lack of a variet of attachments(will be adding more)
Lack of a better attachment
system (will improvr, atm it's 2 attachments allowed)
Lack of a true tutorial (working on this)
Lack of immersive reloading (they're working on this.)
Lack of custom keybinds (working on this)
Decide for yourself if you want to invest in something you can help shape, or hold off until it's at a point you want it at. Alvo will always be shaped by its community, and it will always keep the philosphy of "Options for gameplay" be it immersive, or automatic/button press.
That's all from me, ya boi, Qyasumi (Choco)
Will update to 5 stars once more guns/attachments come, as that is my absolute biggest complaint.
--Edit
The game is now $14.99 and is a steal for that price.
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