Seated in a military-grade tactical kayak, Phantom: Covert Ops immerses players in the role of an elite and deadly covert operative dispatched into remote, hostile wetlands with the sole aim of defeating disgraced former Soviet General, Nikolai Zhurov (played by David Hayter).
That's the basic premise and storyline for this VR title, just released by nDreams (the Assembly).
To be honest the storyline is a little bit loose and obviously just there to explain away the fact, that you have to play the entire game sat down... In a kayak.
Graphically the game is quite good on the Oculus Quest. But it's obviously pushing the limits of the hardware. Luckily things like, limited draw distance lend themselves well to the shadowy stealth centered environment.
When comparing footage from the Oculus rift version to the quest version (that I reviewed on). If you have a VR capable stand alone PC, you would be much better off getting the rift version.
The USP of the quest being completely cable free, is of absolutely zero benefit for this game as you spend the entire time sat down.
Comfort wise it's pretty good, with several options to either make the game more immersive or more comfortable to suit your motion tolerance and play style.
I'm an average gamer, with average VR legs, I left the settings on default and I could play comfortably for about an hour at a time before I started to feel any nausea.
For the most part the voice acting was really good particularly for the native English-speaking parts.
The Russian (speaking English) voice acting however is pretty cliche, bond villain-esque.
But honestly I don't know what other options they had available here, for subtitles would have broken the immersion.
The control scheme takes a little bit of getting used to and even after getting used to it I had a love/hate relationship.
On the one hand, sometimes it felt absolutely fantastic, gliding silently through the dark waterways. While on the other hand trying to maneuver into place for mission objectives, felt a lot like Mr. Bean trying to park his mini.
As the title suggests the game is meant to be played a stealthily as possible.
Although I was afforded the freedom to make kills whenever I wanted, voices over the radio would keep bothering me and telling me to stop. As I progressed further into the game, the voices gave up trying to dissuade me from my murderous assault. However the limited ammunition between supply drops, forced me to take a more stealthy approach.
The games controls also do not lend themselves to any kind of faster paced action. If you try, it feels clunky and awkward. Having to swap between your oars to maneuver slightly, then guns, then back to the oars.
I played through on the easiest difficulty level, which was extremely forgiving. On several occasions I found myself splashing noisily and awkwardly past a Russian soldier out for a nighttime cigarette, not three feet away from my flailing body. But thankfully no alarm was raised.
It was very surprising, given the graphic limitations and cliched voice acting, how genuinely immersive this experience became.
Within a few minutes I was completely absorbed and it was a lot of fun to play.
Individual sections and mission objectives are quite short, making it easy to break up gameplay if you are not comfortable in VR for long periods of time.
Overall it's a fun experience and worthwhile addition to your game library. However as I stated earlier in the review, if you have the opportunity, go for the rift version for the extra visual fidelity.
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