Electronauts can best be described as a virtual reality DJ simulation experience. If that doesn’t immediately spark your interest I don’t know what will. Unlike most rhythm games where you hit certain notes and avoid obstacles to complete a song, receive a high score, and move on to the next song –Electronauts puts you in complete control. You are not just playing a song to completion, you’re helping to create it.
The beauty of Electronauts comes in the form of the game’s accessibility. We use the word game loosely because in all reality this is more of an experience than a game. No matter what your musical background or skill level is, you’ll be creating some sick beats in no time. With no real end game or goal in site, you get as much or as little as you want from Electronauts.
As the DJ you will use all the tools available to you in what they are referring to as the Musical Reality Engine to craft some crazy fun music.
So, what do you do inside of this space? Well, first and foremost you select a song. This will be the base line for your experience and there are plenty to choose from. You fill the virtual space with beats and the world around you evolves with the music. Much like their previous title, Sprint Vector, Electronauts looks beautiful. The colors really pop and there is never a dull moment while you create your musical masterpieces. Armed with what can only be described as magical DJ sticks (YOU try coming up with a better name for them) you interact with everything on stage to put together the perfect remix.
On your left you’ll find many different buttons to push. This lets you choose not only the part of the song you want to remix, but also allows you to mute certain instruments and voices as well. You can roll right out of the intro into the build up and just as the bass is about to drop you can mute everything but the vocals and then hit it hard with the break. All of this and more is possible within the world of Electronauts. In front of you and to your right you’ll find the rest of the tools that you will need to succeed. Everything from different colored orb sets, each with a different sound that you can hit like a drum set, to tubes filled with liquid that you can raise and lower to drop and raise the pitch as you see fit. It’s truly an experience that you need to immerse yourself in to see exactly how it works – but within minutes of doing so you’ll feel like you’re part of Daft Punk putting on the performance of your life.
Oculus and Vive versions of the game also have multiplayer, enabling you and a friend to live out your musical dreams together. However, at the time of this review, that was absent from the PSVR version of the game. We do hope this comes to PSVR as it would be a big kicker to get people into the game long after they’ve done everything on their own.
Regardless of skill set, you will sound great because Electronauts is mixed in real time and they have it set up so that no matter how well you know music you cannot sound bad. Some purists may scoff at this, but to make it accessible for anyone it’s kind of a brilliant play for Survios.
The only real negative here is anyone expecting a fully-fledged gaming experience could be disappointed and confused as to what Electronauts is right after booting it up for the first time. There is a brief “tutorial” that gives you a glimpse at the lore of the game, but it never really explains what your goal is here. Considering there really isn’t one other than make some killer tracks and having fun, it would be nice to know this going into the experience. However, it doesn’t take long to see that this isn’t a traditional rhythm game and you’ll be having a lot of fun in no time.
Recommendation: This game is truly for anyone that has a PSVR. Considering how dry of a spell we’ve been living through the last few months any software that we get at this level should be enjoyed by all. Fans of Rhythm games, DJ’ing and music in general will love their time with Electronauts. If you have a PSVR check out Electronauts asap.
*Electronauts was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*
Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games as well as our recent review of Survios Games Sprint Vector
Also check out this weeks episode of Into the Deep where we discuss Electronauts as well!
