Twisted Arrow Review

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After finishing Twisted Arrow’s approximately 3 hour long campaign, my HTC Vive face cushion was drenched in sweat. One great thing about many VR titles is their ability to give you a work-out without you even noticing. This is the case with Twisted Arrow, created by Phaser Lock Interactive, a fairly polished and very enjoyable first person shooter/bullet hell.

The story is very barebones which is forgivable in an arcadey title such as this one. It basically boils down to “there are bad guys taking over a city….so go kill them”.  What little story on offer, is delivered by a southern-accented commander speaking over an intercom. He also gives instructions hinting or outright telling you what your next objective is and often how to complete it. I was a little annoyed by this since Twisted Arrow is very linear. I don’t imagine I would have been stuck too many times without him in my ear considering most objectives boil down to blowing up anything that looks like it could explode, killing all the enemies in an area, and/or hacking a terminal using your technologically advanced bow.

After finishing Twisted Arrow’s approximately 3 hour long campaign, my HTC Vive face cushion was drenched in sweat. One great thing about many VR titles is their ability to give you a work-out without you even noticing. This is the case with Twisted Arrow, created by Phaser Lock Interactive, a fairly polished and very enjoyable first person shooter/bullet hell.

Twisted Arrow, Twisted Arrow Review, VR, Virtual Reality, PC, PCVR) Video Game, Game, Review, Reviews, Screens, Screenshot, Screenshots,

The story is very barebones which is forgivable in an arcadey title such as this one. It basically boils down to “there are bad guys taking over a city….so go kill them”.  What little story on offer, is delivered by a southern-accented commander speaking over an intercom. He also gives instructions hinting or outright telling you what your next objective is and often how to complete it. I was a little annoyed by this since Twisted Arrow is very linear. I don’t imagine I would have been stuck too many times without him in my ear considering most objectives boil down to blowing up anything that looks like it could explode, killing all the enemies in an area, and/or hacking a terminal using your technologically advanced bow.

Speaking of the bow, this is your one and only tool to take on the army throughout the campaign’s 6 levels. Luckily it’s a versatile tool that not only displays your health and energy, but can fire an assortment of arrows each with their own function. Though Twisted Arrow might appear to be a mindless arcade shooter, it has a decent amount of strategy in its gameplay thanks to the aforementioned arrow variety. Using the right track pad (assuming you’re right handed) allows you to scroll through the five different arrow types. Standard arrows which have no special properties use up no energy and can be fired infinitely at no cost. The freeze arrows, mines, multi shot and explosive arrows all do exactly what you think they do and cost varying amounts of energy. Energy fills up slowly on it’s own, however you can shoot energy pickups allowing you to keep on firing special arrows. These energy pickups are plentiful meaning you never have to worry too much about being caught in a situation without the tools needed to progress. Of these arrows, I found that I used the freeze arrow the least, in fact I probably only fired about 3 freeze arrows throughout the entirety of my playthrough. The most useful ammo is undoubtedly the explosive arrow with the mutli-shot not trailing far behind. The multi-shot arrows are especially useful for taking out snipers. Often these snipers are so far out of reach that only a very skilled marksman can take them out; Luckily the multi-shot arrows home in on them as long as you shoot in the snipers general direction. This bow also has one more functionality which I used about as sparingly as the freeze shot, which is its ability to create a bullet blocking shield with the press of the left trigger.

Twisted Arrow, Twisted Arrow Review, VR, Virtual Reality, PC, PCVR) Video Game, Game, Review, Reviews, Screens, Screenshot, Screenshots,

The bow is not the only provider of strategy in Twisted Arrow. Proper movement and positioning is key to succeeding here. It’s not always the case, but during many of the title’s trickier moments, you’ll find yourself retreating when things get too hairy before reentering the battle with a different strategy.

Before playing Twisted Arrow, I had read that it’s a difficult game with many players being stuck on medium difficulty. Because of that, I decided to do a playthrough on Easy, and even on this difficulty, I still died 3 or 4 times and was constantly dodging and moving. I did try my hand on difficulty and found that it was still manageable though some differences were that you lose health quicker and enemies throw grenades on medium and higher.

Graphically, this is a decent title. The bow and arrows look great and the environments are fairly sharp especially considering their size. Speaking of size, I really appreciated the scale and verticality in these levels. There’s something to be said about looking up at skyscraper, and within a few teleportations, get to the top of it and look at the street below. The sense of height is very apparent in Twisted Arrow.

This bow and arrow shooter is some of the most fun I’ve had in VR. It’s fairly polished, makes you work out, and is reasonably challenging. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re searching for something special among the samey wave shooters out there.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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