Beat Saber is an honest-to-goodness VR masterpiece that recently became one of the first VR games in the world to have sold over 1 million copies.
The core mechanic; chopping virtual blocks with virtual swords to a pumping soundtrack is as simple as it is brilliant and if I’m demoing VR to a newcomer, Beat Saber is always top of the pile. This is mainly due to how incredible it feels to play but also because it’s just so easy to get to grips with. And I mean, come on, a game that lets you wield lightsabers like some kind of badass, drum ‘n’ bass Jedi? How could that be the height of awesomeness?
Obviously the phenomenal success of Beat Saber was bound to spawn imitators sooner or later, so who better to try its hand at some VR rhythm action than Harmonix, the company behind Guitar Hero, Rockband and Dance Central.
Audica has been in Early Access on Steam for about two weeks now so I decided to swap my sabers for lasers for this week’s episode of Ian’s VR Corner and take this new VR rhythm shooter for a spin. You can watch me play through 4 different music tracks across a variety of difficulty levels in the video below, so if you want to see what the game looks like in action, click that play button now!
Audica is Beat Saber with GUNS, but does that make it better? – Ian’s VR Corner Watch on YouTube
So I think the biggest question people will want answering here is, “Is Audica better than Beat Saber?” There’s a simple answer to that question and that answer is, no. No it is not. But with a bit of work there’s a good chance that it could rival it.