PSVR owners are in for a real treat next week when Yupitergrad makes its PSVR debut after a successful run on the Oculus Quest headset.
Yupitergrad is finally getting a PSVR release on February 25th. The game has enjoyed some success on the Oculus Quest headset, but now it’s time for PSVR owners to get wobbly legs too.
Yupitergrad is a swinging game, pure and simple. The gameplay all hinges on the swinging mechanics, and if they aren’t done well, the game will surely fail.
I’m happy to say, then, that Yupitergrad works really well on PSVR, even with the light-based tracking of the PS Move wand controllers. Yes, you will need two PS Move wand controllers to play, as each one is assigned to your hands. There’s no support for the DualShock 4, and the reasons should be obvious.
The game opens up with an extended tutorial to get you familiar with the controls. It took me a few minutes to get my head around the mappings on the PS Move wands, but they’re fairly straight forward. You fire your sucker-swingers by pulling the triggers. You turn left and right with the inner-most face buttons – the circle buttons – and you can extend or retract your swinging lines with the buttons directly next to the circle, so the cross.
You can – and should – use the physical controls, too. You can shoot your suckers at a blue wall or ceiling and then pull your arm backwards to properly forwards, just like how Spidey does it, albeit with a little less grace…
There’s also the ability to move with thrusters and these are mapped to the Move buttons on the face of the controller. The thrusters let you push forward off of a swing, or backwards, or sideways. It’s up to you, but they don’t have to be used exclusively in the air; they’re really handy for making refined movements in the times that you need to be on the ground, like when placing a power cell in a receptacle.
The layout is straightforward, and once you get used to associating the inner buttons with turning and the outer buttons with in-and-out, it becomes effortless. That’s not to say that swinging around is easy – it’s hard work, and I’m going to need to get a few more hours under my belt before I can apply to be anybody’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
I’m still really early on in the game but first impressions are important and in this case, they’re great. I’m really enjoying Yupitergrad, even if I’m not playing it quite as well as I would like. Time and practice will get me there, though.
The story is that you’re a Kosmonaught and you’ve been blasted into space to work on the space station of the motherland. And… that’s about as much as I can tell you. It’s very silly and quite funny with its in-game narrative, but the real meat is in the tricky gameplay.
You solve puzzles and do platforming, with the latter being really good fun. I’ve had to swing around the space station avoiding death traps. I haven’t avoided them all, mind you, but that’s where the time and practice will come into play.
The game itself boasts over 50 levels for players to beat as well as an all-new Time Attack mode that I will probably leave well alone. I can barely swing in a straight line as it is. I don’t need the added pressure of a ticking clock.
As far as the presentation and tech goes, I’ve got no complaints here. The game runs really smooth – I’m playing on PS5, it should be noted – and it looks great too with its comic-book style graphics. Everything looks really lean and I’m not seeing any obvious blur, which is a massive win in my book.
The tracking is surprisingly good and I haven’t had a single moment where it has felt off in over two hours of play. For reference, my camera is tacking on a few board games in front of my TV, so it’s about the same height as I am when I’m sitting down, and yes, I am sitting down to play this one. After playing so many games with the Oculus Quest, I’ve become a bit too used to moving around freely; I don’t want to pull my expensive PS5 off of its stand, so sitting is my preferred way to play.
Yupitergrad promises to deliver hours of gameplay, and I’m confident it will do just that. It’s good fun and it looks to be one of the better PSVR games in recent memory. Definitely keep an eye out for this when it releases on February 25th.
