Review: HeroCade – PS4/PSVR

A package of 9-games-in-1 for $14.99? Sounded like a good deal to me when I had a gander at HeroCade on the PSN. Sat on my sofa with some digital American money burning a hole in my digital wallet, I thought it seemed like one of the better PSVR deals. Man, I was wrong.
PSVR games have gotten a lot of stick for being high-cost, low-content, so I can definitely see the appeal of HeroCade. It promises a total of nine VR games in one convenient package. It’s… not very good. Of the nine games, perhaps two of them were worth a second look, the rest were just plain awful.

The first one I tried was Jurassic Survival which looked kind of similar to The Brookhaven Experiment. You can use the PS Move controllers in much the same way: one to hold your torch, the other to hold your pistol. Dinosaurs then appear from all sides and your job is to survive by shooting them. Too bad that shooting them just doesn’t do jack shit. Seriously, there were loads of these little dinosaurs nipping at my legs yet they wouldn’t die despite emptying my gun into them several times. Sure enough, I died and decided to go back to the main menu.
It’s a similar story elsewhere in this collection; games look interesting in the trailer, but once you’re actually in the game they show their true colours: a turdy brown.

There’s a Race The Sun rip-off that’s actually not too bad, though still not as good as the original. Then there’s the Gumi No Yumi which seems like an erroneous inclusion that isn’t all that fun for any longer than three minutes. Zombie Strike is another that could have been half decent, but instead it’s a half-baked attempt. I understand that I’m coming across very negative here. That’s because there are very few redeeming qualities to HeroCade, unfortunately.
The highlights of HeroCade are 405 Road Rage and Dreadhalls, though they’re still far from being great. 405 Road Rage is an endless runner where you control a car weaving through traffic by moving your head left and right. It’s simple but at least it was enjoyable for more than a couple of goes and passing the headset between myself and the Lady of Harding Manor did brew a bit of competition.

Dreadhalls is a procedurally generated hide-and-seek simulator set in a dungeon. It’s actually pretty good at what it does. Your task is to move through the dungeons while the monsters of darkness stalk you from the shadows. The graphics are nothing to write home about but the sound design really sells the tension. Despite that, it’s still a second-class game in a world where Resident Evil 7 is a VR game.
I can’t stress enough how disappointed I am with HeroCade. There was a chance here to show players that there can be great value games, but instead we’ve got a piss-poor collection that was filled with crummy games to make it seem more appealing. I mean, they made a fool of me with their 9-in-1 pitch, and I’m supposed to know a little more than your Average Joe. Don’t be fooled. Spend a little extra and you’ll have a lot more fun. Here’s, let me point you in the right direction.

HeroCade PSVR Review

• 4/10
  Overall - Bad - 4.0/10

4/10

Summary

HeroCade is a collection of bad games with a couple of half-decent attempts thrown in. Remember those crummy 1000-in-1 TV plug-and-play consoles where the majority of the games were shite rip-offs of other games? ‘Nuff said.