Time Lord Victorious?
Ever since the show came back in 2005, I’ve wanted nothing more than a decent Doctor Who game and while we’ve had a few, none could be considered that great but I did enjoy the free-to-play Adventure Games for PC which I’d love to see hit consoles one day, but alas I never felt we’d get a good game of our favourite Time Lord, especially after The Eternity Clock…
Then out of nowhere, a VR title emerges with our newest Time Lord, Jodie Whittaker. It’s definitely been given a big budget as you explore the TARDIS and other planets, coming across classic aliens and monsters such as the Daleks, Cybermen and Weeping Angels to name a few. The only drawback is that you aren’t actually playing as The Doctor…
Instead, you begin in a laundrette as a non-talking character before getting a call from The Doctor who explains that she’s been kidnapped and needs your help to gather Time Crystals to rescue her and fix time itself. You begin by finding safe combinations hidden on backs of photographs to unlock the safe to find The Doctor’s trusty Sheffield Steel Sonic Screwdriver and then head outside to gather parts to summon the TARDIS just before the pesky Daleks arrive, but luckily you escape before you are exterminated and just like that, you’re in a Gallifreyan ship headed to explore all of time and space.
The game works like your typical first-person VR experience with two hands that respond to each Move controller you have. Movement can either be by teleporting, switching angles with buttons or even free-roaming with head-tilt if you hold down the Move button the left Move controller. It takes some getting used to, but the latter is definitely quicker for getting about. As with most games like this, you can interact with pretty much every object that isn’t nailed down to the ground and even then, some of them you can pull off.
Gameplay consists mostly of exploring and puzzles such as getting right combinations of plug sockets in to match some scribbles on a cave wall to redirecting lasers in a spaceship corridor to open doors. There are also some stealth sections where you need to avoid The Doctor’s greatest foes, as well a few jump scares. I’m pleasantly surprised by the dark tone of The Edge of Time, I was expecting a cheery adventure across the stars to please younger fans, but this is definitely more for the adult-Whovian and I’m so pleased as a result.
While the game doesn’t innovate regarding how VR handles, it handles well and I honestly didn’t expect it to for PSVR. The tracking is accurate and the only niggly when it comes to reaching down to your hip to pick up your Sonic Screwdriver or put it back, but other than that…I didn’t come across any major issues.
Visually, The Edge of Time looks impressive for a VR game. The locations are nicely detailed and while The Doctor’s character model could do with some work, the replications of her enemies are superb. Voice-acting is also decent with some great work from Jodie Whittaker herself, proving that she can definitely be a decent Doctor. Let’s just hope Series 12 has decent stories and doesn’t play it safe with single standalone outings with no story arc carrying through…
The Verdict
While hardly groundbreaking, The Edge of Time is a superb outing for Whovians and it’s great that we finally have a decent Doctor Who title. Hopefully this will kickstart something over at BBC to make more VR outings like this or better yet, a full-on big budget game for next-gen.