RIFF VR | HTC Vive Review

Guitar Hero was a breakout sensation in 2005. It soon became the primary multiplayer game for my friends and I for the next several years through all of it’s multiple iterations. Which is why I was super excited to be able to try out RIFF VR. The promise of getting to play rock band again in an all new way had me remembering all the fun times my friends and I had.  This is also why it was such a disappointment when I first loaded up the game. Even with my nostalgia glasses aside, there are several issues that Imex Media needs to fix before it should be released to the general public.

When I first booted the game up, I was brought immediately to the menu. There are three options including a tutorial, a practice/garage location, and the first of three scored locations. In my hubris, I scoffed at the idea of starting with the tutorial and jumped right into the practice mode. I grabbed my guitar, picked my first song (one of only 15 available), and got ready to rock.

The Virtual Guitar

The game is played along a scrolling track that connects to the neck of the guitar. This isn’t really a problem in the game, but makes for some awkward positions in real life. The ‘notes’ are really just long blocks of color which correspond to color coded positions on the neck of the guitar. The changes between the notes also don’t exist, so there are no indications as to when it would be appropriate to strum.

I’m right handed, so the pick was on my right hand. This had very little to do overall, and that ended up being a good thing. My left hand, however, struggled to figure out where exactly it needed to be. For starters, because the guitar is virtual only, there is no tactile feedback that a player would receive from holding an object. The major issue with the guitar is that the “playing” hand does not snap to the positions. This wouldn’t be a limiting factor, except that the hit box for the hand vs the note is one very specific location somewhere in the middle of the hand on a very small plane on the guitar. I could manage to get there eventually, but every time I had to move my hand along the neck for a new note, I would get out of sync again. The buttons on the controller acted like they wants to do something, but never actually had an impact on my play-through.

The Virtual Drums

I gave up on the guitar and decided to go to the drums. This was a very short lived attempt. The drum setup was an eight piece kit, including three cymbals.  When I keyed up the song, there was no music. Not that it didn’t exist, the game just made it come from a different part of the virtual room, and it was inaudible. I tried to continue on, but the sound from the drums as I hit them was coming from the same location as the rest of the music.

Further compounding the issue is that there were so many notes coming on all of the different strike points. I felt as though I was going to need four arms to correctly play the song.  There was also no feedback from the controllers for the drum set, and the indication to hit was very unintuitive. Several times I thought that I had hit the notes, but they didn’t go away as I was expecting, or respond really in anyway. The only indication I had that I correctly hit a note was if the multiplier gauge increased.

I went through the tutorial to see if I had maybe missed something.  Unfortunately the tutorial mostly wanted to demonstrate the use of the user interface for the game and gave no context for the playing of the instruments. I waited for an update to try again. The update did correct the sound issue with the drums, but little else. I never did try the vocals option.

RIFF VR Final Verdict

Overall, RiffVR has an exciting premise with a disappointing execution.  Given the trend of VR games to have several iterations before the full release of the game, the potential exists for this title to be improved before the full release.

This review is based off of an HTC Vive review copy provided by Imex Media and for coverage purposes. The game is available now for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

RIFF VR

$19.99

3

The Final Verdict

3.0/10

Pros

• Interesting Promise

Cons

• Unintuitive Controls
• Sound Issues (now fixed)
• Small Library of Music

Buy RIFF VR here on Steam