RIGS: Mechanized Combat League – Mechanised sports are the future

What will sports be like in the near-future? Well if it doesn’t turn out to be rocket cars kicking footballs about, it could just as easily be mechs replacing humans in a number of sports arenas.

RIGS: Mechanized Combat League will offer a handful of different ‘future-sports’ to take part in, but what we got some handson time with was its take on basketball. Strapping on our PS VR headset and entering the garage of our sports team, we selected our preferred mech type. They differ in their speed, on board weapons and their general movement capabilities, so picking the right mech could prove important.

Each mech has two large weapons strapped to it. You aim with your head and shoot accordingly, using the left analogue stick to move around and making use of a dash button for a burst of speed when you need it the most. Weapon loadouts are dependent on what mech you’ve chosen, so balancing your team and playing to your strengths are important.

In the mode that we played, killing opponents would have them drop energy orbs. Get enough orbs and your RIG will ‘overload’. Once overloaded, you essentially become the basketball that needs to get dunked through an overtly large basket. If you manage to self-dunk yourself, your team will gain a point.

Of course, it isn’t going to be that easy. Once you’ve become overloaded, sirens and all sorts start going off. Everyone is going to know you’re as hot as a pistol.

The combat feels really satisfying, especially as you look and see your lasers lock onto your opponent. You could decide to play the role as your team’s hitman, going entirely on the aggressive and just making mince-meat of your opponents.

If you fall victim to an enemy, you will be redeployed onto the battlefield from above. You will hover above the field and look out for possible drop points to become available. Once they are active, you select them and freefall down – smashing into the ground with debris surrounding you. What doesn’t sound kind of awesome about that?

It took a little getting used to, but we have found this tends to be the case with most VR experiences. We found very little struggle with tackling the combat, but we did have frequent issues with gauging what speed and distance we were travelling. Numerous times it felt like we were coming up short while trying to make that key jump or gain enough speed to jump across a ramp to score a vital point.

Although, it is also easy to get distracted by the great scale of the arenas. The cinematic entrance of you coming down in a lift to the sound of massive crowds and stadium announcements is pretty impressive, for instance.

Ultimately, it will be interesting to see how much replayabillity RIGS will offer. Even though we saw plenty of mechs to choose from and have been promised numerous sports to take part in, it feels like this could still end up as a very casual tech-demo for VR if it’s not careful.

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from
http://www.accessibilityforum.org/rigs-mechanized-combat-league-mechanised-sports-future/