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0 You may have heard of XR Games. You may even be familiar with their work—Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever, Jurassic World Aftermath, even ForeVR Cornhole to name a few. Now, however, they venture into rhythm games with Beatable. Released on the Quest at the start of April, we were lucky enough to get some hands-on time. Literally.
Un-BEATABLE
Put down your controllers, get those hands warmed up, it’s time to start tapping your desk! Although please remember to be considerate of your neighbours. This game gets rowdy.
Gameplay
When you first fire up Beatable you get the option to play through a very brief tutorial. It’s worth it. The game isn’t rich in depth when it comes to what you need to do, but does have a massive learning curve. Thankfully, tapping on the desk is something I do regularly. Much to the annoyance of those around me!
Once you are set up, which consists of overlaying a nice area onto your desk. Done simply by touching your desk. You get to choose from a multitude of songs.
The songs all show off their length and their beats per minute. You also get a nice little taster of what the song sounds like. Choose a song and then pick your difficulty level. I quickly moved up to the Skilled difficulty, which seemed to be pretty manageable. The songs seem to be a mix of tracks from previous games as well as potentially some specially curated songs.
Actually, through the songs, you have three actions. You tap, snap and clap. Sounds a bit like a breakfast cereal! There are some modifiers to those as well. The Slide move was my favourite; this was where you start with a tap on the desk and then slide to a secondary position. The controls are intuitive, fun, and natural. I mean, you tell me you’ve never tapped on your knees listening to music. It just feels right.
Graphics & Audio
I’m going to mix it up and start with the audio this time. Beatable has an incredible song selection; it isn’t the biggest, but the songs are great. The snaps and clicks are super satisfying to pull off as well.
Graphically, the game is vibrant, with colours all over the place, even the long track that is laid out ahead of you is crisp and clean. Thankfully, this is the kind of game where keeping it simple really pays off.
Longevity
As you probably expect from a VR game, you aren’t going to be in the headset for long sessions at a time. Beatable, however, has that appeal to beat your scores. Especially with leader boards. Just before writing this, I was in the top 10 in the world on one of the tracks. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll definitely keep coming back for more!
Final Thoughts
So, where does this all leave Beatable, then? Well, it’s a great addition to the VR game library and one that I will continue to play. I just hope that XR Games keeps expanding the song library.
Beatable receives the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received to write this review.
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