Beat Saber on steroids; a Les Mills Bodycombat review
How I learned to appreciate fitness-oriented VR.
For the last year, I was against the idea of fitness in VR, the reason being that it seemed like a completely stupid concept to me. “If you want to exercise, go to the gym”, I thought. Exercise is hard, and that's before you strap a TV to your head. That was before I tried Less Mills Bodycombat VR.
I decided to try the app because I heard some good things about it, and after sacrificing 30 bucks to Zuck I had it in my library. I took on my fitness clothes and got to it, starting up one of the hardest but shortest exercises. 5 minutes later, I was drowning in sweat.
In case it is not apparent, I am impressed with Bodycombat VR. I now play it almost every other day when I don't go to the gym. I quickly got into it as I have some experience with kickboxing.
Beat Saber inspires the game; you smash targets as they come towards you in various moves and dodge barriers while getting tons of points and listening to great music. The various punches are well-designed and become easier as you get used to how the game plays.
Your environment also changes into various worlds like space stations, deserts and more. This brings a fresh feeling to every session as you are not just stuck in the same bland environment every time. They got most of the things they did right. However, the game could be better.
I feel like the game missed out on many opportunities, including a "campaign”. I loved the beat saber campaign as it allows you to try different types of play, and the challenges get progressively harder. This wouldn't require unique content, just a campaign level tree like the one below.
Another missed opportunity is how the instructors are captured. It's just a 2d projection of their videos. They could have created avatars for them, which would look a lot better in the 3d space and could do more things, like move around the scene. And that's not all.
The reactions to your movements seem too canned, and they often don't match what is going on. The developers could have made them more accurate to your performance so they don't just feel like generic one-liners. So what do I think of the game overall?
It's a great game. Even though they could have made a few things better, it's a great and fun way to get some exercise. And that's from someone who looked down on VR fitness games. I can wholeheartedly recommend it; but look at a couple of youtube videos first, so you know how to punch correctly without hurting yourself.
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