Vertigo 2 review: The power of one

Tsiakalis-Brown worked on VR projects with Valve previously and made the rather less ambitious precursor to Vertigo 2. But this fully fledged FPS should be his calling card to the big time. According to his bio page, the fresh-faced twenty-something contributed the bulk of the programming, art, writing, music and level design to a game that compares favourably to many a mid-range AA title made by dozens of staff.

He admits being inspired by Valve’s work on the seminal Half-Life: Alyx in particular. Nonetheless, it would be specious to put his efforts on the same pedestal as that AAA masterpiece, not least because of the budget and sheer craft available to Valve.

That said, Vertigo 2 delivers a lean yet imaginative adventure with echoes of the plot of the first Half-Life. You’re an amnesiac waking up in a secretive research facility where experiments are drawing creatures from parallel universes. As unoriginal as the premise might be, there’s wit and originality on show from the off, from the snarky one-liners to the offbeat design of the monsters. Shout-out to the fella with a hand for a head but prepare to be impressed by the dinosaurs, robots and floating eyeballs too.

You’ve barely picked up your first weapon – after a subtle dig at Half-Life 2’s crowbar, no less – when interdimensional chaos breaks out and you’re propelled on a rollercoaster expedition of shooting, light puzzle-solving and exploration. That first gun – a wacky-looking peashooter contraption – might just cool your enthusiasm thanks to its possibly deliberate inaccuracy but it’s just one of 14 increasingly wild weapons you’ll encounter. All of the guns run off infinite ammo that slowly recharges and which requires a VR gesture to reload, leading to an interesting juggling act in which you swap rapidly between firearms while awaiting refills.

Tsiakalis-Brown is not content for you to merely roam through drab science lab corridors (though there’s quite a bit of that). He mixes in dramatic set-pieces, boss fights and vehicle sequences, all with an eye for VR flair.

Alas, for all of this accomplishment, the lack of budget regularly rears its ugly head, from mere visual glitching to highly distracting sound mismatch to outright showstopping bugs.

Once you temper your expectations – it looks more like a last-generation title than the hard realism of Half-Life: Alyx – Vertigo 2 packs enough thrills to justify its mid-range price tag.