Pangman Reviews

PANG meets SuperhotVR

It's PANG, man. A fun arcade game requiring skill, reflexes, and a bit of puzzle solving to achieve high-scores. They have added a few unique additions like wall mounted turrets and trip-wires for your harpoon guns(cool VR implementation). It's very much in the spirit of classic Pang(Buster Brothers) series, but now in VR! However, it's a little finicky using Valve's Index at time of this review. The presentation of this game fits the Pang concept/premise pretty well, falling into place perfectly along side more recent takes on the classic arcade series. It really takes advantage of VR's sense of scale before and after rounds as you gaze upon yourself from outside of the arena(as if inside a fish tank). This third person view of the arena also gives a brief "replay" of how you died upon death. It's really just a snapshot in time rather than a replay, but I thought it was cool nonetheless. The classic arcade cabinet intro calls back to the series' roots, and the silly premise sets-up the vibe perfectly. Using the Index and Kunckles controllers the process of switching to/from your harpoon guns feels janky and unreliable. With these controllers any slight touch/press of the center button(where thumbs rest naturally when pulling triggers) rotates/warps your position within play area! It is REALLY disorientating and frustrating. I managed to learn to play with thumbs tucked to the side of the Index controllers so I wouldn't touch any of the face buttons by accident. Also, it seemed the floor of the arena crept up to about shin height and I was walking through the ground by the end of my initial play session. Hopefully this can all be fixed in a future update so I don't lose my pang mind. I recommend this game for the slick presentation and because the classic Pang gameplay seems a perfect fit for VR.

If youve played the old game, its basically that, in a 3d room with the pistol way more available than on the classic. Performance was excellent, like zero loading screens as expected because of the simplish graphics, not that complicated gameplay, and closed and small levels. I found it entertaining and fun for what it was, in 1hr i finished just the first 3 worlds or ~30 of 140 levels (and i have 1st place in Egypt and Mexico currently :p) Game is very simple and just like the oldschool game, spheres want to take over the world, but you can somehow make a difference, like if we could even annoy our perfected dimensioned overlords if they ever wanted to take over. The size of the sphere and "characteristics" tells you what it will "transform" into when popped. You win the level by popping all the red balls in the level. This sounds really simple at first, but soon enough youll encounter different spheres that have special requirements to blow them up, like ones you need to destroy a mine close to them to remove the shield, or the ones you have to shoot 4 times in a row to do the same. Add that to the turrets that shoot when they get activated by the bouncing balls or you shooting them by accident... And at the end of each world there is a boss that are somewhat unique. it gets interesting and physical FAST. Sound is on-point, like the writing coupled with the voice acting was really enjoyable, very silly humor that honestly made me chuckle in real life... tacosphere... heh. The only bad thing i can think of, is the frustrating Index Controllers mappings/sensitivity levels or something. Basically the game considers grip to change between pistol and hook, and... either its iffy, or im grabbing/tightening during gameplay or something because it swaps "randomly"... or at least not when i want it to swap, and because of this, sometimes the hook doesnt even shoot. This made me want to use the pistol for everything. And it would be ok if i could make a change, like disable grip swap (there are other more reliable ways to swap already in the game), but there are no control options that i could find, as i said, maybe its me, but it really hindered my play. Recommended because the price with the "nostalgia bundle" makes this easily worth it, the game is simple but feels polished, and in my opinion, quite fun and with a TON of levels.