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Starblood Arena

Buy a PSVR Hygenic Cover!(vrcover.com)
Developer / Publisher – WhiteMoon Dreams / Sony Interactive
Price – US $19.99 / EU €39.99 / UK £34.99 / AU $54.95
Release date – April 11, 2017
Control Method – DS4, HOTAS
Pro Patch – Yes
Digital only – No
Reviewed on – PS4 Pro

Since the PSVR launch 6 months ago, we have seen a few vehicular based multiplayer combat games.  Battlezone gave us a taste of futuristic tank warfare, Eve threw us behind the cockpit for some epic space battles and Rigs offered up a competitive mech battler.  Now comes Starblood Arena, the much hyped “next big thing” for competitive VR multiplayer and while it does have a tonne of polish and cartoonish charm, it’s not without it’s own flaws.

Looks like the gang is all here, these are your pilots btw.

If you have played games like ‘Descent’ or ‘Forsaken’(I’m dating myself huge with those references) than you will instantly familiar with what is expected of you.  You pilot a small combat ship armed with a variety of weapons and defenses, tasked with destroying the opposition.  A small range of modes, both single player and multiplayer, are here to make sure you always have something to do.  Add in a tonne of unlockables and upgrades and we have ourselves an oh-so typical modern day shooter.

The visuals offered up are polished and clean.  Ships have a fair bit of detail and the character models carry a cartoonish, stylized flare.  Some look just badass, while others are a little cutesier ensuring that there is a character for everyone.  The stages are detailed with everything looking very crisp and clear.  Based on color palette some stages come off a little bland, but for the most part are solid and a joy to look at.  The worst thing I can say is that in the heat of the moment, it can be a little confusing and disorienting when explosions are happening around you, shields are getting hit and your HUD is lit up with targeting reticles, but that’s a good kind of problem to have.

The audio consists of some forgettable tracks that lend themselves well to the action, but fail to stand out as anything more than a game requirement and a better option than silence.  Accompanying you throughout the game are 2 commentators who offer “funny” one-liners and other forgettable quotes.  They never annoyed me, but they never really entertained to much either.  They were just sort of there, saying stuff that I didn’t really bother paying attention to.

In every game I have ever seen those gross pod things, I feel the need to shoot all them…every time!

The controls here are DS4 and HOTAS and will took me a long while to get [almost] comfortable with one of the more complex control schemes I have seen in recent memory.  With 6 DOF; moving forward, backward left and right, all handled with the Left Joystick, you also control how much you rise and fall with triggers, throw in yaw control, weapon selection, boosting, targeting, special weapons and you’ll be struggling to remember what button to hit just to navigate the map properly.  I’m not trashing the control scheme, but its daunting and will take a lot off time and practice to master.

After an extended intro and an optional (but recommended!) tutorial, you are free to choose from Single or Multiplayer game modes.  Single Player consists of Burn Circuit and Skirmish.  Skirmish is obviously a one off match in one of four modes; Carnage: a free-for-all deathmatch, Team Carnage: figure it out, Grid Iron: A team based soccer-type game ala capture the flag, and lastly, Invaders! A team based survival game against endless waves of enemies.  Each of these modes offers their own brand of chaos but mix up gameplay just enough to separate themselves from each other.  Burn Circuit is a campaign mode of sorts with set levels to power your way though, each getting more challenging.  It’s a nice addition but feels more like padding when compared to the other modes.

Multiplayer offers the same modes and is a blast…if you can find a match.  The rough launch of Starblood did not do this game any favors as far as fan base goes, and while those server issues have since been remedied, it can still be a difficult task finding online match ups.  As of this review Wednesday and Sunday nights are the only real chance you have at playing online thanks to events put on by the devs.  Regardless, the multiplayer is a blast, even with the lack of mic support, and games are hectic and entertaining. I definitely recommend playing through the some single play games to both familiarize yourself with the controls and purchase an upgrade or 2.  The user base may be on the light side, but the guys that play it are veterans and will school noobs at every opportunity.

Upgrades come in the form of cards purchased with the in-game currency ‘Bloodbux’ which you accrue through single and multiplayer matches.  You can buy a slough of upgrades for your ship(weapons, armor and so on) as well as some more superfluous additions.  Besides outfits for your character and paint jobs for your ship, maybe your ship needs a new hat or some giant flexing arms mounted to each side.  These customizations easily pass the ridiculous line, but in a good way allowing you to make your ship look relatively unique.

At any given time their can be a lot going on and you get easily disoriented!

This is a fun, well polished and handily made experience, but it just didn’t grab me.  The control, though complex, can be mastered with a little practice.  The audio and visuals are the same, well done and for the most part is on the better end of PSVR visuals.  The gameplay is also great, just take the time to figure out all the games nuances and master the controls before delving into some online fun/chaos.  The differing modes do mix up gameplay a bit, but Invaders! comes off as a shallow Wave mode while the rest offer tried and true methods of play.  Ultimately this is a win and deserves more attention now that the launch issues have been fixed.  The single player content is a bit shallow and repetitive, but the online more than makes up for that.

What would I pay? $30US  It’ll offer some fun for sure, even just in single player mode.  It’s a pretty good game and one of the few competitive multiplayer experiences available on the PSVR.

Good

  • Lots of polish and charm
  • Different modes mix up the gameplay
  • All modes can be played in single or multiplayer
  • Lots of cusstomizations and uprade options

Bad

  • Finding multiplayer matches outside of 'event days' is nigh impossible
  • Complex controls take a lot of time to master
  • No real story mode, just a tournament style campaign w/ a few game modes
  • Can get a little repetive
7

Good!

12 Comments

  1. The game looks great!

  2. I wonder how the online community holds up. I never got in on RIGS and always wanted to… hopefully there’s still a chance to try it.

    Thanks for the opportunity!

    • It’s a little light, but guaranteed events happen every Sunday and Wednesday night so the community is small, bit still active

    • The gamers are active…I have about 20 people I regularly play with…but keep adding more as I run across new players that have the game. You only need 3 others to get a ranked multiplayer game started. Though if you are short on players (crew) you can also do a private match and have it filled with bots and adjust their difficulty. For best result, gotta join ps4 community starblood arena, and its discord. Friending people you see online only helps the pool of players you can draw from to get games started.

  3. With a lower price might need to snatch tjis one up.

  4. Sounds really cool! Shame that I don’t have a whole lot of money to spare right now. I would buy it otherwise!

  5. Been holding off picking this up… but 20 ain’t shabby at all.

  6. I really loved playing descent, wayyyy back on the IBM pc in the office. This looks like a great homage to the 80’s era and I bet it’s even better in Vr.

  7. Great review, hope to win the contest! I’m loving PSVR and really want to pick up this game now!

  8. I’ve had this game since launch. It def had a rough start, as I couldn’t even get single player burn circuit to work then…but after the patches, it is definitely the game I keep coming back to the most. The HOTAS 4 controls are awesome…even if they don’t match up with the tutorial (read them in game, in options for accurate controls). The past 2 weeks I really got into its community of gamers, which is a must for vr gamers who are battling being a small community, spread out over several games, AND Time zones. I’d urge everyone that picks this up, to join the ps4 community, and discord (which is listed in the ps4 starblood arena community) and adding as many psn friends as you come across. Players are always on, and down to get a party started, and crew up. Just got to met them…some of the cool players you may ever come across in multiplayer chat.

  9. I played the demo, amazing game! I bought the game via PlayStation network download and I can’t play it at all. Online multiplayer says “my network can’t connect” and when I try to load single player it either won’t load at all to where it needs refreshed, or it will load to stage screen and a error message will pop up. I’ve looked up reviews online and every review was saying they could not get their game to load, some have had success loading but to only cut to the main screen a few seconds later. I’s the issue not fixed properly yet? And if it hasn’t how come it’s still being sold on the marketplace? Especially for 50% off. i would just like to know when the issue is going to be fixed or if refunds are possible untill the update goes out. Thank you.

    • The community is only active Wednesday and Sunday nights so your best bet is to join them on psn. As far as the single player stuff. It should work np but I haven’t played in awhile so I can’t say for sure

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