Game Review: Beat Saber

Welcome back to our new VR review series here on DraxisWeb Gaming. We now have an Oculus quest and we’re starting a review, tips & tricks, and let’s play videos on YouTube as well as doing the same here in our blogs. Now if you are new to our blogs let me start by letting you know a little about myself as it will certainly be playing into the games we play as well as how we review them especially for the Oculus Quest. While I am a geek and a dad and a husband the thing that becomes important to know for my quest reviews is that I am a disabled cancer patient. This is important because I have bad arthritis in my lower back and shoulders and I have bad muscles in my stomach due to surgery. All of this makes it very hard to stand for long periods of time, certain movements are hard for me to do if not downright painful. This makes some VR games maybe not a no go for me but also not the easiest. I will be reviewing these games for their ability to be played by people that maybe can’t stand but still think the game looks cool to try as well as the typical other things like animations, gameplay, audio and the like.

So the first game I want to review is the game Beat Saber. This is something I have wanted to play for a very long time thanks to seeing videos like this on YouTube.

Now between my shoulder disabilities and my lack of good small motor skills I figured I would never be as good as this cute girl who I swear must be part Jedi for how good she is at this game. However, I am a casual gamer and fully realize this and I figured this could be fun on lower settings and I wasn’t convinced that it needs to be something you have to stand for. Also since I am trying to lose weight I figured this might end up being a good exercise for someone like me who can’t get around much. This made this the first buy for me on the Quest and let me say I have not regretted it one bit…even after several games and waking up the next day with achy shoulders. Now other than exercise just how does this game stack up?

The base game is fun. The beats in the songs are good but if you go into this as I did after watching a ton of YouTube videos with popular music you will most likely end up sorely disappointed. You see the base game before you buy any additional songs doesn’t have any popular songs you may hear on the radio. At least no songs I have ever heard on the radio (then again I mostly listen to 80’s and 90’s rock on Amazon Music nowadays…yeah I’m an old fogey) This isn’t like Rockband or Guitar Hero where you start the game with a ton of awesome music that you know and love. Now make no mistake there are some song packs you can buy to give you some good songs. They have song packs from Green Day, Imagine Dragons, Panic at the Disco, and Timbaland. Now each of these packs only has like 6-12 songs in them so it’s still not very extensive but they are worth it to get some songs that you may be able to sing along with as you chop the hell out of blocks. So where do all of these other songs you see being used on YouTube come from? Well, there are custom beat map editors on Beat Saber as long as you have any VR gear with it other than the Quest due to the fact that those are all connected to a computer and thus house things on the computer and not on the visor.  There are also some ways to get around this by using SideQuest to load custom songs into the game. The problem with this is that you have to use a secondary program to patch Beat Saber and use SideQuest to sideload the completed songs. Then as if this isn’t enough at least with me the patching made it where I couldn’t upgrade Beat Saber when ann upgrade with new songs came out so I had to uninstall Beat Saber and then reinstall it. Another problem I found is that the custom levels tend to either be waaaaaaaay too easy or waaaaaaaaay too hard or as one level I downloaded was was just the song when on easy there was nothing to actually do even though it said it had an easy mode. This is all because it is made by people who aren’t programmers or musicians most times.

I hope to figure out how to make the song maps on my own soon because there are some songs I would LOVE to have on there as fun exercise levels. This will hopefully become a thing we can do for backers to our Patreon eventually if I can figure it out.

Now, as far as accessibility goes this game says it’s for standing but you can do it sitting as well easily enough. There are “Obstacles” to dodge but just moving back and forth in your chair can work or duck down some. Or you can just turn the obstacles off altogether. There are also bombs that you can disable or enable and you can turn off failure as well. Since my whole thing is the exercise I even turn off the directional arrows that tell you which way to strike. Why? Because this way I can choose how I move which means I can exercise how I want and think may be best. I can move in a way that’s a bit more natural feeling for me than what some person or AI thinks is better for the beat.

All in all, if you don’t mind doing the extra stuff to get songs you like I think Beat Saber is an awesome fun game. The music can be great if you add your own or like the bands I mentioned that you can buy songs from. The game itself is fun and as you move up the levels to expert and expert+ and even moving to one saber or 360-degree mode, it makes it very replayable. This can be played sitting or standing so don’t worry about limitations to standing. Graphics are simple but fun…I would be a little cautious though if you’re prone to seizures as the pulsing lights could possibly set things off I would think. Colors on sabers, backgrounds, and blocks can all be customized. Personally I love this game and plan on playing a lot of it.

So what are some of your favorite songs to play on here? So far mine is Radioactive from Imagine Dragons but there are many I would like to try out there. Sound off below in the comments with your favorite. Want to help us make these reviews, select what games we review, or make blogs about? If so go to our Patreon and become a backer HERE! Want to know when we release our newest blogs whether it’s for gaming or something else? Join us at All Things Geek on Facebook HERE!

(Gameplay is from OtterWorldly one of my absolutely fave Beat Saber YouTubers so go give this awesome gamer some love and subscribe to her channel HERE)