Good ideas marred by issues, this game would have benefitted from a delay.

What happens when Borderlands meets Stride: Fates?

You get a virtual reality (VR) game that needed more time to cook.

No this is not a bad joke, it’s The Burst, the first game from developer GoRapid Studio which released on Aug. 8 for the Quest series of headsets – as well as PCVR. The game is touted as a parkour shooter where you become a special ops soldier tasked with taking on violent criminals on the planet Damag – that’s not a typo, it’s just ‘damage’ without the ‘e.’

What was an interesting idea – and looked pretty good in promotional materials – ended up being another missed opportunity, with the game boasting janky movement mechanics, ugly graphics, and even missing assets. Yes there are places like the tutorial where it tells you that there is something missing and ended up not making the final release.

In this case, it was notifying you that a certain button needed to be used for an action. All you could see was the red text noting the placeholder where information should have been.

Stepping into this world, an avid gamer might feel fond memories of the Borderlands series of games. For the movie aficionado, Mad Max may jump to mind.

These things and more are what Helen Megrabyan, scriptwriter with GoRapid Studio says inspired the team who made this game.

“The Burst is what happens when Spider-Man meets Mad Max and Titanfall in VR. Our game is all about speed, shootouts, explosions and violence. Fast, furious, challenging and encouraging creativity.”

The game is fun in theory, and very early you get to experience the shootouts, explosions and violence. However, there are just so many issues here that it takes away any joy you may get from playing.

For starters, the world looks flat and ugly. The Quest version is of course the one which will suffer the most, as reports say the PCVR version is actually looking better.

Places look overtly hazy, faraway enemies are basically only visible from their gunfire, and honestly it’s just not as engaging as a wasteland should be – and let’s be real, there isn’t much around to look at there.

Where the game fails mostly are the broken movement mechanics.

Megrabyan says movement mechanics are what sets this apart.

“What sets The Burst apart is the variety of mechanics, how they work together and encourage the player to experiment. Moreover, the game itself isn’t linear, which is a rarity among VR titles — we have several different endings and yet the decision making in The Burst doesn’t involve anything immersion-breaking. You won’t see any dialogue options, deeds will speak for you,” she said.

And to an extent she’s right, but it just so happens that they end up bringing the game in the wrong direction.

Climbing doesn’t always work well – besides grabbing not doing what it should you could try pulling yourself up from a ledge and end up falling instead because you launch yourself away. Another issue comes in when the game encourages you to slide under low obstacles. Instead of letting you physically crouch to initiate, or assigning to a separate button, you need to push the right thumbstick – the one which controls turning – down. The problem here is you could accidentally hit this and just start sliding around for no reason.

Your character is also equipped with two grappling hooks which are meant to make traversal better. Issue here is that it doesn’t always pick up a grapple point, and you could end up dying more times than you should. Moving while grappling seems to be automatic, which is broken when you need to grapple not in a straight line, but a curve instead.

Even jumping here has its issues – hold down the ‘a’ button and release while swinging your arms up to jump – it could be that it takes some time to get use to, but after a few hours in the game it still doesn’t always work.

It seems like the only part of the movement that turned out was running – you swing your arms as you push the left thumbstick forward – and this actually doesn’t suck. It’s very reminiscent of similar games and actually works out well.

Gunplay seems less fun than it should here, with some seemingly way more underpowered than they should be. Even aiming down the sights can be annoying and not work – but to be fair, the graphics aren’t the best but that doesn’t excuse the lack of enthusiasm felt when shooting a particularly annoying baddie in the face.

There are many different weapons across Damag, and you can carry three on you – your standard energy pistol with infinite ammo on your belt, and two behind your shoulders. Only the starer pistol really seems to do anything, and a well placed – and let’s be real here LUCKY – headshot, can take a criminal down in one.

Where the game fails in the violence category is trying to shoot on the weird ATV thing.

You won’t always have to run around this desert planet used as a jail, instead, you can drive around on this weird vehicle that honestly kinda sucks.

Again, it’s fun in theory, but trying to chase after the bandits in the opening level while trying to shoot people is annoying as hell. Nevermind trying to reload a gun while driving – which does not work – you’ll end up wanting to delete the game and rip out your hair for purchasing.

The team put out a message not long after the game came out, telling VR enthusiasts that they know they made a mistake, but are working hard on patches.

While it’s admirable to admit mistakes, this release now and fix later mentality has become all too common in the VR realm.

This is already a niche genre with a somewhat expensive entry point. Those investing in this already underutilized medium should not be made to spend on a game that is MISSING assets. In it’s day one release state, the game was literally incomplete.

GoRapid Studio should have taken a page from developer Mighty Eyes who have delayed their highly anticipated game Wanderer: The Fragments of Fate, multiple times. While it’s disappointing, a polished game that has no bugs is better than a rush to launch.

It’s a shame that a game that makes you think of Borderlands – has failed as much as the movie.

Perhaps it’s just a curse, or maybe all it needed was a little more time to bake in the oven.

The Burst, was reviewed on the Quest 3 after receiving a game key from the developers.