Rocio Mateos
While fans can’t wait any longer for ‘Rick And Morty’ Season 3, the franchise has released a nice treat for them. Welcome to ‘Rick and Morty Simulator: Virtual Rick-ality.’
The new virtual reality game, based on the acclaimed science fiction comedy, was released on April 20. Developed by Owlchemy Labs and published by Adult Swim Games, they announced the game earlier this month. They described it as “a fast-paced, chaotic VR adventure complete with mechanics and mayhem only possible in VR.”
In a press release, they added the game offers a completely new experience for fans, allowing them to play as a clone of Morty “and all the trauma that comes with it,” enjoying all the features VR and 3D can offer. Players can “navigate and rummage through Rick’s garage and the Smith household, step through portals to strange worlds, help Rick with his experiments, follow Rick’s directions to solve puzzles and complete missions.”
Justin Roiland played a huge role during development of the game
“I sold our likenesses to some video game publisher for a lot of money, Morty”, Rick explains in the trailer for the game. Luckily it was just a joke since the VR game offers a completely immersive experience inside Rick and Morty’s universe.
Although they were given a lot of creative freedom with the game, series co-creator Justin Roiland didn’t leave all the job on Owlchemy and Adult Swim’s hands. In fact, he was involved in the whole process, showing that extra care was taken during the development, mainly because he is such a VR enthusiast – he even has his own VR studio.
Everything was planned to feel like a legit ‘Rick and Morty’ experience, instead of just a third-party game, using ‘Rick and Morty’ as a vague excuse. Even the voices provided for the dialogues in the story were recorded by the show’s original cast, including Roiland himself, Dan Harmon, Spencer Grammer, Chris Parnell and Sarah Chalke.
Fun, accurate and practical, although kinda short
According to some reviews, the game is a lot of fun and pretty entertaining. The voice recordings for the dialogues are the cherry on top. But many agree that it may be too short. The total game experience lasts between two to three hours. It’s not anyone’s fault that fans can get enough.
As for the adventures you can experience during the game, you start by doing some laundry and repairing the spaceship, but IGN adds that “scenarios get more involved as you go, and developer Owlchemy does a good job of keeping the pacing up by cycling through several hallmark VR tasks like solving puzzles, environmental exploration, and the occasional shooting gallery.
The relation between the TV show and the game is tight and real. The storytelling makes total sense, as well as the incorporation of some of the supporting characters, that are the not in the background, but actually playing a relevant role.
You don’t need to worry much about hitting a wall or mess things up in the real world. Portals are a practical solution for moving from a place to another, while Mr. Meeseeks gives you a hand to carry objects outside of your playing zone.
‘Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality’ is available for the HTC Vive and Oculus + Touch on Steam and Oculus Home, and costs $29.99.
Blame the delay for Season 3 on the animators
On April Fools Day, Adult Swim aired what it seemed the first episode of Season 3, titled “The Rickshank Rickdemption”. The episode was airing on a loop for hours, then the channel went back to its normal programming, and people didn’t know what to think.
The show’s Twitter account said that more episodes will be aired this summer. Co-creator Dan Harmon said the delay was caused by the animation team. The story is done, but there is still some work to do on the animation.
Aaaaaand that’s the way the news goes. Thanks for watching “The Rickshank Rickdemption”! More to come this summer…#rickisfree
— Rick (((and Morty))) (@RickandMorty) April 2, 2017
It was also revealed that the new season will have a total of 14 episodes, and no more details have been told. We’ll just have to wait a few months to enjoy the wacky adventures of these two.
Loading…