Firewall Super review: A tense tactical shooter plagued by bugs and baffling design choices

Looking back at the technical limitations of PSVR 1, Firewall Zero Hour is an amazing game for First Contact Entertainment, a huge success with a loyal community of players who have invested hundreds of hours in one game mode.

Therefore, you can imagine that Firewall Ultra, as its follow-up, launched on the more powerful PSVR 2, equipped with a Sense controller for more immersive VR gameplay, will definitely hit the ground running.

Game modes and maps

In many ways, Firewall Ultra feels more like version 1.5 than a direct sequel, although its no-nonsense objective-based gameplay won't keep you too interested in the storyline. At its core, it's still a Rainbow Six Siege-like Contract PvP mode that pits two four-player teams against each other. Teams alternate between offense and defense, with the former trying to hack into laptops to steal intelligence within the allotted five minutes, while the latter must be stopped. This sometimes meant camping out in the same room, barricading the door and detonating bombs to capture the intruders. Additionally, since there are no respawns, any team that defeats the other team's entire team wins the round.

However, the new PvE co-op mode called Exfil is a bit like the offensive part of Contracts, but against bots. The difference is that in addition to accessing the firewall, you have to hack three laptops and also get to the extraction area. Moreover, you have to face a very cruel robot offensive, which requires the joint efforts of four team members to survive.

Most of the eight newly released maps are replicas of the ones featured in Zero Hour, including the Oil Rig and The Office. There are some interesting changes, however, such as the latter being set in the fictional headquarters of a social media company, which now looks like it was after an attack, with the lights going out and furniture tumbled to the floor.

One benefit of remastering old maps is that it clearly demonstrates the visual leap Firewall Ultra made switching to Unreal Engine 5, with more detailed environments and more realistic lighting. Some maps are intentionally quite dark, with poor visibility, so it feels great when you equip a gun with a flashlight, although of course it gives away your position. Ultimately, I prefer the new urban Middle East map Crossroads, whose openness means there are more lookout points from which to get caught.

some serious problems

While Contracts' core gameplay remains solid and Exfil's brutal difficulty has our team cheering when we successfully escape, Firewall Ultra currently has a number of issues that impact the overall gameplay experience.

The biggest problem is the way the game aims. Zero Hour takes full advantage of PSVR's optional AIM controllers, so you'd expect the new VR-specific Sense controllers to be up to the job. However, compared to other shooters I've played on the PSVR 2, including Resident Evil Village and Neural Network, I found it extremely difficult to hold the gun in front of my face, let alone aim the rifle accurately or Laser sight.

To manually raise the weapon to your head, you need to press L1 (or R1 if you're a left-handed user like me), which is also unfortunately used with interactive functions like opening doors, picking up items, or resurrecting teammates. Same button. However, L2 (or R2) offers a dedicated ADS (aiming) mode. Effectively, this just gives you a virtual gun stock that rests on your shoulder, sometimes making it easier to aim by turning your head. While this mode does improve accuracy, it does so at the expense of immersion. I find this pattern often requires placing my arms in a less than natural position.

Sadly, ADS mode isn't the only instance of immersion breaking in Ultra. For example, there is no manual reloading option. Likewise, when you're knocked down, you'll enter an awkward third-person perspective, looking down on yourself from above as you lie on the ground, constantly calling for teammates to resurrect you to avoid being defeated by your opponent. Confusingly, the design decisions are largely more suited to flat-screen FPS games than VR games.

Even if you can adapt to these control issues, you may still be affected by Ultra's numerous bugs. While some of these bugs may be funny, like a team member's limbs getting stuck in awkward positions when loading into the new Safehouse, most have an impact on the overall experience. From laggy, stuttering gun input to various UI issues, First Contact Entertainment will no doubt address many of these issues in post-launch patches, but for first impressions, it's not exactly a great one. (Editor's note: see below)I was able to stick around for the launch weekend simply because the core concept of the game remained so exciting.

However, it still depends on finding a team with a microphone, as I can't stress enough how important communication and unity is in this game. Even more frustrating is Firewall Ultra's lengthy process of teaming up with friends and starting a match. Instead of selecting a game mode on the main menu, you need to first enter Safehouse, invite your friends, and then team up to compete through a confusing menu system through the terminal.

In theory, having a physical center where you can rest and hang out between games sounds great. In fact, I can't help but wonder whether a more simplified and direct interface would be better.

It's difficult to assess the Firewall Ultra's performance as some online service features were not yet available at the time of review. These features, like Assignments and Battle Pass-like Operations, are designed to provide meaningful progression during your gaming sessions. However, for much of the launch weekend, I could only reach level 2 with less than 15,000 digital currency (the in-game currency) and virtually no way to unlock any interesting content. (Editor's Note: See below) In contrast, the store is already open and you can speed up your progress by spending $4.99 to purchase Premium Shadow Tokens. Considering the slow start to in-game rewards, this is likely how most players will unlock other playable contractors.

Ultra's Assignments and Operations features went live earlier this week.First Contact Entertainment saidThis will "really help earn reputation and digital currency faster!"

Firewall Ultra – Final Review

As an online service game with a long-term roadmap, it's too early to give a "final" review for Firewall Ultra. However, in its launch state, the game was riddled with bugs, as well as frustrating UI and design decisions that made the game boring. If you can get past all that, the core PvP Contracts and new co-op mode Exfil can still be tense and exciting when played with the right team.

If these issues are resolved, it may have better prospects and provide more content in the future. However, with the pricing structure at launch (which pushes additional in-app purchases after the initial purchase of the base game), it's hard to recommend to PSVR 2 owners at this point, especially with the lack of staged progression but more polish and variety. tion options, as compared to Pavlov.