Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality (PlayStation 4) Review

By Albert Lichi 05.12.2016

Review for Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality on PlayStation 4

Surgeon Simulator is best remembered as a silly novelty fumblecore game of operation. It had intentionally terrible controls and an emphasis on physics, and presented absurd situations that had users performing surgeries in compromising situations that tested one's patience, as well as the game's Unity Engine. Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality is the same game with PSVR support. With this new level of control, Cubed3 will prescribe exactly what killed it.

Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality is a much more playable version of the original game. It is pretty amazing how much PSVR and the PS Move controllers can improve on a concept that was already utterly ridiculous. It is not perfect, however... In fact, Surgeon Simulator is still pretty much broken even in VR, which will lead to some unintentional comedy and horrifying graphical glitches.

Surgeon Simulator is a bit of a crap-shoot with its controls, and to simulate the feedback of touching virtual objects, the Move sticks will vibrate. This is kind of a good idea, but problem is that this game doesn't know when to stop vibrating—the gyrometer will buzz violently for upwards of ten seconds when not making contact with anything. Playing this feels more like testing out adult toys than it does conducting a brain transplant.

Screenshot for Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality on PlayStation 4

Thanks to the PSVR headset, so much more of the environment can be seen, giving Surgeon Simulator: ER a real sense of place. Being able to shift perspective and move within the limits of the PS Camera's vision is just enough space to get better angles of the patients to have better control over the surgery. All of this is would be great if it weren't for the fact the bounding boxes for the surgeon's hands were not so misleading and inconsistent. The deceptive hit boxes around the hands are so egregious that it would probably be easier to perform these surgeries in real life than it is here. The surgeon's hands resemble the hands of a psychotic serial killer; beefy, thick and powerful looking hands. The kind of hands that strangle the life out of his victims... which is not that far off what most people will be doing in this game, but with less strangling, since it is so easy to abuse and mistreat the patients. It becomes a laughable farce that it is downright hilarious—and charming, even—that Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality reaches such outlandish heights.

At the end of the day, beneath its madcap exterior, this is still not a fun game, because even with the latest in virtual reality and motion controls, it still is one of the most difficult games to control. This time there is no excuse for such poor controls, instead it is poor playability. The novelty of fumblecore has long since faded, now, and here Surgeon Simulator had a chance to be a real game and show the potential of VR. There is still amusing fun to be had, but it is skin deep and lacks substance, since controlling is still a nightmare.

Screenshot for Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality on PlayStation 4

Cubed3 Rating

5/10
Rated 5 out of 10

Average

Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality is improved over its vanilla version. Clearly, playing with the DualShock 4 controller is just not the best way to play this game, and the PSVR and PS Move controllers were a step in the right direction. Sadly, the lack of polish keeps it from being a worthwhile purchase yet again. It is slightly more playable than it was before, but the new problems of faux feedback and bugginess stop this "sim" from being more than just an ironic joke on the customer.

Developer

Bossa

Publisher

Bossa Studios

Genre

Simulation

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  5/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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