Zero Caliber 2 Overview – Made for Multiplayer

TL;DR for Zero Caliber 2
(performed on a Meta Quest 3 128 GB mannequin)

Grasp Sergeant Blake “The Blood-Sword” Hunter is a embellished U.S. Military Particular Forces NCO that does taking pictures unhealthy guys ‘til they’re lifeless manner good.

Graduating prime of his class within the SFQC, Grasp Sergeant Hunter has spent almost 20 years as a pacesetter within the SOF group, fostering an ethos of kicking ass on a regular basis, arduous.

His in-field tactical genius and heroic valor was demonstrated unequivocally when—deep undercover in a high-profile intelligence operation in Afghanistan—Hunter frickin’ exploded so many helicopters Commando-style and didn’t even get unhappy or cry as soon as.

For his bravery in motion, Grasp Sergeant Hunter earned the Silver Star and a number of V units.

His double-barreled neon-fuschia cheetah print grenade launcher is presently on show on the Nationwide Infantry Museum in Colombus, Georgia.

Navy sim mechanics meet tacky motion film antics in XREAL Video games’ Zero Caliber 2.

This addictive VR shooter is a paradox: Immaturely mature, it barks foolish previous songs via terse lips and gritted enamel.

CAMPAIGN

Zero Caliber 2 is—in its bones—a hefty, brutal, and reasonable navy shooter.

Your character “sprints” as if he’s carrying 100 kilos of substances, conserving his vitality for a protracted firefight. The lifelike sound and recoil from firing your weapon drive a degree of focus and immersion past mere point-and-shoot. And aiming down a barrel right into a scope or iron sights is exact, relying firmly by yourself regular hand. 

In brief, controlling your character in Zero Caliber 2 is videogame realism executed proper.

There’s a problem to beat and it feels earned as a result of it feels actual. It feels human.

Sadly, these deep and immersive controls are juxtaposed to—and condemned to exploring—a shallow story with shallow characters. The entire thing seems like enjoying Battlefield in a pubescent boy’s hazy reminiscence of a John McTiernan film. It’s a rough-and-tumble navy sim exploration of Crew America: World Police, however seemingly much less self conscious.

My expertise of Zero Caliber 2’s single-player marketing campaign was one in every of fixed, trickling hope, dripping off right into a vacuum of close to equally fixed disappointment.

Hope, as a result of the controls are at all times good.

It hardly issues what weapon you have got, it feels attention-grabbing to shoot it. And there are such a lot of weapons and attachments to seek out and check out. It’s a cavalcade of various load-outs to construct in numerous methods, modular to an absurd diploma.

Actually, nearly each attachment can go on nearly each gun: 

Laser-sighted shotgun with a banana clip? Yup!

Sizzling pink Sniper-scoped .45 with a bipod? Certain factor!

You keep in mind that double-barreled grenade launcher remark I made within the first bit?

That’s actual. That’s an choice in Zero Caliber 2.

This sheer breadth of differing weapons permits for fashion, character, and ability expression and all of it feels good to manage.

Sure—in case your play-through is like mine has been—these oh-so-satisfying controls will ask persistently with each dulcet kablam “what might you and I do collectively in a greater marketing campaign?”

Earlier than I keep it up in my essential obligation of airing my gripes with Zero Caliber 2 although, pricey reader, let me guarantee you that I—in reality—like this sport. Sounds unusual, I’m certain, given the snarky tirade above but it surely’s true and I would like you to keep in mind that going ahead.

And we’ll get to the enjoyment it brings me. However for now, my wrath continues.

I’ve defined that the sport’s tight controls are wasted in its lackluster marketing campaign.

However why is the marketing campaign lackluster?

O, reader, let me depend the methods!

Zero Caliber 2 hits you with a tried and true method: Kill enemies to maneuver via ranges.

However!
The!
Enemies!
Are!
Dangerous on the sport!

The only-player AI is terrible.

They ceaselessly get caught in loops, taking pictures at nothing or operating right into a wall.

They don’t perceive cowl until they’re at unambiguously lengthy distances, ceaselessly “hiding” such that every one however a sliver of their physique is uncovered; ready idly in plain view.

And they don’t pursue you by any means.

Now this by itself—in my opinion—hurts immersion. They’ve received me outgunned and operating, but when I pull the previous crouch-behind-a-box maneuver they’re all simply going to attend there for me?
GoldenEye had this AI sorted in 1997.

I imply Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde have been haunting Pac-Man’s labyrinth with their very own distinct pursuit patterns for over forty years now!

And this problem turns into notably egregious given the acquainted Name of Obligation-style well being regeneration Zero Caliber 2 makes use of, requiring you to be out of fight for only some seconds earlier than therapeutic fully.

So now we now have a sport wherein popping in to kill just a few enemies after which turning a nook to freely heal—realizing that you just’re undoubtedly protected to take action—is simply as optimum as it’s tedious. 

PRESENTATION

The remainder of the problems I’ve with the marketing campaign are extra… let’s gently say “aesthetically minded”.

Whereas ranges really feel distinct from one another, sections of ranges are sometimes simply copy-pasted; the identical buildings and rooms and layouts are rotated a bit, barely shuffled, and repurposed time after time. It’s blatant boring padding.

This is applicable to ornament as properly. Each TV shows both a static newsroom display that simply says “breaking information” or the identical repeating unhealthy man propaganda poster.

Alright. I assume I’ve introduced up the unhealthy guys. This seems like pretty much as good a time as any to get into it.

Right here it comes, gang.

The woke gaming intelligentsia is about to name one thing problematic. 

Now if media literacy isn’t your bag then be at liberty to skip ahead to the “MULTIPLAYER” heading just a few paragraphs down the place we’ll dive again into the gameplay. In any other case bundle up, as a result of Winter’s come early for this snowflake.

This sport—let’s assume unconsciously—pushes a xenophobic mindset of American exceptionalism and it’s not even refined. The USA (now known as the OSA, or “Outer States of America”) has been invaded by international powers whose solely actual id is that they’re international. Enemy troopers don thick accents starting from all around the spectrum of opposition to American hegemony:

You’ve received your traditional Russian. You’ve received your vaguely Arab. You’ve received a really dead-on Ganado from Resident Evil 4 (which is to say vaguely Hispanic.) And naturally—within the position of the primary baddy, Barak—you’ve received America’s very first enemy, Mummy England.

With the G.I. Joe-like 80s motion film sensibilities of Zero Caliber 2, the primary enemy was at all times going to be a hissing Brit. It doesn’t matter that the enemy regime, the Tlaloki, explicitly grew out of Latin America. 

No, as a result of even on this prepper moist dream the place American soil is invaded by a hostile drive composed of a special ethnic majority, all of the company nonetheless belongs to Western Imperialism; the apparent and default stewards of the longer term!

The unconscious assumption about who has the ability to harm us is at all times Mummy.

Mummy doesn’t perceive us, however she’s nonetheless highly effective. She’s nonetheless Mummy.

“Oh, but when the chief of the unhealthy guys was Latin American you’d be crying xenophobia then, too!” you say, full-saluting the Raytheon inventory ticker.

However right here’s the factor, patriot. There are many video games with barely fictionalized universes the place America fights a international enemy. Now, that kind of hoo-rah flag wrapping isn’t to my style as you’ll have guessed. But when that’s the selection a sport author goes to make then they need to at the very least give that international enemy its due company. Don’t write it into existence after which write away its self-determination.

It’s simply not a fantastic look in 2024 making all of the lackeys racialized, however not the boss.

Now I really needed to let all this slide. In any case, gaming is supposed to be an escape from this kind of miserable and fixed political rhetoric. Sure, I needed to let it slide and would have if it weren’t for 3 issues:

1. A client’s want to retreat from essential thought into media is when media’s ideological imprint is its strongest. It’s hypnotizing when you don’t strategy it consciously.
2. No one else appears to be speaking about this sport’s barely hid xenophobia in any respect, which is totally wild when you think about that-
3. This is the enemy’s flag.

Certain, there’s a completely cheap in-universe rationale for this black face in a feathered headdress with machine weapons for ears to be the image of the enemy. However on the finish of the day it simply makes me uncomfortable to play as an American soldier killing myriad racial caricatures who struggle below the banner of the final racial caricature.

Curiously, XREAL Video games relies out of Hungary. My guess is that Zero Caliber 2 is a love letter to that John McTiernanesque period of cartoonish Americana. However nothing in the way in which the characters are written, or within the presentation of the sport as an entire, implies any kind of self consciousness to its tacky execution.

I discover myself wishing that the sport was extra visually stylized—a la Crew Fortress 2—to each make up for the Meta Quest 3’s graphical limitations and lean in additional to its two-dimensional characters and story.

Moreover, for a sport that fairly often makes your objective “go blow that up”, the visuals on explosions are simply unhappy. 

MULTIPLAYER

Criticisms towards its presentation apart, Zero Caliber 2 stands out in its terrific gunplay, which shines notably in its PVP multiplayer; simply one of the best a part of the sport.

Enjoying on launch, I encountered FPS fanatics sharing their opinions of the sport over the Quest’s built-in automated voice chat (conveniently proximity-based for enemies, however world for allies.)

These fanatics typically touted that whereas sure options and sport modes are absent on this title, the gunplay and customization alone made up for that lack when in comparison with different top-level VR shooters like Pavlov Shack.

Multiplayer is a pleasure throughout; balanced to a level that enables for competitiveness on the one hand, and ridiculous and excessive builds on the opposite. It takes the entire glorious mechanics of the sport and faces you in opposition to enemies who truly current a menace.

That mentioned—as was defined to me by a very difficult opponent who couldn’t have been older than twelve—it’s essential that you just play at the very least a number of the marketing campaign to earn in-game foreign money. If you happen to don’t you then’ll be caught with the comparatively weak default weapons, asking the kids who kill you why you possibly can’t appear to keep away from a destructive KD ratio.

That includes top-notch gunplay, participating customizaton, and excellent sound design, Zero Caliber 2 makes up for its lacklustre and tone deaf single participant marketing campaign with a dynamic and aggressive multiplayer mode that stored me coming again for extra.

Thanks solely to its addictive multiplayer, Zero Caliber 2 will get a 7/10.

Scoring & Rubric

Scores are out of 10, wright here 10 is a masterpiece, 1 is unplayable, and 5 is simply common.
Gameplay is weighed heavier within the general rating.

Gameplay – 7
Immersion – 6
Visuals – 6
Sound – 10
Efficiency – 9
Replayability – 7