First Impressions: Ultrawings (OQ2/MQ)

Ultrawings

Systems: Windows, HTC Vive, PlayStation 4, Oculus Quest 2/Meta Quest

Release Date: April 30, 2019

Publisher: Bit Planet Games, LLC

Developer: Bit Planet Games, LLC

I had tried to come up with a clever way of giving the false impression that I had managed to get Pilotwings 64 from the N64 on the Oculus Quest 2, because that really is what Ultrawings feels like.  Albeit with a healthy dose of motion sickness if you bank too hard and/or crash your ultralight into the surrounding ocean.

I have currently* only played through the first set of six missions for licensing the ultralight plane which take you through the basics of flying an ultralight plane.  Each mission is progressively more difficult, or at the very least, throws a new gameplay mechanic at you making your spat around the island a little bit more interesting and more complicated than your previous mission.  Your first mission: just take off.  That is it.  Your second mission is to fly through a ring that is pretty much right in front of the runway.  Your third mission: Do all that same stuff again, but this time, you have to fly through multiple rings; it sounds pretty easy, and it really is, but it is a great introduction to the game and allows you to find a setting that is comfortable for you.  I feel it also sets up the player's expectations that just because the game is starting you out with the ultralight, which might be the least complicated of the planes you fly in this game, by no means does it mean that this is an easy vehicle to pilot.

From what I can tell, there are two sets of setting to potentially help curb motions sickness.  The first is how you control your plane, with either Arcade controls which, I think, are just simplified controls, and Simulator which has you interacting more with the switches, dials, and levers while flying your aircraft; either that or Simulator controls comes into effect with the more advanced aircraft.  Maybe?  After the first license mission, I switched the settings to Simulator because that just seemed more fun, but I honestly could not tell you the difference in the ultralight.  The second setting, Comfort Mode, is how much you can see out of your light and airy ultralight.  The default setting has a covering over the areas of the plane you are not directly looking through which helps focus your eyesight, something I have seen in other VR games like Epic Roller Coasters and Rush.  The "Clear" setting allows you to see out of the corner of your virtual eyes what is in your peripheral, which can cause some motion sickness, especially when you are performing a sharp banking turn and your head is not following the path of the plane.  The "None" setting completely opens up the cockpit giving you the widest view of everything.  I like to stick with the middle setting, at least for now and with the ultralight because I have gotten a little nauseous while making banking turns and seeing the horizon turn 90 degrees in either direction while sitting on our comfortable couch in our non moving house.

Like Pilotwings 64, you are scored by how well you perform each task, be it how close through the center of a ring you are able to fly, or how well you can fly through a certain number of rings and land within a set amount of time.  Completion of missions awards you money based on your ranking (Gold/Silver/Bronze) that you can use to buy access to additional islands, which I am told is also how you can gain access to additional aircraft (currently I only have the ultralight).  Even after earning gold on all of the Licensing starter missions, you do not earn enough to buy your first island, priced at a reasonable $7,000, which makes a certain amount of sense that the developers want the player to actually play several missions before jumping into a new and exciting aircraft.  I personally would rather have fewer planes to get used to all of the finer mechanics than feel overwhelmed with an unfamiliar system in a more advanced plane and not have fun because I did not learn the basics.  That is just me though but I could understand the other point of view as well.  Just let me get a jet and do barrel rolls!

I bring up motion sickness because I feel like that is something you should do when talking about VR games.  The Oculus Store gives Ultrawings a comfort rating of Moderate, which I take to mean that there are instances when the game can be pretty intense as far as the player feeling queasy and might need to stop. For reference, Death Lap, even playing with some of the comfort settings, still made me pretty nauseous after a couple of minutes.  I have taken to playing either on a chair on sitting on the couch because you are sitting in the plane, it helps with my mindset if I am already sitting because standing in real life while your virtual self is sitting is a bit of a disconnect and coupled on top of all that with your real-life inner ear telling you one thing while your virtual inner ear is screaming at you that you need to follow line of sight while banking that hard, especially while using the rudder to fight a strong headwind so you can score the 8 points while flying through that target.  So the fewer mental distractions I have to combat the easier it is to not be nauseous.

Currently, I have only a couple of gripes.  The first is that there is a little bit of a learning curve in that the game does not explain all of the functions of the plane.  Like what does the Magneto switch do?  I get that the fuel switch allows fuel to flow into the engine part that drinks petrol and that you probably have to turn it off when you get your plane refueled.  But then I am unsure if you can quit missions in the middle?  If that functionality exists, it is more than pressing the pause button and clicking "Restart?"*.  I have found myself wanting to quit missions a few times, usually when I am replaying a mission to specifically get the gold medal, which typically requires you to get the +8 pt bullseyes on all of the targetable targets, and if you miss one for any reason (fly past, eek out into the +6 pt range as you pass through, etc).  When this has happened, I know that I do not want to finish the mission because why waste that time when I could just restart and actually get the gold?  So instead of having a pause/restart option, I end up having to dive the ultralight into the ocean, which is mentally less intimidating than flying it into the ground.  It is just a quality of life thing that I wish existed, or if it does exist, was easier to navigate to.

I have not looked too far into the game or its original trailers to see what all of the available vehicles are, but the game description says that there are four planes. I do not think it exists in Ultrawings, but I would be beyond thrilled if Bit Planet Games did incorporate the canon mini-game from Pilotwings 64, because again, Ultrawings really does feel a lot like a VR version of Pilotwings 64.  And if not here, then maybe it could be in their sequel, Ultrawings 2 which was recently released on the Oculus store in early February.  But for the time being, I am going to enjoy flying my ultralight between islands, or at least until my fuel runs out and I make my sorry excuse for a landing.  Just like Pilotwings 64.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
In the Sun, In My Disgrace


*P.S.  Since I first wrote this article, I managed to not only buy an airstrip on the starting island, but an airstrip on the Caldera Island too and have gained access to the Glider which took quite a bit getting used to.  I also did figure out how to exit out of a mission I was failing, which was in fact as easy as pressing start, then clicking "Home" on the datapad to the right in the cockpit.  I do wish though that there was a restart option instead of having to go back to the main office, clicking back to the mission you previously attempted, clicking "Accept," and clicking on the Helmet just to get back to where you want to be.  I get it for semi-immersions sake, but I wish it was a little more streamlined.