Headmaster
SHORT REVIEW: PS4 VR
I can confirm Headmaster is not a product intent on removing dead skin from your scalp.
Heading a football coming at you at pace has the potential to hurt. Luckily, within the world of virtual reality you can’t feel pain, yet.
An entire game based upon the concept of letting a football bounce off your head sounds like a great way to test Sony’s fancy-pants technology.
Where do we start then?
Darkness; you look up to the stars. Floodlights spring into action with a weighty thud and you are shocked to find yourself on a football pitch within a prison. A simple introduction to any game, but elevated in Virtual Reality. You look around and notice the goal in front of you, the birds flying overhead and try not to stare into the floodlights themselves. Headmaster is a fine example of immersive VR, all we need now is Smell-O-Vision. An announcer prepares you for the enviable.
Congratulations! No, not you. Me for getting that trophy.
A ball flies over the goal towards your head. Forget any tutorial, as you instinctively head it just like you would in real life. It works. IT WORKS DAMMIT! Time to get fancy, you flick a header to the side, next you power it out the park. The trackings responsive and smacking the ball with your head feels great. This is of the few VR games I’m confident in saying, you won’t be feeling sickly by the end of it. If you do… bloody hell. Bad luck mate.
The game progresses, targets appear and a scoring systems introduced. The level ideas come thick and fast and the announcer takes that familiar authoritarian comedy tone. It works well. There are around 40-odd stages; complete with 4 taxing exams and explaining what happens next would be entering spoilsport territory and a deserved slap around the face. Discovery is half the fun.
I often call the featured image to an article “something header”, in this case the featured image is “headmaster-header” – OH HOW WE LAUGHED!
See that thing in the air? See that big rectangle thing in the distance? You work it out.
Headmaster is accessible, fun and controller free (I’ll admit, that sounds a bit filthy). Yes, you can even play it whilst sitting on your arse, you lazy sod. Although simple the later stages are taxing and completionists will enjoy the challenge.
So, you’ve burned through the stages as quickly as possible? When is the agreeable time to shrug and snort, “is that it then?” For the sum of £15.99 there is a danger you could feel short changed.
Screens looking a tad busy isn’t it?
Surprisingly Headmaster enjoys a decent multiplayer mode in which each player tackles a lengthy single stage, with the goal to set the highest score possible. It works well, as each player swaps out the headset to rigorously clean the lenses before whooping at each other’s misfortune. Unfortunately there is only the one multiplayer course. There is hope as further stages hold the tagline “coming soon”. It wouldn’t take much to reappropriate the existing levels into multiplayer, but we can only review what we have in front of us and we want more dammit.
There isn’t anything quite like Headmaster, it is utterly unique.
Yes, you can breeze through the stages, but the true challenge is 3 starring each level and acing that final exam. Or you can simply enjoy the thrill of smacking the ball into the top corner of the net.
Fun to show off to a crowd and capable of keeping the attention of the discerning, possibly handsome solo player; Headmaster has bundles of charm to go with its simple premise. At least for now…
If further multiplayer stages don’t appear anytime soon, you might consider this a 7.
Let’s hope Headmaster doesn’t gather digitally dust.