Loading Human is a VR title that takes place in the 22nd century. You play as a scientist named Prometheus who is tasked by his dying father to recover the most powerful energy source in the universe, called the ‘Quintessence,’ that can reverse the aging process. Each of the game’s levels takes place at a different point in Prometheus’ memories. There are currently three chapters scheduled for this title, and I played a portion of Loading Human: Chapter 1 at E3 this year on the PlayStation VR headset with twin PlayStation Move controllers.
I started the Loading Human demo looking at myself, as Prometheus in a mirror. After shaving my face, I quickly began to explore the abandoned place where I was in and I began to solve puzzles. The two biggest things that struck me all throughout this demo was 1) How I could go anywhere on the map and 2) How I could literally pick up and move anything. The Move Button and the undertrigger button on each controller were the only buttons I needed to use to both move anywhere and to pick up an item. At first, I had a lot of difficulty figuring out how to use the Move controllers to manipulate objects (such as a cane in order to solve a puzzle or how to utilize an electric razor to clean my face), but, by the end of the demo, I had it mostly figured out.
The world and environment, even though this game is still in development, was beautiful. The environments felt realistic and I loved how I could interact with almost anything that I could see. I was picking up everything from books to keycards to opening drawers in random pieces of furniture that had no particular purpose other than to help enliven the game world and add character to it.
The movement system in the game is accomplished by pointing the Move controller in a direction and pressing down a button in order to walk that way. If you want to go another direction, you point in that direction and then hold down the move button again. If you want to turn completely around, you aim the Move controller over your shoulder and click once. It was very intuitive, and I got the hang of it by the end of the demo. Most importantly, I did not feel any symptoms of motion sickness after playing. Moving within Loading Human: Chapter 1 felt fluid and it felt great.
As I solved a series of puzzles throughout the level that ranged from manipulating objects in my environment to figuring out an electrical grid to make all the panel lights come on at once, I delved deeper and deeper until I finally found this girl, Alice, frozen. It was then that the demo unfortunately ended.
For those of you that backed Loading Human on Kickstarter and are wondering if this game is going to live up to what you hoped for, then you are hopefully not going to be disappointed. Loading Human: Chapter 1 is a fantastic blend of both story content and showing the potential of the PlayStation VR, and I personally cannot wait for the game to become available for release.
All images were provided courtesy of Maximum Games.
Are you looking forward to Loading Human: Chapter 1? Did you back the Kickstarter? Let us know in the comments below!
