Today I have been gifted a key to play “Doctor Who: The Edge of Time”, a virtual reality experience based on the popular TV serie “Doctor Who”. It’s my second time playing a VR experience starring Doctor Who (the first time has been in Qingdao when I reviewed “Doctor Who: The Runaway”), and that’s pretty curious considering that I have never seen a single episode of the serie. I may not know Doctor Who very well, but I know something about VR, so let me tell you my impressions on this experience!

The story (contains mild spoilers)

The story is the typical story of a Doctor Who episode: you are just a random person doing the laundry in a laundromat, when the Doctor appears on a TV screen there and tells you that time has been hacked by a Reality Virus, and that she is trapped somewhere and you have to rescue her and defeat the virus, if you don’t want the universe to vanish.

Because of the virus, reality starts having some glitches, and in the washing machines you now find some black jelly monsters with multiple eyes. You so start following the instructions of the energetic doctor, that talks you through whatever electronic device (a TV, a radio, etc…) and instructs you how to escape that place and go back to the TARDIS.

After you arriva at the Doctor’s headquarters, she will explain what you have to do to save the planet, the universe, whatever. To save everything you will need to find three crystals, and to find them, you will have to travel in space and time, living interesting adventures. But you won’t be alone, the Doctor will somehow guide you all the time.

If you are a fan of the series, it is cool that you find yourself immersed in a story that is very similar to the ones of its many episodes, as the main character. This immersion is also enhanced by the fact that the voice of Doctor Who in this VR experience is exactly the same that you could hear in TV: the one of the great Jodie Whittaker.

Since I am not a fan of the serie, I have not had this moment of delight, but I found the story enjoyable the same. Anyway, I think that the plot was also a bit flimsy, in the sense that there is not much plot, just the minimum to justify you going on an adventure.

Gameplay

This laundromat is where everything starts (Image by Maze Theory)

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time is a puzzle experience. To advance in the story you have to solve various puzzles: after you have solved one, you advance a bit, until you find a new one, and you go forward this way until the game is over. Most of the time, you have exactly clear what is your goal at each step, and the game goes on on a de facto binary. This helps in avoiding that the player becomes frustrated from not understanding what he should do, but at the same makes the experience a bit predictable.

In many ways, it remembered me Red Matter, with the difference that in Red Matter there was a more intriguing story that unfolded while I played it, and some enigma were tougher.

The conundrums in Doctor Who are most of the time quite easy to do. The problem may be most of the times understanding what you have to do. For instance, in the beginning, the Doctor told me to take an antenna from the walls, but I could see no antenna in any place I could reach, so I got frustrated. In the end, the Doctor explained to me what I had to do, and only after that, I understood I was asked to use the sonic screwdriver to solve the situation.

This was worsened by the fact that I had some troubles in understanding the English spoken by The Doctor, because often the audio was distorted to emulate her speaking through radios, TVs, headphones and such. If you’re not a Native English speaker, this may be a problem for you as well.

As someone has already written online, the puzzles don’t seem particularly tailored to this experience, but are completely random. I mean, you could have seen the same puzzles in whatever other VR adventure: sometimes you have to remember the order of a sequence, another time you have to find the code of a safe by looking behind photos (a cliché in VR experiences), etc… Nothing feels particularly original or very specific in this sense.

Let’s get back to the TARDIS! (Image by Maze Theory)

If you don’t know how to solve something, or you are stuck, the Doctor will talk with you and will give you some hints on how to solve the situation. That’s great on one side, because she helps the player in not getting lost, but it’s frustrating on the other side, because if you can’t even solve the problem using her cue, you not only are frustrated by being stuck, but you also have her annoying voice repeating the same sentence forever and ever every 40 seconds or such.

You solve the puzzles using your bare hands or the famous sonic screwdriver, that activates various stuff. You can use it to open the lock of various doors, or to hack some computers for instance. For the fans of the serie, I think that the fact that you can use this famous tool is super-cool.

Regarding the setting of the game, on the contrary of “Doctor Who: The Runaway”, I found it pretty disturbing. This game is set in dark environments, that are horror-like. The mood is most of the time dark, scary. Even if most of the time you don’t meet anyone, there are always creepy sounds and the impression that something bad can happen. When at the beginning, the monsters appeared in the washing machines, I was instructed to touch them, and when I did so, one of them reacted fast and made me scared. This is not the game that I would let a kid play.

But even if everything is creepy, actually I always felt safe. I had the impression that in the end, nothing bad could happen to me, and this was reinforced by the fact that I had no bad encounters during my playtime. The experience always seemed to keep a safety bubble around me, and this completely killed the horror-vibes of the game.

Controls

The game has very easy controls: most of the time, you just use the main trigger of your controller to interact with objects. You can also use the trigger to take some objects that you have put in the inventory belt that there is below you: the sonic screwdriver is one of these tools, the one that you use the most.

There are various options to move in space: most of the time I used the thumbstick to enjoy free locomotion, but there is also the possibility of activating teleportation. The problem of the locomotion of this game is that it is damn slow. I put the speed at maximum and felt super-slow to me the same. So I tried to switch to teleportation to move faster, but actually you can only teleport 1m from you. Moving was too slow and boring, and this was frustrating when I had to move in long spaces.

Comfort

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time excels in offering a comfortable experience to its users. There are various locomotion options and various customization possibilities (e.g. changing locomotion speed), that everyone can find the settings the best suit him. When you move, the FOV gets restricted to reduce your nausea. I think that almost no one will get nauseated by playing this game.

Graphics

Look at this picture of the Doctor’s headquarters. Isn’t it incredibly cool? (Image by Maze Theory)

The graphics of this game are really cool. Hands down to its 2D and 3D artists, because they made a great job in this sense. Every environment was carefully studied and well rendered. And there were many environments, all different, and all wonderful. The attention to details was clearly noticeable.

Finding myself in front of the giant holographic head of the Doctor was a majestic experience, and so was seeing a giant alien ship upon me. I really loved the graphics.

Immersion

In this moment, I had a giant alien ship above me. It was so cool! (Image by Maze Theory)

Even if I’m not a fan of the serie, even if I found many moments frustrating, I got completely sucked in the experience, and the first time that I removed the headset to have a pause, I was shocked to see that 2 hours were passed by. This is something that absolutely surprised me. The fact that the Doctor always talks to you, that there is always something to do, the willing to solve the enigmas, made me forget about the outside world for a while. I think the game is very good in this, for sure also thanks to the great graphics.

Final impressions

I have mixed feelings about Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time. I loved being in its various well-crafted environments, and I got curious by how the story could end. The enigmas were not the best I have ever found, but they were enough to make me commit with the application. And so I got completely absorbed by the experience. I got my first diamond (out of three) after 1.5/2h of playtime, so this experience is not short at all: this is not just a demo, but a full-fledged experience.

But at the same time, I found it a bit dull and frustrating at the same time. Having the Doctor continuously speaking with me was annoying as hell, especially when she continued repeating the hints for the enigmas. The frustration was bigger also because sometimes I didn’t get what I had to do, I didn’t understand what she said, or the program misbehaved (like when I had to restart it because the sonic screwdriver vanished from my inventory o_O). The dark vibes were cool, but the fact that I felt safe all the time killed the atmosphere that they created. As Jamie of Upload has recently said, it is like this experience never exploits completely the power of virtual reality. It just puts you in a typical Doctor Who story, without going deeper in the potentialities of the technology.

The Victorian Angels are probably one of the best part of the whole experience (Image by Maze Theory)

As you can see, there are pros and cons. I think that this experience is highly recommended if you are a fan of Doctor Who because it exactly makes you feel as being part of an episode of the series. If you are not, well, you may find it enjoyable the same, but honestly speaking, there are other experiences that are made from the ground up for virtual reality that shine more. Red Matter is a clear example of that.

If you are interested in Doctor Who: The Edge of Time, you can find it on various stores like Steam for €24.99. Have fun with it, and save the universe! 😉

(Header image by Maze Theory)

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