Robo Recall is a free wave-based First-Person Shooter for Oculus Rift. It is one of the free games received for purchasing an Oculus and could be considered the headset's Tech-Demo Game as a result. It was developed by Epic Games, Oculus Studios, and can be found in the Oculus Rift Store.
The basic plot is that someone or something is corrupting the Robo-Ready robots deployed in... some city. It's not really clear, nor is the rest of the plot important, for that matter! All you really need to know is that a bunch of robots are going crazy, and it's up to you to stop them- for you are a Robo Recaller, armed with an experimental portable teleporter, tons of very big guns, and a bad attitude.
Gameplay is standard-fare for VR shooters, but the major twist is that the game has a combo system in-place. You can earn extra points all sorts of ways, and the game emphasizes fast reactions, skillful play, and variety.
Robo Recall contains the following tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot and Robot War: The game begins with commercial robots start attacking humans after receiving a strange transmission.
- Deloris also qualifies for actually being Odin the entire time.
- Boring, but Practical: You start with dual Pistols and dual Shotguns, and will never actually need to switch off of them. The pistol is effective at a decent range, and you can melt through anything at close range with the shotguns, meaning that the Rifle and Revolver are somewhat redundant. Luckily, they're fun to use.
- Combos: Emphasized by the combat system. The game reward doing things in succession, such as multiple kills, juggling, and so on. Keeping up a fast pace and recalling several robots in a row results in a higher and higher score multiplier.
- Deadly Euphemism: A heroic variant: trashing bots and tearing out their defective chips is referred to as "recalling" them by your A.I partner.
- Flash Step: Like most VR first person games, the player moves by pointing and then teleporting, possibly to mitigate motion sickness.
- Guns Akimbo: Dual pistols or dual shotguns, take your pick.
- Laser Sight: An upgrade for your guns. It's surprisingly useful as it allows you to see exactly where your bullets are going to land, combine with the apparent lack of recoil...
- Rule of Cool: The universe seems to operate in this, with you be able to throw around and flip guns, also catch bullets and throw them back.
- Slow Motion: Used judiciously to help the player adjust to a newly teleported location.
- Teleportation Spam: The intended use of your teleporting abilities. By moving around rapidly, enemies will have a hard time hitting you. This is further incentivized by the half second of slow-mo while coming out of a teleport to help you adjust your aim.
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Underused Game Mechanic: If you toss a weapon into an enemy, it will bounce off, completely reloaded. While this could be a fun gameplay mechanic in and of itself, it's so underused that the game will only tell you this feature exists in a hint screen.
