Pistol Whip

Pistol Whip is a game that caught my eye quite some time ago but 25 price tag was something I wasn't willing to pay for it. While browsing Oculus store though I noticed I could download the game for free and try it out. 5 minutes in I was sure I'd actually snap buy this game.

No description of the game can actually prepare you for how cool the game actually is. You might read reviews that state this is Beat Saber and Superhot combined. I couldn't imagine how these two games would actually create a different game but after putting some thought in it and actually experiencing the game I came to the same conclusion. (my view on Beat Saber and Superhot is different than what you'll probably read in reviews so I had to change my point of view quite a lot)

Pistol Whip is a first person shooter with a twist or two. It's an FPS game in terms of you actually shooting enemies but it's nothing like Counter Strike. You 'fly' through a level automatically and dodge enemy shots and shoot at enemies that fired those. The first (Beat Saber-ish) twist is that in order to get a good score you actually need to shoot on beat. For those that are used to shoot on sight this is something that may take a while getting used to. You need to shoot at a specific moment that you can hear unless you are rhythm deaf like me. The second (Superhot-ish) twist is avoiding bullets. In this game the bullets shot at you do not travel fast. They travel rather slowly and you have a lot of time to spot them and dodge them. This can result in very Matrix-like motion and actually it feels that great too. Your body might not be accustomed to these movements so it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll feel sore the next day wondering what muscles you used to play this game.

If you wonder why this game is named Pistol Whip, you can actual pistol whip your enemies when they are close which nets you the maximum points for the kill. This is rarely used though with the exception of one level/map.

There are several songs you can play each having 3 difficulties - easy, normal, hard. With each difficulty the number of enemies gets higher which means more shooting and more avoiding bullets. If playing on hard is too easy you can turn on some mods that will make the game more difficult and it will provide you harder or different challenge (there are mods that can make it easier as well).

Recently, a cinematic campaign was added for free and I have to say that this content is really great. It takes 25 minutes to go through, has a story and a nice boss fight in the last stage. It shows the true potential of the game and I hope more content like this whether free or paid will follow.

Verdict: Pistol Whip is a good combination of shooting and a rhythm-based game. The content was rather limited at launch but several songs and a cinematic campaign were added, all for free, which now makes it worth the 25 bucks I paid for it. The music genre I'd probably describe as EDM. All the songs sound very similar to me. If you like playing rhythm games to enjoy the music you should probably check out the music. first. Getting good at Pistol Whip means playing over and over the several limited number of tracks, not liking the music may make the experience not that great.

I'd say that this is a perfect game for parties and introducing people to VR because the game is easy to play (thanks to assisted aiming anyone can hit) and probably won't cause much motion sickness since there is no locomotion involved.

It's a fun game, nice workout and it takes a while to master if that's what you want.

S'Tsung (stsungjp @ Twitter)