DETECTIVE VR Review – Way Too Much Jank For Its Own Good…
When this was announced a while back, I immediately hoped it would capture the spirit of the original Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? games from the 80s and 90s — a series I’ve genuinely missed ever since they skipped the Amiga as a supported platform.
Detective VR actually starts off pretty well. Handtracking was one of its big selling points, and little did I know it would also be the only control option. Handtracking can be cool, but using it for all movement is downright annoying — actually, it’s annoying for any movement, as I quickly discovered while playing this otherwise promising game.
Movement is teleportation‑based and node‑based, with each location being a semi‑small room. You either search the crime scene for clues or stand at your puzzle board analysing blood traces, fingerprints, and signatures. On paper, this sounds like a perfect match for hand tracking. In practice, it’s a disaster. While trying to analyse evidence or move the board, I kept teleporting around the room because pinching your fingers is the movement input. It drove me nuts. The jank completely shattered the immersion the game otherwise does a great job building.
Grabbing pictures, tapes, and clues works fine, but this kind of jank is exactly what ruined so many PS VR games back in the Move‑controller era. So why not just let players use analogue sticks for movement? Or at least give us the option. Forcing hand tracking as the only control scheme feels like a massive oversight.
I want to like this game. It looks good, and the first two crime scenes and puzzles are genuinely solid. But I had to stop playing because the jank kept pulling me out of the experience and killing the fun.
The game appears to run at 120Hz reprojected, and honestly, a title like this should easily hit native 120Hz. There’s no Platinum trophy, and replay value seems limited if you’re thorough during your first run.
VERDICT…
Great concept, strong presentation, but the forced hand tracking and movement jank hold it back from being the detective VR experience it could’ve been; fixing the control option to use normal VR controls would have easily made it an 8 out of 10 for me.
If the developer fixes this, then I will happily re-review the game. Fingers Crossed. 5 Out Of 10.
Key Supplied by the Publisher/Developer.