Sports Scramble Review

Sports scramble is a perfect example of a game that has a lot more going for it then just what the trailer may imply. Its easily one of the games i was most skeptical of when it came to the launch line up. Thankfully i'm able to say its one of the better titles out there from the Oculus Quest launch line up but whether its worth its asking price is going to be dependent on you, how about we take a deeper look beginning with objective and game-play.

Sports scramble is more a collection of three sports and as such doesn't really have an over all objective. There are trophies to collect by completing goals set out by the game and it also has a trophy room to look at the ones you've achieved. Each sport has 3 activities to complete within, those being training, challenges, and quick-play well expand more on those later in the review. When it comes to gameplay each sport has a scramble aspect to them where ball and equipment change through out a match. Every sport handles really well with each having its own control scheme so lets break them down.

Bowling can be played with a relatively small space and doesn't really benefit all to much from room scale. It offers two control methods for throwing the ball. The first a casual one where it throws with your motion automatically and the second a standard one where you have to release the grip button yourself and allows for more control of the ball and yes you can spin the ball for style points. In bowling the bowling balls and stage can scramble and your awarded certain ball types when you preform a strike, spare or turkey.

Next up lets take a look at baseball, another game where room scale doesn't add much to it. You get to both swing the bat and pitch a ball. The pitching comes with two control schemes, one where you can aim your ball via the analog stick and the second where your aim is dependent completely on how you throw. Batting is fairly straight forward and works exactly as you would expect it to. The scramble aspect here changes based on the pitchers throws and whether the bat hits certain ball types that transform the bat. The batter on the other hand can upgrade baseball bat by being consistent at hitting the balls thrown, just watch out not to hit a ball that changes your bat completely.

The last sport is tennis and this one certainly benefits from a room scale environment. The game plays fine in a small space as well but for the best immersion a large play space can have you moving around the court. There's only one control scheme here and works exactly as you would expect it to. The scramble aspect revolves around targets spawning in the center and hitting them for activation. Scramble here effects the net, the ball, and your racket.

As stated before the game-play is solid it all handles well and thankfully provides various options to accommodate most players of different skill levels. Now that you got a good understanding of how it plays lets move on to features and content.

Sports scrambles comes with 3 sports in total each having 3 game modes. Training is you introduction to the sport itself and how it plays, it does a really great job at showing you the ropes to each one. Quick-play, which lets you jump right into a match, quick-play allows for all sorts of match settings as well, if you want you can disable the the individual scramble types or just play a regular game of your chosen sport, it also allows you to dictate just how long you want to play by adjusting points to win, rounds and so on. Lastly challenge mode is the one I found to be a pleasant surprise. For example tennis turns into a beat saber like game where your equipped with two rackets color coded red and blue in which you have to hit the matching colored tennis balls. Baseball has its home run derby all about trying to score as many home runs as possible within a given time frame and lastly bowling has this neat space invaders like mini game where you have to bowl while destroying invaders before they get to you from down the lane. These challenges provide a neat diversion from the regular play and also really help improve your skill in these games. The game also features an online quick-play if you can get into a match. It supports voice chat and also has a friend invite feature if you rather play with just friends. The game provides support for both right and left handed users and as stated before some modes provide a casual and pro input method if you rather have more control. Next lets discuss visuals and immersion

Visually speaking sports scramble is beautiful, everything from its main menu where you get a top down view of the sports scramble world, to its stadiums where you play each sport. There's a lot to see and take in for each environment. The equipment itself looks fantastic up close. I was really impressed by its visuals and art style which goes a long way on the Oculus Quest. When it comes to immersion its very easy to get lost in the game since your actively involved in it. Tennis is an absolute blast especially if you have room scale play as an option. Bowling and baseball are just as fun and immersive. Over all they did a fantastic job here. The sense of scale really kicks in when looking around the stadiums and the way each ball type reacts to the equipment in your hand really helps sell that immersion even more.

To conclude Sports scramble is great fun, easy to understand and easy to pick up and play. The sports included are great, the scramble aspect really makes this a fun experience and is a unique twist. With that said I really appreciate that they added a way to turn off the scramble aspect for those who rather play a regular game. The game itself is certainly fun but the real question is whether its worth its price tag. Frankly speaking I believe it is but I also understand its certainly not worth it for others. Without the addition of a championship mode or tournament mode the game really depends on your drive to want to play it. If your the type of player who likes to be given a direction to head in this really wont do that for you. While there are trophies and challenges to mix it up there isn't a campaign of sorts to keep you motivated other then your own drive to do so. One thing I will say though is that sports scramble makes for a fantastic title to introduce people to virtual reality. The game-play feels great, and I would go as far to say that it really could be the evolution of wii sports if it were built for VR.

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