Dr Who : The Edge Of Time is a game that's clearly been made by fans of the show, for fans of the show. It tells its own, self-contained story and to go into this in too much detail here would ruin the game for its target audience. So I'll try to avoid spoilers and talk in more general terms. But I will say, to begin with, that the game does everything that these fans (and I'm count myself as one of them, albeit lapsed) will feel should definitely be in a Dr Who VR game. Pilot the TARDIS? Check. Chat to the Doctor? Check. Meet some iconic villains? Check. Save the universe? ... Well, let's just hope so. The game is split into 5 chapters, each taking place in a different location and across different time periods. Each chapter contains its own mix of gameplay styles, usually including at least one puzzle of some kind. These puzzle sections are pretty relaxing and give a nice opportunity to explore the environments and find easter eggs. The environments themselves are very rich and detailed; I spent more than 10 minutes in one small room just reading everything and looking around. I don't think that anyone will come away disappointed by a lack of Easter eggs. I consider myself a somewhat lapsed and lax whovian, but I spotted several out in the open, and also found several slightly hidden. I'm absolutely certain that true fans will be finding a whole load that I missed.
There's more to this game than puzzles, in-jokes and references though. I was impressed and pleasantly surprised to find a mix of other gameplay styles incorporated too. There is smattering of horror (Don't Blink!), a little action and even an effective stealth sequence incorporated. None of these felt jarringly different or out of place in the narrative and they all made sense and advanced the story. The pace of each section and of the game as a whole felt right, and everything felt like it fitted within the Dr Who universe.
The game's graphics, models and textures are rich and detailed. In my LCD HMD some of the colours looked a little washed out in a few scenes, but I suspect that you won't have this issue if your headset is OLED, so this isn't a criticism of the game, but just a result of the current state of consumer VR tech. The sound design was adequate in general but really shone with the use of iconic sounds such as the TARDIS warp. Voice acting was of course top notch, as you'd expect. Performance was pretty great and I did not have any problems on my system. Personally, I did find the slow movement speed a little frustrating, but again I think this is subjective. After a session in Serious Sam with movement speed set to maximum, anything else will feel slow. I think that for a lot of the target audience the speed (or teleportation) as it is will be perfect and it'll allow VR newbies to play without worrying about getting motion sick. The vast majority of the time in this game is spent examining single locations anyway, so having a faster movement speed wouldn't really make much difference. The game took me about 3.5 hours to complete and it packs about as much of a Dr Who experience into that time as it possibly can. But it also left me wanting a lot more, which reflects very positively on its quality. 4 out of 5. If you're a Dr Who fan who has VR, this is absolutely perfect for you. And if you're a fan of puzzle and story based adventure games, then there really is plenty here for you, too.
Reviewed on PC, available on Steam here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1075400/Doctor_Who_The_Edge_Of_Time/ , and also available on PSVR.
About Me : Gaming vet, been at it since not long after computer gaming was invented. I played a pong rip off on the family TV back when pong was futuristic. I played VR vs pterodactyls in the Trocadero in London and I've been waiting for quality consumer VR ever since. My setup : 9600k, 2080 Ti, Pimax 5k+.