Now Playing: Pavlov (VR)

If Arizona Sunshine is best described as a ‘low budget Left 4 Dead’ then Pavlov VR is best described as a ‘low budget Counter-Strike’. Because that’s pretty much all it is – Counter-Strike VR.

Pavlov VR is a tricky game to review. It’s damn cheap – 6.99 at the time of writing, though I’ve read a price increase is on the horizon. It’s still in Early Access and the content, as it exists now, is very limited. But I guess the low price reflects that fact, so I can’t really complain.

You get three maps with a choice of four game modes – Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Gun Game and Search & Destroy. The game does support offline play with bots but be warned – the bots, even on the official maps, can sometimes bug out and be entirely unresponsive.

I say ‘official’ maps because that’s the interesting thing about Pavlov VR – on the base content alone, it’s still barely worth that low price. What elevates the game into being one of the most popular VR games on Steam – and the most popular multiplayer VR game – is the community created content.

Hundreds of new maps and even new modes are all available to download through the Steam Workshop. And yes, as you’d expect, that includes recreations of some of the most popular and iconic Counter-Strike maps. And that’s where I’ve spent most of my time – playing those CS maps in VR is pretty damn fun.

But like Arizona Sunshine and Left 4 Dead, I can’t help but wish we’d get a proper Counter-Strike VR developed by Valve to the same high production value they demonstrated with The Lab. That’s not to shit upon AS or Pavlov because I’ve enjoyed my time with both games, it’s just a fact that these games are, more or less, low budget / production versions of better non-VR games – and their continued popularity shows how the VR market is ready and waiting for a high quality alternative.

Okay, back to Pavlov VR. When you open the game you appear within a shooting range that gives you a chance to become familiar with the controls. The tutorials in the game are limited, to say the least, so I’d recommend checking out some videos on YouTube. The weapon models are great and the ‘realistic’ reload system is a lot of fun. The guns feel good to shoot and even playing with the somewhat stupid bots can still be very enjoyable.

There’s no teleportation motion, so you’d better get used to touchpad movement – it gets you a little dizzy at first, but with repeat play, you’ll soon get used to it. And if you can’t? Well, I guess you’re shit out of luck. But the movement feels smooth and isn’t too fast, slow or jerky – a problem I had with The Forest VR motion – so it’s a little more comfortable and easier to adapt to.

There’s a big update planned for early November, but I don’t know what it will include. It might massively expand and improve upon the base content. But right now, Pavlov VR is a limited, but cheap, Counter-Strike VR game that relies entirely upon community content to stay relevant. That does concern me to a degree – because if community maps aren’t updated alongside the game, then they can simply cease functioning.

Relying upon your community to keep building maps, modes and content is a risk, so it’s going to be interesting to see how the developers build upon the base game going forward. If you like Counter-Strike and like the idea of Counter-Strike in VR and don’t want to wait to see what Valve may be planning, then for 6.99, you really can’t go wrong with Pavlov VR.

And maybe in the future, with enough support and updates, it can become far more than just a ‘low budget Counter-Strike’ and evolve into its own unique and worthwhile experience.

6/10