Hex Defense - VR

Review

Your base is the middle of a large tabletop map, and the enemy forces will come from several points on its outskirts. The onslaught will start from 2 points, but soon after will extend to all around the map.  Laying out your turrets strategically might keep your base safe, but there is no guarantee; your base could be totally destroyed.  Welcome to Hex Defense VR!

Hex Defense VR is a strategy/action game in virtual reality developed by Sachonski and published by Patagoniart on 16 February 2019 on the Steam platform.  

The game consists of six large maps, but only one will be available as you start the game. To unlock an extra map or table top, you must reach a certain number of points to unlock the in-game achievement and access the next map.  

The forest is the first level you’ll have access to. In the middle of the table, you’ll see your base, which will be sitting on top of three hexagon tiles and will have a tall blue circle in the middle of it. On the outskirts of the table, you’ll notice hexagon tiles with some sort of street lights in each of their extremities (portals). These tiles show you where the enemy will come from. However, you must pay attention to the ones that have a red circle, as they will highlight where the enemies will come from in the upcoming wave.

At the start of each level, you’ll have a certain number of energy points at your disposal and with these points, you can buy turrets, which vary from between 150 to 700 energy points. As you destroy incoming enemies, you’ll earn more energy points which you can use to either lay out new turrets or upgrades the ones you have already deployed. As far as I can see during the time I played this game is that every wave has 3 phases, and you can keep on playing the same map as long as you want to, even after you unlock the next table top.

It’s pretty simple to move around the table with the teleporting feature, but it will take you a while to get used to moving across the table top; you’ll have to press a particular button on one of your controllers (I am using HTC Vive) to move around the table.

In terms of enemies, the game currently has 13 types, including infantry, mechs, tanks and other vehicle units. To defend your base, you’ll have access to nine types of turrets, which you can upgrade, of course.

I really like the graphics in this game, and it is simple to lay turrets on tiles. But for me, the big letdown is the lack of difficulty. I really enjoy this type of game and I like to see the difficulty increasing after beating, or in this case, unlocking a new level. As far as I can see after unlocking 3 out 6 levels, this is not the case in this game. At this stage, I think the game is far too easy and needs a revamp in terms of difficulty to make you want to play further and unlock the next level.