When the PSVR 2 dropped on February 22, people couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t a lot of offerings for the system at launch. Aside from Horizon Call of the Mountain, most everything else was either a port like Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge or a regular title updated with a VR option like Gran Tourismo 7 and Resident Evil: Village. Even though most of the VR titles were ports of games released on PC, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some solid gems that flew under the radar as people raved and shouted about more notable titles. There is one game in particular that I feel has flown under the VR radar for far too long and this column is going to address that as we talk about Drums Rock by Garage51 Studios.
I reached out to Garage51 about a review and an interview. While they gave me the “we are too busy for you” runaround on an interview and said I could submit questions they might answer — you can see I opted to pass on this option — they were kind enough to give me a code for the game and honestly, the game does most of the talking for the studio. While there were a total of about 4-5 on the track listings that I had actually heard of or played before, this was actually one of the things I enjoyed the most about this game. I think too often these sorts of games reinforce certain bands and styles and that’s obviously because it draws players in with tunes and jams they love, but it also prevents you from hearing or learning something new. Garage51 takes care of that with their track listen while still managing to carefully craft a set list that absolutely slaps and gets your soul moving.
If you’ve ever played Guitar Hero before, then you know exactly how these sort of rhythm games work. Drums Rock is no different except for the fact that the notes are demons, which look pretty cool while maintaining the aesthetic. You have a full drum kit in front of you minus the bass drum and your job is to hit the notes in the correct order as the song plays. Like any proper drumming simulator, throwing your sticks in the air and twirling them is an option and they even help boost your score.
If you don’t want to actually hold the sticks the entire time using the required grip, sticky fingers is an option that allows you to just play the game freely without having to constantly grip the controller firmly. That said, getting those critical point boosts via the throw and twirl is made that much more complicated by the fact that you must press the L1/R1 button twice to let the stick go, but that’s the trade off for not having to worry about gripping them the whole time. There are other accessibility options built in for those who need or want them, including an ability to adjust the height of the drum kit off the ground.
Because you’d normally be sitting while playing drums, Drums Rock requires you to play sitting. This is very welcome due to the intensive nature of drumming and only true legends can stand up and play their drum kits like a mad man. The drums respond well and the game makes tremendous use of the PlayStation Sense controller’s haptics along with haptics for the headset itself. I’m not sure whether or not they updated the game prior to release on PSVR 2, but it doesn’t seem to have any of the hit detection problems that some complained about for the PC version. The game runs smoothly and without any sort of latency or lag. The drums I hit were the drums I intended to hit.
On the whole, Drums Rock is one of those games that eat at the back of your brain when you’re not playing it. I find myself drumming out the notes from some of the songs I’ve played the most even when I’m not playing. There’s a sense of realism the drums can provide in VR that not many other instruments are capable of delivering and Garage51 made sure they gave their customers that experience with this game. If you have a PSVR 2 and you don’t own this game, not only are you missing out on one of the best PSVR 2 games on the market, but you’re also missing out on one hell of a party game.
Author’s Note: Review copy of Drums Rock provided by Garage51
Rating: 8.75/10
