Doctor Who: The Edge of Time Rapid Review
Fast Facts
Title: Doctor Who: The Edge of Time
Developer: Maze Theory
Publisher: Playstack
Website: https://www.doctorwhotheedgeoftime.com/
Genre: Action, Adventure, Exploration
Platform: Oculus Quest
Audience: PEGI 7
Release Date: 23/01/2020
Price: £15.99 – Rapid Reviews UK was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.
I would not consider myself any kind of Doctor Who fan or aficionado, though I do live in a house with three Whovians in the form of my wife and my two daughters. I know a few bits and bobs regarding the long-running show and a few of the Doctors from episodes I have caught parts of over the last few years while sitting in the living room working while they would watch. Essentially, for this review, you could say I went in as a non-fan and pretty blind to the storyline and lore behind the series.
Doctor Who The Edge of Time is primarily a walking/puzzle simulator style game that has you moving through five chapters in a quest to find the time crystals and restore the fabric of time and creation to its rightful place. The time crystals are scattered across dimensions and locations which have you visiting old-world London, a creepy laundromat and alleyway, a space station, and more
Visually the game is a bit of hit or miss. I feel like the interior areas of the space station and temple in one section to be well designed and visually appealing. Then there are some areas, like the caverns in the one section which were dark and details of the environment were harder to see. There are a few places where jump scares from creatures and weeping angels made me jump and squeal, much to my wife’s hysterical laugh.
The main gameplay has you moving through locations across multiple dimensions and time sometimes flashing between that location to solve puzzles, navigate an area and recover the scattered time crystals. Along the way, you may need to find and assemble pieces for a contraption to call up the TARDIS, turn levers and cranks to jump locations, manoeuvre reflective panels to change the direction of a beam and more. Sometimes the puzzles were a bit obscure, though once I solved them I had that moment of ‘duh’ as the solution was oftentimes staring me in the face.
Doctor Who The Edge of Time has both teleportation and smooth locomotion movement, both of which can be used at any time during the game. I found myself often switching between both using smooth locomotion for normal movement and teleporting when I needed to be standing next to a switch or lever for precise positioning.
The best part of the whole game, in my opinion, was the level in which you hop inside the shell of a Dalek, and move through the crumbling temple blasting away at other enemy Daleks and drones trying to shoot at you. The whole scene played out in a first-person view, where the movement was almost tanklike and you used head tracking to look around and line up your targets.
Doctor Who The Edge of Time has a lot of fan service moments in it and if you are a Doctor Who fan it’s easy for me to recommend this game to you. As a casual, mostly non-existent Doctor Who fan, the game falls short of my expectations when it comes to walking/puzzle games that are available on the quest.
The puzzles are mostly bland and the environments leave a lot to be desired in terms of their overall look and the immersion in VR is really low as interaction is oftentimes limited in the areas of the game you get to explore. There are a lot of other puzzle games out there, and one coming soon, The Room VR for instance, which will require you to think a lot harder and look a lot better.
Rapid Reviews Rating
You can purchase Doctor Who The Edge of Time from the Oculus Store on the following link, https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3044656825604617
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