Harmonix Music VR (PS4) Review

Can the Playstation VR helmet really help you to finally turn on, tune in and drop out?

I love music. I will happily sink hours and hours into enjoying the landscapes of a soundtrack or a good album. One of the things I’ve loved the most through the years are the different music visualisers that come with certain music programs (WinAmp, Windows Media Player etc) or that shipped for certain consoles.

So when Harmonix said they were making a music visualiser for the Playstation VR headset I was all in – this was going to be epic. Yet sadly it just feels kind of mediocre at best.

What you get for you £11/$15 is a collection of four environments. Each of these four different experiences lets you interact with the in-game 17 tracks or your own music (via a USB stick). Personally the supplied tracks felt a little lacking mostly consisting of in-house tracks previously used in titles like Amplitude.

The first, The Beach, presents a lo-fi poly version of a sunny beach on a tropical island. The sky and water pulse and move to the beat of your tunes whilst you chill out and look around the 4 or 5 areas presented. You can either just kick back and watch the beats unfold or focus in on certain trigger points that will reveal some small visual sequence (like a fractal-looking flower or some flying fire lanterns). It’s a neat distraction for maybe a track or two but you’ll soon tire.

Next up is The Easel. Here you can use two Move controllers to “paint” with shapes in the 3d space in your vision. It’s a solid distraction that allows you to express yourself to the music whilst your creation undulates and pulses to the beats. It’s pleasing to move your head around and see your creation from multiple angles. Yet this soon wears off as there’s only so much you can do with this mode.

The Dance looks like your typical high school dance filled with a handful of colourful characters (reminiscent in some ways of Harmonix’s own BeatNick characters). You can use the Dualshock or Move controllers to animate and pose the characters and get them to thrust and jiggle about to the music. Some amusement can be had here and it’s great fun to scratch tracks, set off the horn and fire the confetti cannon into the crowd. You can also dunk the characters through the basketball hoop and hurl them out into a void of nothingness.

The final section is The Trip. Another hands-off experience where you move down a moving kaleidoscopic tunnel full of shapes and colours reminiscent of many a demo scene release of the late 90’s. Areas pulse and throb to the sound of your music tracks and it’s an odd, yet pleasingly relaxing way to experience your music.

Final Thoughts

Overall Harmonix Music VR is a very short lived and shallow experience. Of the four segments each will maybe give you 15 minutes of entertainment, with only really The Trip giving you a solid reason to reload the program in a weeks time. What’s there is entertaining enough for the short time you spend on each, yet these really just feel like neat tech demos. On the plus side I had no adverse effect or nausea from the game. Only turning around and watching the tunnel disappear behind me made me feel any discomfort – but I hate travelling backwards on public transport so your mileage may vary.

This is a typical launch title. It’s barely a step up from neat conceptual tech demo but at least Harmonix aren’t asking you to pay a fortune to experience them.