Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality (PlayStation 4) Review

Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality is a much more playable version of the original game. It is pretty amazing how much PSVR and the PS Move controllers can improve on a concept that was already utterly ridiculous. It is not perfect, however... In fact, Surgeon Simulator is still pretty much broken even in VR, which will lead to some unintentional comedy and horrifying graphical glitches.

Surgeon Simulator is a bit of a crap-shoot with its controls, and to simulate the feedback of touching virtual objects, the Move sticks will vibrate. This is kind of a good idea, but problem is that this game doesn't know when to stop vibrating—the gyrometer will buzz violently for upwards of ten seconds when not making contact with anything. Playing this feels more like testing out adult toys than it does conducting a brain transplant.

Thanks to the PSVR headset, so much more of the environment can be seen, giving Surgeon Simulator: ER a real sense of place. Being able to shift perspective and move within the limits of the PS Camera's vision is just enough space to get better angles of the patients to have better control over the surgery. All of this is would be great if it weren't for the fact the bounding boxes for the surgeon's hands were not so misleading and inconsistent. The deceptive hit boxes around the hands are so egregious that it would probably be easier to perform these surgeries in real life than it is here. The surgeon's hands resemble the hands of a psychotic serial killer; beefy, thick and powerful looking hands. The kind of hands that strangle the life out of his victims... which is not that far off what most people will be doing in this game, but with less strangling, since it is so easy to abuse and mistreat the patients. It becomes a laughable farce that it is downright hilarious—and charming, even—that Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality reaches such outlandish heights.

At the end of the day, beneath its madcap exterior, this is still not a fun game, because even with the latest in virtual reality and motion controls, it still is one of the most difficult games to control. This time there is no excuse for such poor controls, instead it is poor playability. The novelty of fumblecore has long since faded, now, and here Surgeon Simulator had a chance to be a real game and show the potential of VR. There is still amusing fun to be had, but it is skin deep and lacks substance, since controlling is still a nightmare.