The Ready Player One-based ‘Smash’ game has launched for the Oasis Beta, the essentially living virtual reality world from the hit film and book. The OASIS Beta was only available through Viveport when it initially launched but it’s now also available through Steam for those who prefer to get their games from the Valve-run PC game client, and along with the launch on Steam the latest game that players can dive into is Smash, which is more or less a futuristic and immersive version of Pong.
As one would expect from a game like this Smash requires you to hit balls beyond the opponent player to score points. Using the Vive controllers you’ll have a paddle in each hand to hit balls down the corridor and try to score and when it’s your opponents turn to hit the ball you’ll use the paddles to attempt to block incoming shots. Naturally, though this does play a lot like Pong and the goal is pretty much the same, there are different elements to take into account. For instance there are power-ups that you can obtain to give yourself an edge, such as the multi-ball which as the name suggests gives you more than one ball to hit at any one time, or the power-ball.
As this is part of the OASIS Beta there is no extra game to download or install, you simply need to have the OASIS Beta on your PC and Smash will be available to play inside of it. In addition to the power-ups that are available there are also obstacles to contend with, though it isn’t mentioned what those obstacles are nor is it mentioned how many different power-ups there are. The OASIS Beta is a free-to-play title so if you’re a fan of the film and the book, or simply one or the other and you have the necessary equipment, you may want to grab this if you haven’t already.
