These can look better or worse depending upon the stage, but when I noticed that lacking visual fidelity, it affected my enjoyment of the game. My 1st stage had me against a rocky mountain face, surrounded by forests, mountains and a village with those mountains looking very impressive with the other stuff looking much more like lower resolution images, which is all the backgrounds are. Visually, The Climb 2 is both impressive and disappointing. Multiple paths also add to the replay factor making for a nice VR climbing package for those looking for fun or challenge or BOTH. Online leaderboards are present for those speed runners out there, as is available loot in the form of watches, gloves, and wristbands which you unlock by achieving stage specific goals. There are 5 different locations to choose from, each with 3 courses ranked by easiest to hardest with the latter not being playable until the former is conquered. Not all hand holds are created equal either with some disintegrating mere seconds after you touch them while others may cause you “damage” which prevents the stamina in that hand from refilling while you are holding on to it. Holding down a trigger while shaking that hand applies chalk to it to help reduce the drain on your stamina. Additionally, you can half press the trigger, effectively loosening your grip but not draining stamina and while it’s mechanic I never bothered to master, it allows you to climb without worrying about your stamina for those better speed runs. It became second nature to not think about my stamina, but it can be easy to get into a groove and forget, causing an errant slip and subsequent fall. To regain stamina, you need have both hands grabbing at a hand hold at the same time. Holding on with only 1 hand drains that hands strength so if you don’t swap them out, expect a quick fall. Each hand has its own stamina meter, represented by a bar just below where your wrist ends. That’s fun enough, but for those that want to experience a more realistic version of sport then you’ll have to deal with a variety of factors including stamina, chalking your hands and differing types of hand holds which could cause you to fall if you aren’t paying attention. WRONG!!! An introductory tutorial lets you know there’s more going on here than just grabbing the next handhold as you’ll have to deal with an array of factors that affect your climbing abilities…unless you play on casual mode which is literally just grabbing the next outcropping you see, which are usually very clearly identified. The view can be impressive at times…the textures less so.Ĭlimbing in VR is simple right?!….