Ma[PSV]Rch Day 6 Part 2: Hotel R'n'R is a surprisingly fun, content rich, and polished VR hotel destruction game

This series: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

I came into Hotel R’n’R without a lot of expectations. I actually bought it specifically for this blog project, since it was $12 on sale and seemed like it would offer up some dumb fun. It also reviewed reasonably well. What I found was a much more polished and complete game than I expected. After the boredom of Dexed I put this on expecting to play a couple rounds and bounce off of it, and actually found myself pretty invested in the game. Hotel R’n’R is the kind of ‘arcade’ experience that I actually want in VR.

So what is Hotel R ‘n’ R? It’s a hotel room smashing simulator. You play a rock star who is apparently a terrible musician and decides to sell his or her soul to the devil in order to achieve the success that you’re not talented enough to get through, you know, music. The devil agrees to the deal but he wants you to smash up hotel rooms because he has a grudge against the hospitality industry or something. You start out in a tiny motel in the middle of nowhere and are tasked with causing damage and raising your infamy through completing challenges (such as “do X dollars of damage and escape before anyone comes to check on you”), which unlocks additional hotels, for a total of 6. You also earn cash as you play (though you lose some of it if you get caught or hurt or, of course, killed) and you can use that to buy equipment, which you can take to the hotel with you in order to help you accomplish your nefarious goals. The game helpfully starts you with a foam finger but you can advance to things like firearms and explosives, though the better items are pretty expensive and won’t be obtainable until you start increasing your multiplier by unlocking more hotels and completing some of the many, many, challenges the game has. You select a load out before you go and can mix and match various items so you can have a lighter for starting blazes, a firearm to shoot those hard to reach items, and a clubbing item to go ham on the tv and decorative vases, as well as other items like drugs that make everything float or a glue gun that lets you stick items together.

The game is structured somewhat like Hitman (which I know has its own VR mode that I may try out) in that you enter one of a few locations each time, with different items, and then proceed to play with the toys. It’s not anywhere near as good as complex or well made Hitman, of course, but it scratches some of the same itches of planning out and then executing mayhem. “If I carefully stack all this stuff here, then set this on fire before shooting that other thing I can really cause a lot of damage before alerting the hotel.” That sort of strategic play.

Fortunately there’s a little more game here than just doing as much damage as you can unimpeded. Once you make enough noise you alert the hotel and that starts a countdown as various staff members come to investigate the hullabaloo. That means you’re free to move items around the room without breaking them in your ‘set up’ phase, but once you shatter or smash a few things the maid (and it’s always the same maid) comes to check on you. You can escape the room before she arrives, keep her locked out by playing a short minigame where she flips the locks and you switch them back before she enters, or you can punch her in the face (or shoot her) once she pokes her head through the door. If you keep her locked out or use the Do Not Disturb Sign then the manager will come next and you have the same options with him, but if you hit her (or if you hit the manager or lock him out) security will come next, and they’ll kick in the door and shoot you. This means that once you trigger the hotel to check on you you’re on a pretty quick clock even if you win both locking minigames. Escaping before anyone enters the room means you get to keep more of your money rather than paying it off in legal fees or hospital/resurrection costs. You also have to monitor your health because getting hit by debris or messing up your hands by punching stuff can kill you, as can smoke inhalation if you get into too much pyromania It’s a neat system that creates a sense of tension as you go from carefully planning your hotel attack to just smashing everything in sight while the clock runs. The team that made the game is tiny so it’s impressive how they managed to balance all these gameplay elements so well when so many bigger VR teams don’t seem to understand how to actually make their games into games with mechanics and goals rather than mere tech toys.

In addition to the main game there’s a party mode with overpowered weapons, some not very interesting minigames (such as one where you try and throw body parts at a dancing manikin to create Satan’s ultimate boy/girl/unholy nightmare toy) and some spaces to walk around and check things out. By VR standards it’s a lot of game for the $20 it asks for, especially because the hotel rooms are reasonably elaborate (several of them are actually suites with a number of rooms) and feature complex interactions like water and fire.

My biggest complaint about Hotel R’ N’ R’ on the PSVR is that it’s janky as heck. It was clearly made for better hardware and downported, and it shows. The move controllers just aren’t up to the fidelity it wants for you to do certain things, so actions like trying to throw items can be extremely frustrating. It has a crouch button to help you pick stuff up off the floor, but even so I found it almost impossible. Even gripping larger items was really difficult with the moves, and I think it would have been much more fun if I was using something with better tech that felt more one to one. There are also some basic UI issues. Some of the challenges didn’t seem to trigger even when I was sure I met the requirements, and the UI can be a bit gimmicky, forcing you to constantly be using motion controls to navigate the world just to do basic things like check your status in certain challenges. These are relatively minor complaints but did dampen my enjoyment a bit. I should say that while the game is janky on PSVR, the visuals and presentation are pretty polished. This was made by a tiny team but it definitely punches above its budget in terms of visual design and even voice acting. It has some real style.

I should also note that this a game where you really need a clear space to play. While you are supposed to move by using buttons to turn and a button and hand motion to walk, that feels unnatural and if you’re like me you’re going to turn your head and body and move or reach to grab things when action gets frantic. Because some of the movement is done through motion controls and some physical I was constantly disoriented and unaware of where I was in physical space. My space is relatively safe but I bumped into my couch a few times and hit a table with a move controller. I’d almost recommend playing the game seated just so you’d be forced to use in game motion, but it feels much more natural standing. It’s also a little bit tiring because you’re flailing your arms and twisting around and such, but that’s not a bad thing per se. It won’t give you a real workout but if you’re standing it’s much more active than traditional video game playing or even using something like the Wii. By the time I was done I definitely felt the effects of standing and flailing my arms for a few hours, but despite the discomfort I wanted to keep playing, and there were a number of times when I planned to bail but kept going because I got enough cash for an unlock I wanted or I was achingly close to completing a challenge to move towards the next level. That’s how good games get you and pull you in.

Is Hotel R’ N’ R’ one of my favorite games on PS4 like Moss was? No. It’s just a fun arcade time smashing stuff up. But it is very engaging and definitely has that “one more try” appeal. I thought I’d mess around with it for an hour and move on to something more substantial, but I played for a couple hours my first time and after writing this up I went back for a few more hours of mayhem, unlocking 5 of the 6 hotels and blowing up a lot of bathrooms with C4. I’m not sure how much more I’ll play during this blogging series because I want to get a good sampling of games done this month and I don’t have unlimited time, but I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. It got its hooks in me quickly and thoroughly in a way I was not expecting. There have been games about smashing up objects or spaces before, of course, so this is nothing new, but it works incredibly well in VR. When you’re setting fire to something with a lighter in one hand and clicking locks as fast as you can to keep the manager out with the other it’s very immersive and a whole lot of fun. When I started this project I thought it would be a chore. I wasn’t shocked when Moss, which is regarded as one of the PSVR’s best games and is very much in my wheelhouse, was enjoyable, but I never expected a simple $12 game to draw me in and make me play for hours longer than I intended, and even run down the juice on my move controllers, just from the simple fun of setting off fireworks in a hotel room or detonating some C4 inside a fancy Japanese talking toilet.