Budget Cuts Ultimate is a virtual reality stealth action-adventure from indie developer Neat Corporation. You assume the role of the last human worker within his TransCorp, a factory that has taken optimization to a whole other level by replacing workers with robots. After receiving a mysterious briefcase from an outsider, it’s up to you to uncover strange events happening inside the factory, save humanity, and escape for your life.
Throughout the five-hour campaign, you’ll explore different locations within Transcorp’s facilities, from humble administrative offices to full-blown production lines. Equipped with a teleportation gun, enter a hidden passageway between walls through a small vent to avoid your pursuers. Patrol restricted areas and teleport, sneak, and sting past evil security drones and robots that fire on sight by activating the headset’s haptics. Physically crouching to avoid rooms of angry robots is extremely thrilling. As you progress, you’ll need to scour cupboards and drawers for access keys to help you progress and items to protect yourself. Throw knives, scissors, mugs, stationery, etc. whenever you find them.
During my playthrough, I unfortunately ran into some serious hand tracking issues. The right hand is often displaced, immobile, and unable to operate.[オプション]Using the button to reset the position didn’t seem to fix the drift issue. However, restarting the application seemed to fix the problem for a short period of time. Hand tracking isn’t the only obvious problem. The game has some visibly jagged visuals, making the text and repetitive robotic voices hard to read and somewhat detracting from the immersion.
Budget Cuts has thrilling stealth gameplay that will get your heart racing as you dodge, crouch, dive, dive and dodge robotic pursuers. With a solid length of campaign, headset haptics, and an intriguing story, this campaign will keep you wanting to finish. Some major hand-tracking issues and jagged visuals spoil the immersion, but I still recommend optimizing your time and giving this a try.