C-Smash VRS Preview – A Dreamcast cult classic reborn for PSVR 2
The Dreamcast was a special machine. Sure, it was the last gasp of Sega’s ambitions as a console manufacturer, but it was a pioneering console in many ways, and played host to an eclectic megamix of gaming creativity and as an outlet for a smattering of arcade games.
It’s here that Cosmic Smash first appeared, but you’d be forgiven for not having heard of the game. While it made its way to arcades in Japan and Europe, its Dreamcast release only came out in Japan and half a year after the console was discontinued.
A strange game, then, to decide to revive for PlayStation VR 2 – subtly rebranded as C-Smash VRS.
The simplest way to describe C-Smash VRS is as a futuristic blend of squash and seminal block-breaking game Breakout. Instead of a 2D plane, you’re at one end of a long room with an array of blocks at the other, the ball that you bat back and forth moving in full 3D, bouncing off walls, ceiling, and floor on the way to destroying the sheet-like blocks.
It’s simple and intuitive to learn, though will certainly be a game that takes a while to master, just like playing a real sport like squash or tennis. There’s something about it that just works and makes sense when taking that original concept into VR.
The driving force behind this project is Jörg Tittel of publisher RapidEyeMovers, whose passion for this game eventually won over Sega to let him reinterpret this archival IP for a new era.
“The original Cosmic Smash, to me, was an icon. Yeah, the Dreamcast might have been dead, but that thing came out of nowhere and it was iconic. The packaging design blew my mind – that DVD box case with its orange disc shining through the transparent front – it was just gorgeous. So yeah, maybe the Dreamcast was dead, but this thing would
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