When comparing The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed vs Elite: Dangerous, the Slant community recommends Elite: Dangerous for most people. In the question“What are the best HTC Vive games?” Elite: Dangerous is ranked 1st while The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Elite: Dangerous is:
When Elite Dangerous come out, development won't stop. To build a game with the huge scope of Elite Dangerous, not all of it can be done at once, so the developers have adopted an approach of incremental improvement. Various game play elements are being designed as a foundation for later features. For example, although planetary landings aren't going to be available until a later update, the engine has been designed to be able to support going from lightyears away to meters away.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Gameplay has wide appeal
More a walking simulator with puzzle aspects, this is a highly narrative focused game, meaning it should be accessible to many different types of potential players as there is no combat or worry about having to make split second reactions through the games controls.
Pro Great graphics
One of the better looking games out for the Vive in its infancy, the visuals are fantastic giving a real sense of being in the environments. For those looking for a very good visual experience on the Vive, this would definitely be a game to consider.
Pro Puzzles feel natural and not overly complex
Many adventure puzzle games see obtuse clues and hidden items that require back tracking, making for an exhausting experience having to constantly research areas. The Gallery does not have this issue at all as each puzzle and items that need found feel natural and intuitive in the same way searching for something in real life does. There is never a moment where the player will have to continually research or apply objects in order to guess how to solve something, all conclusions come with ease (though not that the game is too easy, more that puzzle solving is just intuitive).
Pro Intuitive and reactive controls
The games controls work quite well and are very responsive. For instance when slowly pressing down the rigger button, the players hand in the game will start closing their fingers. Once the button is depressed all the way the player will now be showing a fist in game. This is all pressure sensitive and natural feeling.
Pro Built with future expansion in mind
When Elite Dangerous come out, development won't stop. To build a game with the huge scope of Elite Dangerous, not all of it can be done at once, so the developers have adopted an approach of incremental improvement. Various game play elements are being designed as a foundation for later features. For example, although planetary landings aren't going to be available until a later update, the engine has been designed to be able to support going from lightyears away to meters away.
Pro Exploration at every level of detail
Full exploration of the galaxy is planned, allowing you to be able to jump from star system to star system, and fly around within a solar system from planet to planet, eventually going all the way down to a planet's surface at a 1:1 scale in a later update. Planetary landings will require a lot of details to be developed and designed, but you can still see the level of detail shift in action when flying into a planet's rings, where getting close enough show the individual asteroids within, which you can then interact with through mining, or by having a battle among them.
Pro Very realistic representation of space & star systems
Elite Dangerous uses publicly available real world star maps that we have of the Milky Way consisting of 150,000 star systems. Although in the current beta, full access to the entire galaxy is limited, in the final game, you will be able to visit any of the 400 billion stars in our galaxy on a 1:1 scale. Stars that we do know of are properly mapped in place and are of the correct type given the information we have about them. Stars we haven't collected data on are procedurally generated which allows you to explore any of the 400 billion of them.
Star systems are intelligently simulated using the "Star Forge", a generator that simulates the creation of a star system forming from its nebular cloud to determine what celestial bodies appear and what orbits they have. This feature leads to many varied and unique star systems possibly with planets that can co-orbit around each other, or with binary star systems, and infinitely more possibilities.
Pro Great Oculus Rift integration
Elite Dangerous has very good integration with the Oculus Rift thanks to its cockpit view only gameplay philosophy. All ship UIs are part of displays that appear on each side of you that appear when you turn your head, so accessing the navigation or ship menus happens seamlessly just by looking in their direction. The game also uses the direction you are looking in for targeting, so your lock on target is whatever you're head is pointing at.
By sitting in the cockpit of a ship, you are given a stationary frame of reference that helps prevent motion sickness associated with movement in game when you aren't actually moving.
Cons
Con Poor movement mechanics
While this game doe use a teleport mechanics (as many other Vive games do, where you point to where you want to teleport to in a level), the actual mechanics provided in this game are lacking. It feels imprecise and can make for a frustrating time moving around.
Con Picking up objects can be difficult
At points in the game there are objects that need picked up off of the floor, players can run into an issue here when the floor in the game is lower than the users actual floor, making the objects out of reach. basically this seems to be a bug and not a calibration issue which will need addressed but currently is not.
Con First epsiode is short
An episodic game that will be much longer when all episodes are out, but is short for what is on offer within the first episode. Lasting at about 2 hours of play for $30.00, this may be a bit pricey for some.
Con Really complicated to learn
Looking up faqs and trade routes from first hand users will be the norm for figuring out many aspects of Elite: Dangerous. On top of this notes will have to be taken, which is made more difficult by the fact the game does not support in game not taking. So a pad and paper is recommended to remember all of the minutia of the game.
Con Boring
It is more a simulation than a combat game.
Con Launcher issues
I bought the game on multiple stores and were never happy how the laucher and the account linking worked.
Con "Mile Wide and an Inch Deep"
The game has a serious problem with depth and requires the user to repeat the same few fun actions over and over again. The world is massive and beautiful but feels empty. The game gets stale quickly despite being visually stunning.