When comparing Babel: Tower to the Gods vs The Lab, the Slant community recommends The Lab for most people. In the question“What are the best HTC Vive games?” The Lab is ranked 5th while Babel: Tower to the Gods is ranked 31st.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Variety of blocks and tools
There are a number of different blocks to be interacted with ranging from ones that can explode, ones made of ice that are slippery and ones that are invisible that you will not be able to manipulate. In order to interact with these blocks you are given a bunch of different tools such as spears, hammers, swords, axes etc. These different tools each have different interactions that can help the player, depending on what they need to do, but is still left up to the player in the end on how they want to accomplish that task.
Pro Good price for amount of content
The content in the game should last the player for a good while, as many current VR games tend to be more proof of concept over full fledged games. While this is an early access title, meaning it is not complete, for the price of $10 the content should last even in its current state. On top of this most VR titles are priced a lot higher than this, even when containing less content, so as far as a content for price comparison is concerned, Babel is a good choice.
Pro Fun theme
A Greek God like theme where the towers resemble greek structures, complete with little worshipers surrounding the towers. It can be fun to interact with the tiny people by moving or crushing them. This of course is the power wielded by a Greek God, which can be fun to decide to be a kind or vengeful one.
Pro Shows what the system is capable of doing
Pro Amazingly fun collection of mini games and experiences
The lab is a collection of a bunch of very fun mini games. You get to use a bow and arrow to defend your castle against waves of enemies, control a fighter drone in a classic arcade style shoot-em-up, repair a Aperture science robot, explore the secret shop from Dota and more. Although each game is simple, they are all very well executed and make fantastic use of VR mechanics.
Pro Nice VR games collection
Pro Perfect for showing your friends what the Vive can do
All the games and experiences are very easy to play and are simply an incredible introduction to the capabilities of VR.
Pro Free
It's free so there's no risk of wasting money in case it turns out you don't like it.
Pro Amusing writing
The Lab is a mini game collection created y Valve, who are know for a very specific witty sense of humor. That is not lost in The Lab whatsoever as the writing is cleverly funny, which makes a mini game collection game all that more enjoyable.
Pro Non game sections are really interesting
The user can stand on the top of an Icelandic mountain top and look around, there is no game to it, it is just an experience but one that is quite interesting as it is almost like actually being there.
Cons
Con Interface feels clunky
Actually grabbing blocks feels a bit inaccurate and is difficult to perform. Not very natural feeling, which can throw the player off. While not the main meat of the game, grabbing blocks, the portions that do have this interaction could use more polish.
There is also a tutorial that plays before starting a game, every time, which can not be skipped, this can become frustrating too and shows the lack of polish when it comes to the interface and navigation.
Lastly there are not many options to quit the game other than using the Steam menu button and even that may leave the game hanging. While this is an early access game, meaning it is unfinished and all of this may very well get fixed, it is something to keep in mind as it could also stay in this state.
Con Awkward to play in small rooms
The gameplay may be more difficult to perform if being played in a confined area as the player needs to be able to walk around the outside of large towers, which will of course be centered in ones room. This leaves the player to having only the outer areas of the room to traverse while playing, which can be difficult in smaller rooms as you may hit the walls of that room quite often.
Con More a proof of concept than a full fledged game
The mini games are quite short and will not provide a whole lot of entertainment. The purpose of this title is to showcase what room scale VR is capable of (which it does well), but when considered as a game for those interested in gaming it falls a bit short.