When comparing Babel: Tower to the Gods vs Fantastic Contraption, the Slant community recommends Fantastic Contraption for most people. In the question“What are the best HTC Vive games?” Fantastic Contraption is ranked 22nd while Babel: Tower to the Gods is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Fantastic Contraption is:
Thanks to the Vive, building a contraption is incredibly fun and actually feels like you're creating something "real". You can move around your machine to adjust it and add new components in a very natural way.
Specs
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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 Very fun to build and create machines
Thanks to the Vive, building a contraption is incredibly fun and actually feels like you're creating something "real". You can move around your machine to adjust it and add new components in a very natural way.
Pro Encourages creativity
By giving you a task and leaving how you will complete it up to your own devices the game allows for a sense of creativity as well as the feeling of accomplishment.
Pro Cute art style
The art style is cute and when you look at how you look only to see you're a cute animal, it can be quite funny and sweet. You also have a pet cat named Neko that you get your supplies from, and a dog that you press to go to the next level.
Pro Comes free with the vive bundle
Comes free with the Vive bundle, which is a bundle with no additional cost, but has limited stock, so may be difficult to obtain.
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 Expensive
It's the most expensive game on the Vive costing $39.99. When comparing price to content, there may be better options out there at a lower price.
Con Building can be frustrating and causes a lot of trial and error
It is almost impossible to attach objects completely straight to one another, meaning if you are trying to use multiple wheels, each will be a bit crooked, causing a lot of adjusting and restarting, which can be very frustrating.