The Westworld VR Experience Review – The closest way you’re getting to Westworld without paying USD40,000 a day

The second season Westworld, Nolan and Lisa Joy’s epic magnum opus that reimagines Michael Crichton’s venerable 1973 movie is now live and on HBO (Astro Channel 411/ HD 431). For the uninitiated, Westworld talks about a theme park populated with lifelike androids called hosts in a Western-like setting. Visitors, called guests, can come to Westworld and indulge in every sin and vice as their heart desires without anyone ostensibly watching or knowing.

According to the rich lore crafted for the show which can be gleaned from its website and a host of other sources, which has recently aired its first episode of season two, it costs visitors USD40,000 a day to visit Westworld – that’s the price of a good sized house so it isn’t exactly chump change. Short of watching the show, there’s no actual way to go there in real life.

Until now that is as HBO has set up a VR experience at Sunway Pyramid for the curious to get a taste of what Westworld is all about. We had the privilege of experiencing it for ourselves and here’s how the experience goes. Needless to say, spoilers abound after this line.

*Spoiler Alert – Westworld VR review follows

Once you’ve signed up the Westworld VR programme, you’re ushered to the experience booths via models dressed as hosts. You’re given a snippet of the official Delos trailer that shows what you will have in store ahead in a comfy lounge chair.

Astute Westworld fans will note that this is the trailer that usually plays in the lobby of the Westworld mesa complex before visitors enter the theme park proper. After you sign off on a few obligatory health questions like if you’re prone to epilepsy and the like, you’re then lead into the VR experience room.

Inside a dark, blank room, technicians will pass you a HTC Vive VR headset, a pair of headphones along with a single controller. Once you donned this elaborate regalia, you’re immediately transported in a virtual fashion to Westworld.

You first appear in a dressing room much like the ones guests will start off in before commencing their journey into Westworld. There are racks of Western-themed clothing all bathed in white neon lighting and right in front of you is a glass-encased rack with a series of weapons – a Bowie knife, a few lever action rifles and several revolvers. You can explore the room somewhat but you’re not able to pick up any of the clothing on the racks or weapons in the glass case.

You’re then greeted by a male host dressed in white who greets you and then prompts you to choose whether to don a white hat or a black hat. The Westworld VR experience in other regions optionally lets you choose a female host though we did not get this option locally. Once you’ve sorted that out, you’re then prompted to choose a weapon from what looks like two Colt Single Action army revolvers that the host places on the table. You either get an ivory handled revolver in white or one finished in black.

In the Westworld series, the hat you choose and the weapons you pick represent subtle moral choices to experience the theme park as either a good person (White hat) or as a morally unrestricted person (a Black hat) which is what Ed Harris’ character the Man in Black was about as he maims, mangles and murders his way through the park in much of Season one. Here, it’s mostly an aesthetic choice and doesn’t seem to affect the gameplay afterwards.

After you sort that out, you’re fenced into a small corral of wood within Westworld with your guest host and a bunch of onlookers consisting of several male and female hosts dressed in period costume looking at you from a building nearby. You’re allowed to hold and play around with your revolver and while you’re prompted to plink at a series of glass bottles, you’re actually able to shoot the bystanders as well.

Once you’ve run out of ammunition, Sheriff Picket, another host comes out of the building and attempts to interact with you but he goes off the rails when a fly lands on him and has a homicidal episode, headbutting the male host accompanying you to death.

Before the Sheriff goes postal on you, everything freezes and you’re prompted to sit into a chair. This is where the other Vive controller goes to. While you’re experiencing the VR game, the technicians mount the other Vive controller into a steel framed office chair which then appears in VR in front of you.

You then realise you yourself are actually a host gone bonkers and are then virtually wheeled through the Delos labs where you spot other hosts being cleaned up, hosed off and being prepared for service. Midway through, some of the supposedly offline hosts in your line of sight wake up and then start attacking people, heralding the conclusion of season 1 left off and the aftermath of season 2. This is where the VR experience ends.

It’s quite a thrill ride with the first part being more interactive and the last part being mostly an on-the-rails experience that is well worth the queue. If you miss the VR experience at Sunway Pyramid, you can still catch Westworld season 2 which is ongoing on HBO. For more details check out HBO Asia at http://hboasia.com/HBO/en-my/