Just in Time Incorporated | REVIEW

Have you ever seen someone narrowly escape death and wondered how the hell they did it? Well, it turns out they must have had ‘Death Prevention Insurance’ and been protected by an agent of Just in Time Incorporated… you know, those time-bending heroes who’ll jump in last minute to save you from the likes of an incoming vehicle, bullet, or even a rabid bear.

It might sound strange, but that’s the concept behind the virtual reality title Just in Time Incorporated. You take on the role of one of these agents and work to save a range of citizens from an impending doom. It’s one of the quirkier titles I’ve played on PlayStation VR for some time, but it’s certainly a lot of fun (while it lasts).

As an agent charged with protecting clients that have taken out ‘Death Prevention Insurance’, you’ll be equipped with ‘hyper gloves’ that allow you to teleport around the map, slow down time, and even grab bullets from mid-air; basically, you’ve got all the powers you need to save some lives. You’ll control each glove with the Move controllers, with a quick pull of the trigger-button allowing you to grab objects in the environment. You’ll teleport around by pointing at areas of the environment and pressing the ‘move’ button, whilst snap-turning is assigned to two of the face buttons on either Move controller.

It’s a simple control scheme, but one that lends itself nicely to the gameplay. In order to save your client from a vicious assassin, an incoming vehicle, a horde of bears, or even vicious barbarians (in a female-led ‘Indiana Jones’ spoof), you’ll have to use everything in the environment to your advantage. This might just mean grabbing an item and throwing it at someone, using an item on your client (note to self – balloons are effective to quickly get OAPs to safety), or even grabbing an incoming bullet and redirecting it at its shooter before it lands on the target. Everything in the game is essentially a puzzle, and you’ve just got to figure out what the solution is before anyone dies.

It’s a lot of fun, and since the game moves in slow-motion you’re never left overly stressed when trying to figure something out – it actually adds to the humour of the game too, as you watch your poor client’s panic slowly build up as they realise death is near. The way in which Just in Time Incorporated utilises pop-culture in a lot of its levels is also neat, and even brought out a few laughs when I was playing. It’s certainly never tries to take itself too seriously…

It should take gamers around two hours to get through Just in Time Incorporated, with each level of the game being short in length but often demanding a few attempts to solve. That doesn’t mean that the game is necessarily a challenging one, though – I found almost all levels were fairly simple to solve, with the only difficult thing coming with executing the solution in an accurate and timely manner.

The short length of the game actually works in its favour though, especially since Just in Time Incorporated doesn’t really do anything too innovative. It’s a series of neat ideas rolled up into one unique concept, and it works, but the further you progress the more you’ll notice that it starts to run out of ideas as far as gameplay is concerned. Thankfully, it’s short enough not to outstay its welcome, but it’s also long enough to be worth investing in.

Visually, Just in Time Incorporated looks very similar to Minecraft with its blocky visuals and somewhat simplistic environments, though with a more adult twist thanks to the surprising (but satisfying) brutality of the world. This isn’t a bad thing, because it’s really full of character and charm – just don’t go expecting it to be some realistic visual marvel.

Developer: Second Wind Interactive
Publisher: Second Wind Interactive
Release Date: Out Now
Platform(s): PlayStation VR (Reviewed), HTC Vive, Oculus Rift