This is my tree world! Who are you?!"
When you combine the talents of William Pugh, who worked on The Stanley Parable, and Justin Roiland, who is the co-creator of the widely popular and cult-followed Rick and Morty, you were bound to get something quite odd, yet still very intriguing. While Accounting+ may have a title that doesn't sound that interesting, it is one of the most bizarre VR experiences I've ever had.
Accounting+ is a PlayStation VR edition of Accounting, a VR title originally released for the HTC Vive but now packed with even more content. The title isn't so much a game as it is an experience, offering very little in the way of actual gameplay and mostly has you interacting with various objects and characters to have them start screaming, swearing, and reacting to you. One moment you'll be trying to join a gang, being sworn at by some sort of creature who lives in a tree, to having a small egg-shaped lawyer trying to defend you in court. Be rest assured, though, that you won't be learning anything about Accounting in the short hour you'll spend here.
You'll start via a short tutorial that makes a few PlayStation jokes via the use of its teleporting system called the Place Station where they make a remark that the Place Station 2 was probably its most popular model. There are even a few Rick and Morty jokes present here as well as you'll need to pick a favorite meme from the show to complete the tutorial. The narrating throughout this segment is often hilarious as everything you do is met with dry sarcastic praise.
There are a small handful of environments that are connected only through the task of you finding a VR headset hidden somewhere in each area to dive further into the rabbit hole. These sequences have a ton of dialogue to discover and bite-sized moments of interaction, like cutting open the stomach of the King of VR, shooting at the VR police during a high-speed car chase, or pouring acid on a pair of musical skeletons. The interactions are through the use of the Dual Shock 4 or a pair of PlayStation 4 Move controllers, the latter of which is the method I prefer and recommend. The motion controls for reaching out and grabbing items is fairly intuitive when items are close to you, but I found the arrow icons to waver and float around when I tried to extend my reach. However, due to the limitations of what the game has set for you, I never found the controls to be impossible to complete my task.
While as much as VR is a mostly visual experience, Accounting+ thrives because of its witty writing and offensive humor. You'll be constantly harassed, threatened, and yelled at from nearly every character in the game. While you can easily fly through this game in under a half hour, you'll be missing out on nearly everything that makes this game what it is. There are certainly better moments in this game than others, but I chuckled during every scene with even a few still sticking with me well after the game was done.
As you'll repeat much of the game before you reach the credits, there isn't really a lot here to discuss without actually describing the scenes in detail and mentioning the jokes, but that would just ruin the surprise of what the game has in store for you. Accounting+ is budget priced at around $10-$15 bucks depending on your region and it certainly shows it in its length.
Despite getting a few different lines of dialogue in regards to how you interact with the objects and characters in each scene, Accounting+ is a very scripted and linear experience that is good for maybe one or two full playthroughs as you attempt to discover every joke or find a way into the secret level. I had a great time with Accounting+ but ultimately, I just wish the game had better replay value, even for the low entry cost offered. There are some interesting VR ideas here that I would love to see this team tackle in a follow-up, but as it stands, Accounting+ is good for a few laughs, but just far too shallow to be that VR killer app.
