Taskmaster VR doesn’t quite deliver on the promise of the TV show

I am a big Taskmaster fan. The British TV show pits five comedians (or funny-deceased celebrities) against ridiculous tasks that are then arbitrarily scored by the titular taskmaster.

Given that the tasks involve lateral thinking and physical movement, on paper, the TV show was ripe for a VR spin-off. To think Job Simulator with added jeopardy, in-jokes and British whimsy. Unfortunately, Taskmaster VR doesn’t deliver the fun and charm of the show. Two points.

After being teased earlier this year (and available for wishlist), the game launched last week on Steam, Meta Quest 2 and 3, and Pro. I played the game briefly on Quest 2, the lowest-powered option, before switching to Quest 3’s sharper screens.

You want to play it on a headset like the Quest 3 or better. The basic Quest 2 makes the whole thing very grainy. But that is not the biggest problem. The problem is that it’s not a great VR game. Collision detection is rough, and while it’s not the first VR title to be guilty of this, the fine motor control required of the game’s tasks makes things a pain.

For example, the first game involves you trying to make a sandwich, match Alex’s arcane sandwich request, plate it up and put it on the plinth, ready for judgment. However, you have to do everything with a few spatulas. Opening a refrigerator with a spatula in real life is challenging enough; in a virtual world it sometimes felt more like luck than skill whether I got that piece of bacon in my sandwich.

In another game, I would launch an egg as far as I could but land it in a frying pan. I struggle to keep a frying pan in the same place while building an ill-considered ramp of pipes, boxes and wheels. The physics in the game are so simplistic that most object surfaces behave the same. And my pan slides to the floor. Again and again and again. You can crawl in Taskmaster VR – if you drop the pan again – but the physics engine transfers a degree of momentum when you press the button to stand back up, adding a ‘bounce’ to anything in your hand.

Many of the games are multi-stage and extended, which I appreciated. Circling back to the sandwich task, some ingredients need to be cooked – and you need to turn on the stove burners to do this. Once you’ve made your sandwich, Greg, the Taskmaster will examine the result. One piece of bread? He will go on a tirade about open face sandwiches. Wrong plate? Your score will be dinged again. Something inedible? He will notice.

There are also references to the show everywhere, from the tutorial. Look out windows; even the bushes and garden are full of items and references only a Taskmaster would get. Do Americans think all Brits (I’m a Brit) are this whimsical? Hope so.

In another game, you will have to rush the entire Taskmaster estate (a small house and garden) in search of dog food, but only after escaping the garage. The tasks are reviewed, but I wish there were more. The TV show is famous for the unusual lateral thinking and comedy solutions that the task makers did not plan for. I have not seen those possibilities – at least not yet.

Why not mix the codes for the safe featured in a watermelon smashing task? This would be especially useful if you’re playing with other Taskmaster fans who want to try the tasks themselves. A little random number generation would do wonders. That said, there is a Taskmaster VR Creative mode, where you can create your own levels and tasks, which could add longevity if it finds an audience.

The confusion between Taskmaster and his assistant is tonally accurate, and benefits from the use of the voices of Greg Davies and (Little) Alex Horne, but their in-game models don’t convey the odd, awkward charm of the duo. Maybe I’m just a superfan, and my expectations were too high, but there’s something about the sound quality (with lines recorded in a booth) that pulls you out of the illusion of a version of the TV show.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever play the whole game again. Fortunately, once unlocked, you can choose to play each task standalone, which is the perfect way for me to share the game with visiting friends.

If the team behind Taskmaster VR can offer some new tasks via DLC (how about replicating a task from the next TV series?), this could be more of a draw. Their time begins now.