C-Smash VRS — a VR remake of a Sega obscurity — parties like it’s 2001

Jӧrg Tittel is an interesting guy. Tittel was born in Belgium. He studied in New York and has an unmistakable mid-Atlantic accent, with some American and German hints. He has written, directed, and produced video games, stage plays, movies, and graphic novels, working on everything from Activision’s Minority Report licensed game to a West End stage adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. It’s only in the context of this eclectic resume that his latest project isn’t surprising: a VR reboot of a forgotten futuristic tennis game for the Sega Dreamcast.

Cosmic Smash, released in 2001, was originally a Sega arcade game that combines tennis — or, more accurately, squash — with the vintage arcade game Breakout. This player commands a wireframe runner, hitting the ball at blocks located at far ends of cuboid rooms. A contemporary of Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s classic RezSega’s other production is titled? Cosmic SmashThis website has the same vibe as its predecessor: Cool graphic design. TronA futuristic utopian vision of the future inside the machine. Similar RezSega had already discontinued the Dreamcast and pulled out of the hardware business, so it was a sad outcome. It was not a good idea. RezHowever, the PlayStation 2 version did not save it. Cosmic SmashIt was an interesting game but very few people ever thought about it.

Tittel is the exception to this rule. This man, according his IMDb bio has helped him pay his education by writing for Official Dreamcast Magazine. Tittel approached Sega to get the license for this long-forgotten title when he founded RapidEyeMovers. “Half” of the people he spoke to at the Japanese publisher didn’t even know what he was talking about, he tells me. But he persevered, and eventually won their agreement, before signing the English VR specialist developer Wolf & Wood to make his dream of resuscitating Cosmic SmashIt is possible.

This is what the end result looks like C-Smash Virtual RealityFor now, this is the PlayStation VR 2 only exclusive. At a London press event, I was able to experience it at first hand. It is a bright white area that plays techno music and is open for all. Tittel wore a jumpsuit branded by the company that gave him the appearance of a futuristic, lanky crime scene tech. As he walked about, he sipped beer while interacting with PRs and journalists. It wasn’t only the game itself that seemed like a time-warp to the early 2000s. They don’t make games like this anymore, and they don’t make PR campaigns like this anymore either.

C-Smash Virtual Reality Keeps Cosmic Smash’s minimalist, teal-and-orange design and abstract avatars, expanding the look a little to make it more overtly sci-fi; you can peer out of windows in your digital squash court to see starfields and curving planet surfaces. The aim is the same in single-player; you whip the ball around with the racket to get blocks out of the other end. However, the VR view is not what makes this experience so different. It’s the motion controls that make it even more enjoyable.

You serve the ball by using your PlayStation VR 2 Sense controllers. First, pull the ball in midair towards you with your lefthand, then hit it with your right hand (or vice versa for lefties). You may also be able to hold the trigger with one hand and smuggle the ball into your racket for a powerful power hit if conditions permit. You’ll need to use the control stick, too, to move your character left and right along the baseline, very much like a bat in Breakout Or Pong. An optional iris is a device that blurs the peripheral vision of your eyes while you are moving to prevent motion sickness.

RapidEyeMovers image

This combination of analog and digital control takes some getting used to; perhaps it’s just because I haven’t played a VR game in a while, but I had to train myself out of lunging for the ball physically. It’s fair to say that Wolf & Wood has some tuning to do. It feels sticky in the serving process, which made it hard to move the ball towards my forehand instead of my backhand. This led to some very tepid serves.

Although I struggled initially with the lengthy tutorial level sequence, it became easier over time. When it clicks, and you get a rally going, and the blocks keep winking out of existence, it’s very satisfying. Tittel promised a campaign mode with a story and co-op play. One-on-one against mode is an exciting variant of tennis where you must take down your opponent’s blocks while protecting your own. It had an almost “just-one more-go” factor that was reminiscent of Wii Sports at its best; I stopped because I was working up quite a sweat inside the headset, not because I wasn’t having fun.

Tittel proudly procured an original Cosmic SmashThe arcade cabinet is to be placed in the corner. Playing it for a minute, I was immediately struck by the game’s crisp controls, slick speed, and dazzling wish fulfillment — none of which could really be said of my fumbling efforts inside the VR game. But the arcade game didn’t leave me grinning from the workout in the same way, either.

Image Credit: RapidEyeMovers

But there was one question. This is why? This was not what anyone wanted. Cosmic SmashTo come back and no one asked for it in VR. C-Smash Virtual Reality seems like a niche within a niche, and yet Tittel is spending real money on it — on this press event, on the graphic design, on hiring the likes of Ken Ishii (Rez InfiniteDanalogue of London jazz-funk band The Comet It Is Coming) were commissioned to create the music. They collaborated with MDNT45, Ukrainian fashion house (hence the jumpsuit), as well as a promised physical edition.

Tittel’s belief in the enduring power of Cosmic Smash It is indestructible. He remembers getting the Dreamcast version in its bespoke packaging — a translucent DVD case with an orange disc inside — and thinking, “Sure, maybe it’s all dead, but this thing will remain… From the very beginning, it was iconic. It will not die. […]It was really wonderful. Tron. It felt like a positive Tron, where you’re not trapped against your own will, you’re inside a pleasant, graphically reduced reality, and I wanted to live inside of that.”

Tittel doesn’t seem to care that the potential audiences for Cosmic Smash VR and VR have very little overlap. The integrity of the game is what matters to him. “I wanted to publish the game because […] I wanted to build the marketing and the promotional narrative into it, because again, I don’t like marketing very much. I don’t like PR very much. It’s so boring, it feels disingenuous. If I can make it part the art, everything will then be integrated. […] For me it’s theater, for me the whole thing is a performance. I want to make stuff with intent, and be original, and reduce things down to their essence.”

Tittel confesses that he doesn’t like marketing or licensed product. But he makes these tasks his work because he believes games should be considered artworks. Each brand extension must resonate with the other. Is he an artist in salesman’s clothing, or the reverse? Honestly, I had fun talking to him, but I’m not sure. If you’re one of RapidEyeMovers’ financial backers, that might be a bit worrying. But you can’t fault Tittel’s dedication to bringing back a 2001 gaming vibe we all thought might have been lost for good.

A demo for C-Smash Virtual RealityPlayStation 2 will release its second installment on March 23,