Recent reviews by Bassem

Today I'm trying to clear some hard disk space, so I'm checking several "mediocre" VR games and uninstalling them. I launched this one fully expecting to spend a couple minutes in it and uninstall. Instead I played it for half an hour and I'm gonna keep it installed to play again.

Don't get me wrong, it is mediocre, but its fun to play.

It's three mini-games (and a fourth that you launch from Steam separately, but it's just a prototype).

One is a goalkeeper mini-game where you use a pair of goofy giant hands at the end of poles in order to block incoming ball shots. It's silly and it progressively gets more challenging. The hands you're holding slide over an arc that's not very inuitive, but you eventually get used to it.

One is a bow & arrow mini-game where you can teleport around a very large area while a couple kinds of enemies spawn nearby and come at you. Some of them carry shields that you need to shoot around, some carry guns with slow projectiles that you need to dodge. The way the enemies spawn very nearby, and the way they approach silently (especially the flying drones) is annoying, but otherwise it's very playable.

Finally, one is a wave shooter lite mini-game. Drones come at you while shooting slow moving laser bolts. You need to shoot them down. You can also shoot the laser bolts or parry them with the lightsaber in your offhand. That's about it. I liked the other two mini-games better. Plus this one has a bug where the laser bolts will occasionally get stuck in mid-air next to your head and so if you move into them you get hurt.

The mini-games have leaderboards, which I think goes a long way in making you want to play again and doing better.

Anyway, yes, mediocre, uses default Unreal assets, lots of "coming soon" panels that hint at more mini-games that I'm pretty sure will not be coming, and so on. I still enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I will, I think, be coming back to it.

This is basically a VR ad for Rexodus, a comic book. It does a very good job of introducing the premise of the comic book and giving you a look at the characters and their central story.

Practically speaking it's a VR short movie, a few minutes in length. It's not interactive; you're a silent actor in scene after scene and you watch as the characters talk at you and discuss stuff together. The environments, character art, and voice acting are excellent, the whole thing is very high quality.

In Quanero, a slice of spacetime has been preserved for you to observe. An accident has taken place at a futuristic bar, and you can shift back and forth in time and move around among the characters to watch the events unfold in any way you want.

I really like this concept. It's passive, and there's no real reason why it should be in VR, but it does feel much more immersive viewing the events in first person when you're in VR. It feels like those new theatre experiences popping around that let you move around among the actors and go from room to room watching the play unfold.

The intro makes it sound like like you're an investigator and you're supposed to solve the mystery of how the accident happened. The truth is that there's no interactive element here. You're not solving anything, you're just watching a series of events from a variety of starting points.

The short story that takes place isn't much, it doesn't really make sense and is very unbelievable (four stories are taking place at once and they all culminate in the same instant), the character animation and voice acting are nothing impressive, and the winding of time back and forth can be tedious because you can't speed it up past 1x. This was made with Unreal VR and it looks very blurry.

I still enjoyed it. It's worth experiencing once, just to admire the concept and think of how it can be further developed by other teams. I think Quanero was a university project, and in that perspective I find it impressive.

Looks great, tutorial and play guides are extensive and helpful, you get into the meat of the game and there's not much there. It's a Western dueling game. Rather limited and boring, especially when I see how much effort has been put into the environments and character models and VR implementation.

You can duel bots, which is *shrug*. The draw of the game (sorry) is supposed to be multiplayer. But it has no playerbase.

Drawing your guns is a bit hit and miss.

I like that the sun can blind you and that you can tilt your hat to prevent that.

Watched the trailer on the store page. Looked good. Inside the game, graphics look great.
Other than that, I have a few questions.

• Why does the trailer play whenever I load the game? Why is it unskippable? Why do I have to stand around wearing my VR headset watching a very long trailer for the very game I'm about to play?
  
• Why does everything looks so large, including my own simulated arms? I feel like my real self is shrunk down.
  
• Why does calibrating not fix anything with the above?
  
• Why is the movement system so uncomprehensible and unreliable?
  
• Why instead does swinging my sword make me jump forward? I swing a few times and I'm up against the wall and my enemy is behind me.
  
• Why is the HUD right in my face?
  
• Why is everything so buggy and horrible?

This just made me sad. The trailer was very promising. The graphics and environment and character models are excellent looking. But the VR implementation is completely horrible.

The locomotion is the main culprit. I love armswinger locomotion, but here it's bound to the headset orientation. In fact your headset and controllers must be aligned, which is especially ridiculous. Just bind the locomotion direction to the direction of the offhand controller.

Other than that, the guns feel weak and lack response and punch, and the enemies are completely quiet as they approach, which, well, they're ghosts so maybe that makes sense, but everything else in the environment keeps groaning and growling.

I like the ambience and the environment. If only the locomotion would be fixed (and maybe the other two points I mentioned) I would give it a thumbs up.

I received this game for free as a beta tester, and I jumped right in as I was excited for it. But while it is undoubtedly adorable at first sight, it quickly becomes tedious and even annoying.

They're not kidding when they say it's an "anti-adventure game". I really anti-enjoyed it. It's a shame because it looks beautiful (except for the UI) and the small world you can explore is really lively and interesting. The music & sound design are also excellent. I just wish there was more to it. This style deserves more substance.

They wanted to make a statement with this game. That's pretty easy to do. You know what's not easy? Making a game that's compelling to play. If you want a compelling game that conveys a message about tedium, check out Papers Please.

It should have been free. I'm glad I didn't pay any money for it.

Also, ♥♥♥♥ that hovering, screaming skull.

I keep hearing about Limbo, but only recently - following the release of Inside - did I decide to play it. Funnily, the game it reminded me most of was Dark Souls, in that dying is a learning experience.

What I enjoyed

• The puzzles, the wonderful puzzles. Beautiful, simple, creative.
  
• The smooth animation. Those giant spiders, I can watch them move all day, spearing victims on their thin legs.
  
• The sound design is amazing. There's almost no music, just an almost tangible tension in the air that serves as a warning sign sometimes.
  
• Simple, versatile controls. Move, jump (and climb), use (and drag).
  
• The way the story is told while you play. A world of giant spiders and little boys. That place early on where you see spider legs, reminiscent of an earlier trap, but this time they're just metal beams set up by the boys to try and scare off intruders. And those boys are not gonna help you, oh no. They hang their own from trees. After you manage to avoid their traps and get through their camp, they are attacked by a giant spider. It's all very folk tale. Lord of The Flies.
  
• Lots of checkpoints everywhere, which is good because you die a lot and have to repeat a lot.

What I didn't like

• It's one of those oppressive games that I can't play for longer than twenty, thirty minutes at a time. That's not really a negative though, and that's just me.
  
• Some of the puzzles are too reliant on split-second timing.
  
• Mostly, the game is good at giving you warning signs so you can avoid dying altogether, but sometimes it's unavoidable to have to die once or 4 times to understand what to do. Can get tedious.

I'm really glad I experienced this game. I stopped playing it for months while other games distracted me, but I pushed on now and finished it. Excellent stuff.

I'm vaguely familiar with Rick & Morty but I picked up this game because Owlchemy Labs make quality VR content, and I wasn't disappointed on that front.

As expected, this is a game similar to Job Simulator, where you occupy a small space and are given certain wacky tasks to perform, with the freedom to experiment and discover more stuff on your own. This is all presented under the theme of Rick & Morty, which means all sorts of references to items and characters from the show. Owlchemy are very good at packing the VR environment with loads of things to look at and fiddle with. Yes, like the plumbus. It's very... sensual.

You play as a disposable Morty clone who does menial tasks around the garage while Rick & Morty make occasional appearances via portal or Rick's flying saucer. Gameplay consists of interacting with items, mini-games such as a reflex game or a shooting gallery, a shortened version of the Roy VR game, clone purgatory... many, many things to toy around with.

The game's not very long, but it does tease more things to discover for those who like to poke around everything in detail. I had my fill after two hours, and was satisfied. It's not exactly hilarious, but it does feel authentically Rick & Morty, in large part thanks to the voice acting by Justin Roiland.

I recommend it if it's at 20$, the price I paid for it.

Yes to games that break the mould. Shelter is the most basic of survival games. A mom badger and your 5 babies. Will they all last to the end of the game? Keep them fed and keep them safe, darting from cover to cover as predators hunt for you.

Like

• The simple gameplay. WASD, sprint, sneak, interact.
  
• The simple missions and objectives. Stay alive, keep babies alive.
  
• It's got that "linear but with the illusion of a more open world" feel that's well made.
  
• Lovely low poly esthetic, done right.
  
• Camera is on point, handling all sorts of tight spots and other common pitfalls.
  
• Music and sound are great.
  
• The baby badgers all have their unique markings and you soon assign them names. I named mine Loop, Strip, Junior, Alt, and Tri. And it matters because you need to remember which ones have fed the most recently so you know which to prioritise. Anyway, these little buggers are so expressive. With their wiggles and their squeaks, they communicate various messages such as "there's an apple in this tree!" and "wait for us!" and "I'm hungry!". It's perfect, and very endearing.

Dislike

• That horrible low contrast, washed out look. Just why? Ugly and undermines the lovely low poly esthetic of the game.
  
• The unbearable sadness when you inevitably lose one of your baby badgers.